Yashica Mat 124G Walk In Knightsbridge With Kodak TriX

A long wintery walk in Central London with my Yashica Mat 124G. The film roll options were between Kodak TriX, TMY and Ilford XP2 (C41 BW). Twelve shots to play with so I went with the Kodak TriX hoping to capture a grainy central London landscape.  

The Yashica Mat 124G comes with a light meter onboard which is incredibly useful. The ease of using it in comparison with using a phone meter or handheld dedicated meter such as a Sekonic is undeniable. 

First shot walk past the Victoria and Albert Museum. Walking along further a car had bumped in to the back of another car which was blocking a Deliveroo delivery man from getting to his destination. A little quicker reaction would have made a great street snap but by the time I had set it up the car had been moved along. Turning back to capture this road with some leading tree lines looked a good alternative close option! 

A little bit surprised to find tropical looking trees in this part of town. Street photography is showing how things can change so quickly in the scene you might be walking in. Take this third shot for example. Framed up the shot only to have a lorry come and park right in front. Exercising a little patience (you can hear the lorry in the video!) and changing my line a little to capture this shot. 

Earlier on I had noticed this classic MG parked up and knew I would come back and take a snap of that. Back on to Kensington High Street walking along and a snap of Harrods. A lot of construction work is going on in the area. Perhaps an opportunity while crowd footfall remained low and slow!  A chair shot to reflect that fact on the ground. 

A little further along I tried a moving walking shot of two pedestrians walking along to see what I was able to capture. Not too surprised by the resulting outcome! 

Crossing the road over into Hyde Park and saw a little waterfall which looked picturesque before finishing up around the lake area. Was a little tempted by the ice cream and pizza place but erred on the side of health! 

Bronica Zenza ETRS With CineStill 800T

It was absolutely roasting on the day I had organised a series of workshops across London. To catch some cool air we stopped over in this cafe. Almost immediately I knew I had to get some shots on some CineStill 800T in here. So many tungsten lights! We reserved up a little spot while we waited for our cold drinks to arrive.

Armed with my Bronica Zenza ETRS I loaded up the roll and got shooting.

Why did the images come out blasted in orange? Well, if you haven’t checked out my previous video on this check it out here:

Essentially if the ‘remjet’ layer hasn’t been removed properly from the Kodak T rolls and then is processed in C41 chemicals you get this result. CineStill reimbursed everyone after it turned out the entire batch had turned out this way. Whilst I was disappointed not to see the actual results from this film I am really pleased with the shots nonetheless!

The Bronica’s waist level finder is an absolute dream to shoot with. Combined with the fact you have only fifteen shots per roll you are forced to carefully think about what you’re going to shoot and you have to move to reassess the best possible options. Using an eye level finder is a very different experience. You will have to slow down and eradicate the ‘spray and pray’ option which digital offers widely.

A little bit disappointed with the later images. Always remember to carry your light meter with you and definitely check the light meter reading if you’re changing your setting. You can use a simple phone light meter or a more expensive option such as the Sekonic light meters.

Get out there! Shoot and make mistakes, that’s the beauty of photography whether digital or analog. Learn to slow down your process, reflect on what your taking. Get in touch with your questions and comments. Would love to hear what you would like to learn more about or anything that you think I may have missed!

Apocalyptic London with CineStill 800T on Nikon FA

We all love the cinema; the films, the emotion, the story. Trying to recreate that cinematic feel has been made easier by the crowd funded CineStill brand which removes the remjet layer from the original Kodak films for the film photography enthusiast to have fun with! 

I am a big fan of futuristic type films such as Blade Runner but what drew me in more was the rendition of colours and light. I always wondered how the filmmakers were able to achieve such depth and unbeknownst to me it was this special cinematic film that was being used. 

It was an absolutely delight when I heard that this film was available to shoot with and after making several calls to photography specialists around the UK, I landed my first few rolls that had literally just arrived at the wonderful Analogue Wonderland (www.analoguewonderland.co.uk) Their friendly service dispatched the films that very day and I was so excited start shooting with this film as soon as possible! 

I decided to find an evening to shoot this roll in Central London, where I could find bright lights in to the late evening. For this walk, I took my Bronica Zenza ETRS medium format camera. Fifteen shots of high density cinematic film were about to be shot! 

Wandering the streets, I took my time framing each shot, trying to capture scenes which afforded plenty of night light. This being a test roll, I wanted to see how these images would fair under relatively bright night conditions. 

It wasn’t until many weeks later that I would find out from my developer that there was something seriously wrong with the images. Ricardo had seemed really worried when I initially spoke with him about the issue but he had taken the time to research the issue and postulated that the Remjet layer had not been fully removed properly. As such, when developed, it created this large orange haze across the whole image. Later, Magda emailed me some links to forums where this was being discussed in much detail. Turns out there was a whole batch of this film which CineStill was now recalling.  I called up, Analogue Wonderland and as usual they took care of everything with ease. 

Perhaps surprisingly, I am quite pleased with how the images have come out. The tungsten lighting has been amplified in deeper red/orange colours and in contrast with the black in the images, it gives a really apocalyptic feel to the set. Brighter white lights gave a bright yellow feel (the Waffle Cones image!) and it would have been interesting to see how other similar scenes may have come out too! My favourite image is right at the end of the selection, walking towards the West End theatres. The large lit billboards, street lamps and taxi headlights with the red sky and floor give a real feel the pandemic times we are all going through today. 

What is the Remjet layer? 

This is a black layer made from a coating of black particles that is found on motion picture Cine film.  

What is its purpose?

The Remjet layer protects the film from static and halation of lights and is most commonly used on Kodak films. 

What needs to be done in development?

The black layer must be carefully removed during the development process. If it is not properly removed it can lead to the images coming out with a dull orange complexion as you can see from the video. 

How can I save time and money in development of motion picture film?

The easy answer is to use CineStill 800T. Their film removes the Remjet layer for you so you can process it with ease in C41 chemistry. 

However, there are some downsides to pre-removal of the Remjet layer. It will lead to your images coming out with halation of any lights in low light conditions. If a subject and location is chosen appropriately the images have a great potential to the viewers delight! 

Another advantage of using CineStill 800T is you can use develop this film from the comfort of your own home using C41 chemistry, or simply take it to your local developer! 

No thank you, I want to use the original motion picture film! Where can I get that?

You can get Kodak Vision 3 200T and 500T Colour Negative Film from specialist film stockists. A simple search online will point you to a wide range of stockists closest to you.