From the archives: Philippines 1995

[PeterN]

I wasn't really into photography back in the analog days other than vacation and family photography. In hindsight I should have used better film because the differences in film quality are very noticeable after all these years. So I am glad I did not wait another 10 years or so before scanning. Herewith some photos taken in 1995 during a business trip in the Philippines in a fishermen's community and in Manila. Film used: Kodak Ektar 100. The reason why these photos are keepers for me is that it makes me aware that there are many moments in live where you see and meet with people whom you don't know and don't know what happened with them. Another is that it reminds how much has changed in those 25 years. I would not dare to take photos of children other than my own family or with permission.  And thirdly, it reminds me that there is something with film that it is difficult to replicate in digital. Perhaps lenses are too perfect these days. I wonder if the Df with some older lenses could bring back that feeling.

Manila:

[PeterN]

Village:

[PeterN]

And some more from Manila:

[John Geerts]

Greatly documented, and quality is still pretty good after all these years. Must be an unforgettable experience.

[Thomas Stellwag]

I like your series very much and you´re right about actually photographing kids without asking
people look more satisifed than  today...an experience I make at home as well

[PeterN]

Thank you, John and Thomas! I was also surprised by the quality retained with this film. Where are the days when we only had aperture, shutter speed and focus rings at our disposal? I don’t want to sound sentimentalthough. Having a flexible ISO setting, autofocus, continuous focus are useful features! But I think I could live without all these menu bells and whistles. Sometimes I wish I could build my own menu structure in a camera!

[Akira]

Peter, I believe that these are priceless documents of the time of Philippines.  It is very good of you that you preserved the films in such a good condition.

I like the somewhat technicolor-like rendition.

[PeterN]

Thank you, Akira. Frankly, I had to clean up storage so after digitising everything, all film ended up in the waste basket. So it is a matter of backing up now!
I processed all slides in Negative Lab Pro and tweaked the colours a bit via a VSCO-based Ektachrome preset.

[Fons Baerken]

A wonderful document to be shared thanks. How did you digitize them Peter?

[PeterN]

A wonderful document to be shared thanks. How did you digitize them Peter?

Thank you, Fons. I photographed each negative with the D750 and 60mm macro lens with the ES-2 slide copier in Raw (with ETTR as recommended by the Negative Lab developer),imported in LR, set White Balance and cropped the frame (the 60mm with the ES-2 shoots the entire frame of the film but that comes in handy as it helps to set white balance). Then I exported batch to Negative Lab (a plugin for LR) and marked the "save a copy" tab. Although most photos look good right out of Negative Lab, I usually check white balance and do some minor tweaks, especially the color profile used. I also often have to turn the highlights to 0.

Regarding the ETTR recommendation: I compared several exposure settings and methods and ETTR only slightly benefits the outcome. However, centre-weighted exposure worked (as to be expected due to the relatively large area around the frame) the best.

[PeterN]

2 others