shooting lomography film with christy ku


Following the epic fail first attempt with the Yashica T2, Christy is back on Old Cameras. This time she was equipped with my favourite camera - the Olympus 35RC. We needed a 400 speed film to match the overcast weather and the camera's 1/500 maximum shutter speed so we stopped by Lomography near Carnaby Street, London, to see what we could find.

We basically picked the cheapest option - the Lomography CN400CN stands for Colour Negative I guess. I'd shot this film once in the past and I remember not being too excited about the colours. I much prefer the 100.

As expected, Christy brought her A game. She's not really a film shooter - she uses a DSLR in real life. You can follow her on Instatram where she posts some of her lovely snaps.



Since Lomography don't currently offer the 1 hour service at their store, and we needed the photos developed and printed same-day, we had them done at Snappy Snaps in Covent Garden. To be honest, I was a little disappointed with the prints at first - which were a little on the dark side. They made it seem as though we'd under-exposed all the photos. It also looked like their software had applied some kind of filter to the photos that crushed the shadows completely. Now, while this may be desired with digital photos, film photos are great just the way they are - thank you very much.

Each Snappy Snaps is different to be fair. The one at Angel, Islington has produced some of the best consumer priced prints I've ever seen - beautiful colours and great detail. I guess the lab is only as good as the technicians.

I eventually decided to re-scan all the negatives at home on my Epson Perfection V500 and behold, the previously crushed details returned, and the colours improved a lot. I am probably just used to the warmth of AgfaPhoto Vista films, but I do find the Lomography CN400 a little cold, which actually suited some of the photos quite well - especially the shot of a very nice motorbike.


What a fun day though. Christy is such great company and quite the talented shooter. It was the first time she'd ever shot a rangefinder camera but she took to it with minimal instruction. We also walked around parts of London that I hadn't been to in years and was simply astonished how much change has occurred in the mean time - whole buildings removed to make way for the new railway system. London is seriously under construction.

Here's the video. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel Old Cameras.  Cheers.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

boots 500AF - part 1

praktica bx20

10 christmas gift ideas for film photographers