This is the first of a new series of posts, pretty similar to something I was doing a while ago when this blog was hosted on Medium. I'll be uploading the "contact sheets" (they are actually scans, but don't tell anyone) of every roll I shoot, I'll talk about how I took the photos, problems I ran into, and what not.
If it seems odd that I start with rolls #45 and #46... is because I'm just following my "internal" count to avoid confusion.
Roll 45
Film: HP5+ 400 rated at 800
Camera and lenses: Bronica SQ-Ai, 50mm, 150mm and 2x teleconverter
Developer: Kodak D76 1:1, 11 minutes at 24C
Scanner: Epson V600
Locations: Angel's Rest and Tom, Dick & Harry Mountain
The first four photos were taken on my way down from Angel's Rest, all of them with the 50mm lens. I'm obsessed with those dead trees, but I had yet to take a photo I like of them. #3 is the closest I've got. The photo of the forest is pretty rare, I don't usually take photos of something so chaotic. I thought I saw some order in there that could look somewhat photogenic, but I don't think I like the result.
The other 8 photos are from the top of Tom, Dick and Harry Mountain, just before sunrise. Five of them (#6, #7, #8, #9 and #12) are pretty much the same composition, the light kept changing and I kept shooting. There's not much else to shoot from up there, so I tried some close-ups of Mt Hood with the teleconverter (150mm to 300mm) in #10, and took photographs of some nearby cliffs, #11.
I see, once again, those marks on the right side of some of my photos. It's not the camera, it's not the film back, it's not the lenses, it's not the scanner. It has to be something I do during development, and I think I've narrowed it down to when I load the film on the reels. I'll post more about this on a dedicated post, if I find the cause of these marks.
From this roll, I'm picking photos #3, #10 and #11.
Roll 46
Film: HP5+ 400 rated at 800
Camera and lenses: Bronica SQ-Ai, 50mm, 150mm and 2x teleconverter
Filters: Lee Super Stopper ND Filter (15 stops)
Developer: Kodak D76 1:1, 11 minutes at 24C
Scanner: Epson V600
Locations: Tom, Dick & Harry Mountain
This is just a continuation of the previous roll, and you see more of the same compositions (#1, #5, #6, #8, #9 and #10). The Sun was rising while I was taking this set of photos so I added a new composition, to the right of Mt Hood (#2, #3, #4 and #7). As you can probably tell, it was pretty smoky that morning, and what started as a dim Sun became a bright ball as soon as it started to rise above those clouds of smoke. #2 is my favorite for this reason.
I tried a couple of long exposures (#9 and #10), partially ruined because of those marks on the right side. I'll have to play with Lightroom and see if I can fix them. For now #10 is my favorite of the two.
I'm picking #2 and #10, maybe #11.
And yes, there's one frame missing here. I always forget, you have to make sure to cock the shutter before locking the mirror up. Otherwise the camera won't shoot, and you will lose one frame.