Using Film
Shooting with an old film camera isn’t as easy as using the newer digital cameras of today. These old cameras don’t focus for you, and if your eyesight is as bad as mine, it is a challenge to bring your subject into sharp focus. The camera doesn’t provide exposure settings for you either. You must determine what your settings are going to be by using a handheld light meter, and even then, there is a good chance that you will get it wrong. Top it off when using film, there is something that is called reciprocity failure. Depending upon which film type you are using, you will have to increase your exposure if your exposure time is greater than 1 second. All this, and the fact that we are human and make mistakes greatly decreases your odds of coming home with a good image. But in my opinion when you do get everything right, the result is still better then what you can get with digital.
Image No 534
I recently got my film back from the developer, and I did manage to get a couple of shots. This shot is on the way to a waterfall on Blue Ridge Parkway. I love trees that have character, I just couldn’t pass this one up. It is said that the Indians bent trees to mark trails or meeting places. This is Cherokee country, but this tree doesn’t look old enough to be one of them.
Image No 535
The shot above is of Skinny Dip Falls on Blue Ridge Parkway. Guessing by the name it must have been a place for people to go skinny dipping, though I never seen anyone there for that purpose.
Image No 536
Just off of the parkway on Rt 276 is Looking Glass Falls in the Pisgah National Forest. I saw this one spot that I wanted to shoot from so I navigated the wet rocks to shoot this scene with the film camera. I would have liked to step back a couple feet but that wasn’t an option.
Image No 537
I backed up to an overlook to shoot this sunset. I believe that this was shot from the overlook ‘Graveyard Fields’, mile post 418.8.
“The Marker Tree”, Image No 534 taken on Mamiya RZ67 Pro, Mamiya 65mm L-A lens, Fujichrome Provia 100F,
“Skinny Dip Falls”, Image No 535 taken on Mamiya RZ67 Pro, Mamiya 65mm L-A lens, Kodak E100VS
“Looking Glass Falls”, Image No 536 taken on Mamiya RZ67 Pro, Mamiya 50mm lens, Fujichrome Provia 100F
“Blue Ridge Parkway Sunset”, Image No 537 taken on Mamiya RZ67 Pro, Mamiya 100-200mm lens, Fujichrome Velvia 100
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