StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Still making pictures, believe it or not.

I spotted this at the train station. The wall above the ticket counter had posters which I don't remember changing... well, ever. It contrasts well with the "hotspot available" sign Telenet put up next to them.



Phone camera, unfortunately.

Simplicius wrote:Still making pictures, believe it or not.

It's kinda funny, when I'm looking at these pictures I'm thinking "hey, these look like they were taken in the '80s" based on the way the colours look. The pictures my parents took in the 80's and the ones we took in the early 90's have that look while pictures from the mid 90's onwards have fairly different looking colours even though we used the same film the whole time and had all our prints made on Kodak paper.

aerius wrote:It's kinda funny, when I'm looking at these pictures I'm thinking "hey, these look like they were taken in the '80s" based on the way the colours look.

It's an '80s camera with '80s autoexposure; maybe that's got something to do with it?

A few more quick edits:



Oversaturated fall colors ahoy!



This one wants more detailed work, but I think it's got promise.



The CLC system on the Minolta gave some amazingly contrasty results. Examples to follow.

Humber bridge, and more fun with the channel mixer tool. One day I'll go back there with a tripod so I can get it perfectly centred and aligned.

3 quick pictures from my week's work as a photographer in Icon. Many, many more to come.


Elf dude!


Awesome Graphiti .


Some girls partying furing the Rocky horror show.

Been busy and hence little time for photo-a-day, but have some time to post some random shots I took awhile ago. Shot on a Canonet and KR64.

phongn wrote:Been busy and hence little time for photo-a-day, but have some time to post some random shots I took awhile ago. Shot on a Canonet and KR64.

I was going to comment on the peculiar quality of the color, particularly in the second photo...and then I saw what film you used. There's nothing else like it.

The difference between Sunny-16:



and CLC autoexposure on the Minolta (no post for either):



It tends to underexpose, I think, compared to the center-weighted averaging of the Pentax ES and the Vivitar. It came as a bit of a surprise.

Simplicius wrote:

phongn wrote:Been busy and hence little time for photo-a-day, but have some time to post some random shots I took awhile ago. Shot on a Canonet and KR64.

I was going to comment on the peculiar quality of the color, particularly in the second photo...and then I saw what film you used. There's nothing else like it.

Kodachrome scans weirdly, alas (that blue cast) and I don't have Silverfast AI which has a built-in Kodachrome profile (much less the IT8 calibration target). I also had a shot of that Chevy from the front side but I misfocused (had some trouble getting contrast out of the focusing patch)

I'm on my laptop monitor so things look different, but I didn't notice a bluish cast nearly as much as I did the slightly brownish reds. I always associate that with late '40s-early '50s color.

Phongn, I don't have much to add other than those are some sweet shots. The first one is a very nice slice of life capture, and I love the light and it's reflections off the cars in the second shot.
It might have benefited from getting a little closer to the "subject matter" (light line in no1, cars in no2), to give it a bit more "punch", as it is it's a bit detached.

I really should try shooting on Kodachrome one of these days .

The Grim Squeaker wrote:Phongn, I don't have much to add other than those are some sweet shots. The first one is a very nice slice of life capture, and I love the light and it's reflections off the cars in the second shot.
It might have benefited from getting a little closer to the "subject matter" (light line in no1, cars in no2), to give it a bit more "punch", as it is it's a bit detached.

Couldn't have done so in the first picture - my Canonet has a fixed 40/1.7 lens.

I really should try shooting on Kodachrome one of these days .

Well, if you don't mind shipping it all the way to Kansas for development

phongn wrote:

The Grim Squeaker wrote:Phongn, I don't have much to add other than those are some sweet shots. The first one is a very nice slice of life capture, and I love the light and it's reflections off the cars in the second shot.
It might have benefited from getting a little closer to the "subject matter" (light line in no1, cars in no2), to give it a bit more "punch", as it is it's a bit detached.

Couldn't have done so in the first picture - my Canonet has a fixed 40/1.7 lens.

Walk a bit closer, and anyway, you have no excuse for the second shot. It's still quite a keeper .

I really should try shooting on Kodachrome one of these days .

Well, if you don't mind shipping it all the way to Kansas for development

The Grim Squeaker wrote:I really should try shooting on Kodachrome one of these days .

Well you better hurry up cause they're only developing Kodachrome till the end of next year. After that, it'll cost you $40 a roll and up to a year of waiting time to get it developed at specialty film labs.

aerius wrote:

The Grim Squeaker wrote:I really should try shooting on Kodachrome one of these days .

Well you better hurry up cause they're only developing Kodachrome till the end of next year. After that, it'll cost you $40 a roll and up to a year of waiting time to get it developed at specialty film labs.

I really should try overusing saturate and contrast on photoshop while messing with the levels one of these days

The Grim Squeaker wrote:

phongn wrote:

The Grim Squeaker wrote:Phongn, I don't have much to add other than those are some sweet shots. The first one is a very nice slice of life capture, and I love the light and it's reflections off the cars in the second shot.
It might have benefited from getting a little closer to the "subject matter" (light line in no1, cars in no2), to give it a bit more "punch", as it is it's a bit detached.

Couldn't have done so in the first picture - my Canonet has a fixed 40/1.7 lens.

Walk a bit closer, and anyway, you have no excuse for the second shot. It's still quite a keeper .

I really couldn't quite walk much closer for shot one. The second shot - I pretty much just turned around and everything worked out right then and there. Could've tightened it up but that might've taken too long

aerius wrote:

The Grim Squeaker wrote:I really should try shooting on Kodachrome one of these days .

Well you better hurry up cause they're only developing Kodachrome till the end of next year. After that, it'll cost you $40 a roll and up to a year of waiting time to get it developed at specialty film labs.

Kodak will cease producing the chemistry so even if you did have a K-Lab or something like that the best development you could get would result in B&W.

phongn wrote:Kodak will cease producing the chemistry so even if you did have a K-Lab or something like that the best development you could get would result in B&W.

Kodak won't make the chemicals anymore but you can still buy the raw ingredients from chemical supply stores and mix them yourself. The problem is one of the ingredients is only available in large bulk quantities, but otherwise there's nothing stopping a person with a decent amount of darkroom experience in mixing his own developing solutions from making Kodachrome solutions.

The Grim Squeaker wrote:I really should try overusing saturate and contrast on photoshop while messing with the levels one of these days

That's Velvia, not Kodachrome, the colour effects of Kodachrome are actually fairly subtle and you're not going to be able to duplicate them with the saturation, levels, and contrast tools. You'll need curves to do it right, and chances are you'll have to mess around in LAB colour mode.


For instance this is a picture more or less as seen with my eyes and pretty much how it came out of my camera.




This is the same picture edited in Photoshop to look like Kodachrome. That colour shift is not easy to do, it took me around 10 minutes of editing in LAB colour to get it this far.




This is simulated Velvia. Very different from Kodachrome. It's much easier to get a Velvia look than Kodachrome.

aerius wrote:Kodak won't make the chemicals anymore but you can still buy the raw ingredients from chemical supply stores and mix them yourself. The problem is one of the ingredients is only available in large bulk quantities, but otherwise there's nothing stopping a person with a decent amount of darkroom experience in mixing his own developing solutions from making Kodachrome solutions.

The old Kodak guys on APUG and photo.net are indicating that it's not very easy at all. Some people are trying anyways and are rather stymied - K-14 is just so very different from anything else. The re-exposure stages in particular are apparently very sensitive to wavelength and duration (though LEDs of proper wavelength probably can overcome that). Fortunately, the process is in the (expired) K-14 patents but it's still a hell of a mess to try and replicate.

Interesting lighting effect, I'm not sure how the lights ended up being that red.

White balance. You had it on auto probably, right? (the blue neon lights came out well)

Exif data says manual. It's probably the lights themselves; I've seen some streetlights that are particularly orange, even for sodium lights.

Couple shots from Union Station:

Chicago is such a great city... (excellent composition on the first shot).
That lens isn't much for paparazzi shots of people though. (That, or you need to work on your sneaking around skills )