Problematic

Two rolls. One on a family trip to Colorado, and another on my college campus.

After I had fixed my Pentax camera, I got the chance to use it when back home on my break. I checked the shutter again after it had sat on a shelf for a couple months, and it wasn't getting stuck. I went out with my family on Christmas eve, and put in some Cinestill 800t, hoping to do some night photography later.

So uhhhh... what happened? To be honest, I have no idea. I've never seen anything like this before. 800t is known for having halations, but nothing like this. The film did sit in fridges/freezers for a couple years, but expired film does'nt really do this. I showed this image to someone any they said it could be a light leak, and considering that this effect sort of tapers off as the roll goes on, that's my best guess as well. It could also be a defective roll but I doubt it. Oh well. Probably wasn't a good shot anyway.

On the bright side, I think the colors look kinda neat.

Same thing again, except you can tell there's an actual image. Another thing to mention is that these... streaks? continue outside the image border and onto the unexposed part of the negatives. Maybe it could be a development error?

Again more of the same, except you can see more of the image. Its a duck. Yup.

I was a little bored with hanging out with my family and wondered how the 800t would handle candle light. Can't really tell though because of the streak.

Ok not bad! This is the start of the night photography, and I had found some electrical cable hanging from a tree with a blue spotlight on it all. This is one of those things that you know is gonna look cool right when you look at it, so I was pretty excited to get this as my first night shot. I use a separate light meter, and it wasn't able to read this dark so I basically eyeballed the exposure and went 2 stops over.

I think something that I'd like to achieve with my photography is to get something that doesn't feel real or impossible, which is difficult with a medium that is as close to real life as possible. I think this shot does that pretty well, a blue tree with some random cable stuck in it definitely makes you stop and wonder whats going on. If this were any other shot, I'd probably say the streaks ruin it. But I think they compliment it nicely. A happy accident.

After that shot I discovered that the mirror was stuck up again, so I had to call it quits and try to solve the problem at home. I looked online and found that even with professional lubrication, the spotmatic cameras still gum up when below about 40°F, and it was below freezing that night. I waited it out and took some garbage shots in my room and sure enough the mirror worked perfectly.

On the road trip to Colorado we stopped at a diner. My family wanted to sit at the table to rest, but I decided to walk around and take photos. There was a dog sitting in a truck, so I waited for it do something interesting. Yeah not very interesting, dog. Try better next time.

I guess I thought the shape was cool. It's not.

Pretty boring. I think every photographer has taken a photo of a worn motel sign, so I guess it;s a right of passage.

I think I thought the sign was funny? I could've just taken a photo of it with my phone instead.

I guess I liked the way the windows looked. Boring again. I'm about to fall asleep here.

AHH. Sorry, I almost fell over from the angle of this terrible photo. The halations making the clock tower glow red looks neat though.

At the hotel we were staying at, the door to the laundry room was left open. When I was setting up the shot, someone walked past. I pulled down my camera and said sorry. I kinda regret doing that. I think a surprised person would make this way more interesting, even if I would feel like I'm invading privacy.

I guess I didn't learn my lesson and decided to do more night photography. There really wasn't much to get outside the hotel but I was bored.

The next day there was a small trail around this river. I guess I really liked the water since I took 2 photos of it. This image also shows what I currently think is a shutter problem with the camera. On the right edge you can see that it's darker. My best guess is that the shutter is too quick when starting out, then corrects itself after a bit meaning the left side of the image plane is less exposed (which corresponds to the right of the scene). I have no idea how to fix this, my only guess would be to open it up and find anything slowing the shutter mechanism but at this point it might be more worth it to pay for a repair.

Another water shot. Not really interesting. The dark edge is also present, but is harder to see.

This is kinda cool. I guess. Not really. If the trees framed the house better it would be passable for me. The dark edge is also more pronounced so that's something to note I guess.

I saw some ducks far away, but they weren't really visible. I waited like 5 minutes for them to poke their heads out for the camera but they never did, so I just took the photo. Of course, after taking it they decided to show themselves better. Good luck trying to find them in the picture.

Behind the area I was standing for the ducks there was a tree I thought looked neat. Pretty boring.

Near the end of the trail there was a sign perfectly framed between some bushes. Would've been more interesting if it weren't snowing and you could see the background better.

The other way up the river was some birds. Yeah pretty boring.

Ok I like this one. After I took the bird photo the mirror got stuck again. It was warmer than that other night so I thought it'd be fine. I took a photo blind again to try and get to unstuck itself, and accidentally made this. With the falling snow and the concrete bridge it almost looks post-apocalyptic which I think is really cool.

Taking that photo didn't fix the mirror so I went back to our car to try and warm the camera then went to the next location. I took this garbage to get it unstuck which worked.

Now that I could see through the viewfinder I decided to take this. Not sure why.

There was a house nearby, which I think I thought had nice colors. So far it might seem like I'm just taking photos of everything I see, but I really wasn't (honest!). I would go a long time refraining from taking a photo and would get sort of antsy, then search for anything that MIGHT look interesting. Clearly I need to work on that.

We had some time to kill on our way to the next location and there was an area near some train tracks that looked neat. I definitely wasn't supposed to be there because after we had left and drove past it the gate was locked. Not sure why I took this shot in particular. It looks somewhat phallic so maybe I did it for the funnies.

Below that pipe there was some water dripping down making a hole. I wanted to get a shot of the water falling down but I guess the shutter speed wasn't fast enough since I don't see anything.

DICK

I thought all the signs being put all in one place was weird. That's about it.

There was some hot spring geiser that was sort of neat. One of its sides had water flowing in a Y shape which looked cool with the colors. I should've used a faster shutter speed though.

There was also a neat looking path of the water melting the snow. Unfortunately the camera was having worse problems and it sort of ruined it.

There was some storage shed and I could peak through some gap to see a chair. I really don't know why I thought it was cool.

I think I was mostly giving up at this point. Last shot of the roll, just point the camera at some dirt hill with spotty snow. Doesn't help that the camera had more problems.

If you thought the previous roll was bad, get ready for this! This roll was mostly taken after I had gone back to college, and I put some Ilford Delta 3200 in since I thought I'd be indoors when I first went out with my camera.

I had bought a vintage macro lens since I thought I could make scans with it to reduce development costs (I can't, it sucks) and figured I could take a photo of a negative I shot previously (this one to be exact), A negative of a negative would end up making a positive so it would hopefully end up looking like a slide film. Unfortunately my camera had other plans. The shutter looks like its having problems again, except this time it's even worse.

On my way back from a particular event I thought it could be a good opportunity to do a few night photos. It wasn't.

I had bought a 'vintage' flash at a thrift store, and since this would be my first time using one manually I figured I'd do a few test shots. This first one is at what the 'correct' exposure should be and the rest go over by an amount I've forgotten.

This second test shot has basically no detail in my face, so I think I'll just trust what the correct exposure is. Since these are only lab scans, its possible that there is detail in the face, but whoever was scanning decided not to adjust for it.

Either way its good to know that the flash... flashes. However it won't work with the Pentax SP F, which makes me think that the cameras electrical system is just broken and its not just the meter.

There's this certain technique you can do with a flash where you keep the cameras shutter open, but use a flash to light the scene. This basically gives you a multiple exposure shot, only its with one. I scribbled PENIS on a sticky note and moved it around. Neat.

With these shots I have no clue what really happened. Some of them do have parts of a recognizable image but I have no idea why there's barely anything there. I think during this time I was shooting in daylight, which with 3200 iso film is nearly impossible to work with. So I brought a 3 stop ND filter, I remember forgetting to put it on for part of one my shoots, but I think you should still be able to see something.

At this point I had remembered to put on the ND filter, and found a cat in an alley. The bad exposure doesn't make up for the fact that this is a bad photo to begin with.

I'm pretty sure this was on a different day and I went into to it specifically trying to do some street photography, which I always enjoy when looking through my library's photo books. I found this guy talking on the phone waving his hands wildly, which I thought was interesting. Unfortunately I my camera was set for things in the sun which he... was not.

Some while later I found this jeep in front of someones house, but there was a swing set in front of it. I liked the contrast between those 2 objects, but I botched the exposure. Maybe shooting 3200 iso film with an ND filter isn't such a good idea.

I found a creepy santa statue in someone's house. That's about it really. I must've been fighting back demons whose sole purpose was to make me lean over.

Ok finally something actually interesting. There were some kids playing with a ball but one of them was perched up on the basketball hoop. I thought it was so cool I took 2 photos of it. I think I like the 2nd photo better, I think the kids have better separation with the background, and I like how the ball is between the tree and roof. Although I think it would've worked better with a tighter focal length. I didn't want to stay long to find a better angle, since some random guy taking pictures of children isn't really thought of as normal.

I was walking by when there was 1 person leaning into the car of another person, I didn't really think much of it until they leaned in for a kiss. I very quickly picked up my camera and took the shot without even looking through the viewfinder. I think it turned out ok, a better angle would've been further back. But then again, I think a tighter focal length would've worked better.

Another semi-blank. I actually remember what this one was supposed to be since it was the last I took that day. There was a cat sitting on a houses front fencing basking in the sun. It was the most beautiful scene that would make all other photographers give up.

I always liked the way my desk looked in my dorm with just the one light on, so I took a photo of that.

And another, 1 stop over, and blurrier.

Took a self-portrait too while I was at it. Black square strikes again!

My college had an emergency on campus, and I thought it would be prime time to take pictures of it. I ended up being late by like an hour and only got the after math. I think this is the closest I've ever been to pigs.

The green and red lights were really bright in the darkness and I thought it lit up the firemen in a cool way. I have idea why I took 3 pictures of it considering I was shooting black & white.

Different one of a group, now featuring even more lens flare!

This is kinda cool I guess. If I were a cool kid I'd say I was using ICM (intentional camera movement), but I didn't so I can't.

The light on their legs was cool I guess. Again would've been better with a tighter lens.

The power was out at my dorm so the people in the hallways looked really eerie. I think it kinda works, the dutch angle sort of helps the eeriness.

Ok this is pretty nice. There was someone on the floor looking at their phone in a good position at a great angle. It would've been pretty weird to them if I took their photo then walked away without saying anything, so I specifically asked them if I could take their picture and he said yes. This was indoor lighting with emergency lighting so it was insanely dark. Someone standing nearby offered their flashlight which was nice of them. I think the shutter speed was like 1/8th or something, so I had to really hunker down into the corner of the room and its still a little blurry. Probably the best photo on the roll.

I took another one one stop over. Surprisingly about the same blurriness, but I like his expression in the previous better.

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