5 frames with a Voigtländer Bessa R2, a Nokton 35/1,4 and a roll of an expired Kodak Portra 160

Tevere, the river that divides Rome in two, is one of my favourite places. No matter how much chaos there is in the ‘high places’: walking along the banks of the river puts you in another dimension, where time has no meaning and the pace slows down – Initially published on 35mmc.com

Anchored boats stand still, in stark contrast to the fast-moving streets, crowded with cars, bicycles, pedestrians and tourists who have returned in droves once the pandemic is over.

This is obviously a mirror image, but it looks as if it has been projected onto a digital screen.

And here is what was mirrored:

There are a lot of boats along the Tevere, and although they all look the same, they are not. On closer inspection, each one has a special feature that makes it unique.

So, if you are in Rome for a few days, you should definitely spend a few hours on the banks. There are plenty of interesting things to photograph and no ‘selfie locusts’ devastating the land.

At least not yet.

And now, the tech-talk.

Few things in the world are as subjective as opinions about lenses. That said, I really like the Cosina… sorry, Voigtländer Nokton 35/1.4. And when I say I like it, I mean it in absolute terms and not, as is often the case when such lenses are compared to their Leica equivalents, because despite their very low cost, they are just ‘good enough’. For me, the pictures are just as good with an analogue camera as they are with a digital one.

I digitised the film with my DSLR scanning rig (a Pentax K-1 mark II and a Pentax FA 100/2.8 macro), post-processed the DNGs with Darktable’s Negadoctor and finished the job with Pixelmator Pro.

A few pictures are underxposed and a bit murky, howver, despite its age, the expired roll of Portra delivered decent quality results and preserved the distinctive character of this particular film.

Now that I have switched back to a dedicated scanner (the Nikon LS4000), I have to say that the colour reproduction on the latter is better than on the DSLR.