I checked this morning and this is the eighth blog post I’ve managed to squeeze out of a two-day trip to Salford Quays. Not a photographic trip either, some time away with my wife away from domestic and child-minding duties.
One thing I rarely do is make images in indoor situations such as shopping malls. Partly it’s too much hassle and likely to upset security and partly that I rarely see anything that takes my eye. Part of the hassle is getting exposure right and using a light meter in these places isn’t always the easiest thing to do. However, with a fully automatic point-and-shoot in my hand most of these obstacles disappeared. With no need to measure the light and no manual camera controls to fuss over I could do what it says on the tin … point-and-shoot.
So I did.
Oh, and one last thing that I love about the Nikon L35 AF. The auto rewind leaves half an inch of film poking out once it’s finished. A big deal if you home process your films rather than send them away for developing.
I’ve lost count of the number of blog posts that have been spawned by two days and six rolls of film with the Nikon L35 AF camera. But, I’m back with another. This one is mainly pictures though and very little of my wittering you will be pleased to know. Well, that’s the plan anyway.*
As is my normal practice, I’ve “scanned” the negatives with a Fujifilm X-T3 and a Nikon macro lens. One day I will get around to writing about my process for digitising negatives but today isn’t that day. Most of my recent posts have used images that have been processed using the Snapseed app on my iPad or iPhone (other technology providers are available) mainly because I’m too lazy to turn the computer on most of the time.
A
B
The two images above were each processed with a simple Curves adjustment – one (A) in Snapseed (which I’m very familiar with) and the other (B) using the Photoshop iPad app (which I downloaded today). One is cleaner straight “out of the box” especially in the sky. There is also a difference in the overall look of the image. Unsurprisingly perhaps, B for me is the nicer looking of the two. After all Snapseed is free whereas Photoshop is part of a paid-for plan. But, Snapseed is easier to use. I know that with practice Photoshop for iPad will become easier to use … but do I have the patience?
The sky in this PS-converted image is a key factor in my decision below. Nikon L35 AF, Kodak Tri-X and red filter.
But why haven’t I considered this before? Well, this is the first time I’ve ever blogged for an extended time with 35mm negatives as my subjects. There’s also a lot of sky in many of them. The physical size of a 5×4 or even a medium format negative is generally bigger than the digital images I publish. The same cannot be said of standard 35mm negatives. The quality of the conversion is affected by many factors but as a rule of thumb I’d suggest that the bigger the negative the better the end result, all other things being equal.
Excuse my finger (bottom left)
But, given the perceived (to me) increased quality of the Tablet PS-converted images, the real question is am I going to continue with the easy route or am I going to commit to learning how to use PS on the tablet? As ever, it depends.
As I’ve said, I’m fundamentally opposed to work but, yes, I’m going to make the effort to learn to use the PS app. However, I won’t be giving up Snapseed just yet as there are many occasions when it does just fine. After all it’s powered many a blog post over the last few years.
Good Morning Salford
* It didn’t go to plan did it? In my defence there are seven/eight new images in it.
POSTSCRIPT: The issue doesn’t really arise when writing blog posts on my computer as I convert and process the images in Photoshop or Lightroom.
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