Tele-Xenar 3.8/75 on Robot Star, Delta 400 test shots

[vilva]

During the last week-end I succeeded in doing some shooting despite the cold weather. I shot a roll of Provia 400X and another of Delta 400 at ISO400. The Provia shots are mostly OK, but due to film flatness problems I cannot get worthwhile scans done with the Epson 4990, which is a fix focus scanner and relies on DOF. The Delta strips are flat enough for decent scans -- I think 8" x 8" prints would be quite reasonable and 12" x 12" prints usable for some purposes. Here are some samples, just testing the possibilities:

















Some camera shake is evident in the last shot, but in a shot like this it doesn't matter. Anyway. I intend to mostly shoot at ISO1600, which allows me to use a higher shutter speed.

After these tests, I've decided to only shoot high ISO B&W with the Robots. Both Ilford Delta 400 and Fuji Neopan 400 can easily be pushed to 1600 and still produce quite decent results, perhaps even with an occasional one stop underexposure. The image quality obtainable with flatbed scanning doesn't, of course, compete with a 5D or even a 350D. However, purely technical image quality isn't everything, and it can be very fruitful to use a camera which inherently excludes a very high IQ, one is then free from the yoke of IQ, free to see and compose, free to disregard technical expectations.

Veijo

[vilva]

I'm trying to learn street shooting from the waist level:


Everything is preset, the speed, the aperture and the focus zone, the camera is oriented "instinctively" whichever way, my right hand will cover the rest of the camera and trigger with the thumb. Nobody pays any attention because I'm not at all looking at the camera or even to the direction the camera is pointing to, it seems I'm just leisurely strolling, fully at ease, not even contemplating taking a photo.

The test photos here were, however, mostly shot "traditionally".

Veijo