Part 1

Back near Easter I decided I wanted to go away for a few days with the explicit purpose of taking some photos. I had just finished my first roll of film in a long time and decided I wanted to shoot some more.

Short Walk

I had two film SLR camera bodies, my grandfather’s Olympus 35RC, and a couple of digital cameras as well.

And this is the thing, why would I have any cameras other than the Ricoh GR IIIx. It’s perfect.

Well, it isn’t that good for getting photos of tiny birds far away.

Quick stop

I had a quick stop at winery to pick up a gift. I still don’t like wine.

At the start of the trip I had about 4 frames to finish off of Kodak Vision3 250D, which I would later realise is one of my preferred film stocks, in the OM-10. I replaced it with Ektar 100. I figured I was taking photos of landscapes, so why not use a film designed for it.

Ektar seems to be a film stock a lot of people don’t like. I quite like it, but after shooting more film I am not sure I like it that much more than something like Kodak Gold, which is nearly half the price.

Cape Shank

Next stop, Cape Shank. Around the back of the peninsula looking south.

I like both these photos. I like the colours and the flags in the first from other Sony, I also like the JPG recipe on the Ricoh, which was almost certainly Royal Supra.

While I didn’t use it much, I also had a roll of Vision3 250D still in the Olympus 35RC. Fun fact, these photo was taken on an entirely different day because I came back here trying to get more photos of birds.

While the flexibility of a zoom, or interchangeable lenses is fantastic, why would I ever shoot with anything other than the GR IIIx?

Along with the Ektar 100 in the Olympus body, I also had a roll of Kodak Portra 400 in a Pentax Super Program. I have had the set of 3 Pentax FA Limited lenses for a long time and used them on my Pentax digital SLR, so I was excited to try them out with Portra 400.

Bushrangers Bay

Just down the road and around the corner from Cape Shank is Bushrangers Bay. It’s a few (5) kilometres from the road / carpark (carpark is a strong term, there is room for about 6 cars, but then everyone just piles up on the side of the road) to the beach.

At the end of the walk are a lot of stairs down to the beach, more stairs than is reasonable, but I wandered down and then along the sand.

I had an idea that I wanted to get a photo with a long exposure with waves going over some rocks. Between laziness after the 5km walk, and knowing I had go back up the stairs, the time, the wind, I didn’t feel like trying to get too close to the rocks and set up just back from the shoreline.

I am just pleased that the calculations for exposure with a few filters stacked on top of each other wasn’t miles off, and there was some detail in the shadows.

I spent a little while with a couple of compositions, but the contrast between the cliffs in the shadow and the bright sun really wasn’t helping.

I packed everything back into my backpack and started the walk back along the beach before going back up all the stairs.

The walk back was just as long as the walk down the beach, bit annoying., but there were a couple of birds. A lot of smaller ones I failed to spot for long enough to get a photo of.