Danielle , Sophia and Micah

When I bought Sophia, my Vespa, back in December 2011, I figured I'd use her in photoshoots.  Well it's been 15 months since I used Sophia in a "shoot" and eight months since I've photographed Danielle.

A "Meet-up" was posted in the FB Photography group and fortunately Danielle was available to shoot.  I sent her an image and some thoughts on wardrobe, she understood and showed up in a green floral print dress, green shoes, lace gloves and a scarf.

As part of this years personal challenge, I was supposed to shoot film during every session and also shoot something dramatic.  For this "meet-up" I brought my Nikon F5 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens, along with 4 rolls of film: Ilford XP2 Super 400 (B&W), 2 rolls of Portra 400 and one roll of expired Superia 400 film.

We started shooting at 3:00 PM and usually I'll overexpose film by 1 - 2 stops, but my last attempt the pictures were too overexposed so this tim eI shot them at box speed.  It maybe the camera, or the developing, or both.  The images came out about a stop overexposed on the Color Negative film and about 2 stops on the B&W film.  The Triptych below was actually shot on Portra and then converted to B&W.

After two rolls of Color Negative film, I switched to the Ilford and asked Micah to shoot with me.  I've never shot with Micah before, but her style and wardrobe lent itself to black and white.  These images were shot in shade, but were excessively overexposed even when using Matrix Metering.

All images were shot with Available light since I can't seem to get my PocketWizards Flex system to work on my F5, even in dumb mode.  ARRRGGGHHHH!!!

So what did I learn?

• I seem to use Available light for my film images, so why not use my Grey Card when shooting Color Negative.

I have a shoot this Sunday at 10:00 and will definitely shoot some Portra and use my Grey Card, assuming the Negative Scanner is consistently calibrated.