Shooting Kodak Ektachrome 100 (120)

Looking down towards the TwentyTwo building in London. The increased level of detail over 35mm is very noticeable with a positive of this size (6x6). 1/30s 80mm F13 with polariser.

Perhaps the most exciting part of film photography is that feeling you get when your negatives arrive back from the lab or when you open your development tank to see what came out. But for me, nothing is quite like seeing my film positives for the first time. It’s difficult to fully comprehend a negative image where all the colours are reversed, it’s not yet finished until it is scanned on the computer, but with slide film you can see exactly what shot out of the box. I find the impression it makes really does scale with the size of the film and I had been eager to finally shoot slide with my Bronica SQ-A on 120 roll film.

The stained glass on Alexandra Palace. I had this down in my notes as being one stop underexposed, but it looks fine to me. 1/125s 110mm F11.

However this shot of the cherry blossom looks a bit overexposed. 1/60s 110mm F9.

Inside Alexandra Palace, despite the small dynamic range the film has handled the details in both the shadows and the highlights well. Slide film is not as unforgiving as some people think. 1/30s 50mm F11.

From my testing of the different available slide films in 35mm, I had come to the conclusion that Kodak Ektachrome 100 was what I wanted to first shoot on medium format, and I managed to pick up a box last year before the inevitable January price hikes. With it being as expensive as it is I wanted to pick the right time to shoot so as not to waste it and the perfect opportunities came up with trips to Alexandra Palace the Southwest coast of England. I’ll share some of the images in this blog but the rest you’ll have to wait and see in the next two that will follow this one.

The curves of the glass architecture made for an interesting photo, though I feel it lacks a central subject to hold the viewers attention. Not long after this I was told I wasn’t supposed to photograph inside with prior permission. Luckily I’d looked the part when I walked in with my Bronica on a tripod and they had thought I was one of the workmen! 1/60s 50mm F9.

Again this outside image in the bright sunlight look a bit overexposed. From this angle you can see the famous radio tower where the BBC pioneered TV in the late 1920s. 1/60s 50mm F11.

This chewing gum artwork made for a great macro subject and shows of the detail that both this lens and film can resolve. As with most of my other macro shots I have taken I didn’t add any exposure compensation and the image doesn’t look underexposed. 1/60s 110mm F11.

So, what was it like shooting this on my Bronica SQ-A? Slide film requires more precise metering with only five or six stops of dynamic range and unlike my Nikon F100, where I could control shutter speed and aperture by ⅓ stop intervals, I am limited to full stops with shutter speed and ½ stops with aperture. I would also be without an inbuilt camera meter and relying on the LightMeter app on my phone to measure my exposure. However, I wasn’t overly concerned. If you believed everything you read on the internet, you’d think slide film had only one stop of dynamic range. There’s more leeway than people think, and it all comes down to picking the right scene with a clear idea of how to shoot it. Though of course sometimes a little bit of experimentation is required. The only image I felt the small dynamic range really hindered me was the shot I took of a petrol station, but the images I took of the high-rise buildings in London show that you can shoot urban scenes at night with great results.  

I actually underexposed this shot by one stop from what my metering app on my phone, said in order to not blow out the highlights. It looks like I got it spot on for the well lit areas but with the small dynamic range everything else falls into darkness. You can just about make out the road in the foreground. 4s F16 110mm 4s 110mm F16 -1 stop underexposed.

One of the car shots I took at my local car club as the sun was setting. 2s 50mm F8.0 with polariser.

I couldn’t resist getting a photo of this big American classic. 2s 50mm F11.

As ever when you only have twelve shots on a roll you have to take a more considered approach to your photography and at only ISO 100 shooting on a tripod is a must with the slower lenses and shallower depths of field that come with medium format compared to 35mm. Scanning and processing on my computer also took more effort as I find that when I use my Nikon D850 to create digital versions of the images the highlights are often blown out and the colours are not quite right (some of the sunset photos initially came out far more purple than reality). With the larger 6x6 positives however, it is much easier to see the colour and detail to adjust and colour correct to something that is almost identical to what came back from the lab.

The tall white cliffs of Beachy Head. Despite the bright chalk cliffs the highlights haven’t been blown out on this overcast day. Had it been a bright sunny day it would have exceeded this film’s dynamic range. 1/60s 110mm F11.

Sunset on the sand. Lacking the vivid colours of Velvia, this is perhaps not the slide film of choice for dramatic sunsets. 2s 50mm F16 with 5 stops of ND filters.

I found this Angle Shades moth in the shed and tried to get a macro shot of it. This was incredibly frustrating to shoot and involved step ladders, getting my tripod to its maximum height and even shooting the camera at a funny angle. 1s 110mm F16 with Rotolight Neo 2 @ 3640K.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable and thrilling experience to shoot such large and more detailed strips of slide film. I definitely learned a lot, and whilst I won’t be shooting it that often due to cost, I have some more ideas of what I’d like to shoot in the future. I have actually bought several boxes of Fuji slide film (2 x Provia, 1 x Velvia 100 and 1 x Velvia 50) which are currently sitting in the top drawer of the freezer until I need them. With the current global shortages and recently announced incoming price increases I thought it makes sense to buy in at the right price whilst I still could. Ektachrome is very different in its colour balance to Fuji’s offerings, and I will definitely shoot it again. But when you shoot film as slowly as I do and with so much else I want to try and experiment with, it could be a while.

Towards Old Street. 1/60s 80mm F11.

The Natural History Museum. I hadn’t used my 80mm & 150mm S lenses for a while as I much preferred using my PS lenses. The images taken with my 80mm look nice and sharp but I really do think the 150mm is one of the weak links in the Bronica SQ lineup. I’ll talk about this more in a future blog. 1/25s 150mm F11 with polariser.

However the 150mm S still really brought London at night alive. I fully intend to shoot more nightscapes with slide film in the autumn and winter and a blog out in a couple of weeks will showcase all my other images from this particular shoot. I just love the way film renders images at night. 90s 150mm F11.

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