Hi! 👋 

We’re back!

It’s finally starting to get warmer here in NYC, which means I was able to finish my second roll of Kodak Ektachrome (more on that in a bit). I also tried out a lens I haven’t used before. The results are…interesting.

Let’s get right to it:

1. 🐦️ A manual focus zoom lens

2. 🛝 Round two with slide film

🐦️ A manual focus zoom lens

I’ve always said taking photos of birds was best left to digital cameras. Now I’m not so sure. There is always the tried and true birds on a wire that you can easily take with a film camera.

But what about birds flying around or going to and from a bird feeder? Could you manually focus quick enough? Or would you just need to snap away and hope you get lucky?

Turns out with a little luck, patience you can manually focus quick enough to get the bird.

Okay, maybe a bird feeder is cheating a bit. 😁 You know roughly where they are going to be and so you can prefocus that spot and just wait. But you still need to choose that “right” moment. It’s a constant game of push your luck. Do you take the shot now, or hold out for a better angle and risk the bird flying away? It’s never an easy call.

Trying out a new lens

I gave this lens a try for the first time. It’s a Sigma 75 - 210mm zoom lens. It is also a macro lens, although it’s not 1:1 and using it as a macro lens is a little weird.

At 210mm it has a pretty good reach. It’s not the sharpest lens, it’s actually pretty soft. Zoom lenses are inherently not as sharp as prime lenses (fixed focal length), which I usually use. But I absolutely love the bokeh with this lens. It’s got a very pleasing background.

Macro?

Since flowers are blooming, I wanted to try this lens’s macro capability. Maybe I had too high expectations, but it really fell short. I was expecting something like my 105mm macro lens for the Nikon Z cameras where you can get VERY close to the subject. That’s not the case with this lens. I had to move back quite a bit.

It has this not very intuitive “2 stages” of focusing. You can focus the lens normally, but when the barrel is extended all the way out (at 210mm) you can then rotate the focus ring more. This is to allow focusing at the macro distances. At least I think that’s how it works.

I do think I will continue to use this lens on occasion. 75 - 210mm offers a lot of flexibility and it’s a nice change of pace from my normal 50mm lens.

What do you think, zoom lenses, yay or nay?

🛝 Round 2 with slide film

Earlier this month I shot a roll of slide film for the first time. If you don’t know what slide film is, I go over it in detail here.

This was my second roll (all the photos except the birds on the wire are slide film) and I feel like I got similar results to the first roll. Very dark! Here are some of the scans (with no edits).

They are not horrible, but like the first roll, they are just underexposed and kind of dull. I’m not sure if the issue is that I’m just underexposing the images, or if it’s an issue during development?

Here’s what I used when developing:

First developer

• 🧪 Developer: CineStill’s Dynamic Chrome

• 🌡️ Temp: 104º F

• 💧 Dilution: 1+2

  • 100ml of developer + 200ml of water

• ⏱️ Time: 11 minutes

• 👋 Agitation: Continuous for 15 seconds then 6 inversions every 30 seconds.

Color & Reversal

• 🌡️ Temp: 104ºF

• ⏱️ Time: 7 minutes

• 👋 Agitation: Continuous for 15 seconds then 6 inversions every 30 seconds.

Blix

• 🌡️ Temp: 104º F

• ⏱️ Time: 7 minutes

• 👋 Agitation: Continuous for 15 seconds then 6 inversions every 30 seconds.

I did forget to rinse in between the first developer and the Color & Reversal. 🫢 I wouldn’t think that would have a big impact, but maybe I’m wrong.

If you have any experience with developing slide film, let me know if I’m doing something wrong here.

I’m going to keep trying…

That’s going to do it for this week.

Go make some photographs!

Ben Henschel

📷️ Mamiya RB67 / 🎞️ Ilford HP5+