A couple of weeks ago, stuck with no gigs for the week and suffering through the anxiety-filled boredom that freelancing can suddenly bring, I decided to fly to New York (only an hour from Toronto) to shoot some street shots. I grabbed a few rolls of Kodak VISION3 500T from the Film Photography Project and tossed them in my bag. Cinestill 800T is harder to get a hold of these days than one of those cronuts (Do they still make those? Do people want them?).
Never having shot the film before, I was intrigued by the reviews I’d seen online. I love shooting in the subway and the Kodak 500T film seemed perfectly suited to the tungsten soaked halls of the MTA.
Once I got into the depths of the New York subway on my way to DUMBO for sunset, I popped a roll into my M6 and dialled my ISO to 800 with the intention of pushing the film a stop. I had shot Cinestill 800T before and loved it, but nothing quite prepared me for the fine grain, latitude and colours of the VISION3 it’s made from. It seems obvious now since they shoot major motion pictures on the stuff.
The train arrived much later than I anticipated and the sun had sunk beyond the horizon. Figuring my plans of taking photos of the Williamsburg Bridge and Manhattan skyline bathed in the soft light of the sunset were a wash, I decided to snap a couple of frames anyway, much to the objection of my light meter. Despite the meter reading the scene as severely underexposed, the latitude of the film allowed the lab to recover these shots.”
~ Wyatt
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2 responses to “5 Frames… At night with Kodak VISION3 500T 5219 (EI 800 / 35mm format / Leica M6 TTL)”
Really cool images! Love the mood they evoke in me. I’m glad you missed the sunset. 🙂
Hello Wyatt. Very nice images. What lab did your processing? Did you still only have the roll pushed one stop, despite the lighting conditions being much darker than you expected? I’m trying to get a feel for just how much under-exposure latitude this stock has as I might use it myself in extremely low light situations in the future where using a tripod won’t be an option. Thanks for your time!