Tag Archives: Fuji Sensia

The lost bull - does he belong to you? A story about a Nikon F-301…

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I know there are cultural sensitivities around such subjects, but for me, bullfights are an expression of humanity’s ability to inflict utterly barbaric torture and death on innocent creatures. The bull always loses. This kind of thing confirms for me the need to be a vegetarian and treat animals well.

But I am writing here about a lost bull in a different sense.

My neighbour, Mabel Forsyth, recently gave me an old film camera that her husband had bought her on ebay: she had said to him that to play it safe she wanted another emergency spare camera body for a July 2006 wedding she was photographing. Her husband bought it just before the wedding, but she never used it. This means there are two things she didn’t know about the camera, a Nikon F-301:

  1. there are light leaks
  2. there was already a film in it.

This posting is mostly about the second of these. The film, that I used up, is a roll of Fuji Sensia 100 (it has Fuji RA alongside the frames, along with the frame numbers). And the first half of the roll is of a bullfight - these are definitely not my photographs! Nor are they Mabel’s, who has also never been to a bullfight. Nor are they from any members of her family who might have had occasion to borrow the camera. So they must be from the previous owner…

Although I abhor bullfights, this situation intrigues me, and so if you are reading this and it is your film, do get in touch! Presuming you can show me this really was your camera, I’ll send the relevant parts of the film strip back to you!

And the light leaks? You’ll notice the circular light leaks on some of the images - these appear on mine too, using different lenses, so it is clearly a camera problem - though since she never used it, Mabel says she forgives you selling her a leaky camera!

Here are the four strips of film with the bullfight, and larger versions are available below these images. Do NOT look too closely if you don’t want to see a bull being killed: I found it rather upsetting…

Bullfight 1

Bullfight 1

Bullfight 2

Bullfight 2

Bullfight 3

Bullfight 3

Bullfight 4

Bullfight 4

Large versions: strip 1, strip 2, strip 3, strip 4.

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The end of an era

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My last Fuji Sensia films arrived in the post today - these are the last in that Fuji is stopping the manufacture of Sensia, and these films were being returned to me from their Leeds processing laboratory. It’s taken me a long time to get through these three rolls because of my arm injury.

This is terribly sad for me: before I discovered Velvia for myself (a long time after everyone else, it seems!), I used endless rolls of Sensia (see also my Equipment page). Indeed, our spare room has more indexed boxes of Sensia slides than I would care to count, documenting many years of my life and my family’s life in many different places. Sensia accompanied me through many different contexts, and was my natural choice of colour film for almost every occasion. I loved the tones, especially for skin, the almost complete absence of grain (even in the 400 version), and the almost tangible three-dimensionality of the image, especially for wide landscapes and long exposures. But all that has now ended under the digital juggernaut.

Along with my processed and mounted film, Fuji enclosed an order form with a note about Sensia:

Fuji leaflet

Fuji leaflet (click to enlarge)

I’ve marked a key section here. I know it is meant to be reassuring, but as an academic who spends a lot of time crafting language to try and make it say exactly what I want it to say, I am not wholly convinced by this. ‘As long as film is being produced…’ is the bit that causes me concern - I assume this means as long as Fuji continues to make film, since I can’t imagine they’ll take responsibility for other manufacturers that decide to continue making film (such as Ilford, for example). And they’ll only continue making film as long as they continue making it…

What concerns me here is that one day we might end up with Fuji deciding that they are going to further restrict the countries in which they sell and process film, even if it is not completely stopped. There are, of course, already many countries where it is hard to buy Fuji film: even when I first went to Egypt in 1997 it was hard to find, and I understand it is now almost impossible to do so. Am I being unduly concerned to worry that one day we might end up with just a few locations worldwide that can properly deal with good quality film like this - perhaps one place in each continental area - with the corresponding increase in cost to the user?

Allow me to introduce you to…

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… my sick camera!

'The sick camera'

'The sick camera'

This is what my 15-year old son, in his elegant way with language, means just now when describing this camera, my Nikon FM2. A few days after breaking my arm, stuck in the house and going slightly crazy, I decided to get the little FM2 out and document some of my time off due to the broken arm. So I’ve photographed: items to do with being off, different things I can do, some of the people who have visited me or that I have visited, and so on. For example, the shot above was preparation for a self-timed image of me typing with both hands, which my physiotherapist has recommended I begin to do. I can’t remember what film is in the camera - I think it is probably my last roll of Fuji Sensia 100, but it may also be a black and white print film… so that will be interesting. I’m determined to use all the 36 exposures on this little project - but don’t worry, I’ll not be inflicting images of me typing with both hands on you, even though it’s exciting for me!

I have also managed to take a couple of images with the much heavier D90 (using just my lovely light little 35mm f1.8 lens). So here’s a wee portrait of the dog wearing glasses… in my son’s inimitable style, he calls him Professor McDog:

Professor McDog

Professor McDog

At the end of this week, Neil McIlwraith from Beyond Words is intending to drop off part of an order for me, Michael Kenna’s Huangshan - I can’t wait!

The wonder of film

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This evening I needed to be in nearby Musselburgh, where I would be waiting for half-an-hour at the harbour. Musselburgh has a lovely small harbour, and at the moment all the sailing boats are ‘parked’ in the car park round the harbour (in spaces that are marked ‘dinghy parking’!).

Stephanie, photographed on Ilford FP4 plus (ISO125)

Stephanie, photographed on Ilford FP4 plus (ISO125)

On the way out of the house, I took my camera, tripod, spirit level, filters, a 28mm and a 50mm lens - and looked forward to capturing some of these boats and the harbour scenes. I took my favourite film camera, the old Nikon FM2, with one of the last three rolls of Fuji Sensia that I have: this is a bit of a trip down memory lane for me, since I used to use Sensia a lot before switching to Fuji Velvia for colour landscapes; Fuji have recently announced they are stopping the production of Sensia so I have just bought three rolls of it to play with for the last time. It was fairly dark when I arrived in the harbour, and as I took my bag out of the car and began to set up, I realised that I had left my light meter at home - since the FM2′s slowest shutter speed before getting to the bulb setting is 1 second, the camera’s meter would be useless and I would have had to more or less guess all my exposures… so, sadly, I packed everything away again and went to buy a newspaper instead. Next week, when I expect to be there again, I’ll remember the meter!

I’ve read two nice postings on other people’s websites recently about using film. The first one was from the great Bruce Percy, who discussed how much he enjoyed using a particular kind of Kodak Portra film for a recent trip he made to Ethiopia and then, referring to Canon’s 5D digital camera, noted:

I get a lot of correspondence from people wanting to know how to get the same look with their 5D. You can’t.

If you want the look of film, then shoot film.

It doesn’t get much simpler than that! The other piece I’ve come across is more of a short essay by the wonderful Max Marinucci (though the second part describes how he develops film, so you may want to skim read that bit if you just want to pick up on his philosophy about film):

…patience and parsimony are virtues to be cultivated and nourished. When shooting film, you immediately accept the fact that it may be a little while before you see the fruits of your work and, by living with this, you will become a more disciplined shooter, which will in turn carry on to your digital side as well. It also means that shooting everything in sight without any thought into basics like light and composition is out of the question since you only have 24-36 shots in a roll of 35mm and it makes no sense in spending time/money developing simple, careless snapshots. This is a valuable exercise in restraint and it brings us to actually THINK before we shoot. Would you have taken a picture of your toes with film just because you can? I sincerely doubt it.

Although I use my Nikon D90 digital camera a lot, there is something wonderful about film that cannot be beaten by the more ‘clinical’ nature of digital… and it has to do with all these key components of photography that often go missing in the techno-madness that camera manufacturers obscure from us as they add ever more silly functions to their cameras: patience, composition, light, perspective… I’m not a dogmatic film shooter: of course digital cameras have their place (I couldn’t be involved in the same way in the African film festival if I wasn’t using digital, and I do like my D90). I think it is just a question of being reminded of that at times, of using film and digital in different circumstances as appropriate, and above all, appreciating film for all the wonder it can bring to the craft of photography.