In Search of the Perfect Curve

Once again I am revisiting post-pro lomography. I will stop using film when they pry it from my cold dead hands. But the reality is, it’s only going to be harder to come by. So even more reason to perfect the ability to achieve similar results in the digital domain.

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X-Pro at Storm King Art Center

Last year’s expedition to Storm King Art Center took place on a strange day. Soon after our arrival, a storm began to brew, so we sought shelter in the outdoor cafe. As we finished our lunch, the clouds opened up. After a brief but intense shower, the sun emerged and gave way to some photo opportunities.

Shot with the Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.4G, I found the detail and background bokeh to be quite pleasing. The bulk-loaded Kodak Ektachrome 100 was exposed at ISO 100, and I couldn’t have wished for a better result.

It all started when I cleaned out the freezer and discovered I had three 50' bulk rolls of Extachrome Plus 100, one 50' bulk roll of Ektachrome slide duplicating film, and several bulk-loaded canisters of Ektachrome 100. I couldn’t bring myself to toss this stuff until I at least saw if it was usable in some way. Expired film naturally lends itself well to cross-processing, so I decided to lock and load with the Storm King Art Center in my sights.

Unfortunately my yield was not as I had hoped for due to the weather, so I had some frames left over. I shot through the rest of the roll with some street photography in NYC.

The stark contrast contributing to the blown-out highlights is typical of cross-processing. For this series of photos, I adjusted the recovery just enough to eliminate the clipping overlay. This preserves the blown-out effect, but adds a little detail back into the highlights. The photos are grainy, and using noise reduction just defeats the whole purpose of shooting X-Pro. The potential for creative color variations with post-processing are enormous.

I’m definitely seeing some great potential here. The film costs nothing and expiration is no longer a factor. On ice, I should be able to keep this stuff in stasis indefinitely. With a reasonably good scan, the images can be processed in Adobe Camera Raw and I can achieve very good results. I can leave them as shot, or can attempt to take them further.

I refer to this as the “Schindler Effect” from the movie Schindler’s List. A lone red object in a sea of, in this case, green. X-Pro is great for making reds stand out against the surrounding colors, especially in landscapes.

These images are essentially straight from the camera. But, the exposure could easily be improved upon at the risk of taking away from the X-Pro effect. These images also have the potential of yielding very expressive black and whites.

If you’re not in love with the color, you have the option of creating black and white or toned grayscale images with some interesting variations. The color shift and contrast in the X-Pro image yields contrasty black and whites with a unique take on tonal balance. You can tame the highlights with copious amounts of recovery, and further tweak them with a tone curve if needed. There are all kinds of contrast variations possible with the many tools in Adobe Camera Raw.

Verona Park

Nikon Coolpix P5100 with Nikon FC-E8 Fisheye; circular fisheye @ 7.35mm

Digital lomography at its best. Nikon Coolpix P5100 + Nikon FC-E8 Fisheye Lens. Digital X-Pro. Unlike simulating film cross-processing digitally, this image uses true digital cross-processing.

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