Having acquired some special Kodak 800 35mm colour film, I decided to take it take it out for a spin across Hamburg in late December. Come join me for a quick snapshot of some of Hamburg’s most interesting sites.
I picked up some random Kodak 800 colour negative 35mm film from Sales de Plata in Madrid, a really cool analogue photography shop in the centre of the city. Apparently this film they had was once the actual film used in a disposable camera, presumably a Kodak 800 camera. I think they bought it from a supplier in Germany, and they had a very limited stock, so I decided to take a chance and pickup 3 rolls.
I ended up shooting 2 of the rolls on a few days trip to Hamburg after Christmas, where I had a stopover for a few days before spending New Year’s on an island in Lower Saxony.
A bit more about the photographs
I didnt have any theme in mind other than thinking after Christmas would still be a nice time to capture some moody evening lighting. I stayed away from photography Christmas markets as I have done that quite a lot already. I decided for some shots of Hamburg Port would be a good place to start.
A view of Hamburg’s Townhall. Shot from inside a restaurant so a bit of window reflection visible.
One of the train stations that run along the Port of Hamburg.
Part of the Port of Hamburg in the distance. The port is very spread out, covering an area of 75 sq km. It is the 3rd largest port in Europe. It is also very old, founded in 1189!
Old school boat!
Another shot of the port in the distance. In the foreground you see all the gangways that run off to various tourist boats that offer tours along the river Elbe.
My cover shot for the blog in full portrait (non-cropped) mode. I really like the composition of this shot and the colours. Nice shot of the Elbphilarmonic concert hall in the background.
My parents looking out to the port and my Dad commenting on the dry dock in the distance.
I liked all the different boats in this shot.
Shot into the sun on purpose to see how this film handled directly sunlight.
The wonderful Elphilarmonie Concert Hall.
Different angle shot looking right up.
Entrance to the incredible ‘Elb Tunnel’ - a 426m long tunnel that runs right underneath the river Elbe. Built in 1911, it is still in use today, although mostly for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. I believe cars still use it, as they certainly fit in the larger lifts. It is very impressive to say the least. I particularly like this shot too!
A view of the lift shafts.
It goes down to 24m under the river. It kind of slants downwards before rising a bit on the other side.
I really like the angle here and really nice low light characteristics from the Kodak 800 film.
One of the 4 elevator shafts.
Looking at this shot is making me hungry.
I love the lighting in this shot.
A really cool old school pipe shop.
I always like repetitive patterns and this was a perfect scene to test out the low light abilities of this film.
One of my favourite shots of the roll. I like all the flurry of lights in the out of focus part of the image.
Really nice Christmas lighting in central Hamburg.
Colourful train on the East Frisian island of Langeoog.
Very harsh dynamic range and I am impressed by how well the shot came out!
Overall observations
I was pleasantly surprised by this Kodak 800 35mm film. I really liked the colours and how it handled situations of high dynamic range. It isn’t as good as Kodak Portra 800, but I suppose it isn’t supposed to be and was clearly aimed at the consumer market if it was used for single use cameras. I was particularly impressed by some of the low lighting shots (e.g. Hamburg street lighting shots). For the daytime any ISO 400 colour film would have done, but clearly I couldn’t switch out the film half way through the roll!
And if you haven’t visited Hamburg before, I highly recommend it. There is a lot to see and more importantly, lots to photograph!
See you next time,
Neil
