Day 38: SF Beer Week!
Day 38: February 7, 2014: Concourse Exhibition Center
Hmm, somehow I didn’t end up taking very many photos this evening. Perhaps it was the free-flowing beer.
Yes, tonight was a trip to the opening gala for SF Beer Week at the Concourse Exhibition Center. Here, after a lengthy wait outside, we were handed glasses and turned loose to sample a crazy amount of tasty tasty beers. The Pliny was kicked in minutes, but some of the rare aged beers stole the show for me. Definitely worth the price of admission.
Also, unexpectedly, I ran into a guy carrying the same 20+ year old waterproof film camera that I was. I’ve never seen one in the wild before.
Beer brings us all together. 🙂
(Top photo: Expired Arista EDU 400 Black and White in the little waterproof Canon Sureshot A1 SLC P22, Bottom photo: absurdly expired Kodak 800 film in my freebie Pentax K1000)
Day 37: Turtle Hill
Day 37: February 6, 2014: Turtle Hill AKA Grandview Park
Not as well known as some of those other hills, this is of my favorite spots to catch a sunset, on those fogless days when the Sunset actually has a sunset. Here, on a clear day, you can see for miles south, north, and even out to the Farallones. This is the hilltop where I get away from the crowds on the other hilltops. :p
Sure, it’s out there a little ways, but it’s just one of the many things you’re missing out on if you haven’t made the trip out to the Sunset lately.
(Cinestill 800T in the Canon EOS 3)
Day 36: Fenway Market
Day 36: February 5, 2014: The Castro
The Fenway Market: My localest convenience store. It was a great spot to stop for beer/wine/snacks, or a few other items on the walk up the hill on those numerous occasions when I find myself stranded by the 33. Sadly, I recently discovered that this spot closed down this May, the second of three businesses in this spot near my home to go vacant. Sign of the times? Did they get priced out of the neighborhood? Will these spaces be filled? Only time will tell. For now, there’s one less option in the already sparse neighborhoods up the hill.
(Cinestill 800T in the Canon EOS3 on a rainy night)
Day 34: High Speed Long Exposures
Day 34: February 3, 2014: Billy Goat Hill
Heading home around sunset today, I opted to stop at a park just off my usual commute route, Billy Goat Hill. You may know it as the one with the big rope swing. If you don’t know it as the one with the big rope swing, you should definitely go try the big rope swing.
No rope swing for me today, though. I was here for a few photos of the city (and the rope swing was in use). Normally, I would have chosen a different film for this scene, but I still had the Cinestill 800T in my camera, and was keen to test it in new conditions, so why not see what it can do here?
I kind of set myself up for failure on this shot: There’s really little justifiable reason to use a high speed film for a tripod-based long exposure, where the shutter speed doesn’t matter. Sure, I’ll occasionally go to 800ISO or higher on my digital camera to catch stars on a dark night, but getting clean photos at high ISO levels is really one of digital’s major advantages. With film, you’re just asking for the small details to disappear in a sea of grain, right?
Maybe not. Honestly, I’m pleasantly surprised with the way this came out. ‘Tis a bit grainy, but I’m overall not displeased with the look. Sure, zooming way in, the far off details aren’t as crisp as they might be from a digital camera or lower speed film, but I’m digging the colors and all of those little halos that I mentioned the other day.
(Canon EOS3 with Cinestill 800T)
Day 33: A Rainy Day in the Neighborhood
Day 33: February 2, 2014: Twin Peaks
Occasionally, I can be a bit of a perfectionist…every now and then. That definitely makes this project hard for me some days. It’s uncomfortable to let go and post something I’m not all that happy with, but I also realize that it’s good to force myself to do uncomfortable things. If we never leave our comfort zone, how can we expect to grow?
With that, here’s a mediocre image of an awesome car, taken on a short rainy walk around my neighborhood. With digital, I’d probably have taken a ton of photos and edited the crap out of one until I was sort of happy with it. I try not to do much editing on the film, though, and it’s expensive to waste, so I only came home with two photos today. This is my favorite of the two, so to the internet it goes! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go wander back over to my comfort zone for a few minutes. :p
(Taken with waterproof Canon Sureshot A1 SLC P20 using Fuji Superia 200 from a Walgreens in Washington. Believe it or not, most Walgreens still sell a few rolls of film. Good to know in a pinch)
Day 32: Impossible Christmas
Day 32: February 1, 2014: Crocker Amazon
Today was the day that joyous holiday of Impossible Christmas arrived at the southern edge of San Francisco.
Today was the day of Impossible Christmas festivities in southern San Francisco. It’s kind of a long story, but iXmas is a fast growing holiday dreamed up by a couple friends of mine that is kind of a secret santa exchange of gifts that don’t exist in the real world, if that makes any sense. Participants come up with a list of things they’ve always wished for, but are impossible to procure due to expense, discontinuation, impracticality, the laws of physics, etc, and are then tasked with making someone else’s impossible wish a reality. It’s a great way to follow up the commercialism of the holidays with a little creativity, craftiness, and perhaps some interpretive dance.
The photo above chronicles the appearance of the otamatone, which quite possibly could be the most amazing instrument ever created. It was not part of the festivities, but just happened to make a surprise appearance, to the delight of all.
The other photo is the view north of Sutro and the hills from the far edge of San Francisco, using some really badly expired film. Just a little grainy on that one..
(Cinestill 800T in the Canon EOS 3 and some Kodak 800 Gold film that probably expired almost 10 years ago, with the Pentax K1000)
Day 31: Friday Night Drinking and Shooting Club
Day 31: January 31, 2014: The Marina.
Yes, THAT Marina.
Tonight was an adventure with the Friday Night Drinking and Shooting Club to that little slice of San Francisco that the rest of SF avoids.
This Flickr group was the first I started joining when I picked up my camera several years back and it’s still going, albeit a bit less often these days. Basically the group gets together whenever someone is motivated to organize an outing, chooses a neighborhood, and goes out on a bar/flask crawl and photowalk. It’s hard to say what led me to this group (definitely the drinking), but it was a great crew to discover.
Over the years, people coming and going, Yahoo’s neglect of Flickr’s community aspect, changing schedules, and a number of other factors have led the group to shrink quite a bit in numbers and frequency from it’s peak. Now it tends to be a once-every-few-months outing, generally drawing a small cohesive group of usually less than a dozen. It’s still a great crew, and it’s always fun to get back together, even if I tend to go light on the photo taking during most of our outings these days…
The Marina has been suggested as a neighborhood many times, but generally been passed over for a neighborhood with a more enjoyable bar scene. It finally happened, though. We finally went, and it wasn’t that bad (although after our first stop at the Horseshoe Tavern, we did end up spending most of our time in Liverpool Lil’s and the Presidio Social Club far from the Marina). I didn’t take a ton of photos, again, but it was great to catch up with everyone, and I got to play a bit more with the Cinestill in low light. I think I was underexposing a bit here: I might need to give it a longer exposure at night next time.
(Cinestill 800T in the Canon EOS 3)
Day 30: Java Beach
Day 30: January 30, 2014: Outer Sunset
What do we miss when we stick to that which is familiar? How will we ever know if we don’t try something new?
In that spirit, helped by a bit of boredom with my usual locales, I took a new way home tonight, swinging over to the Great Highway, following the beach down, and eventually settling in for a wander around the end of Judah in the Outer Sunset.
The N-Judah happens to turn around down here by Java Beach, and it turns out that my absurdly large collection of Muni photos has been stagnant for a while, so this seemed like the perfect place to play some more with the Cinestill in high speed/low light situations.
Again, for the first roll, I’m quite pleased. It handled the dark like a champ, getting plenty enough light from the coffee shop, street lights, and Muni to keep a reasonable speed; the halos are there, but I kind of like the look they add; and I’m digging the colors. Not to mention, digital can’t touch the way the film handles that lovely neon.
(More Cinestill 800T in the Canon EOS3)
Day 29: A Recurring Theme
Day 29: January 29, 2014: Tank Hill
If you follow this project through the year, you’ll probably be seeing a fair amount of this tower. This is my symbol of San Francisco. Not the bridges, not the skyline, not that pointy building downtown, but this, the giant red and white claw reaching out of the fog from one of the City’s highest peaks.
No matter where I’ve been and how long I’ve been gone, whether I’m coming from the North, South, East, or even from the air, Sutro is there to welcome me home, standing high, reaching up through the fog as though the City were trying dig itself out of a moist cloudy grave, and always calmly blinking away. Don’t ever change, Sutro. Don’t ever change.
This was another shot from the new Cinestill 800T film. Of note is the appearance of large halos around the red lights on the tower. One of the main difficulties in adapting the cinema film for a still film process is the different methods used to prevent this halation, which results from light passing through the film, and reflecting back off of the other side of the film or the back of the camera, coming back through to re-expose the film with the effect you see here. Cinema film generally uses a coating that isn’t compatible with normal still film C41 development, so it has to be sent to labs that specialize in cinema development. Unfortunately, there are few of these labs around and they prefer to handle batches of many feet of film at a time, so finding a way to develop small batches of 36 frames is difficult at best. To get around the problem with this film, they’ve stripped that coating off ahead of time, leaving a film that can easily be developed in any standard lab, or at home if you have the equipment. Of course, one of the side effects is the loss of the anti-halation layer, so bright lights are prone to these halos. Is this a flaw, or is it a unique feature to get creative with? That depends on what you’re going for, I suppose, but I prefer to think positive. 🙂
(Cinestill 800T in the new Canon EOS 3)
Day 28: Cinestill 800T
Day 28: January 38, 2014: Upper Market
More experimentation today! This time with a new camera from Craigslist and a new film that I heard about on the internets and acquired from Glass Key Photo down in the Lower Haight.
That film is Cinestill 800T: The result of much experimentation by a couple of clever Southern California based photographers, the Brothers Wright. Basically, it’s a modified version of Kodak’s 500T Tungsten white balanced cinema film, adapted for use in 35mm still cameras and standard C41 color negative still film development.
This film caught my attention right away, since this film project has found me missing the ability to shoot in low light on the streets. I’ve been searching for a decent high speed film to play with, and my preferences tend toward cooler color schemes, so this seemed like a natural fit.
I also recently acquired a Canon EOS 3, one of their last film cameras, from someone near San Jose on Craigslist. It’s big and shiny and actually seems to have more features than my new digital camera. I assume it was originally pretty expensive, but lucky for me, film cameras are dirt cheap these days. 🙂
For a few quick test shots, I’m pretty happy with both so far, and curious what else they can do. More tests to come!
(Cinestill 800T in the new Canon EOS 3)
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