A last minute weekend away to Dublin and a great excuse to try out some Fuji 800 film...plenty of Guinness flowing and some good craic to add to it too!
Last time I was in Dublin was November 2015, so I decided to make it over pretty much the same weekend as last time. Planning for the trip I gathered (correctly) that I would spend some (but that I mean a lot) time in the pub and more than likely deal with cloudy skies and earlier sunsets. At least I was right on two of those counts given that the weather was (surprisingly) exceptionally clear, even if very cold!
Why is all of this important? Assuming I was going to be either inside drinking copious amounts of Guinness or outside under cloudy skies or near sunset, I would need some fast film. I opted for some Fuji 800 - at least 3 rolls of it. I gathered at least 1 roll would be used (or wasted!) messing around in the pub. I wasn't far off, however the results were surprisingly good.
(As usual you can make all photographs below full screen by clicking on them...)
Grainy goodness at ISO 800. Also hard to hold a stable camera after a few....
A short 2 hour hop from Frankfurt to Dublin with Lufthansa and I managed to get some nice window shots. This film performs nicely during the day, albeit the sky and clouds can become a bit washed out.
Wide angle lens spying...
Obligatory take off shots followed by sunset and random clouds....
Always happy to see we are connecting to a jet bridge (I had to look that term up I've always called it a finger) and not taking the bus...
My planned arrival of circa 5.15pm worked well for a "direct to pub" approach. I apologise in advance for not announcing more widely about my visit...I guess I have to add that disclaimer in every time I travel now if it falls within one of my "film weeks".
Below are some family shots (namely Uncle Diarmuid, Aunty Carmel, Feargal, Brendan, and Stephen...he isn't actually family but sure everyone is family in Ireland!)
Onto the film performance - not bad at all. Very grainy as you can see but considering these are handheld shots and some of them are with my wide angle Voigtländer lens (whilst a legend of a lens, he is only f4 - so not that wide of an aperture). My Leica lens operates at f2, so it actually lets in four times more light than f4. If this sounds confusing, you can find a quick guide to f stops here.
And the word of the day is....
Why do Irish people always have near empty glasses....?
Note to the photographer - shooting from below adds chins! Otherwise a nice artistic shot with plenty of pub culture going on in the background. It also makes Brendan look suspiciously nearly as tall as me.
More pub shots including a "Guinness queue"
Overall the film performed well indoors, although some of the shots that came back were out of focus. That's likely my getting used to the rangefinder focusing of the Leica (read more about that here), and needing more practice in the distance scale on the lens. I have picked up a Leica flash unit for a decent price, that should certainly help for those pub indoor shots in the future.
After (surviving) Friday night, we decided to head down to Greystones on Saturday, a real home away from home for me. My uncle Conor lives there and it is where my grandparents lived. Coincidentally, my friend Stephen also lives there! Yes it is true that there is a very high chance of positively answering the "oh you don't happen to know (person xyz)...." question in Ireland!
A shot of Dublin bay on the way down to Bray...
Couldn't resist taking this shot...
I have been doing the Bray to Greystones walk (actually vice versa) for as long as I can remember, although I was quite surprised as to how popular it has become. There is a proper pathway all the way between Bray and Greystones along the sea, whereas as a teenager I remember having to be very careful not to fall off a cliff (literally) as the sea kept on eroding the coast and very simple pathway.
Oh and for a bit of a history lesson, the railway that goes under Bray Head was actually built by the very famous British engineer Brunel. I highly recommend watching the short video here (from about 30 seconds in). It is from the excellent BBC Coast series, and the presenter is also called Neil (what a great name!).
In fact if you watch the video you will see very old footage of some of the following shots...it has barely changed!
Brendan wondering about his choice of hat...and below with his new best friend
Brendan with his work colleagues Samantha and Joe from San Francisco
Eager Irish fans off to see Ireland v New Zealand...unfortunately we couldn't make it 2 in a row...
And of course we ended the day in another pub, followed by more walking on Sunday (we like to have a good balance you see). Some shots of the Dublin mountains below....
So overall I am very pleased with this film. I have used the Fuji Superia 400 extensively so I am not surprised that it also performs well at 800. I would say though with low light and indoors one could benefit from a flash (as a tripod is pretty much out of the question in any pub!).
Overall result: PASSED
Oh and for clarification - the pass/fail note is not intended to be a reflection of how good I think the photos are, but whether I would use the film again! At least it shows most people are reading the posts!
Some additional random photos below for fun.
Thanks as usual for reading this - and as always, stop reading this and go take more photographs!
Week 6 + 7 are on the way in the next few days!
Cheers!
Neil
Yellow buses and pints of Guinness....why the hell not
Sure to be a tear-jerker for the extended O'Neill family...a picture is worth a thousand words:
