Adrian Scoffham 14/09/2024 Adrian Scoffham 14/09/2024

Is this the best Film Camera, Lens & Film combination for a classic look? Captures with a Nikon FM3A, Zeiss Distagon 2/35 ZF and Kodak Tri-X in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina | Summer 2024

I was itching to hit the streets of a City with a combination I’ve long been wanting to try out. I recently acquired a copy of the beautiful Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm F2 which I’d previously borrowed from a friend and loved when shooting colour emulsion - I knew this lens packed a 3D pop but I hadn’t yet had the chance to use her with a nice contrasty grainy film like the classic Kodak Tri-X and to crank things up a notch I used a medium yellow filter on the front of the lens, which whilst taking almost a stop of light transmission made the blacks that bit more inky and the contrast and grain a little more accentuated.

We’d already crossed Georgia, Turkey and Europe from Tbilisi to London and then headed down to the Alps and Slovenia when we made a new friendship one evening that piqued our interest to visit Bosnia & Herzegovina on our way towards our intermediate destination of Athens, Greece. After a little colour 120 film photography in London and Tyrol I was itching to hit the streets of a City with a combination I’ve long been wanting to try out. I recently acquired a copy of the beautiful Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm F2 which I’d previously borrowed from a friend and loved when shooting colour emulsion - I knew this lens packed a 3D pop but I hadn’t yet had the chance to use her with a nice contrasty grainy film like the classic Kodak Tri-X and to crank things up a notch I used a medium yellow filter on the front of the lens, which whilst taking almost a stop of light transmission made the blacks that bit more inky and the contrast and grain a little more accentuated.

I already knew that the Nikon FM3A would perform admirably, whilst lacking the 100% viewfinder coverage of the F3 she replaced I know I can always be confident that I’ll get the shot thanks to the ingenious hybrid shutter that works electronically in Aperture Priority mode (often my preferred method because I want to concentrate on composition and I trust the light meter) or if necessary manually at all speeds when shooting full manual - something that gives confidence if you should happen to run out of LR44 batteries or be in a freezing cold environment - I think the FM3A is one of those bodies you could happily take to Siberia in Winter and be sure you’ll make the photos you want without any worries.

I adore the shadow graduations in this image

Whenever I’m working with negative process film I set the camera to EV +1 - the reason I do this is that negative vilm has a habit of losing detail in the shadows - something you can easily recover on digital, not so on film… so where I shoot my Pentax K1 habitually at EV -1 because she has the habit of blowing highlights the converse is true when shooting an old-school SLR like the Nikon, of course because I’m using the in camera meter compensation is made by the meter as I’m taking the shot

Muslim Tourists file past one of the famous Bars of Sarajevo

The majority of images on this roll were shot at apertures around F5.6, some were F8 or F4 but my aim was to stick around the sweet-spot of sharpness to make the most of the famous 3D Pop this Zeiss lens produces - I’d argue that the look created is very close in terms of quality and character to Leica lenses.

Buildings still pock-marked with bullet holes, yet peace is the main thing in Sarajevo these days

Carl Zeiss Distagon 2/35 mounted on my nicely worn-in Nikon FM3A (yes I use a lens-hood and the yellow filter is missing here)

The later models of FM3A - Serial Number 300xxxx+ produced in 2005/6 don’t have leatherette, instead Nikon used a grippy rubberised finish, whilst this doesn’t wear so well it does make the camera easier to handle; with a front-heavy lens like this I could really do with a nice wooden handgrip like I’ve seen on eBay recently - whisper it, but I’ve noted that some Chinese manufacturers are producing what look to be really nice grips - I’ll have to buy one and let you know how it feels… I mean, I already have a fair idea how this will improve the handling because I shoot big-gripped cameras on digital with big heavy lenses and that extra purchase you get is essential - so yes, if you’re considering using the Distagon 2/35 on a classic style SLR from Nikon, Canon or Pentax (the main mounts these lenses are made with) then yes, you may well want to think about a handgrip of some description.

As always reviews like this are totally unscientific, my aim is to give you an impression of the sort of photos a combination produces so that you can develop a subjective impression as to whether you like this look or not, as part of my photographic practice I spend a lot of time developing my taste in equipment because at the end of the day once you’ve mastered technique - yes it really does matter what equipment you use, camera bodies matter less, but lenses, filters and film or sensors really do make a difference. So if you’re here because you’re curious - you’ve come to the right place. I also like to give props to my local Lab - Qwerty Film Lab in Tbilisi, Georgia who did the whole dev & scan - thanks guys.

Finally let’s talk about the film stock… Kodak do make a finer grained 400 ASA film stock, that is called TMax - if you want the smoothest possible look, go for that, I think that’s a really nice emulsion that delivers beautiful results, yet for me that classic slightly rougher and larger grain of Tri-X has a more “emotional feel” for me… pore over the images I’ve shared and I think you’ll see what I mean.

If you’d like to support what I do, why not get yourself a print? You can find what I believe to be the best capture from this roll right here, alternately you can find a wide range of film images I’ve shot here…

If you have any questions about what I’ve written here - hit me up in the comments! Ax

Adrian Scoffham 20/04/2024 Adrian Scoffham 20/04/2024

The imperfection of memories

I often talk about painting with light because in essence that’s what we’re trying to do with our cameras. We have a photosensitive media, be that a CMOS or CCD sensor or a sheet of silver halide emulsion and we use available light to freeze a scene that we compose through a lens - what results is the capture of a memory, we record how we see something - which may reveal something about us and how we felt in the moment that we pressed the shutter, it may also convey some feeling to a viewer of the image at a later date. Photography is by its very nature a nostalgic exercise. The choices we make as to how we post-process images in the case of digital photographers using mirrorless and DSLR cameras say as much about the feeling we wish to convey as the choices of a film photographer selecting a film stock or deliberately choosing to use a grainy and out of date black and white film stock.

Fomapan 100, a relatively cheap Czech produced film that I used to buy in the late 1990s, I seem to recall that it came in at around $1.50 a roll of 36 shots on 35mm format - at the time I thought that was ideal so I used to buy in packs of 10. Fast forward 25 years and I discovered that I have a few rolls in my cupboard that are dated as expiring February 2002, given that I only had 120 film for the Rolleiflex felt in there I decided that despite the fact I hadn’t always got the best results with expired film I’d give it a go as a way of taking a look at the way the Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm F2 I’d just acquired to pair on the trusty Nikon FM3A renders on film.

An early 2000’s dream line-up - Nikon FM3A, Zeiss Distagon 35mm F2 and Fomapan 100

The big mistake I’d made before was not pushing the film enough to compensate for the loss in sensitivity in the film emulsion resulting from being expired and not really that well stored. The last film that I’d tried from this batch I shot in Athens 2 years ago and everything came out misty and totally underexposed. Determined not to suffer the same fate again I decided to override the DX Coding of the film and manually set the sensitivity of the camera at 50 ASA - one stop more than the 100 ASA box speed, this made the film already a little uncomfortable to use on the streets but in the middle of the day now that we’ve passed the equinox in Tbilisi I felt that there would be enough light to play with.

A timeless peaceful empty balcony scene in Kala, Old Tbilisi

Together with the lab technicians at Qwerty Film Lab we decided to push the film 1 more stop to accommodate the degradation of the film and it turns out that this was about right. You can find a lot of information about relatively recently exposed films online but not so much about more out-of-date ones and certainly not so much about Fomapan - which is one of the reasons I’m. mentioning this here - I think a solid run of thumb for a 100 ASA film is 1 stop per 10 years to slow down (push) so in this case I did one stop in camera and one stop in development = 2 stops so essentially the 100ASA film was treated like a 25ASA.

No straight lines in this Kala Courtyard just off Kote Apkhazi Street in Tbilisi

This year, after a hiatus of a few years I’m back teaching a photography group - this is always a solid challenge to break down the many years of learning I’ve done myself and try making it accessible to those at the beginning of their photographic careers. I often talk about painting with light because in essence that’s what we’re trying to do with our cameras. We have a photosensitive media, be that a CMOS or CCD sensor or a sheet of silver halide emulsion and we use available light to freeze a scene that we compose through a lens - what results is the capture of a memory, we record how we see something - which may reveal something about us and how we felt in the moment that we pressed the shutter, it may also convey some feeling to a viewer of the image at a later date. Photography is by its very nature a nostalgic exercise. The choices we make as to how we post-process images in the case of digital photographers using mirrorless and DSLR cameras say as much about the feeling we wish to convey as the choices of a film photographer selecting a film stock or deliberately choosing to use a grainy and out of date black and white film stock.

For me the transition between sharp and out of focus on the Zeiss Distagon 35mm F2 is magical

When I got to posting the first images from the film I got back 3 days after shooting to Instagram I found myself reflecting on the imperfect nature of memories and how these often felt similar to the results we can get from expired film stocks. So accustomed have we become to sharp, perfectly exposed, hyper-saturated images that when we now come across these imperfect emulsions there’s a different emotional connection we feel, and this is amplified when these photos are printed and we can see them up close. For those who enjoy such visual pleasures do go and check out Fotografia in Tbilisi - you may even find some of my work on display there.

What I’m looking for in a lens is this lovely sharpness and then the way the out of focus areas fade

The wrought ironwork is a particularity of Tbilisi that sets it apart from other cities

Overall I was pretty pleased with the results of the 20+ years expired Fomapan 100 experiment but I will of course go back to shooting finer and more colourful film stocks as we enter the tremendous Tbilisi springtime when so many courtyards and buildings are enveloped in blossom and the colours pop with the radiant southern sun. I’m glad that I’ll now be able to capture this on 35mm with a classic 35mm lens which gives just that little bit more width than the 50mm I usually shoot on. Watch this space for colourful updates!