Scanning again. This is an image I took of Lou out at a downtown coffee shop. On film. Back in 1994...

 

The cameras in the film age didn't record metadata like the digital ones. It was incumbent on photographers to remember what cameras and lenses they used and what their settings might have been. I know this was taken with a Contax RTSIII because it was one of the only cameras I had that actually recorded the day in the space between frames. With that info I can see that it was taking in 1994. I remember pretty clearly that we were sitting around a coffee shop just South of the State Capitol complex in the mid-morning. I photographed Lou using an 85mm f1.4 Carl Zeiss lens that came with a Contax mount. I must have breathed during exposure because I missed perfect focus by a bit. Not a big bit. Just a small bit. 

This is a scan from the original black and white negative. I was testing for Agfa at the time so I'm sure this was AgfaPan 400 instead of Tri-X. I scanned this one using the multi-res mode in a Lumix S5. The resulting file was 8000 pixels by 12,000 pixels. You can clearly see the individual grains in the film when you ultra-pixel peep. The scan takes about a minute total. Load your neg into a film holder, blow off the dust (there's always dust), fine tune the focus under the Sigma 70mm Macro Art lens. (I use focus peaking on low and know I've got it when both sides show red focus peaking signals as well as the same in the center of the frame. A two second shutter delay and you are in business. The actual exposure is eight conjoined frames. It takes about 15 seconds to shoot and then render the file. If you shoot in raw the files are massive.

Then it's into Lightroom Classic. I use the curves menu to invert the negative to a positive and then I start working on adding much needed contrast and fine-tuning the exposures. It's fun. Kinda like when we first saw prints come to life in a wet developer tray. 

I love the "wide awake" look in Lou's eyes. She was just wonderful to work with.

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Air conditioning install was too time consuming. And the techs had to come back and troubleshoot some condensation issues. Finally all figured out. I spent three days on this. I'm asking for a partial refund as a compensation... We'll see how it goes. But, bottom line, the house is nice and cool and everything is functioning as it should.

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Slammed my hand into a lane line while swimming butterfly at practice yesterday. Blood in the pool. A one inch gash. But I did finish the set before I got out... stupidly. Now healing fine. Back in the water tomorrow with one of the world famous kid's waterproof bandages... Grrrrrr. 

That's all for today.