Taking advantage of good visibility, I set out to photograph Frankfurt's skyline, giving me a good setting to test out Lomography colour negative 400 film.
The compactness of Frankfurt allows for some great architecture photos both at ground level and of course higher up. The Main Tower has Frankfurt's highest viewing platform, and stands at 200m high with a fully open air platform, with tripods allowed - fantastic. Even better is the price (€7,50)...as I am still reeling from the investment required to go up the Shard Tower in London.
So now for the film. I had some Lomography colour negative 400 stored in my fridge for a while and had been meaning to find an excuse to use it. At ISO 400 it works well in most situations and I had already tried Lomography 100 and 800 and been impressed. Lomography is an interesting company bringing back analog in a big way with their own cameras and all kinds of experimental film (remember the purple film and redscale film?). Overall I have found their films to be quite decent, and at a decent price point.
All photos shot over 2 days (starting just before sunset) with my Hasselblad 501c, as usual photos are clickable for full size viewing.
A really strong sunset in the distance, I struggled to expose for this properly given big differences in the brightness of the sun and darkness caused by the clouds. Not a bad performance from this film under the circumstances though. Top of the Main Tower looking out towards the main train station.
View eastwards, dominated by the massive Commerzbank building, and along the river Main with the new ECB building towards the end of the visible river.
The same shot on a different day and at night. I really like the colours this film displays, also look at the depth in those clouds - good stuff indeed!
Taken from below, the Main Tower is the one on the right with the red spire. Unusual pipes running along the Alte Oper (Opera House) square in the centre of the city.
Back up the Main Tower, just after sunset and clearly visible city street lights and different lights coming off the skyscrapers.
The same shot just about during the day time. I much prefer nighttime shots as they really bring out the colours.
Really nicely captured sunset (with some overly bright areas due to extreme differences in light and pointing the camera directly at the sun), and overall this film is quite good for a consumer grade film. Frankfurt International Aiport is just on the top left of the horizon, only 15 mins away from the city.
The wonderful Alte Oper building in the bottom left of the image. Great shot overall, I am impressed how well this came out given it is only an ISO 400 film.
My favourite shot of the week, traffic light trails with the Alte Oper in the background.
Overall impressions
I think this film performed well in some challenging lighting at sunset, and it really brings out colours nicely during the night. I will definitely use this film again (I'd like to try it in 35mm film) as it seems to be a great all rounder, similar to the Fuji Superia 400 film.
For the cityscape shots I would probably go for Kodak Portra 800, which really gives some exceptionally clear images. However, I really like some of these shots, especially those with subjects closer to me, they are very clear and the colours really vibrant. Definitely a film to have some stock of and ISO 400 is a great all rounder.
So there you have it, week 19 is done - week's 20+21 are coming together and feature colour and black and white shots taken in 4 countries...all to be revealed soon!
Now get back out there and take some more photos (and if with a film camera, even better!).
Cheers, Neil
