After shooting my very first roll of Ektar 100 on medium format in Franklin on the fourth of July, I became a huge fan of this film. It’s hard not to like the vibrant, rich colors and contrast that this film produces. The reds really pop off the screen. This film is sharp and the grain is fine, especially shooting on medium format. This has become my color negative of choice for landscapes and cityscapes. In fact, this may be my color negative of choice for everything except portraits. Kodak Portra is hard to beat for rendering proper skin tones. Ektar tends to bring out the red in fair skinned people in an unflattering way, but it can produce some fine portraits under the right circumstances.
The photos in this post are from my second run of Ektar 100 through my Mamiya. Those keeping up with my endeavors know that I have a light leak issue. I found out about this problem when I was on my 10th frame of this roll. As luck would have it, I was able to salvage most of the photos. There were actually only 3 photos where the leak was apparent. One leak was extremely bad and it totally wrecked the photo. Another was less invasive, but could still be seen. This particular leak could probably be fixed if I had the right software or was a expert at photoshop, but I much rather be an expert at making photographs. If I have to spend more that 5 minutes to “fix” a photograph in post processing, then I did something wrong while taking the shot. And yes, I have done plenty wrong while taking a picture. However, my error rate has significantly dropped since shooting film. That is a key benefit of shooting film. The number of photos you take goes down, but your photography I.Q. goes up.The third light leak shot was very subtle and it’s position on the photo made it easy to clone out. Overall I am pleased with the shots. My only gripe is that I shot duplicate shots of the same scene to help troubleshoot the like leak problem. If you remembered from my last post, I taped up the back of my camera to see if that would help. I was ready to say it did help until I saw the last frame which is the picture of the Red 1965 Porsche in my previous post. There is a patch of discolored grass in the background. I can’t say with confidence if that was a light leak or what was actually in the scene. Nonetheless, I have decided to retire the Mamiya temporarily until I can have a CLA (Clean, Lube & Adjustment) completed on the camera.
I hope you enjoy the images. These were taken on two different mornings and one evening. I should mention that all of these photos were shot on my new tripod and ball head combination. While this setup is a bit on the heavy side, it provides ample support for my Mamiya. You can see my new rig here.
Nashville Skyline Viewed from the Jefferson Street Bridge over the Cumberland River – Mamiya 645 1000S, Mamiya Sekor C 55mm f2.8, Kodak Ektar 100, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab in Nashville, Tennessee
During this outing, I mainly wanted to see how Ektar would render some of my favorite subjects around Nashville. As always, it is nice to be out during the early morning hours and it is icing on the cake to bring back some cool photographs.
Click Images Below to View in Lightbox!
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[…] I took this shot of the Nashville (Davidson County) skyline on a bright sunny morning. Ektar really loves light! You can see more cityscape work from this outing at Shuttering Thru Life. […]
[…] This shot is from one of my early morning treks through downtown Nashville (Davidson County), Tennessee. This was also my second roll of Ektar that I had ever shot. I was quickly becoming a big fan of Ektar. You can see more photos from that morning at Shuttering Thru Life. […]