I got these scans back, and then poof! My love affair with film ended a little bit. I haven't even looked at them until tonight, really, and I got them back a few weeks ago. I was initially very excited to see these, because included is the first roll I shot with my Rolleicord. And those turned out really well! They are Portra 160, and most of them were in focus. To use this camera, I have to concentrate very, very hard. I think the shot of the flowers and the sidewalk took me 15 minutes to compose, because of the way everything moves in the opposite direction you are expecting it to when you move the camera. It is so fun to shoot though- the shutter is probably my favorite shutter experience of any camera ever. None of these are masterfully composed, because I was mostly just working on the manual focus aspect and getting used to the camera, but I really love these photos. Now comes the not good part- a roll of Provia, but it doesn't look like Provia to me, and at least half the roll was underexposed to the point of not being salvageable at all. My worst results so far. I don't know what happened. I was obviously metering totally incorrectly. I am wondering if at some point I was thinking I was shooting another film stock. And I don't really understand why the few photos that are ok don't really have the Provia "wow" thing that I usually see when I shoot it. They just look blah, and this is all that I got worth sharing from that roll.
Here is the roll of Agfa Vista 200. A film stock I have always liked, but certainly nowhere near as much as I liked my Provia results previously. Here are my favorites from that roll.
I had planned for months to shoot only film at the state fair, but then I got these back, and I pretty much totally lost confidence in myself and my film shooting skills. Whatever I thought I knew about film stocks, I don't know. And apparently I am not metering correctly either, although I was using an external light meter and being very careful. It is still the case that every time I get scans back, my opinion of what I like and don't like changes. Where I am now is not really a place where shooting a lot of film fits, but I do want to shoot a few rolls and see if I can get some of the magic back. I am just going to stick with inexpensive film for awhile, instead of slide film. And tomorrow I will share my digital photos of the state fair. I think fairs and film are a perfect match, so maybe I can try again next year to capture the fair experience that way.