Film or Analog Macro Photography

Minolta X-570: $30, Zoom/Macro lens: $30, remote trigger: $5, industrial tripod: $5, expired color film: $0.70, home processing: $1, making my own macro shots from start to finish: priceless!

So I had the itch to process some black and white film yesterday evening but it was dark and very cold outside. Then it hit me that I had recently bought a zoom lens that also did macro. So I pulled out an expired generic 400 ISO color film (Yes, color film can be processed in black and white) from the freezer and went ahead.

The clock is ticking.

Vintage bobble head. This shot was taken without the hood around the lens. You can see how the light is more diffused than in the other shots.

The results are very good with 20 good shots out of a possible 24. I'm real happy with that. I've learned a few things along the way. That big 3 pound lens works better when it's pointing in a horizontal fashion. It's so heavy that if it's pointing down, the shot will be out of focus by the time you shoot. The depth of field is very very narrow, no room for error.

Nothing like a macro shot to make you realize that your stuff is dirty! There's a clue here about the 1/2 shutter speed.  :)

Once in a blue moon you take a shot that makes you go "Wow"! This is such a shot for me.

I was also very happy about that big tripod and shutter release cable. Any kind of vibration will show in the end result. The stable tripod and cable permitted me to keep my hands off the camera and thus avoiding any kind of vibration. I could have used the timer but the cable is so cool!

An appearance from Trooper #2 in an unrelated post for him. I've taken more than a few shots of the guy during that session that will be posted in his regular feature.

I shot the expired film at 200 ISO settings for the light meter and developed it with Ilfosol 3 at 20 degrees Celsius for 6 minutes. I then digitized the negatives with my Nikon S8100 camera on copy and macro mode. The negative was then inverted in Gimp.

All and all a nice way to spend an evening at home.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)