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As Seen on Ferrania Film’ Stories section…
A selection of the pictures I took this year in Boston and Tokyo has been published on the official Film Ferrania website, in the ‘Stories’ section.
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An experiment with Dall-E, ChatGPT and a Nissan S8
This is an experiment based on a picture of a Nissan S8 taken at the Nissan Crossing in Ginza.First, I asked Dall-E to describe what he ‘sees’. Then I started asking questions to locate the place where the showroom should be, being careful not to give any hints.ChatGPT did not give a correct answer on the first try, but eventually it did. Me: Describe this photo ChatGPT: This photo features a futuristic-looking race car displayed indoors, presumably within a showroom or an exhibition space. The car is designed with an aggressive aerodynamic shape, with large, protruding front winglets and an expansive rear wing, characteristic of high-speed, high-performance vehicles, possibly a…
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How Privacy Hysteria Killed Street-Photography
At other times I would have dismissed this image as ‘out of focus’ and unusable. Just another missed shot caused by poor focusing technique on a fully manual film camera. Nowadays, however, I have begun to change my attitude towards these kinds of blurred images because of the privacy hysteria affecting the practice of street photography. There have been cases where people have been found guilty of harassment for covertly taking pictures in public spaces, but street photography has nothing to do with criminal behaviour. There is a huge difference between taking sneaky, random, meaningless pictures of people on the street and trying to freeze sketches of life to tell…
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The Kiev 60 and a fix for the frame spacing issue
There are several fixes for the Kiev 60‘s frame spacing problem, from taping the film spool to making it thicker to fine-tuning the film transport mechanism. However, while these solutions may work well, they are not guaranteed to work all the time.Master Adriano Lolli found the Columbus egg in one of his masterstrokes: he drilled a hole in the back of the camera in the exact position where the frame number appears and applied a red filter, just in case. In this way, after the first full exposure, the shutter could be cocked in tiny increments until the film number appeared in the hole. The only drawback of this solutions…
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AI or not AI?
The original title of this photograph was ‘When the wait to see the doctor is too long’, and it was intended to illustrate how the ‘framing’ of an image into a particular concept changes – or creates from scratch – its overall meaning.However, when a friend of mine saw it, he commented, ‘Is this made by AI?’ Making a pun with my initials, I replied ‘No, it is not AI, it is AM’.Joking aside, what made me think is that this image could not have been further from being AI-generated: it was shot on film, with a twenty-year-old point-and-shoot camera loaded with a fifteen-year-old Ilford HP5 400 roll, yet it…
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On Composition. Or: the eye sees what the mind is prepared to comprehend
This shot, taken during the Italian Road Running National Championships, is a fair application of the French philosopher Henri Bergson aphorism to composition: the eye sees what the mind is prepared to comprehend. In fact, although there is not a direct, cause-and-effect relationship between this image and renaissance painting, the learned observer may find some connection with works such as, for instance, Michelangelo’s Battaglia di Cascina. The connection between present and past may be loose, but this does not affect the principle. When I framed the shot I something ‘clicked’ in my mind and I instinctively decided to press the button. Photography (at least in all its variations, such as…
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Fujifilm XF 18-120 just snapped in two
Everything breaks down eventually, but there are different kinds of breakdowns and different kinds of reasons for them.On the one hand, you cannot expect a product to be indestructible and you must take proper care to maintain its efficiency. As I said, it will break eventually, but probably not in an unexpected way.On the other hand, when you buy a ‘professional’ or simply an expensive product, you expect the overall quality of the build to match the price.Enter the Fuji XF 18-120. It costs around 900 Euros. Not a steep price compared to Leica, Zeiss or even Canon lenses, and far more expensive than Chinese brands such as Viltrox (which…
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The Expired Film Series – Episode 4 – Ferrania Solaris 100 – Dec. 2006 shot in August 2023
This is the fourth episode in a series documenting the use of expired film in various contexts. Episode 4 features a Ferrania Solaris 100 shot with a Voigtländer Vitoret DR and a Color Lanthar 50/2,8 in the vicinity of the sea of the city of Pescara (Abruzzi) .The film was overexposed by one stop as it is customary with expired film to allow more light to impress it.The results are just subpar, however the pictures have some sort of ‘individual’ trait.
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The Expired Film Series – Episode 3 – Ilford HP5 400 – Dec. 2010 shot in August 2023
This is the third episode in a series documenting the use of expired film in various contexts (mainly in Rome, Italy). Episode 3 features an Ilford HP5 400 shot with a Pentax ME Super and a smc Pentax A 28/2,8 in various parts of the city of Pescara (Abruzzi) . The film was overexposed by one stop as it is customary with expired film to allow more light to impress it. The results are subpar and also in this case the blacks lack details and pictures show severe grain.
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Hidden in Plain Sight. A Japanese Journey
Although I have a lot of pictures from my various trips to Japan, organising them into a book is a challenge. The photos themselves are good enough to deserve publication. However, most of them are affected by a ‘déjà-vu’ effect. People on the subway, crowded crossroads, striking contrasts between modernity and the past, or between rural areas and highly urbanised ones, pop culture vs. business culture… no matter how hard I try, every single photo gives the feeling that someone has already done it. I am neither an anthropologist nor an expert on Japanese society, so I have no reasonable explanation for this feeling. Perhaps it is simply a matter…
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The Expired Film Series – Episode 2 – Ilford XP2Super 400 – Nov. 2017 shot in May 2023
This is the second episode in a series documenting the use of expired film in various contexts (mainly in Rome, Italy). Episode 2 features an Ilford XP2Super 400 shot with a Voigtlander Bessa R2 and a Voigtlander Nokton 35/1,4 in Rome (IT), between Colle del Quirinale and Piazza di Montecitorio. Also in this case, but this time by mistake, film’s ISO and the exposure compensation were not adapted to allow more light to impress the film. Once again, the blacks lack detail and show severe grain.
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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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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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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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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.
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Editing a photo taken with a Carl Zeiss Jena 135/4 Sonnar and a Fuji X-T3
A vintage Carl Zeiss Jena 135/4 Sonnar whose RF mount has been replaced with a Fuji X mount by Adriano Lolli (https://www.adrianololli.com).Coupled with a Fuji X-T3, it delivers pleasant results. Post production is highly subjective, so the final outcome might no be ‘acceptable’ to some taste. Still, the lens is very good.
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A sample of the Carl Zeiss Jena 135/F4 Sonnar and a Fuji X-T3
This photo was taken with an old Carl Zeiss Jena 135/4 Sonnar whose Contax RF mount was replaced by a Fuji X mount by Master Adriano Lolli.
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Unattainable 1:1 magnification with the JJC FDA S-1 and Micro Nikkor 60 2,8
The JJC FDA S-1 does not allow a 1:1 magnification with the Micro Nikkor 60 2,8. It only reaches a smaller factor (about 80%.The probable reason is the excessive lenght of the original step-down ring.Using a thinner step-down ring, as it has been done in this video, does not improve the outcome.
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Processing a DSLR Digitised Black and White Film with Affinity Photo
This videos shows how to process a Black and White film digitised with a DSLR camera.The process starts from opening the RAW file in Affinity Photo’s Develop Persona. In short and in order, the steps are:
