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Cameron Highlands

Film...

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Back in 2016 I had a short stint with the Leica M-A: an analogue camera, without light meter, only capable of shooting film. I had traded in my M9 after recurring sensor problems, optimistic I'd manage film (despite never shooting film before).

It turned out to be a lovely experience really. I liked the camera, although having to meter separately was a bit of a bother, and I liked the process of loading film, being more thoughtful of what to shoot and what not (only 36 on a roll) and not seeing the image immediately. However, seeing my travelling, it wasn't very practical. For some reason I had the idea that in Asia developing film would still be a thing. It wasn't. Probably some misguided thoughts about some countries in Asia being behind in development, thus not having ditched the analogue world yet. They had. Just as hard as in the west. It was very hard to get my film developed, I had to think about airport scanners, had to plan buying film and had to wait to get back to The Netherlands with my negatives, where my scanner was located.

Then, the scanned negatives began to show weird defects. Spider web artifacts. Whole rolls spoiled. And the negatives that were good didn't seem to have any focus to them. It was rather disappointing after all the trouble. So what started optimistic turned rather negative (no pun intended) and I decided on another switch, to the Leica M-D. Keep that analogue feel, but do it digitally.

It's still my camera today.

I did add a film camera later on, a second hand Leica MP. Basically the M-A again, but with light meter. I haven't used it yet though. Soon.

All the negatives in the meantime lay in storage.

This year I decided to have another go at it. Not with the scanner, but with a camera setup. Photograph the negatives. Back then there weren't many options (I had already tried shooting the negatives, with improvised lighting and improvised negative holders - mixed results, hence why I decided to buy a scanner), but nowadays there's nice all in one solutions for photographing negatives - good light, good holders - if you have a camera and lens to spare.

So after 9 years... low and behold: the negatives were sharp, the defects gone. It was the scanner causing all the problems.

Let me thus introduce you to one of my film shots, years ago, in Cameron Highlands Malaysia. High up in the mountains, famous for its tea (in the foreground) and strawberry plantations. The film stock is a bit of a guess, but I do think it was Fuji. The negative was photographed with a Canon RP and the wonderful Canon EF 100mm Macro f/2.8 with the use of equipement from Negative Supply.

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Leica M-A on Fujicolor Superia 200 with Leica Summilux 50mm f/1.4 ASPH

Malaysia - 2016

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