From film to digital and back: A photo blog

June 04, 2024

Chicago: surrounded by great architecture

I was fortunate to visit Chicago in May, this time not stuck at an airport area hotel but staying downtown for a couple of days. In fact, the hotel I stayed at had “Magnificent Mile” in its name! Also, the conference I was attending included an evening river tour, so I had a chance to see the Chicago skyline from the river during sunset, golden hour, and after dark.

For this trip I brought along the Hasselblad 500C/M, and two lenses, the “standard” 80mm and a wider angle 50mm.

I shot four rolls of film on this trip, three rolls of expired Fuji Acros ii Neopan 100 ASA, and one roll of Ilford Delta 3200 for after the sun went down. The Acros, a discontinued film, expired last year, but black and white film has a much longer shelf life than what's indicated on the label, provided it was stored well. I scored this film last fall from a Montreal-based film distributor, Popho, who was selling bricks of recently-expired Acros, a brick being a sealed pack of 10 rolls.

All of these were developed using Rodinal, a developer from 1891; the specific formulation I’m using is Blazinal. They were scanned on an Epson V850 and processed with Silverfast.

Roll 1

At the end of the first day of the conference, I had a break following the afternoon session before dinner, so I went on a ramble along the “Magnificent Mile.” These were all shot at box speed, 100 ASA.

Roll 2

The next morning, I got up before sunrise and walked out to the Navy Pier, though there was not much sun: it was cloudy and very windy on the pier. Once again, these were shot at 100 ASA.

Roll 3

For the river cruise, the first roll was shot before things got dark, but as the sun was setting, it needed a little help with the lower light level. I pushed this roll two stops, so shot at 400 ASA, and compensated in the timing of development, following the timing recommendations found in the Massive Dev Chart, the go-to resource for film development. I really like the look of Acros pushed, I will do this again…

Roll 4

Once things got dark, I loaded up roll of Delta 3200, and shot at box speed, 3200 ASA. These are not great, but I don’t have a lot of experience with Delta 3200, this was handheld, and on a moving boat…