Selly Oak, Birmingham
Some more slides came through from Guernsey today and I’m pretty pleased with them. After the last couple of films came back somewhat underexposed I decided to trick the light metre and set it to 75 ISO for a 125 speed film and then erred on the side of overexposure when fiddling with the knobs. The result is a set of much brighter, breezier photos that hardly need any work in Photoshop. Of course this could just be the scanner but Alex and Andy don’t seem to have the same issues with their negs. It’s also noticeable that I seem to be playing around with composition a bit more, having gotten more comfortable with the controls of the manual SLRs, which was to be expected but is still nice to see.
I should write a decent length update about my adventures in photography, as a record if nothing else, but it’ll have to wait (along with the posting of the rest of the slides on Flickr). I’m back doing gardening this week and, as you might be aware, it’s very hot again. Forecast is 35 degrees tomorrow. Eek. To deal with this I started work at 7am today and those few hours while the sun was low were very productive. And then Nat had the bright idea of using a, wadayacallit, big table umbrella thing to keep me in the shade and that worked wonders too. So tomorrow I’m aiming (note I said “aiming”) start at 5am and finish around 1pm in time for a siesta. Mediterranean time, since that’s where we’re at weatherwise. In order to do this I need to go to bed. Now.
Random flatmate said I was mad but I’ve done 6am shifts in factories before and it’s actually quite pleasant (as long as you get some sleep beforehand). For a start there’s fuckall traffic – a good thing since motorists seem to go more psycho than usual in this weather – and it’s so quiet you could be in the countryside. Perfect for the digging.
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Note to self – keep a diary of when you go shooting film. I have no idea when the above photo was taken…
Are you using the last rolls of Fuji Astia film I gave you? It is probably past its due date and so would be a little slower than advertised.
I thought it might be that but the last roll of b/w came out the same. Then again, that was one of yours too…
My current roll expired in 2004 so god knows what that’ll be like! At least I know to expect the unexpected this time though.
I used to keep film in a tupperware container in the freezer – according to guys at photo.net this is the thing to do as long as you don’t take the cassette out of its contaiuner before it has reached room temperature as condensation will form inside. This way you can keep film past its sell by date without losing too much speed.
Which means that you could buy out of date film on eBay, test a roll, then freeze the rest until you need it. And save money in the process.