Film crisis

Some early work with the M4-2...  All of them were made in Chicago, on December 2012, on Kodak BW400CN film, now discontinued, and with my Konica Hexanon 35mm lens. 

And this circumstance throws me the proverbial wrench; I had not bothered to develop and scan film for the longest time because of the existence of chromogenic film and thanks to 1-hour developing.  Why would anyone get in trouble developing when they do it at the drug store?

Well... Not only Kodak stopped making this film, but also my local drug store stopped working on film.  Sure, they will send the occasional roll out, but won't return the negatives and that's not what I want.  Hence, I was forced to return to my developing days, and I placed an order for Ilfosol 3, Ilford quick fix, Heico wash aid... and some Agfa APX stuff (yep, it's still around at B&H).  Let's see how things work out.  Looks like I'm going to spend a nice winter, developing and scanning some of my backlog.  

In the meanwhile, here are some images from a trip to the big city... 

Next time, framing, tilting, composition... What's your take?

How did I learn to like the 50mm lens?

The answer is easy: when I had to pair it with a new body: an M4.

I was interested in playing with a Leica M4, but the real one, the one that came out before the M4-2.  I was lucky to find one in decent shape... but didn't have the cash for another 35mm lens (which is my favorite focal length), so I took out the bag my very underused 50mm Summicron and attached it to this new body.

It was a revelation...

Here's the proof:

This is Washington Street, in Naperville, at Christmas time (1/60th, f2)

My son on a Santa Claus lap (1/15th, f2).  He got some candy...

This is Washington Street, but in Chicago (1/60th, f2)

Art Institute lion, from Chicago (1/1000th, f8-11)

I must admit now that this same M4 body has been equipped with a nice Zeiss 35mm f2 lens (in silver), and that I fell for another Zeiss lens of the same type but in black, currently attached to my M4-2.  The Summicron will return to the M4, of course.  I learned to like it, but right now... I'm having second helpings and indulging in my use of the 35mm focal length.

What's your favorite focal length?  Do you feel that it's the only creative avenue for you?  Have you "forced" yourself to use something different... just to stretch your creative muscle?

Sound off in the comments!

After a long absence...

It's been so long... and I don't want to look it up, because it's slightly embarrassing to have abandoned this blog for so long.  In any event, having these amateurish photographs stolen made me angry and blew the wind off my sails so bad that I simply didn't even want to look at this blog or share them again... ever.

But here I am anyway.  Readers or not, this will be an active blog, just the way I wanted it to be in the past.

In the meanwhile, let's get to the images:

This image is Miller St in DeKalb, IL, in early January, after a very snowy night.  Of course, I used my M4-2 and Hexanon 35 f2 lens, and Ilford XP2.

Possibly that same day, this fountain in Huntley Park, looked attractive enough to deserve a shot.

Tree shadow in my neighborhood.  I gave a two or three-stop compensation exposure (from f11 to f4), for this shot.