29 April 2011

Fuji FP-3000B - North Pier Lighthouse

Recently I've been shooting with the Fuji-3000B using my Polaroid 250. I love the photos that I have been getting from this film and the flexibility that a 3000 ISO instant film provides. This is just one of the Fuji peel-a-part films, but it is definitely my favorite. It is also one of the few films left that leaves a paper negative, which can then be scanned and used to make prints from. I'll post an example of one of the negatives in a later post.
These photos, again, are from one of my recent weekend trips up to Erie. This lighthouse, located on the north pier of Presque Isle, is one that I have taken photos of many times before,  but it's the first time that I have shot it since I started using instant films. Oddly enough, these photos were actually taken around 4 in the afternoon, even though they happen to look a little like  evening/night shots.

You'll notice these photos are filled with flaws if you look at them fullsize, but I don't think it detracts from the look at all. Because we were out walking Presque Isle for a while, and I wanted to try and salvage the negative from these photos, I waited to peel them until we were somewhere I could let them dry. The additional time probably added to the darkness of the photos, and also caused them to stick to the negative when I did peel them, leaving some odd marks. There was also a problem with the first photo out of this pack, and in fixing it I obviously had some light leak in as well. But, again, it's these strange occurrences and problems are what make instant photography fun for me. Now a days people spend hours in post trying to emulate these kinds of errors and effects... I love seeing it happen naturally.

2 comments:

  1. Hi there,

    I ran across your blog when looking for info about the new TIP color film and when I saw the lighthouse photos, I realized who's blog it was. I've seen your work on Aperture Tremont's Flickr stream. Great stuff.

    Though I'm interested to see if you found out why these shots came out so dark. The fuji films are all self terminating so in theory it doesn't matter how long you wait, You can't really "push" process the film. Or at least that's been my experience in my short time with the Polaroid 250. Scanning the goop (the paper backing) is fun though. You get some great shadow detail out though it's more noisy. And this way I can give away the original to the person I photographed and still keep the negatives for scanning later. Apparently you can do something similar with the 100 speed film but you need to use a brush and bleach...

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  2. I knew that the color was self terminating, but I wasn't entirely sure about the 3000b. I figured it would be. Either way, leaving it for too long does seem to make the print stick to the negative and become difficult to peel.

    So, as for why it came out so dark... I think it was probably just the metering of the camera and the light situation outside at the time. It was early afternoon, but there was also some storm clouds rolling in off the lake.

    This was one of my first packs of the 3000, so I really didn't know what to expect. I'd like to play around a little more with outdoor exposures and this high ISO film.

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