A month ago my trip unfortunately cut short thanks to our current pandemic situation. Days later I came down with my personal cocktail of symptoms so I’m glad I returned early. If I’m going to be stuck in quarantine it better be at home where all the film is and not stuck in a small apartment in a big city thousands of kilometers away.
I’ve had a roll of ILFORD’s Delta 3200 Professional sitting around for a while, but since most of my work is landscape or street stuff it’s been waiting patiently in the freezer for it’s time to shine. Facing weeks of indoor photography I popped the roll into my Minolta SRT 201 and set about chasing light in my living room.
With my whole lens arsenal available to me I chose whatever I thought best suited to the shot. Mostly worked with an older style MC 55/1.7, the later model MC 50/1.7, and the latest model MD 50/2. There were a few shots on my MC 24/2.8 as well but that was a composition challenge worsened by the mess and clutter of a constantly occupied home with hobbies on the go.
It was a lot fun trying to simply capture the mundane shown in a beautiful light, having a beer fueled impromptu portrait shoot at 2am, or just ambushing my girlfriend whenever she passed by a window. At least half the shots turned out interesting enough that I’d call keepers, so it was tough narrowing it down to five.
I found the film to be not at all what I expected. Yes it has lots of grain, but it’s actually quite pleasant. It developed nicely in EcoPro at 1:1 and dried nearly flat. It was surprisingly competent in bright sunlit or overcast outside days. I appreciated the greater depth of field and sharper apertures shooting handheld in poor light rather than trying to shoot at 1/30 and not breathe.
I don’t see it becoming a go-to stock for me, but I’ll definitely grab a few rolls and keep it handy for a night photo walks or any indoor gatherings.
~ Chris
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6 responses to “5 Frames… of the mundane on ILFORD Delta 3200 Professional (35MM Format / EI 3200 / Minolta SRT 201)”
For 3200, that’s really not bad… Thinking cap on!
Nice shots. What ISO did you use?
EI 3200. It’s up there in the title, Ken! 🙏
Hah yup, shot it at box speed.
“It better be at home where all the film is” – ha ha ha.
Nice photos and I hope you are feeling a lot better.
Thanks! And yes, much better. Was rough for about a month but largely back to normal these days.