While I was happy with my hybrid approach to film photography—scanning negatives, editing them in Negative Lab Pro, and printing on an inkjet printer—the idea of wet printing in a darkroom was always tempting. The problem is, I live in an apartment and don’t have a spare room to dedicate to a darkroom. At one point, I searched for English-speaking community darkrooms in Berlin and even found a hackerspace that had recently built one.
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Trying tungsten-balanced film had been on my list of experiments for a while, and staying in Osaka felt like the perfect opportunity to shoot it. The city is incredibly bright at night, with neon lights everywhere, making it an ideal setting for a film that thrives in artificial lighting. The tungsten-balanced film is designed for artificial lighting, and if you use it during the day, your photos will have a strong blue cast.
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Fomapan 400 in 35mm is known for the classic, bold grain, which can give photos a vintage feel. While some photographers love it for these qualities, others see it as nothing more than a cheap test roll for trying out a new camera. In this post, I’ll share my experience from shooting and developing over 15 rolls of Fomapan 400 in 35mm, and what I’ve learned about getting the best results from it.
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When I developed my first roll of film at a drugstore, I received both printed photos and a CD with digital scans of my images. While the prints turned out beautifully, the scans’ quality was awful—low resolution, and the colors were off. They charged me extra for those ugly scans. Shortly after buying my first non-disposable film camera, I ordered a dedicated film scanner—the Epson V600. Luckily, I received a faulty unit and was able to return it within a week, as I didn’t like it at all.
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While I always go to a concert if a band that I like is in town, I’m also happy to check out how my friends play when they invite me. Not long after getting the X-Pro 3 with a little 23mm F2 lens, a friend of mine invited me to a gig of the band he joined. I thought that it would be cool to document this event, despite them playing in a small bar that fits only about 40 people.
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