Argentina & Chile Holiday
After many many years from not being back and roughly 30 years since seeing my dad i finally make it back to Argentina. Along with the kids meeting my family for the first time. Also getting to spend some time in Chile exploring the south.
It had roughly been 2 to 3 years since we had travelled overseas due to you know what. So we decided we should take a trip when school finishes at the end of 2022, Seb would have finished high school at that stage and Lucas would have finished for the year. Conveniently both work for my wife and I shuts down at the end of the year for roughly a week and a half.
So the question was where do we go?
So i initially thought Japan again (can never over do Japan), but because it will likely be our last trip overseas with Seb due to the fact that a 17 year old generally doesnt want to do anything with their parents for any amount of extended time i thought why not take a trip to South America and introduce my side of the family to my kids who they have never met and to my father who non of them have ever met. Then also head over to see my wifes family.
So it was decided, we spend 9 or so days in Argentina and the rest in Chile were we can also do some sight seeing.
Before we get on with the trip we need to talk about the camera gear i was taking with me of course, this is more about the photography than my poor story telling skills.
I wanted to keep it reasonably light so i took my Contax S2b with my Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm F2.8 on the film side of things and my new to you Fujifilm X-Pro3 (purchased Nov 2021). With my X-Pro3 i took my Fujifilm 27mm f2.8, 35mm f1.4, 16mm f1.4 and 56mm f1.2. Although the lens that was on the camera the most was my 27mm f2.8 pancake, it just made the camera so much more compact. This also confirms that i prefer the 35mm full frame focal length (23mm on an APSC sensor), i think its the perfect all round lens for travel. I found the 27mm a tad too cropped in and i figure the 23mm f1.4 will get added to my lens arsenal very soon. But the 27mm was the closest to that focal length in my lens bag which is likely why it sat on the camera for most of the trip.
Fujifilm X-Pro3 with the 27mm f2.8 while on a river crossing in Castro
Without going too deep into the X-Pro3, one of the things ive loved is the recipes you can create with the various simulations. Of course if you have a Fujifilm you need to go to fujixweekly and get started with some recipes. Since i got the body ive been playing with 2 recipes from fujixweekly which is the Kodak Tri-X (very close to the real thing) and a Nostalgia recipe which i came across on Youtube with iamtongue tweaked version of a fujixweekly recipe. Ive been playing with these recipes for the last 6 months and made slight tweaks and reached a point that im happy with.
All the images youll see in this blog entry are jpg’s made with these recipes, slight tweaks like contrast and brightness in post but thats about it.
Here are my tweaked recipes:
Kodak Tri-X 400
- Film Simulation: Acros + G filter
- Grain Effect: Strong Large
- Color Chrome Effect: Strong
- Color Chrome FX Blue: Off
- White Balance: Daylight - R:9, B:-9
- Dynamic Range: DR100
- D Rand Priority: Off
- Tone Curve: H:0, S:+2
- Sharpness: -1
- Noise Reduction: -4
- Clarity: +4
- Exposure Compensation: +1
- ISO: 1600+
Nostalgia
- Film Simulation: Classic Chrome
- Grain Effect: Strong Large
- Color Chrome Effect: Strong
- Color Chrome FX Blue: Strong
- White Balance: Auto - R:2, B:-5
- Dynamic Range: DR200
- D Rand Priority: Off
- Tone Curve: H:-1, S:-1
- Color: +2
- Sharpness: -1
- Noise Reduction: -4
- Clarity: +2
- Exposure Compensation: +1
- ISO: 1600+
Back to the trip, we flew into Santiago from Sydney as there is no direct flight to Buenos Aires with Qantas, and from there we flew to Buenos Aires.
Heading to Buenos Aires from Santiago
Now this wasnt long after Argentina won the World Cup and the Argentinian team was due to arrive in Argentina. Lucky for us we arrived in Buenos Aires the day after the team arrived, otherwise it would have been chaos trying to get anywhere.
Sample jersey released after Argentina won the World Cup (not for sale unfortunately).
Jetlag hits hard for those of us traveling to South America from Australia as your meant to be sleeping when your awake and awake when your meant to be sleeping. The first morning in Buenos Aires was an early start.
As you can imagine after not seeing my family in Argentina for 17 years and some for 30, i spent most of my time catching up with them and not doing much sight seeing. Here is a mix of some of my fave pics from Argentina. In all honesty i should have taken way more pictures in Argentina but i let everyones comments get to me thinking i was going to get my camera stolen around every corner. In the end i physced myself out and didnt end up taking it with me many places.
Chile was where we could explore a bit more, here are some of my favourite randoms in Santiago after we arrived from Buenos Aires.
The next part of the trip we head down to the south of Chile, this starts off with us taking a flight to Puerto Montt very early in the morning and then drive 4 hours to Cucoa. During the 6 days we spent in the south of Chile we explored various attractions in Castro, Cucoa, Quellon and Puerto Montt. Here are some of my faves from that part of the trip.
When we got back from the south of Chile we drove to Valparaiso to explore a bit, here are some of my faves from that day.
Here are some of my favourite randoms from around Santiago.
Cant be in Santiago and not go to Cerro San Cristobal to see Santiago, you need rain for it to clear up the views of all the smog but still nice to get up there.
Lastly here are some of the final randoms i enjoyed from Santiago.
I did mention that i took my film camera with me, i only shot 1 roll with it which was a roll of Kodak Portra 400. I havent been keeping my film in the fridge and i think it may have deteriated over time, or im just severly under exposing the images. Anyway enough excuses, here are my faves from that roll.
All in all it was a great trip, happy i got to see my family and my wifes family and was great to see the south of Chile.
Even more stoked on the Fujifilm X-Pro3 and absolutely loving the Nostalgia and Tri-X recipes. Will hopefully put together another blog post of my experience with the X-Pro3 so far and share some of my favourite images taken with it.
For some other pics from the trip check out my saved Instagram highlights and posts.
Thanks for visiting.
Japan on 35mm Film
I have an awesome wife! She took me to Japan for my 40th birthday and i shot most of it on my 35mm film camera.
So let’s get it out of the way, i turned 40. The only benefit of this is that i have an awesome wife.
Those who know me know that i don’t like parties let alone one that celebrates me, so when my wife asked me months and months ago what i wanted to do for my 40th all i said was “I don’t want a party” and thats where it begins.
On Friday the 7th of February i went to work like any other day, around 4pm that afternoon i come back to my desk and there is my wife with a box. She brought a cake to celebrate my birthday because i “wasn’t going to be around for it”. Hmmmm that got me thinking, so after the embarrassment of singing me happy birthday with my work colleagues and eating some epic South American cake my mum made, my wife then tells me that we need to get going because we are flying out somewhere that evening.
Let me make it very clear, i had no idea what so ever that this was happening, no clue, no inkling.
So we get home and she’s got a half packed bag for me and tells me to add anything else to it and get all my camera gear ready that i wanted to take.
On a side note, sadly i busted my digital camera (Fujifilm X-T2) which needs repairing so i packed my Contax S2b with my Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.8 and 50mm f1.7. I also threw in my Fuji GW690III and my Fujifilm X-T10 with 1 lens the 35mm f1.4 for those evening shots that i wouldn’t be able to get with my film cameras.
So the question had to be asked, what type of weather do i pack for? Do i pack my boardies to go for a swim? My response “its going to be cold”.
That got me thinking for destinations, ruled out the close obvious destinations that are always hot or currently in summer like Bali, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand. The first country that came to mind was Japan or if not Korea.
So we get to the airport and check in and at this point in time there was no hiding where we were going, and yes it was Japan.
This was the 4th time i had been to Japan and ever since getting back into film ive wanted to shoot film there, japan and film just go hand in hand and after getting my film back im even more convinced. One thing i didn’t have a lot of at the time was film, but i knew i was going to a place where id have plenty of different stocks to choose from.
This trip I decided to try some different film stocks, I already had some rolls of Kodak Colorplus 200 and Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400 that I bought and had in the fridge waiting for me to try but not enough to get me through this 8 day trip. Eventually when I got there I bought some Fujifilm Superia Venus 800, Fujifilm Superia Premium 400 and some more Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. I’ve been shooting with Kodak Portra 400 & 800 for most the year and thought it was time try some other stocks.
While in Japan I also bought myself a Yashica ML 24mm f2.8, wanted something slightly wider than the 35mm. Sadly the Carl Zeiss was a little out of my price range, but the Yashica is in typical Japanese grade.
Japan trips i tend to over plan to make sure we can get the most out of the trip, as i didn’t know it was happening we stuck around the Tokyo area, exploring maybe 1 hour from Tokyo on different days and a day trip out to the Fuji 5 lakes region.
Here are the shots from the trip all shot on the Contax S2b with either the Carl Zeiss 35mm, 50mm or Yashica 24mm. Shots split via film stock.
Contax S2b - Kodak Colorplus 200
I had shot Kodak Colorplus 200 before but was an expired roll, but was keen to give it another try. To be honest another big factor was that they are cheap. Im super happy with how the shots came out with this stock, plenty of detail and colours are nice. Ill be keeping a spare roll of colorplus in fridge i think.
Contax S2b - Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400
First time shooting Superia Xtra 400, and i’m instantly a fan. Ive really been enjoying the greener rather than the warmer which lends itself to the Fujifilm stocks. Also reasonably priced, i think i’ll be switching my Kodak Portra 400 to the Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400 for a while to learn more about this stock. Also got my favourite image of this trip from this stock which is the clothes store with the 2 girls walking past it and the pink neo PIN NAP above them.
Contax S2b - Fujifilm Superia Venus 800
Much like the reasoning behind the Superia Xtra 400, i’m into the green colours at the moment so wanted to try a substitute to Kodak Portra 800. Im not as convinced with the Venus 800 as i was with the Xtra 400, but it’s my first roll. Brought a bunch of these back with me so will have to take it through its paces.
Tempe Photo Walk
While waiting on some repairs to be done to my car, i decided to wonder around Tempe with my 35mm film camera and a roll of Kodak Tri-X 400.
A couple of weeks ago i decided to get some of the gutter rash i did on 2 of my wheels fixed from a repair place in Tempe. I was told that the process can take up to 2 hours to complete.
I could have easily gone back home and come back or wondered through Ikea for 2 hours which is across the road, but instead i decided to take my Contax S2b with my Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f2.8 and the Planar 50mm f1.7 with a roll of Kodak Tri-X 400 and do a photo walk around the back streets of Tempe.
I honestly wasn’t expecting much and definitely didn’t think id be able to finish a roll within that 2 hour period (which i didn’t), but pleasantly surprised with the images i got back.
I shot the Kodak Tri-X 400 at ISO 200 instead, film developed and scanned (standard jpg) at Rewind Photo Lab (not sponsored :-P).
Here are all of the shots i took while on the photo walk good and bad, hope you like.
The Analog Journey Continues
The analog world can bite hard sometimes, it lures you in and then takes hold and doesnt let go. Tales of the journey.
So i’ve been on this analog journey for around 10-11 months now and i must say its had its ups and downs. Ups are definitely the moments when you get your scans back and you have some gems. Downs were when i came across those scans that i didn’t quite nail and didn’t understand why.
Before i get onto that lets talk about the new cameras i’ve added to the list. Let me start with “gear does not make you a better photographer”, but i love talking about it. Hey i’m in I.T. and love gadgets and photography gear is one of the things i love to have, know about and talk about (feel free to skip further down if gear isn’t your thing :-P). Like many others i cant afford to upgrade my camera body to every new body thats released, so i weigh up my needs and see whether i would actually benefit from the upgrade. Film SLR’s are no different (sometimes cheaper is the only diff).
So the first SLR i bought when getting back into this analog game 10 months ago was the Fujica AX-1, which is an entry level SLR in the AX range not sporting a full manual mode. I originally went for this camera as i honestly wasn’t 100% sure whether id get back into it or not, and didn’t want to spend too much money on an SLR. It didn’t take me long after buying the Fujica that i knew i wanted to continue on this analog journey, so i started looking into a 35mm SLR body that i could invest in that i knew would last me for a long time which also had a lens range i would be happy with.
I came across this video on youtube by Kyle McDougall, he opened my eyes to some brands i hadn’t really heard too much about like Yashica and Contax. He also had this great video about the amazing range of lenses that these cameras supported.
I knew i wanted my next SLR camera body to tick the following boxes:
To have full manual functionality (with no add ons parts)
Have a max shutter speed of at least 1/2000 of a second
An internal light meter
Fully mechanical
Have a great range of lenses
Reasonably priced
What SLR body and lens range did i settle on you ask? My next purchase was the Yashica FX-3 Super 2000 with a Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f1.7, i found it for a super cheap price (pun not intended). The Yashica ticked all the boxes, except for one which is why there is a 3rd and final 35mm SLR purchase. Before we get onto that camera, the Yashica allowed me to use any lens in the Carl Zeiss C/Y mount range or Yashica C/Y mount range which you can find the list for here. Im sure you’ve heard of Carl Zeiss if you’ve been in the photography game for while, they make some amazing glass, this was a range of lenses that wouldn’t disappoint. As for the body it had everything you could want in an SLR body, it was also light and as mentioned by Kyle in the video above it sits very nicely in your hand due to the nice ergonomics.
Now why did i buy a 3rd 35mm SLR, as good as the Yashica FX-3 Super 2000 is you do notice the lack of precision with it. It has a metal frame but has a plastic body, so wouldn’t handle the rain or being knocked around very well. The film advance lever doesn’t feel sturdy along with the rest of the body. I wanted something that again ticketed all the boxes in my previous requirements but also adding one extra box. I wanted something that had a little more precision to it, that had better build quality and that would potentially last me forever. The type of SLR i was thinking about was to the calibre of the Canon F1 & Nikon F3 ranges, sturdy well built and renowned for their build quality and durability.
I chose the Contax S2b, this thing is a tank. It is fully mechanical and has a max shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second, only needs battery for the light meter, has centre weighed metering and of course supports the amazing C/Y mounted Carl Zeiss lenses. Oh and its very pretty.
The Contax S2b is definitely my go to 35mm SLR, i cant see me purchasing another 35mm SLR unless its purely to add to my collection but definitely not to replace it.
As for lenses, the Carl Zeiss list of C/Y mounted lenses is very large. At the moment i have invested in the Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f1.7 as mentioned above as well as the Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f2.8. The other lens id like to eventually invest in is the Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 28mm f2.8, these 3 lenses are great to travel with as they aren’t big like the extremely desirable bigger brothers Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f1.4, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f1.4 and Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 28mm f2 (maybe one day).
Thats the gear out of the way, how about how I’ve been going with it all. Initially i was into the Fuji film stock, since then i have discovered Kodak and haven’t gone back since. I think i initially tried a roll of Kodak TMax 400 which i really liked, i was reluctant to do much of anything in colour based on some early result not turning out how id liked. But again ive started shooting alot more colour and been shooting a lot of Kodak Portra 400, 800 and recently 160. I love the colours from Portra and think i’ll stick to that range. I have since shifted to Kodak Trix for black and white, I’m liking the slightly more contrasty look the TriX gives over the TMax.
As some more experienced film photographers would understand, film tends to handle highlights much better than shadows. When starting off its something you don’t really understand or know about, i understand now why a lot of photographers choose to rate film that is 800 speed at 400 or 400 speed at 200 so they can stay within the threshold the film best performs in. Knowing this from the beginning or at least knowing to overexpose shots, i think I could have saved a lot of images.
I feel i still have plenty to learn when it comes to film stock which is why I’m trying to stick to Kodak Portra and TriX to try and get consistent results across different lighting situations (i fear this will take sometime). With time I hope to become more familia with these film stocks and know what kind of results I’ll get for each shot.
Hear are some of my favourites over the past 6-7 months from both the Yashica FX-3 Super 2000 and the Contax S2b. Film stock varies with Kodak & Fujifilm.
Thanks for visiting.