My Chronicles from Alaska, Summer 2008

[pevelg]

Well, I have returned from my two week vacation in Alaska. With me I took a Mamiya 7 w/ 80mm lens & polarizer, plus 15 rolls of Velvia 50. In 135mm format, I had my trusty Leica M6TTL and a bunch of Kodak 400 C-41 B&W film and 10 rolls of Kodachrome. I've currently developed the B&W film only and have submited the MF film and Kodachrome for development.

I will be using this thread throughout the next couple weeks to chronicle my journey. May you enjoy the photos as I've enjoyed the trip.

NOTE ON PHOTOS CURRENTLY POSTED: As I've sold my Nikon 5000 to a member on this forum, I am without a good scanner and just scanned some of the prints on my cheapy scanner on my laser printer. Photos were modified using B&W Stylizer plugin in CS3, with occasional decrease in highlights using the shadow/highlight tool. The scanner is horrible as visible in the shadow detail, or lack there off.


(my little but much taller brother, overpass on route to Valdez, 35mm ultron)

The adventures began arrived at the airport. My brother was searched several times and is bags checked several times as well. Security... Ugh!!! On arriving to AK, my elder brother who lives in Wasilla, AK stated that we had a change of plans and that night left to a location know as Kasilof where we went net fishing.

(Fishing at Kasilof, Ultron 35mm with glare)

Fishing lasted long enough to pull out the nets, free and gut the fish, and return the nets. The rest of the time was spent trying to get warm by the fire. One of my friends was crazy enough to stick her feet under the sand near the fire.

(crazyness, 75mm Heliar)

In the wild, we resorted to unethical forms of survival. By the end of the trip, my brothers shoes shrunk so much that he could no longer wear them.

(drying shoes, Heliar?)

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Well, that's all that I'll share for now. More photo's will be posted to my Flickr page as time goes by:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23605307@N06/
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The trip brought many troubles to me as well. I forgot to put in a new battery into my Leica, knowing that the battery currently in there was dieing, and even possibly the wrong type. It suddently died in the middle of our 9 hr. cruise, so I only worked with my Mamiya then. The Mamiya troubled me as well. Having not read the manual, I did not know that a blinking exposure ment that the battery was dieing. This resulted in a loss of the self-timer. When I realized the battery was dieing, I checked expousures with my handheld light meter and they seemed ok, so I am sure that the pictures will be ok. I ended up finding the right batteries at a radio shack, though this was almost at the end of my trip.

 

[pevelg]

Need to hear more on airport security? I purchased a Domke film bag that protects it from x-rays and the like. On the return flight, I was stopped and my bags checked. The Domke bag was flagged and the security guard pulled out each roll of film out of the plastic case, shaking them. I around 40 rolls and he did that too each one. He became upset when I started grinning and laughing. Since when was film considered a threat?

 

[pevelg]

While my MF film was being developed, I considered just selling my MF system to get out of my current money crunch. Alas, I went and picked up the 14 rolls (139 shots) of 120mm, 6X7cm, Velvia 50 today and the sale of my MF system is now out of question. I results are just too beautiful. Now I can't wait to get my Nikon 9000.

I would sell my M6TTL and two lenses and shoot only MF, but the overall cost of shooting MF is just too great. I paid over $135 in development, plus around $64 for the rolls. That equals almost a $1.5 per picture!!!

I will take my photos to Costco tomorrow and see if they can scan MF for me. Maybe I'll get to post more this week.

Kodachrome was dropped off at Walmart last week, so hopefully those will arrive by next week.

 

[pevelg]

(Flowers at Seward, AK)

It is sooo sad that photo stores are sooooo unwilling to work with you. I brought in my MF pictures to be scanned and I asked for medium resolution (~2000x~3000) and NO PHOTOSHOP. I also asked to save the files as uncompressed .tiffs. They said they'd charge me $10 for scanning as .tiffs. This was too much for me so I went with the .jpgs. When I recieved the pictures, I found that they were sharpened beyond belief (and thus much detail lost) and there was very horrible shadow detail due to a lossy jpg conversion. Thank goodness I only had them scan 35 of my slides (about ~$80). I tried editing some of the photos to look a "little" better. I can't wait until I have my own scanner again!!!

(bearded fellow with my grampa. When I saw the feller, I couldn't resist in asking to take his picture!!!)

(Iceberg on cruise in Valdez, AK)

(Seward, AK)

More pictures can be seen at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23605307@N06/sets/72157606302161164/

I will try scanning my Kodachromes tomorrow on a cheap flatbed....