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UnortORTOdox (Ferrania)
This is an unorthodox use of an orthochromatic film (namely, Ferrania Orto.) It is not supposed to be the first choice for reportage or travel photography, but rules are made to be broken, aren’t they? As per the photo, it was taken in North End, Boston’s Little Italy.
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The Expired Film Series – Episode 1 – Kodak BW400CN – Dec. 2014 shot in June 2023
This is the first episode in a series documenting the use of expired film in various contexts (mainly in Rome, Italy). Episode 1 features a Kodak BW400CN shot with a Nikon 35TI in Rome (IT), between Piazzale Flaminio and Piazza di Spagna where the world premiere of the latest Tom Cruise motion picture —Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning— was going to be held. As the Nikon 35TI does not allow one to ‘pull’ film’s ISO and the exposure compensation did not work, it was impossible to overexpose the pictures. As a results, the blacks lack detail and show severe grain. Legal Notice Reuse is free for pro bono personal and educational…
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Content Creators
There are many reasons for the lack of details in this image.The main one is that this roll of Kodak BW400CN expired about 15 years ago. Secondly, the Nikon 35TI used for the shot was set to ‘P’ mode, which does not allow ISO to be changed, and exposure compensation is broken: this made it impossible to use longer exposure times, as it would have been necessary.
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Masters of Propaganda
In the heart of Rome, unbeknownst to the horde of tourists heading for Trinità dei Monti and the Fontana della Barcaccia, hidden in plain sight lies silent the headquarter of the Congregazione de propganda fide, the ante litteram master of modern propaganda.
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Coffee at Caffè Nero
On the technical side, this photo was a test of the X-T5 capability to handle scenes with both strong highlights and shadows without increasing the standard dynamic range. As per the quality, despite the similarity of the name, definitely no, it has nothing ado with the ‘Nero’ one can taste in Trieste which —unbeknownst to many — is the Italian capital of coffee.
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A Maserati GranTurismo
Another piece of Italy in Boston…
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A Ferrari 812 GTS
In a sea of wannaby italians, the original shines.
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Justice measured as the distance between Words and Facts
This photo, in itself, is nothing special. Bur it carries an implicit message about law and rights: the level of democracy in a country is measured by the distance between bold statements and the daily courtroom’s reality.
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A Cornhole Board – Independence Day Edition
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Elishéva live@Faneuil Hall
Boston is an incredibly vibrant city and hosts many live events in theatres and outdoor venues. At Boston’s Faneuil Hall, I took some pictures of Elishéva, a soulful jazz singer, while she was rehearsing.
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Tesla Coils@Boston Science Museum
Not a great photo, taken on the fly at Boston’s Science Museum. Nevertheless, Tesla Coils hold a special place in the hearts of early Command & Conquer players, so I had to take it.
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Helios 40-2 85/1,5 and Fuji X-T5: a sample
This is an early attempt at using an M42 mount Helios 40-2 85/1,5 coupled with a Fuji X-T5. The lens is not tack-sharp and the APS-C equivalent field of view is around 127mm, therefore the bokeh effect becomes less evident. The results, however, are pleasaning.
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Guarding Democracy
Maybe it is just me, but I couldn’t get the best out of the Ilford XP2 Super 400.
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FUJIFILM X-T5 RAF have problems with Affinity Photo 2.1
As this video shows, when opened in Affinity Photo 2.1, an RAF generated by a Fujifilm X-T5 shows a vertical stripe and a slightly higher resolution. The problem does not occur if the file is pre-processed with Iridient Transformer and converted to DNG, or if the file is processed with Pixelmator Pro 3, Lightroom Classic or the latest version of Capture One.
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A pouch for the Fuji XF 150-600
The JJC Deluxe Lens Pouch model 811 fits perfectly with the Fuji XF 150-600 with the handle mounted and the lens hood reversd. It also leaves some room for filters, SD cards or small accessories.
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Abstract
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Niccolò Fabi – Meno Per Meno Tour 2023 – Live@Teatro Massimo, Pescara
Covering Niccolò Fabi’s concert for Rockol, gave me the opportunity to test an X-T4 with an XF 150-600. The image quality is on a par with the X-T3. This was to be expected. However, I have some reservations about the autofocus. The lens also needs to be examined in more detail before I can form an informed opinion.
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Another experiment, now with a Kodak Portra 400
This is a DSLR scan of an old Kodak Portra 400 roll of film shot during a 2015 concert by John De Leo Grande Abarasse. The editing with Affinity Photo was quite challenging, however, the result is a fair rendition of the film aesthetic.
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Partner in Glam
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Processing DSLR-digitized film with and without Pentax K-1 Monochrome Custom Image profile
Digital Camera Utility 5.0 is a pain to use on a Mac with Monterey. It is slow and laggy. Its only use is to get the photo as shot, with the custom image profiles embedded in a K-1 (and other recent Pentax DSLRs), and export it as a 16-bit tiff for further processing.One might wonder, however, whether editing a RAW file without going through the DCU —and thus losing the custom image profile— would produce lower quality results. We are about to find out.The test is quite demanding, as it starts with a shot from an Ilford SP2 Super 400 (note: this is not a true B&W film, as it…
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Moonshot with a handheld Fuji XF150-600 and a Fuji X-T3
This picture is taken, handheld, with the following parameters: Focal Lenght 600mm, Aperture F/8, ISO 6400, Exposure 1/300s. Even if shot with a Fuji X-T3 (that has no In-Body Stabilisation) the resulting image is very good.
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Tell me something I do not know…!
This hip shot is the result of a complicated process. It was taken with an expired Ilford XP2 Super 400, a Voigtländer Bessa R2 and a Voigtländer Nokton 35mm f/1.4. Focus was at infinity. There was no time to frame it properly, so in post it was necessary to rearrange the composition with a generous crop.Digitising the film with my homemade rig required 2 stops of underexposure with plus or minus 1 stop of bracketing.The DNG was first processed through DXO Pure Raw, then adjusted and cropped in Affinity Photo, and finally adjusted for simmetry in DXO Viewpoint.
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Coats
Getting rid of film noise is a recurring necessity when shooting film at (relatively) high ISO.In this photo the negative was digitised using a Pentax K-1 Mark I and a Pentax FA 100/2,8 Macro. Then, before inverting the curves to make a positive, it was fed into DxO PureRaw3 (by the way, it properly recognized the camera and lens). Finally, in Affinity Photo Develop Persona’s Details tab, once the curves were inverted, it was necessary to tweak the Noise Reduction options by setting Luminance to 50% and Luminance Details to 0.
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Powermeters
This photo was taken with an Ilford XP2 Super 400, a Voigtländer Bessa R2 and a Voigtländer 35mm f/1.4 II lens. The film was digitised using a Pentax K-1 and a Pentax FA 100/2.8 Marco mounted on a custom-built rig. The resulting raw was processed in Affinity Photo. In Develop Persona, first the image was turned in black and white, then the master curve was intverted and finally exposure, contrast and other parameters were tweaked.
