HVP Blog

Trying things out with AristaEDU 400 film

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 20:07:21 GMT

I enjoy shooting film in black and white. Sometimes it's beneficial to strip away the color from an image and focus more on the composition and the mood that the photograph invokes. When the contrast and the sharpness are captured well, the result is a strong image:

I shot that picture on Ilford XP2 Super 400 black-and-white film , which is a wonderful film stock. I loved the wide range of exposure and high quality of contrast that the film captured.

Ilford film, however, is a bit pricey, and I don't want to use it every time I choose to shoot black and white. I had also bought my dream film SLR -- the Minolta Alpha-9 -- and I wanted to explore its features without using up expensive film.

The AristaEDU film collection

Arista.EDU black-and-white film stock is a great candidate for learning and practicing photography in general and cameras in particular. It is described as having "a relatively fine grain with a mild contrast, wide exposure latitude, and pleasing tones". At $5.49 per roll on B&H , it's an affordable stock for beginning or experimental photographers. I bought three rolls, loaded up the Alpha-9, and took various shots under various conditions -- nighttime, sunny and clear day, and overcast. My goal for this shoot was to gain confidence in the Alpha-9's exposure meter, so I aimed to shoot in manual mode at either fully exposed or up to 2/3rd of a stop overexposed. Bleach Film Lab handled the development and scanning.

When I inspected the scans, they looked...interesting, to say the least.

I exposed these images in different ways -- one is a relatively long exposure at the narrowest aperture, the second was exposed for the tree canopy, and the third was overexposed by 2/3 stop on a sunny day. The film appears to capture the details in the shadows when properly exposed, at the expense of blown out highlights. The full-scale image reveals the grainy texture of the film. That significant grain appears to be a major difference between the Arista.EDU and Ilford stocks.

But the major characteristic of the images is a pattern of visible crinkles or striations -- stress marks in the film. I don't know how those lines appeared, but from reading various online forums, it's an effect of film wound too tightly in the camera. It's the first time I've experienced such a thing since I started using the camera, so maybe it's an effect of the quality of the roll. I wish I could call it a "happy accident" that is typical of film photography, but I just found it to be annoying and ultimately distracting.

I did shoot some pictures at night under some partial illumination, and it was here that the Arista.EDU produced its best work.

These are among my favorite pictures from the roll. The first picture is another long exposure, the other two were set to an aperture that gave the depth-of-field that I wanted and then I adjusted the shutter speed to yield a properly exposed image. I enjoyed the detail that was captured in the images, from the bricks in the townhouse facade to the blinds in the windows to the bark in the trees. The contrast is there, but it's not bold and in your face as it is with the Ilford XP2. The predominance of the shadows makes the stress marks less visible. If I had to pick an image to frame and put on my wall, it would be the third one.

The last group of photos were taken in the city of Atlanta on an overcast day.

These photos were a mixed bag. The first shot was a great composition and well executed in terms of exposure. There was a lot of grey in the image and the film captured the reduced range in tones well. The second shot was underexposed, soft, and grainy. It was also the last shot in the roll, and the stress marks were most prominent. It turned out to be a disappointment, especially because the Jackson Street Bridge is such an iconic vista in Atlanta.

My Verdict

Overall, the Arista.EDU produces black-and-white images that are softer and grainier than other film stocks. If a shot is exposed perfectly, one is rewarded with a sharp and finely detailed result. It's less forgiving if the exposure is overexposed, and even less so if underexposed. So, it's a useful roll for practicing proper light metering in manual settings.

If I were practicing photographic techniques or building confidence with my gear, I'd load the Arista.EDU in my camera. If I were taking photographs that I would want to put on my wall or sell, I'd reach for the Ilford XP2 or HP5 Plus.

Christmas Lights, or, Night Shooting with Cinestill 800T Film

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 02:04:18 GMT

Christmas? In March?!?

So, why am I writing a blog post about Christmas in March?

One simple answer is that I started writing this blog in January, so anything that I wrote about the holiday season would have been dated. Another reason is that I had other photo experiences that I wanted to share. But now it's gotten to the point where it's better to share Christmas photos now , more than two months later, than wait ten months for the right time to share the previous year's memories.

Christmas photography is special, but it's even more evocative at night. No matter what your faith is -- or even if you have none -- the holiday season is a season of lights. This year I wanted to capture the lights that decorated homes, businesses, streets, and public gathering spots.

Nighttime photography is a challenge to get right, as all those rules-of-thumb that people use to ensure sharp images no longer apply. It's an experience that requires one to understand the lighting conditions as well as the camera capabilities and settings. When it's done right, nighttime photos are visually stunning and evocative. And what could be a more evocative experience than capturing the images on film?

The promise of Cinestill 800T film

Until this experience, I would shoot film during the day with 200 or 400 ISO film. But for nighttime shots, I wanted to use a 35mm film that was a better match for the conditions.

Enter the Cinestill 800T . It is film stock that was originally developed for movie production and repurposed for film photography. According to Shoot Film magazine , that lineage produces a "high speed tungsten-balanced color negative film stock" that is "designed for low-light situations." It works with a wide range of exposures and captures the glow of tungsten lighting -- in other words, the type of artificial lighting that you tend to see at night.

I bought a couple of rolls of Cinestill 800T from B&H Photo and Video and used one of them for my shoot. All of my photos were shot on my Minolta Alpha-9 film SLR. Almost all of the shots were taken with my K&F Concept T254A8 tripod . The lovely husband-and-wife couple at Bleach Film Lab developed my roll with a 1-stop push applied.

Lights of Joy

My first stop on my Christmas lights tour was the Lights of Joy display in Kennesaw, a northwest suburb of Atlanta. It is a walkable exhibit that is billed as "the largest Christmas light display in Georgia" with more than 1.2 million lights on more than 200 trees.

I started out with a shot of the Nativity scene directly across the street from the display entrance. The lights from the figurines gave off a lot of light, and I didn't want to blow out the facial features, so I kept the exposure time relatively short. I liked the way the photo came out.

Next, I walked inside and captured the "Tunnel of Joy" inside the display. There were people walking through the tunnel of lights, and I stopped in front to take the picture. I didn't know to what extent I could trust the light meter on the Alpha-9. The resulting picture captured silhouettes of the people, which isn't a bad effect, but not exactly the one I was going for. Lessons learned are to lean toward over-exposing a night photo and use a tripod for goodness sake!

Even though I was carrying a tripod, I hand-held the camera on a number of shots. I couldn't set a shutter speed that was too long, but that limited the final exposure of the image. I settled on capturing the really bright light displays above the walkway. The resulting image shows the trees that outlined by the multi-colored lighting with the black night sky in the background.

When I was leaving the display and walking back to my car, I trod across the lawn of the Futures Church and said to myself, "This would make a great long exposure photo". I mounted my camera to the tripod, adjusted the aperture to broaden the depth of field, and set a long shutter speed to overexpose the final image by half a stop (or maybe a full stop, I don't remember). The result was my best shot of the night.

Walking in Squares

A couple of nights later, I grabbed my gear and headed to Marietta Square . It's a traditional city center with eating and entertainment establishments that ring a mini-park that contains some monuments and benches. It's a place that attracts people, especially on the weekends, and I wanted to capture some of that.

One thing that caught my eye was a mini-tunnel of lights that were above one of the walkways leading into the mini-park. It took some maneuvering to center the lights into my shot, so it was inevitable that I would attract comments and questions. (Nothing I couldn't handle!) The resulting shot was a mixed bag. I understand why the Cinestill 800T is favored for capturing the halation of the tungsten-based lighting. But I could have been bolder with the exposure time. There was a bell monument that was well-framed by the tunnel and I only captured its silhouette in the end.

But what happens when you aim toward overexposing the night shot? The result is this shot of the marquee of the Strand Theatre in Marietta Square. Night shots of neon marquees are almost a cliché, but they're popular for a reason.

And here's what happens when you take a long-exposure shot on the opposite corner. It's bright -- and starry!

Smyrna's Bright Lights

After Marietta, I drove down to Smyrna, the city immediately to the south that also has a Christmas lights display. More than that, the city provided a "Bright Lights" map where you could locate the best light displays. I walked down the city square and snapped photos. The color of the lights set against the black backdrop of the night was stunning.

Alpharetta Avalon

The last stop on my tour was the Avalon shopping center in Alpharetta. If any place is going to have a stunning Christmas display, it will be a high-end shopping center in an expensive suburb.

The best photo of the lot was one that I took of skaters on an outside rink with a tree and holiday lights in the background. It wasn't a bad photo, but one that could have exposed a stop brighter. That said, the Cinestill film captured the display lights beautifully.

Epilogue

Night photography is a challenge, with rewards for mastering the exposure, composition, and equipment. I enjoyed the images that I obtained from Cinestill 800T film, and it will be my go-to film stock for low-light and nighttime photography. I might even use it for daytime shots as well, but it's an expensive option when there are lower-cost stocks that do the job very well.

The shoot was fun to organize. The night isn't as scary as one would think, even in a big city, and the way that light and color interact with the night is really fascinating to capture. I've been practicing my ability to capture a sharp image, but now I need to devote more practice to well-exposed images, too.

The three lessons that I take away from this outing are the following:

Err toward overexposing nighttime shots. In other words, slow down the shutter speed.
Use a tripod so that you can take shots with long shutter times.
Long exposures with a narrow aperture at night just work.

It's all just a blur

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 00:55:32 GMT

Photography is the capture and manipulation of light. It is the combination of lens aperture and shutter speed with the light sensitivity of the sensor or film that creates the image. In most situations, we want to capture crisp and sharp images that are properly focused and exposed. An unintentionally blurry and softly focused image is disappointing and frustrating -- most of the time.

But what if a blurry image is intentional?

Or rather, what if a partly blurry image is intentional?

When the shutter speed is sufficiently long (say, slower than 1/30 second), objects move through the field of view, and the camera stays still, the object becomes a blur of light. The light then captures an abstraction of movement. When presented before a stationary backdrop, the image becomes striking and evocative.

One can attempt to move the camera with the subject as it moves through the field of view, thus capturing a still object before a blurred background. Motion isn't expressed by the blur of the subject, but by the blur in the background.

It takes some effort to get it right. Having a camera that can take rapid and continuous shots is essential. And I have to admit that the old-school rapid-fire shutter sounds are so cool.

Sometimes a panning opportunity presents itself, and you have a few seconds and one shot to make the most of it. So it happened when I was taking landscape shots in Midtown Atlanta and I heard the sounds of an approaching fire engine. My camera was already mounted on a tripod and I didn't have time to detach it from the tripod bracket, so I did the next best thing and rotated the camera as the engine passed by.

The result wasn't a stilled image of the fire truck before a blurred background. Instead, it was reduced to an abstraction of the street asphalt, streaking lines of street bulbs, and traces of the red emergency lights. It was much , much cooler.

A popular Atlanta landmark for capturing the motion and stillness of bright lights is the fabulous Fox Theater in Midtown. Assuming that a shot isn't bracketed, the best shot is a balance between a shutter speed that captures the motion of the vehicles that are passing by and an aperture that doesn't allow too much light too soon from the marquee. The following image is a trade-off, but it captures the landmark, the motion of the traffic, and the holiday lights well.

Life can appear to pass by in a blur. But it's also a collection of moments occurring before a backdrop of a bigger picture. With photography, it's possible to capture both senses.

Someone's in the kitchen

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 20:33:11 GMT

I love to cook. It's something that grew out of necessity when I was a kid (I was a really picky eater, which drove poor Mom crazy) to another creative outlet. I can save money and create healthy and tasty dishes. And yes, being able to cook is popular with the ladies.

Over the last year, I've started to bake my own artisan bread. I wasn't under lockdown anymore, so I can't say that it was a pandemic pastime. But I had just renovated my kitchen and was exploring areas of cooking that I hadn't tried in the past.

The practice of breadmaking, in my view, is akin to the practice of photography.

There is a precision element to the breadmaking. Consider the basic ingredients: the mass of flour, the volume, temperature, and purity of the water, and the type and quantity of yeast and salt. The quantity and quality of those ingredients determine the composition and quality of the dough. Then the dough has to proof, or rise, for an extended period of time. Then it is stretched, pulled, or kneaded, and then allowed to rest and rise some more. Finally it's baked in a high-temperature oven for a precise amount of time -- too little will result in a chewy or gummy interior, too much will harden the bread, if not burn it.

But there is also an artistic element to breadmaking. If the quantity of ingredients is adjusted, the dough quality will change. For how long should the bread proof? How much stretching and pulling should be applied to the dough? That gluten structure won't form by itself (okay, it will, but it's better to help the process along). What type of vessel do we use to bake the bread? At what temperature? And for how long -- covered and uncovered? The answers to these questions are a reflection of the choices and tradeoffs made by the breadmaker.

I don't eat bread all that often, and I've baked about seven or eight of my own loaves over the last year and a half, which admittedly doesn't sound like a lot. Every loaf is a learning experience.

This loaf is my best yet. I added more rounds of stretch-and-fold to the dough, and I made an effort into forming the dough into a tight ball (which the French call a boule ). I have a greater appreciation of the importance of a strong gluten structure in the dough and a smooth tight boule . It shows up in the interior of the bread loaf, which is airier than my previous loaves. But it's still a little gummy, which means that I need to extend the covered baking time.

So, is it good bread? Yes it is -- at least to me. It's very tasty and goes well with butter, olive oil, or pasta sauces. And as long as that's the case, that's all that matters.

It's also quite photogenic:

So breadmaking is precise, and it is art, but more than that, it is a practice . It improves by doing, testing, enjoying, assessing, and improving. Just like photography.

Welcome

acc_pv5d6e6r89w48 (Hamilton Visual Productions LLC Account) — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 21:35:30 GMT

This is something new.

Hello world.

And to be even more precise, Hello Atlanta!

I'm Howard Hamilton, the founder of Hamilton Visual Productions. I started this company to provide photography services for Atlanta-based businesses and individuals. At this moment, I am focusing on food, restaurant, and real estate photography.

The choice of "Visual" in my company name is intentional. As the company evolves, I plan to expand into other forms of visual art. The most obvious expansion is toward videography, but there are other forms of visual art worth exploring.

The purpose of this blog is to write about the photographs that I take and the stories that surround them. From my writings, I hope that my readers -- and hopefully, future clients! -- will have a better understanding of my approach to photography and an appreciation of the stories that can be told through this visual medium. I've written blogs for over twenty years on a variety of subjects, and while it's best to focus on a broad subject, the best blogs develop a character and style that can't be scripted. That is the approach that I will take here.

I think that's enough for an initial post, so I'll stop here.