Adventures in Film - Kentmere 100

June 11, 2014

Adventures in Film - Kentmere 100

I am endeavouring to use as many different films as much as I can in an effort to identify the subtle differences between each so that when I come up with a scathingly brilliant idea for a project, I am aware of which film will best suit my needs!

For these particular Jordy Safari Adventures, I chose a Kentmere 100. The company that produces Kentmere is also the mother company for Ilford.

This is the first B&W film that I have used in my Konica Minolta Dynax 40 and I was very keen to see how they turned out, especially since the last film I used (Fujicolor C200) turned out just great! The lens I have on the camera is the Minolta AF 28-100 f3.5-5.6 zoom. It has been giving me some really nice results!

The Kentmere ISO100 film is billed as a fine grained, sharp film and for most of these photos that is the case, (although, after reviewing these, I think that the Fuji NEOPAN Acros 100 is finer and sharper).

There are a couple from this roll that appeared more grainier than others. I was a bit perplexed why this happened at first but have figured out that those photos were overexposed slightly in camera (in too much of a hurry to get the shot and forgot to change the settings to suit!) and I believe that the wonderful studio that scans my negatives, has probably corrected for this during the scan (the highlights on a B&W photo will show grain more than the shadows, that is why the sky etc will appear a little grainier than the subject). Still, I have to say, I find that grain adds to the mood of a film photo, gives great texture and a more natural look. Many digital editing software programmes are now adding plugins and updating the software to emulate film grain!

My 2 fav photos from this roll are 'Surfs Up at Newcastle' and 'Random Couple at the Bogey Hole'.

The 'Surfs Up' photo showcases the pumping station at the Newcastle Ocean Baths and a surfer keen to get into the waves. I focused onto the pumping station and re-positioned the camera for the composition. You can see how sharp the pumping station is in focus and I love the soft grain in the sky highlights.

The 'Random Couple' photo was taken at the Bogey Hole during a walk in a lunch break from my work. The seas were unusually calm this particular day and it was low tide. I was getting some seascape photos when this couple walked down off the rocks to the swimming hole. We were chatting for a while before I got the idea to ask if they would mind me taking their photo. They were very gracious and patient whilst I adjusted settings and had to remember how to turn on the onboard flash to get some fill light. I didn't record the settings I used for this photo unfortunately because I had to get back to work!

One thing I would love to do with my film photography is setup a dark room of my own eventually, so I have complete artistic control over my work. Still not sure if I would get an enlarger setup for printing but would definitely purchase a film scanner to digitise my film work. When I edit my digitised film negatives, I only stick to those edit methods that I know can be used in a wet darkroom. Surprisingly, most of my scanned negatives only ever need a slight contrast adjustment or benefit from the dodge and burn tools (which are bonafide dark room methods also!)

For my next project, I have loaded an Ilford PANF Plus 50 into my Pentax. It is a slower film and I am hoping to get some long exposure photos from it. THAT will be exciting!

I hope you are all well.

Jordy

With the exception of the photo 'Random Couple', these photos are for sale. Contact me if you are interested.

All photos on this Blog are Copyright Life with Jordy Photography and are not to be used without permission.