Lessons From A Greensboro Road Trip

 I had the best time with the cameras in Greensboro. With the Lovely and Talented Miss Lisa in classes all day, I was left to my own devices and I took the chance to go to all the places and see all the things. Well, maybe not ALL, but quite a bit. 

Downtown Greensboro Photowalk

My first full day left to myself, I headed to downtown Greensboro for a photo walk. I got there fairly early, maybe 8:30ish, so it was very quiet. The buildings there are a funky mix of turn of the century brick with a little Art Deco thrown in. 

Greensboro’s Flat Iron Building on CineStill 50D

Cool curved wall on this old service station on ProImage 100

I packed my sling camera bag with the Eos-R with one lens, the 35mm f1.8, the Petri 7S and the Holga 120. Everything fit nicely and was pretty easy to get at. I was testing the idea of shooting film and digital on the same trip as well as limiting myself to one lens for the Eos R. It turned out I really enjoyed having three cameras (and my iPhone 12 Pro, which is kind of a bad ass camera itself) at my disposal. 

What surprised me was was how little I reached for the digital camera. I was having so much fun with the film cameras that I rarely pulled it out. When I wanted something that I could send to Lisa or John or share on social media, I used the phone. It’s not that the digital camera isn’t fun any more, it’s more that I just didn’t feel I needed to use it that morning. I found that being free to just use what struck me as the most fun at the time was pretty great.

The Holga and Tri_X make this look like it could have been taken 100 years ago

This just seems to cry out for B&W

I used Kodak ProImage 100 and CineStill 50D, both color films, in the 35mm Petri and one roll of tried and true Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white and one roll of Lomography Color Negative 400 in the Holga. I learned that slow speed (low ISO) films make the Petri more fun to use. I was a little nervous of the CineStill 50D because 50 is a lower ISO than I’d ever tried and I was hoping it would work ok. There was no need to worry, at least not on a sunny day. The CineStill was maybe even a little over exposed sometimes, I guess because I was afraid I wouldn’t give it enough light. I’m still thinking about how much I like that film, I’ll need to try some more and try to expose it correctly and see what I think. The ProImage was terrific. It let me us lower f-stops and slower shutter speeds than the 400 and 200 ISO films I’ve been using. And I like the colors and tone of the film. It’s definitely a keeper.

These colors! Disney, here we come!

These two are ProImage 100. I love these colors as well

Tank Museum

The following day the boy and I headed to Danville, Virginia to see the Tank Museum. I took the same three cameras and lenses. I put a roll of Tri-X 400 in the Holga and I had to fire off some random photos to finish off the CineStill 50D so I could replace it with the Film Photography Project’s Kodak Vision3 500T, a movie film made to shoot indoors under artificial light. I’ll write more about developing that one, it’s tricky, but in the end the results weren’t bad all. It handled the indoor lighting well and the Petri also handled everything just fine. The Tri-X, though, did not do well under that light in the Holga. I think being limited to f11 just wasn’t enough light. Nothing on that roll came out. But that’s how we learn. 

It was REALLY dark in here, but this still came out ok

Not terrible, but not great

Again, not so bad. 

The Grandover

Between adventures out and about, I took walks around the resort with all three camera and a variety of films. This was where I truly found the joy of having all these options. The Eos R gave me truly beautiful images and knowing I could capture something stunning was fun.  I’m still finishing the roll from the resort in the Holga, but finding shots that played to its quirks was a blast. The ProImage 100 images from the Petri were perfect in their own way, and were just what I was after when I shot them. Switching between the three, and deciding when and why, was fun in itself. As I learn more about the cameras and film stocks, this whole adventure gets more fun as more options open up. 

ProImage 100

Canon Eos-R 

Disney Plans

As a practice run for our Disney trip this trip was great. I’ve found I’m perfectly happy with one, good quality, mid-range lens. For Disney we’ll take the Canon 60D and the 50mm, and I think we won’t miss having a zoom or a telephoto. I’ve settled on buying a bunch of ProImage 100 and Lomography 400 for the trip, those two film stocks proved themselves to me. I’m settled on carrying all three into the parks, though I may switch to a regular backpack rather than the sling as the sling kind of gave my back fits after half a day of walking around. I’ll be bringing a pile of film again because I absolutely love starting the morning choosing what to bring from a wide selection. It’s going to be a Magical trip! 

Road Trip!!!!!!!

 It’s been soooooo long since we went anywhere for any length of time. We’ve done some fun day trips and we’ve been on a couple overnighters to go see the boy, but we haven’t proper been away since before The Plague Times. Tomorrow morning, though, we drop the News Hound off at Pet Camp and head to a fancy resort in Greensboro for four whole nights! It’s not quite really a vacation, though. It’s the annual conference of the North Carolina Association of Municipal Clerks, during which my lovely bride will become the new president of the Association. I’m very proud. I’m also really happy I get to tag along. Lisa will be in classes all day, so I will actually have a bit of vacation time. Naturally, I’m planning to use it to play with cameras.

We’ve been to Greensboro enough that I have a start of an idea of some things I need to see and hopefully shoot. The city has a fun little downtown area that we’ve mostly just driven through, so exploring that is high on the list. Greensboro prides itself on its green spaces, too, so I have some gardens and parks and trails on my list as well. It’s supposed to be sticky hot, but partly cloudy with just a chance of thunderstorms rolling through, so should be pretty good photography weather. And since Lisa’s classes start early, I can easily get my butt out for morning light and come back to do some magazine when the light is harsh (and it’s super hot.) That’s the plan anyway.

I’ve not been anywhere on photo safari since I began messing about with film photography, so I was’t sure what I wanted to bring. After thinking about it a it, I settled on pretty much everything. I have a good sling camera bag and also a fairly large backpack, so I have the room. I’ll leave the Brownie at home because folding it is a little iffy, but I’m bringing the Holga and the Petri 7 and the Eos R. I have the two RF lenses as well as the telephoto and the wide angle zooms. I figure I can look at the day’s weather and where I’m going and pack the sling with whatever I’ll want for that trip. Or throw the backpack in the car, who knows? But as far as cameras and lenses, I’m pretty well covered.

The Go Bag

Film left me putting in a little more thought. I’m leaving the slide fil at home because that’s for my Disney Project and I’m not confident about being able to replace any that i would use in Greensboro. The medium format film for the Holga was pretty easy as well. I’m taking three rolls each of Tri-X 400 and Lomo 400, that way I’ll have both color and black and white. I’m thinking it might be fun to load the Holga with color and the Petri with B&W or vice versa, so I always have both as options. That means I’m able to bring some pretty funky 35mm film. I have my Washi “S” 50 ISO sound recording film as well as both the 50D and 500T Vision3 Kodak film stocks from Film Photography Project. I’m also packing a couple rolls of the tried and true Gold 200 as well as two rolls of the very normal but new to me ProImage 100. 

I think that gives me a wide variety of film speeds in both color and monochrome for the Petri. I’m expecting lots of light, so the low ISO stuff should work well, especially in the urban areas. I can go to the 200 for the shady spots in the woods if I end up there. That’s the plan anyway. 

I’m hoping to have the chance to branch out a bit with my subject matter. Not only is it a new city, but it’s also much more urban than even Wilmington, so should offer a different style of shooting than I’m used to here at the beach. If there are people around, I could try some street photography. We’ll see if I get up the nerve. Maybe shooting strangers won’t seem so weird in a city. We shall see. 

And I’ll also always have the mirrorless Eos R with all its bells and whistles and options and a  big pile of memory cards to go along with it. 

I’m looking forward to spending some time just focusing on photography (heh, see what I did there). If all goes well, I’ll be busy in Jeff’s FotoMat and on the computer when we get back. And let’s be honest, this is a dry run for the Disney trip, so any lessons learned will be valuable. It’s all very exciting :-)

Home Developed Brownie Photos

I really couldn’t be happier with these. The magical alchemy of fumbling in the dark with getting the film on the reel, pouring in the chemical and shaking it around just enough but not too much, rinsing it for what feels like eternity and then pulling it out and seeing actual real GOOD images is just awesome. I got five images out of this roll, which is an improvement. The first one is borderline edge of the film, so maybe another half turn of the spool there. There’s enough space between images that I think I could turn less and squeeze a sixth frame out of the roll, but that will be tops. Here’s what I ended up with from a stroll around Southport on a beautiful Thursday afternoon. 

 I found this classic parked next to Southport’s Garrison House with the owner, in a matching sweater, sitting on the lawn next to it soaking up the sun. He loved the old camera and said he’d had one very similar to it before his wife sold it at a garage sale. You can see on the left what. Think is the very beginning of the film, I think it’;s the tape holding the film to the paper backing. My light leak is on the top left, but I’m increasingly leaning toward not worrying about plugging it. I set the focus to 8 feet and erred a bit toward over exposure and I think it worked well. I’m terrible at getting a horizon straight on my modern camera, even with a digital level showing, so I think getting a non-tilted photo out of this camera with a waist-level viewfinder that’s clouded with age is simply not in the cards. We’ll call it artistic. 

I have been hesitant to take two images of the same subject since I have so few frames available, but I wan’t sure the first was actually on the film, so I shot this of the iconic tail fin. I ended up with a cool reflection in the immaculately clean paint job and a nice sun flair on the fin. Again this was set to 8 foot focus and I guessed how far away I was. I’m blown away by how sharp a 100 year old lens can be especially with focus being so much guesswork. 

This is the least successful image of the lot, but I kind of expected that. First off, I forgot to move the focus up from 8 feet to 25 feet, which turned out to be less of a problem than I expected. Also, I was shooting holding the camera above my head over a wall to get what I hoped was a good angle on this historic home’s porches. The entire image is a bit foggy, which must be due to something at the time of the exposure rather than developing because it’s only on this frame. Southport architecture photography will take some more work. Maybe I’ll dedicate a roll to just that soon. 

This is one of the boats in the double exposure I took on the first roll. She’s a refurbished fishing boat now serving as a cruiser and she’s gorgeous. My light leak is not causing any real trouble and the focus was set to a proper 25 feet. Again I’m so happy with the performance of this old lens. Also, the contrast is nice with detail in both highlights and shadows.

Here’s the last shoot, a shed used by the folks who own the nearby slips. This one might have been a little more exposed and been better, but I can likely mess around with it in Lightroom until I love it. Even so, I am really pleased with this, another 25 foot focus. I included too much gravel and cut off the top of the roof because the viewfinder doesn’t quite match either what the lens is seeing nor the size of the film. But that will just take practice to noodle out. 

All in all I’m super happy with these. This old camera doesn’t just work, it looks like it’s capable of capturing truly great images. The challenge will be working out the quirks of the viewfinder and the winding of the film. 

As far as the developing, I nailed it if I do say so myself. I don’t feel like I lost anything by going with a one-step developer rather than the traditional multi-chemical process. The TriX film I’m using performs great in this camera. I have several different brands and speeds of film on the way, so we’ll see how they work, but 400 speed might just be the sweet spot. 

Next, I’d like to take more close (8 foot focus) shots and work on some portraits of the Lovely and Talented Lisa. Stay tuned :-)