Finding an unscanned film from a few months ago is nothing compared to great photographers finding amazing images from decades ago. But for me who likes to develop at home as soon as possible after finishing a roll (or two), it seems like a great discovery, a reward for my mess.
I didn’t remember much of its origin, surely the last ones I took with film. After my favorite camera (Leica M7) failed at the beginning of January (and first day of 1 month of travel!), my confidence in film cameras dropped and I surrendered to the benefits of digital.
Reviewing the images, they must be from March/April last year in Santiago de Chile (yes, I’m from here). The film is a Kodak ColorPlus 200, developed in house with Tetenal Colortec C-41 and a Sous Vide to maintain the correct temperature. The camera is a Leica M3 with a 40mm Summicron-C. I have nothing new to add about this camera or the rangefinders. I just prefer small and discreet cameras. This lens is said to perform very close to the 35 Summicron of the time. I’ve never used one of those, but I did use a Zeiss ZM 35/2.
In my opinion, nothing technical, the 40mm Summicron has a smooth and pleasant rendering of colors, not so contrasted or saturated and sharp enough for my taste. I can’t ask for much from the results of the Epson v600 scanner either, though. I digitize with Silverfast (and tried other software), read guides and followed tutorials, but the results are never to my liking. I definitely have to try to digitize with a digital camera and a macro lens.
The images are from a weekend day out for a walk with my girlfriend. We always go for a walk and she is the best partner when going out to photograph, she likes to discover new places (or the same old ones) and she is always willing to model when I see some unusual scenario (and many of my images are discovered by her and I do the shot).
If you are interested in seeing more photos I take on film and digital you can find me on Instagram as @hogox
Thanks for your time!
Worth the trouble of scanning them!
Thanks for sharing the story and the pics
Very nice!
A nice surprise! Enjoyed the essay and the photos – really like the use of colour – blues and yellows pop nice
Como siempre muy buenas fotos!
Lovely images with beautiful colours – M3 will never die! Enjoyed reading the article.
Nice composition, the first two in particular are great. Good going to get both of those out of one walk – you and your girlfriend make a good team 🙂
Are you back to shooting some film as well as digital now?
I don’t see any purpose in shooting a lens with no frameline options in the range finder.
The M3 viewfinder actually has spare spaces around the thick round-corners 50mm lines. Many have said you can use the whole viewfinder to compose for 40mm. And if you know rangefinders well you already know that framelines are always conservative and only optimized at a certain distance. The 35mm lines on later M-bodies actually work well for the 40mm at distance away from 2 meters, and that’s why some users decide to file down the flange of the Summicron-c 40/2 or M-Rokkor 40/2 to bring the 35mm lines on their M2s, M4s, M6s and whatsoever. The “real” 40mm framelines on Minolta CLE, from my experience and experiments, are conservative too, indicating a field of view for 45-50 mm ish. I don’t see any purpose in saying something negative before you dig deep enough and presuming the others do not know what they are doing.