CineStill 800T Pushed On Yashica Mat 124G

The cold, wet and windy conditions continue to brace these shores. What’s better than sitting indoors for long periods of time? Go a cold wintry walk!

I’m loving the square format and the size of the negatives on the Yashica Mat 124G and had been itching to try some CineStill 800T on it for some time. I decided to go for a long walk and hunt for subjects to shoot in low light. After donning many, many layers and a beenie (not much natural insulation on top at the minute) I headed out in to the urban jungle.

Fortunate enough, I have shot with both the camera and film separately so this would be a good test of how far I could push the CineStill on this camera. What kind of images could I get?

The first thing to note with the Yashica Mat 124G is that it has an internal light meter which can deal with up to 400 ISO. Now this creates an immediate challenge on how to shoot with film beyond 400ISO. There’s no reason to panic though- simply push the film +1 stop in development and you’ll be all set with correctly exposed images. For ISO 3200 films such as Ilford Delta 3200 or Kodak P3200 just push the film +3 stops in development if shooting with this camera.

Mathematics aside, let’s dive in to the first shot. This newsagent seemed like a good port of entry. The light falling out from the shop has a nice blu-ish tinge to it and the halation of the LED lights have come out well too. In retrospect, I think this image would be better if, I just moved to the left a little more to capture the customer at the till so as to capture the sense of the place more. In post I raised the highlights a little bit, its a subtle change but I like that additional edit.

Walking along the road a little further down, I saw this Chicken & Chips shop with a large front glass with lots of light falling outside. The framing wasn’t too challenging and Lady Luck arrived as a customer walked right up to the till as I was readying to take the shot. There was a small bench to the right which in the original image is not very noticeable however in the second image with the edit you can make more of it. I wanted to highlight the texture in the foreground to give a little more sense of depth and scale in the image. However the edit has made the light a little flatter which may or may not be of be of taste. Overall, both the images work really well. This is certainly one of my favourite shots from this set.

Shooting petrol/ gas stations is a right of passage with any film photographer and I wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity to do so. I do find it a little ironic shooting the petrol station but at the time of writing this perhaps we are reaching the end of the fossil fuel age? (I hope!) The image has been well rendered with some resemblance of the foreground too. Ideally more street lighting would have definitely added more depth to the image.

I think if I am going to shoot petrol stations again, I probably will use my Fuji GSWiii 6x9 on a tripod at night. The main reason is the landscape format would allow far more detail of the station to come out and it would probably be a more imposing image. Perhaps what is lost most in this square 6x6 format is the dead space above and below the station.

That is main reason why I probably subconsciously walked across the other side of the road to get a closer perspective which would fill the frame more.I decided to leave off the far left edge of the station banner to create this sense never ending length further. I brought the highlights down in the edited image to bring a bit more emphasis on the forecourt. Overall, pleased with both images.

I carried on hunting for a new subject, however there really wasn’t much available to shoot and the lighting with in most part very poor. As I framed up this local newsagent I had envisaged seeing a much brighter foreground areas with the light spilling out from the shop. However, this was not to be. So I compensated for it by bringing up the highlights and finer details are more present in the edit. It was far more in tune with what I had in mind when I originally took the shot.

One of the biggest learnings from this evening walk was the limit to which CineStill 800T will work in extremely low light conditions. The motor shop sign in this image didn’t come out but is a good example of when not to shoot with this film (unless you have a tripod and do a long exposure!). The more ambient light available on the street the better your CineStill film will fare get you the image you are looking for.

Green washing forecourt came out well as there was a little bit more light available in frame. Perhaps taking the image from the side where the purple colours are popping would test the film more.

Have you used one of these self collecting boxes?

The last image comes out well and a realistic capture of this cinematic film. However from the outside, there is not much information. As a result, I increased the highlights a little bit more in the edit which brings out the street corner better. Overall, would have been better to have kept the green tinge from within the shop.

Overall, CineStill 800T performs well in well light low light conditions the best. If you are looking to push the film a bit further you are more likely to get more context in the foreground in very low light conditions but will probably have to compensate by using a tripod and accept the grain and muddiness of the image may increase. Happy Creating!

Expired Film on Yashica Mat 124G

Whatever you may have heard, shooting film is generally quite an expensive venture. So why not try and find a way to make it just a little more affordable than usual? With that in mind, I went off searching for expired film. I had for a while wanted to shoot on Velvia Fujichrome 50 but I hadn’t really set an intention of specifically looking for this film when I went about researching. After googling expired film online and then venturing through eBay, I looked through quite a lot of different rolls available online. At the time, I knew I wanted to shoot Medium Format so at least that narrowed the search down to 120 film roll.

eBay became the main source of expired film researching. In a way, it is pretty lazy but made logical sense with the ease of the search process. Anyway, I narrowed the search focus to £10 and this helped to filter the results. Lots of different rolls available from Black and White to Colour Reversal films. Film stocks which were recently expired were generally the most expensive. As a rule of thumb, as the age of film increases the cost of film decreases. However, the bidding process online I feel adds an inflated price to the film stock which is based more on desire than in actual practical value of what is being bid for.

Velvia Fujichrome 50 is a well-respected and well sought after film. If you’re serious about your photography at some point you have purchased this film for your own use. After much research about this film stock on online forums and discussions with fellow film photographers I was quite excited when I first came across this batch of expired roll from 1998/99. The images showed generally well looked after boxes of the film and whilst I didn’t know how well they had been stored (Refrigerated film is the most sought after!) it fit my price point for £10 so I threw it in the virtual basket and parted ways with some sterling electronically.

I wanted to explore something away from the city so chose a seascape location that I had never been to before. Eastbourne looked like a good shout and had some variety which would fit in nicely with some film photography. Every journey is made more enjoyable with some company, so Lucas joined along for the drive down. I packed up my cameras and asked Lucas to bring along his Yashica Mat 124G which he had been raving about for a while now. He had been given this camera from a friend of his he found it lying around and thought Lucas would probably make better use of it. I figured why not? Just see what happens with the Velvia?

Traffic was quite heavy on the way in and admittedly I had not really planned out a route to a specific point. A bit of fly-driving led us to some fortuitous free parking near the beach. The weather however was holding up and plenty of good light with some cloud. We headed out and dumped our gear on to the beach. After scoping out the options we metered up and then Lucas pulled out the Yashica Mat 124G. The wind was picking up so with his back to it, he briskly loaded up the film in the cold breeze.

The Yashica had been through a lot. It reminded me of when I took my Nikon for a service a few years back and the delight to which the shop keeper had for seeing such a worn camera. The camera’s scratches are just a testament to the quality of the product but also that it was used for a purpose. It wasn’t just a keepsake. I dialled in the ISO settings and adjusted the shutter speed in line with the on-board light meter - it was working just about right when matched with my handheld light meter.

The TLR format gives you a totally unique experience. Adjusting to the waist level finder is fun along with everything flipped the other way! At first you have to adjust and get used to the setup. It can be quite easy for you to walk around with the camera like a duck with its head stuck in the sand - but with a view! Be careful, if it’s your first time walking around with one, you can easily lose awareness of what is around you.

Seeing things from a new perspective got me moving and interacting with my surroundings in different ways. It almost feels like you are more connected to your frame and along with the limit of 12 shots on the roll you take much longer and think more carefully about the shot you are about to take. If you don’t own a TLR but would like to get an idea of partially what it’s like you could hold your phone or SLR at waist level and click away (mind you that would not be the same experience in many ways!).

Given the age of the Yashica, I wasn’t surprised to find there were some issues with shutter. A few times I was left thinking whether the shutter was still stuck inside and whether I had overexposed the shot or not? Other times it worked just fine. Seeing that I have some spare roll, I’ll need to give those a whirl to see if my hypothesis is correct! That’s for another time, however. I didn’t venture too far with the camera; time was limited as it was late afternoon. I focused on getting some street style snaps of people walking by and then took a few of the buildings along the walkway before turning back towards the ocean to finish off the roll.

All in all, it was a fun experience, I’m quite pleased with the outcome, even though it was just 3 shots. The shots themselves had lost their colour rendition but a little tweak in Adobe Lightroom into Black and White really made the images grainy and textured. The images communicated of a time gone by and I really loved what I got!