Bill Smith's Photography

Did two things try out a new lens for my Minolta XE-7, a MD Rokkor 45 f2 Pancake design which is nice and sharp. The other thing is play around with Superia 400 @200 ISO. Oh boy rating C-41 film half the box speed is an eye opener. The day shots look just as great as the night work I did a few weeks ago. I think the film companies rate colour negative film at the maximum speed it can go while still looking presentable. Doing what I do, I get finer grain, more saturated colour and sharper images. I shot this roll around Oakville last night.

I had an "aha" moment over the past few days in an urban night photography workshop I helped out with, John Callow was the facilitator and it was done through Elevator Labs. I figured out colour imaging, first box speeds on colour c-41 negative film is wildly optimistic, rate it in half, two long exposures rule at night. Well I know the second part to be true from prior night adventures. I also learned to meter properly and understand the weaknesses and strenghs of both the film and digital media. I gave my Olympus OM-1 a good workout and used Fuji Pro 160s as my film of choice. I had no idea what I was going to get and I was blown away at the results. I am still trying to wrap my brain around the 3-d feel of the one hour photo prints.

I love shooting slide, I don't do it enough and everyone thinks I shoot exclusively black and white. Again, it was all taken with a Nikkormat Ftn with Fuji Velvia.

I warned you I had some colour photos from my Forks of the Credit Hike from a Month ago. The Velvia 100 roll came back and oh boy, the green just snaps. I shot these with my trusty Nikkormat Ftn which works well with slide film.

More fun with the Xtol 1+1 and Kodak Tri-x, only this time I pushed it to 3200 ISO. I shot the two photos below at the Music for Mutts benefit last weekend at the Moonshine Cafe. I used a Nikon F3hp with a Nikkor 50/1.8 and 105/2.5 Ais lenses and I am very happy with the results.