Pioneer
Veteran
I just received my order of Street Pan 400 from Bellamy at Japan Camera Hunter. The first thing I did was pull out a roll of film, pop it into my M-A, and head outdoors for a down and dirty photo shoot. I haven't even fully gone through the entire package yet so I have no idea what may have been included.
I used the Leica M-A, Sunny 16 and three separate lenses, an Elmar M 50 3.5, a Sonnar C 50 1.5 and my trusty old Elmar 90 4 LTM. Most of the photos were shot in the late afternoon in Nevada so there is some pretty contrasty situations with strong highlights against deep shadows. I souped the film for 10:30 seconds in Rodinal 1:25 at 68F, agitating for the first 30 seconds and then three slow rotations every minute thereafter.
The film loaded on the Jobo 1500 reel easily, developed with no issues and dried straight and flat. It was very easy to load in the scanner.
I scanned as a TIFF at 2400 dpi with the Plustek OptiScan 7600i using Silverfast software. The photos were imported to Photoshop and resized for the web. Other than what the scanner software may do or what Photoshop may do these photos are as straight out of the camera as I can get them.
This first shot was taken with the Elmar M 50/3.5 and I don't think that this old toy truck has ever looked quite this good. Based on this and other photos this film seems to be made for this lens.
The next photograph is some small garden statues of some deer sitting under a small evergreen. The lens is the Zeiss Ikon ZM Sonnar C 50mm. In my mind the rendering is certainly more modern but it still came out pretty good.
This photograph comes from the old LTM Elmar 90/4 lens. I did make one photoshop change by making it a square image just to see how it looked. I think this photo illustrates the graphic impression that can be conveyed by this film.
Obviously, nothing is perfect. The next photograph shows what happens on a contrasty day when the exposure allows for a bit too much light. This particular photo was exposed at f/8 and 1/500 seconds, which was about two stops over what it should have been. Even though this is film these highlights are well and truly blown and the shadows are pretty close to being blocked. I suspect that this could be recovered to some extent in scanning and in Photoshop but it gives a good example of how contrasty the film is.
Of course, if this contrast is managed and the exposure is closer to correct, then the photos can provide an interesting view on things.
As an interim conclusion I think I am going to enjoy working with this film. I like how it responded to my older Leica lenses. It develops well with Rodinal and comes out flat and straight, ready to easily scan or print.
Care should be taken when using the film during bright sunny days though it can still work if you understand how the film will record your scene.
We should thank Bellamy for pushing to make this happen. I know there has been a bit of controversy, even right here on this forum, about this film and whether or not it is a good thing.
I want to be clear about my opinion, though it may sound a bit strong. In this seeming all digital era the ability to load a newly introduced film into a newly built film camera is like a dream come true and something I really didn't see happening.
I appreciate what Ilford has done and what Ferrania is trying to do. But there is as much room for this film on the market as there is for Kodak or anyone else.
I hope this little review will provide an idea of what one person was able to do with one roll of film. Please feel free to follow up with your own examples.
I used the Leica M-A, Sunny 16 and three separate lenses, an Elmar M 50 3.5, a Sonnar C 50 1.5 and my trusty old Elmar 90 4 LTM. Most of the photos were shot in the late afternoon in Nevada so there is some pretty contrasty situations with strong highlights against deep shadows. I souped the film for 10:30 seconds in Rodinal 1:25 at 68F, agitating for the first 30 seconds and then three slow rotations every minute thereafter.
The film loaded on the Jobo 1500 reel easily, developed with no issues and dried straight and flat. It was very easy to load in the scanner.
I scanned as a TIFF at 2400 dpi with the Plustek OptiScan 7600i using Silverfast software. The photos were imported to Photoshop and resized for the web. Other than what the scanner software may do or what Photoshop may do these photos are as straight out of the camera as I can get them.
This first shot was taken with the Elmar M 50/3.5 and I don't think that this old toy truck has ever looked quite this good. Based on this and other photos this film seems to be made for this lens.
The next photograph is some small garden statues of some deer sitting under a small evergreen. The lens is the Zeiss Ikon ZM Sonnar C 50mm. In my mind the rendering is certainly more modern but it still came out pretty good.
This photograph comes from the old LTM Elmar 90/4 lens. I did make one photoshop change by making it a square image just to see how it looked. I think this photo illustrates the graphic impression that can be conveyed by this film.
Obviously, nothing is perfect. The next photograph shows what happens on a contrasty day when the exposure allows for a bit too much light. This particular photo was exposed at f/8 and 1/500 seconds, which was about two stops over what it should have been. Even though this is film these highlights are well and truly blown and the shadows are pretty close to being blocked. I suspect that this could be recovered to some extent in scanning and in Photoshop but it gives a good example of how contrasty the film is.
Of course, if this contrast is managed and the exposure is closer to correct, then the photos can provide an interesting view on things.
As an interim conclusion I think I am going to enjoy working with this film. I like how it responded to my older Leica lenses. It develops well with Rodinal and comes out flat and straight, ready to easily scan or print.
Care should be taken when using the film during bright sunny days though it can still work if you understand how the film will record your scene.
We should thank Bellamy for pushing to make this happen. I know there has been a bit of controversy, even right here on this forum, about this film and whether or not it is a good thing.
I want to be clear about my opinion, though it may sound a bit strong. In this seeming all digital era the ability to load a newly introduced film into a newly built film camera is like a dream come true and something I really didn't see happening.
I appreciate what Ilford has done and what Ferrania is trying to do. But there is as much room for this film on the market as there is for Kodak or anyone else.
I hope this little review will provide an idea of what one person was able to do with one roll of film. Please feel free to follow up with your own examples.
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