Here’s another Delta roll, pushed one stop. I think, after experimenting for a few rolls, I’m not a massive fan of pushing. Twice, now, I have looked over my negatives and wanted just a little less contrast, a little more detail in both shadow and highlight. Further, although the effect is neat I think the film grain is just a little too intense, especially when pushing these ISO 400 box speed rolls. Oh well, live and learn!

Most of this roll is shot in the hour just before and just after sunrise, on the harbor front. This did not help the above issues — having a dearth of light (especially before sunrise) made many of the contrast problems worse.

Camera: Ricoh KR-10 Super

Lens:

Film: Delta 400 Professional, shot at ISO 800

Post Processing: GIMP

A trichrome of the sunrise over the harbor. Very happy with this, the chromatic artifacts weren’t massively intensified by choppy waves or many clouds, and the sun itself is giving a nice set of diffraction spikes.
A trichrome from blue hour, in which there really wasn’t enough light for the shot. This one is much more heavily edited than previous trichromes, and the green channel is nearly entirely shifted to other hues. I think that itself is interesting enough to feature!
I think I am most proud of this frame. I finally got back to the footbridge that I wanted to shoot portrait from a month ago, and behold! It was the correct decision! I like the contrast (in this shot only) and the footprints left in the early morning dew. There’s a real story here!
Happy with this frame, too, as we are starting to get more light from the sunrise. The consistent ripples (left in the wake of some rowers) gave a nice bit of detail to the water, and the wharf is interesting enough. Plus, there is still plenty of detail on the peninsula across the harbor. My takeaway: when shooting black and white, aim for golden hour rather than blue hour!
Last month I proclaimed my disappointment with this wooden dock. This morning I got a slightly nicer composition, so I suppose I can forgive it. A little.

Chronological

Starting off the roll with an attempt at capturing the moon. I relied on the internal light meter, which suggested a fast, but apparently not fast enough, shutter. I think if I were to try this again, I would crack to 1/1000s, and perhaps stop down the aperture even more to get some detail on the moon’s surface.
I tried a similar shot but with a much longer exposure, capturing some details on the wispy clouds (although, of course, now the moon is fully blown out.)
A nighttime shot of First Church, now from across the street to capture the entire spire. There’s some motion blur here, as the shutter speed was down at 1/15s. This blur is a combination of using a monopod style of stabilization and the Ricoh mirror mechanism being so aggressive. Between shutters of 1/5s and 1/30s I’ve found substantial blur using this camera.
Now moving on to the morning of photography mentioned above. Here, we are deep into blue hour, about half an hour before sunrise.
Again, a little blurry (the same issues as the First Church frame above), but I like the contrast of the soft dawn and harsh artificial light in the doorway.

Here’s one of the frames that is simply too dark. The shadows here have so few details it’s near impossible to recover anything useful. I think shooting at box speed would have helped, but perhaps the composition simply could have been better.

A little spoonbill (?) that woke up from their sleep. Sorry to capture you just our of bed, friend.
Using the zoom lens gave a really nice shot of the spoonbill, including the ripples of the river behind it.
Here’s the trichrome from above but now shot at 50mm. I still like this composition, even in black and white.
Marina’s are always interesting, perhaps because they’re somewhat novel to your average person. Plus, boats are simply interesting objects to look at. Maybe that’s just me. The rising sun reflecting off the windows across the harbor gives a really nice piece of storytelling here.
Here’s a couple of interesting frames. There was a school of fish that occasionally breached the surface, and I was hoping to capture that moment. I didn’t, but I tried. The ripples left are still quite nice!
I stayed here for about ten or so minutes trying to get the shot. It was quite difficult to react in time to the brief moment! I would say it was about as difficult as shooting fish in a… actually, never mind.
An oystercatcher was just as interested in that school of fish. I like the contrast here, too, and the zoom lens made this a pretty nice composition.
Rowers, up earlier than dawn, have my greatest respect. I think the silhouette was the right choice here, getting any detail on the rowers themselves would ruin the story.
Ah, this shot. It doesn’t come across as well I was hoping, but the distorted rocks in the center of the frame are all beneath the water, right at the waters edge. If I could have somehow emphasized that there is a transition from air to water better, that would have given the right context within the frame. As it is, the shot is just a little confusing.
A bird in flight! The rule of thumb is that sports should be shot at 1/1000s to capture the action without motion blur. This seagull must have been moving, then, as even at 1/1000s it is still blurry!

I revisited the same bird platform as last month, but now equipped with a zoom lens I could get the composition I wanted.
A ‘gull came to say hello! Swimming along, I was happy to get the more subtle ripples from its wake.
This is, surprisingly enough, a different seagull from before! This one was more aggressive and landed just a meter or two from me, squawking the whole time. Sorry, buddy, I’ll just take some frames and leave you be.
Very happy with the detail on the feathers here.
Last month I proclaimed my disappointment with this wooden dock. This morning I got a slightly nicer composition, so I suppose I can forgive it. A little.
Another action shot of a bird in flight. This was taken so in the moment I didn’t stop down the aperture, and overexposed the frame. Still, despite the muddy background, I like the shot!
Another attempt at a macro flower, with the same problem as the last roll: the leaves are in focus, but the flower is not! I suspect my camera has just a very slight misalignment, and the viewfinder and film require subtly different focal planes. This isn’t a problem for infinity shots, but for anything macro it is a real issue! Note to self: focus just a little in front of the flower next time.