A few posts ago I said I would gladly procreate with this chemical product and indeed that offer is still there should I amass enough of the stuff to leap upon. But first I would hope to expose some of it in my Mamiya (or other medium format camera) first.

From what I've seen Ektar 100 is simply a gorgeous color negative film. Once again I have to admit to my relative innocence to film characteristics. I do not shoot charts, I simply do not have the experience to submit comparisons but I do love what I got back. These shots were the best that were developed from my week shooting only film on this trip and it will make me load up on this film for 120 and probably for 35mm too.

As you can see from this shot, Ektar 100 has very very fine grain. Users of slide film will probably say that the colours don't match the saturation you would get with slide but I think it is pretty damn good. Beautiful even. As a comparison, here is a medium format shot of a landscape I took later using Kodak 400VC.

Night shots too

Early on in my trip we decided to stop at the vacation spot of Osoyoos but without much time left in the evening except for a single stroll on the beach. After that when Sarah retired to the motel I was left to my devices. Osoyoos at night was filled with partying teenagers and local boys driving around in muscle cars. I had had enough of cars at that point so I wandered around the motel section seeing night shots. After being yelled at by one motel owner I returned to the one I stayed at -- a very lonely and humble affair (albeit close to the beach). I love the Coke machine, I love the motel sign, I love that it has an arch over the parking lot.

Many of these motels were built in the 70s or early 80s and still reflect that character. During that time when my father was an electronics distributor he would drag the family around the interior of BC visiting every stereo shop in every small town. We would stay in motels just like this.

A day after this I discovered my Mamiya's film transport gearing had busted so that stopped my plans to shoot mostly medium format. It only worked when I squeezed the crank tight to the body -- with the power winder -- forget it.

35mm Ektar

I also shot a roll of 35mm Ektar with mixed results, mostly because I chose to waste multiple shots bracketing to get one or two subjects. One of them is this butterfly.

I've left it in as scanned without any clean up so you can see the downside to film. For a final version I spent maybe five minutes removing dust, hairs and other developer errors from the shot. But one thing I appreciate is the saturation and deep tones of the colours. I think it is dandy. Most probably my digital version of this would be better right out of the box, though, so for technical shots requiring accuracy I would revert to my 30D.

*Incidentally, this shot was taken with the same Tamron 90mm Adaptall-2 macro lens that I do use on my 30D for shots like this. Through the miracle of adapters I can use the same lenses for both.