This has been the best summer ever for garden images. The Pentax 645 finally made it back into the rotation after two years of neglect. I bought the Pentax 645 expecting to use it mainly for studio shots because it’s too large to carry around. However, using a tripod in the garden also makes sense.
Color is important when capturing floral images, so the choice of film becomes an issue. So far, I have used Fuji 100, Fuji Superia-X 400, Portra 160, Portra 400, Ultramax, and Lomo 400 to capture flowers on 35mm, but only Lomo 400, Portra 160, and Portra 400 on the 645. Having seen the results, especially with the extension tubes, the Pentax 645 is definitely the winner over 35mm. The larger negative is hard to beat.
Here are a few of my final summer images on Lomo CN 400. All were taken with the 150mm f3.5 lens with and without the 13mm extension tube. My goal here was to compare the Lomo 400 to Portra 400 for sharpness and color rendition—both were shot at box speed.
My verdict: Both films show similar sharpness, but they differ quite a bit in color rendition. Lomo 400 seems to favor magenta/pinks, making them more vibrant. Portra 400 has a soft, pastel rendition. Overall, blues, purples, and yellows look somewhat better on Portra, while reds, pinks, and magenta are richer on Lomo 400. Greens are about equal.
What shall I use going forward? Good question. There is no single emulsion that does everything well. My daylilies look closer to life on Portra, but are more colorful on Lomo. Also, I can’t leave out Kodak 200, which looks very different from its 35mm version, and Fuji Pro 400H, which has a beautiful neutral tone. One final observation: the 150mm f3.5 is sharper than the 120mm macro, and with an extension tube, it works just as well.
Gardening season is over for now, so new experiments will have to wait until next May. When all is said and done, this has been a good year!
(I included the robin image because it played in the bath for a very long time, even though I walked around and shot it from many different angles. Initially, it hopped through the yard near the bird bath, hidden mainly by flowers. Then, after watching me for a while through the foliage, it flew up on the bird bath. My guest seems to have decided I wasn’t a threat.)
