I want to shoot slide film in the autumn, to capture all the color. You’d think I’d also want to shoot slide film in the spring, which is equally colorful. But no. In my mind, slide film is for autumn.
This slide film was a gift from Marcus Peddle, who sent it all the way from Korea. He sent me four rolls; I shot two of them this time. Thanks Marcus! It’s Fujifilm Velvia 50 in 120, so I put it into my Yashica-12.
I shot mostly around the house and along Zionsville’s Main Street, although I did shoot a little in Indianapolis, which I’ll share in a later post.
Downtown Zionsville is such a rich photography environment. We won’t live here forever — Zionsville is nice and all, but I miss Indianapolis a lot. After we move, though, I will miss being able to quickly pop downtown for some photography.
I’ve shot the Yashica-12 a lot in the last year or so, and I’m getting much better at using the grid on the focusing screen to make my subject straight.
In “the village” (as we call Zionsville within its original town limits), people take holidays seriously. Many homes decorate extensively.
The Main Street shops place season-appropriate stuff on the sidewalk. For this photo I should have chosen a narrower aperture and a slower shutter speed to get more depth of field.
I got the focus right on this one, and I love the shadow play.
This florist could have done more to decorate the front of this shop, but the pastel color of the window frames and door often make me stop for a photograph.
Closer to home, the trees along the back entrance to my subdivision were just starting to change when I made this. As I write this, every tree is ablaze with red, yellow, and orange. But I wrote this on the day before Halloween. By the day this post publishes, most of these leaves will have fallen.
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That is nice colour. No wonder Velvia was/is so popular. I’m glad the film got put to good use instead of sitting in my freezer.
Thanks again for sending it! It was fun to get these results.
Nice fall colors, Jim. I grew up in Philly so I knew them well, but in Colorado, we mostly have yellow aspens. Glad to see the reds, especially on Velvia!
We had a lot of reds and oranges this year — more than usual. It was lovely!
What stunning colours, especially the red flowers. I find digital and some films struggle to render that accurately.
True. I also find that digitals don’t do well with purple.
I haven’t noticed that, but next spring I will go looking for it.
Beautiful images Jim. Outstanding!
Thank you Steve!
Lovely colors. Very nice! I also like the bookstore sign. I’m a sucker for a great sign. :)
I’ve photographed that sign over and over…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mobilene/albums/72157661835729208
It’s somehow comforting to have those favorite haunts to go back to regularly. And what a neat area as well!
These look really nice.
I recall seeing Velvia in the ’90s and the color was just way too much. I wonder if the film has changed or my tastes?
These are a little toned down compared to my earlier uses of this film. Maybe it’s the scanning?
Gotta Love That Velvia 50! You know, when they introduced it, it was a “no go” for pros trying to do catalog work with clothing colors to match, and face tones to be perfect; but for everything else, it was really a great “sell-through” for Fuji! Every landscape photographer I knew ate it up! You can see it wasn’t much of a jump for the “juiced” colors of the smart phone camera algorithms!
Yeah, Velvia looks more normal now thanks to how smartphones have adjusted our color expectations!
Hi Jim,
The Velvia 50 really made the colours pop and I wish I had had your photographic wisdom. My neighbourhood had a good combination of yellow, orange and red. I have a 36 exposure roll of 35mm Velvia 100 that I completely forgot about until your post.
I did however explore the sugar maple tree in my yard with the Velvia film simulation on my Fuji X-T2.
I’ve always been curious whether those simulations are good. Also, I’ve never tried Velvia 100, have you?
Beautiful colours Jim. You’re certainly getting your money’s worth with the Yashica-12, you seem to have spoken about it extensively this year.
It is my most capable medium-format camera. As I’ve learned home film development I’ve used it a lot.
Jim, these are beautiful images. To this day, I fear slide film.
I’ve had pretty good luck with slide film. I always use a camera with a built-in meter, one I know is accurate.
Love Zionsville. Thanks for the reminder on it’s charm.
It’s definitely charming!
Can’t beat slide film in a tlr. Seeing the color transparencies is an extraordinary experience. Who did the nice processing for you?
I sent these two rolls to Fulltone Photo, fulltonephoto.com. I usually use Dwayne’s, but Fulltone charges less, so I gave them a tumble. My only disappointment with their service is that the scans are only 1024px square. Dwayne’s scans are about twice as large.
Jim, beautiful colors! I have never tried slide film, but you are making me want to!
It’s expensive, and it requires accurate metering, but you get such gorgeous results. The processed film strips, the transparencies themselves, are quite breathtaking to view.
It has been such long time since I used color slide film that I had forgotten about the details of processing. It was easy back then to get quick local processing and mounting the positives in projector-ready cardboard frames was routine. Viewing and editing the slides was easy with a little hand-held viewer which provided a nice, bright depiction. I also had a compact Leitz projector; I never subjected others to the dreaded vacation slide shows, but it was a great way to look at the images. Big name photographers did do slide presentations of their work to large audiences, and I recall attending several of those at the MOMA in NYC. Print publication editors liked the slide format as it gave a quick and easy way to evaluate photos, though that also placed a premium on getting the composition perfect right from the camera.
I still use the Epson 2450 flatbed scanner from those days; it has three negative carriers, including one for mounted slides.
I have a hand-held viewer here, it was my wife’s mother’s. She shot a lot of slide film in her Kodak Pony 828 (which my wife has) and in at least one 35mm camera (lost) from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, mostly Kodachrome.
I had an old Kodak projector for a while. It had a two-slide tray that you passed through the projector in front of the bulb. I used it to display some of my mother-in-law’s Kodachromes and they looked fabulous.
I have a theory, and I’m sure you will concur, that cameras loaded with expensive colour film, Velvia 50 in this example, are (more often) pointed at beautiful things (or people). Beautiful pictures, great film, a nice combination!
Probably because each shot is so expensive! Thanks for stopping by, Oliver!
Beautiful colors…..really great images!
Thank you!