Some Ultrawide (12mm) Film Shots of Parkour

I recently shared a slideshow of parkour images, made with the Nikon Df. (Click Here) to see that post.

 

Today, I'll post some images I made at the same event, but these were all shot on the Zeiss SW film camera, with the Voigtlander 12mm f5.6 (LTM) ultra wide angle lens. These were all shot on Ilford HP5+ black and white film. I processed them myself.

 

I loved shooting parkour with this oddball lens. I have also done some fisheye shooting with parkour. (Click Here) to see that. In both cases, the wide angle of view is great for including a lot of the context for the sport. But, it also means that I have to get very close. So close, in fact, that there's a risk of interfering with the practitioner's concentration. That did happen once; thankfully, he thought it was funny. The last thing I want to do is interfere.

 

I think what I'm learning about shooting parkour is that variety is key. These wide angle shots tell a lot about the setting, but have relatively little detail of what the person is putting into the effort.

 

Approaching this with the standard photojournalistic search for a combination of wide, normal, and close up detail shots seems to be in order. I'm about to get a great opportunity to pull together a group of parkour practitioners, specifically to photograph them. My plan will be to get that variety, and to experiment with some ideas with flash, showing motion, etc. I've got some thinking to do.

 

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Summer Evening Games - Zeiss SW, Biogon 25mm f2.8

In order to test out a new film, Agfa APX400, that my friend Dennis Gallus gave me, I wandered into this place in Leesburg, Virginia one night last week. The place is called Shoes.

 

 

Literally located in an old shoe repair store, Shoes is now a coffee shop and restaurant. In the summer months, they open their outdoor dining area, complete with a bocce ball court. These nice people put up with me photographing their game as the sun went down.

 

 

 

This last one shows the emotion of that winning moment. That's about as exciting as bocce ball gets!

 

Shooting this roll at the box-indicated speed of iso 400, I found this roll to be mostly underexposed. I had to bring all of these shots up quite a bit, which emphasizes the grain. Now I'm not against grain, mind you. In fact, I kind of like the look.

 

I've now shot a test roll, exposing the film at 100, 200, and 400. We'll see if I can find the right exposure and developing times for this particular film. After all, I have 100' of it to shoot!

 

The beautiful Zeiss Biogon 25mm lens is a perfect mate for the slightly oddball Zeiss SW camera, a 35mm body with built-in meter, but no rangefinder. The SW is designed for use with wide lenses, where focusing is not critical because of huge depth of field. (Click Here) for an article about the SW on Shutterbug's website.

 

You can either just guess the distance to your subject and set your lens focus based on the markings on the lens body, or you can use an auxiliary rangefinder. I guessed. I think the 25mm is about the longest lens I could reliably use in this way, but could do okay with a 35mm in a pinch. It gets much easier when I mount up the Voigtlander 12mm f5.6. That lens has pretty much unlimited depth of field. You can set the focus once and shoot all day.

 

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So What Are You Reading? Agfa APX 400 Film Test

 

The Wide View, by Reed A. George

Zeiss SW, Voigtlander 12mm f5.6 Lens

Agfa APX 400 Film

 

I'm testing and getting my shooting parameters down for a new (discontinued) film, Agfa APX 400. My friend Dennis Gallus gave me (!) a 100' roll, which I've started to bulk load. My first roll came out underexposed and possibly underdeveloped (7 mins in D-76, 1:1). After seeing that, I read up about the film online, and found that many people used to shoot it at 200 instead of the indicated 400 speed. I will try that, and believe it will really help.

 

This shot was made with my widest lens, the Voigtlander 12mm f5.6. You can see my current book of choice in the foreground, Eight Girls Taking Pictures, by Whitney Ott. It is a fictional work, telling the story of eight female photographer/artists. I'm enjoying it very much.

 

Thanks again for the film, Dennis! I'll have it all worked out in another roll or two.

 

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Quick Report on Leica Store Event and Regional LHSA Meetup

I have been pretty active in the LHSA (International Leica Society) over the past year or so. One of the most rewarding things I've done is to schedule local meetups for LHSA members, roughly quarterly. These get a small yet dedicated attendance, and are always interesting.

 

(Click Here) to learn about and join LHSA.

 

For the most recent meeting, I decided to coordinate with the Washington DC Leica Store's photowalk event at DC's Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown. A large group of Leica users met for the Chinese New Year parade, a mix of LHSA members and non-members.

 

(Click Here) to go to the DC Leica Store's home page. They have a beautiful store, and regularly host interesting events for Leica users.

 

We borrowed someone's camera and grabbed a nice Leica user group shot:

 

 

Since my M9 was in for service, I decided to shoot all film for this event. I brought my lovely M3 double stroke with 50mm Summicron f2 version 3 lens attached, and, stretching the Leica definition, my Zeiss SW body and Zeiss Biogon 25mm f2.8 lens.

 

I had a first-ever experience during this event. My M3's film advance mechanism jammed on me, preventing me from using it after about 15 exposures. I'd never experienced a mechanical problem with a Leica camera. Not to worry, it's already back from Youxin Ye, who quickly serviced it at no cost, since I had bought the camera from him last year.

 

Need Leica film camera service? Get in touch with Youxin. He does a great job and has my full recommendation.

 

(Click Here) to go to Youxin's home page.

 

Since we were meeting the very next week to share results at the Leica Store, I make the mistake of taking my film to one of the only local drugstores who still process film. Their processor must have needed service; the color came out just ridiculously bad, and in an unpredictable way. It seems that some frames were okay, others were almost completely devoid of red tones (you don't want to lose your reds in a Chinese New Year image), with a cyan tone. So, I had to work pretty hard in Lightroom to come up with a few images worth sharing.

 

NOTE: None of this would have been a problem if I'd used my regular processing solution, The Darkroom. I've used their mail-in service many, many times, and never had a single issue.

 

(Click Here) to look into The Darkroom's first-rate film processing service.

 

So, after overcoming a few challenges, here are the images I decided to share at the DC Leica Store:

 

 

 

 

 

We had our regional LHSA meetup at the National Portrait Gallery, just down the street from the Leica Store, before heading there to share images.

 

It was actually a lot of fun shooting the Zeiss SW and Biogon 25mm wide angle lens. It required getting very close, but I like the feel of the images.

 

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