Donald Traxler's Poetry: 02/15/22

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

If You Were Going to Say

Text and image are by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler, and are hereby given into the public domain.

He Lives in a Dream / ᎠᏨᏯᎢ ᎠᎴᏂᏙᎭᏎ ᎠᏍᎩᏘᏍᎦ ᎭᏫᎾ

My Return to Film Photography - X

I've continued to shoot and develop film, most recently in 35mm. I'm using the Canon AE-1, with the new (to me) 50mm f1.4 FD normal lens. This lens is extremely sharp, and the results are so gratifying that I really don't want to shoot with any other lens. Unfortunately, the Canon EOS uses a different lens mount, so I'll be stuck using the 28-80mm zoom lens with it.

Here are a few of my recent shots:

The tree was shot in deep shade, 1/250 sec. at f5.6. For all of these shots, the film is Tri-X, rated at ISO 400.

This shot, looking up into the trees, was done at 1/250 and f16. I think the lens begins to be affected by the diffraction (? don't remember if this is the right word) limit at f16.

I had some trouble with water-spotting with the TX film. I am using a Paterson squeegee that I haven't really gotten used to. For 35mm, I think I would do better using my two fingers. I wish I still had my Yankee squeegee, with the soft sponge pads.

My agèd face shows the sharpness of the f1.4 normal lens. The main light source was the 60W quartz-halogen clamp light, and the exposure was 1/30 sec. at f5.6.

For comparison, here are a couple of digital shots:

I don't think they hold up too well against the film shots, but in the next instalment of this series, I'll try to re-create them on film. Then we can do a more proper comparison. In the meantime, shoot film, if you can!

(to be continued)