[Leica] First film in a long time

[Howard L Ritter Jr]

I decided to dip into film photography again, and this is the first fruit: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/bwphotos/ <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/bwphotos/>

We were driving the Blue Ridge Parkway in western NC near the town of Boone. I pulled into an overlook to watch a spring shower move across the mountains and valleys. I captured a B&W film image with a Leica R9, 21-35 Elmarit, and Tmax 100, and one with my iPhone. I’ve posted both, both tweaked for contrast in PS. I’ve also posted the iPhone image converted to greyscale, just for comparison.

I certainly like the B&W, but I’m not sure this kind of largely mid-grey-toned scene (as opposed to Lluis-type street scenes) is what B&W is made for. Here I think the color image works best.

And I’m either disappointed in the quality of the film image or impressed by that of the iPhone image – both, I guess. This kind of image quality from a camera tucked in almost as an afterthought, just because they could do it, into the corner of a cell phone! That’s borderline miraculous. 

I didn’t expect this much grain with Tax 100, but I may have been heavy-handed with Photoshop on the film image. Also, the scale of the iPhone image is larger, with an equivalent FL of 28mm vs. the 21mm of the film image. I’m going to scan the negative with my own scanner to get equivalent pixels-per-degree in both images, re-process them both, and see.


C&C welcome.

—howard