Ilford’s Delta 3200 is another film I’d not had a lot of experience with. Samples online showed a pretty distinct lack of contrast, likely owing to it really being somewhere in the neighborhood is ISO 1000, with a design toward push processing. To try to capture some of that contrast back, I shot at 1600. The first two shots were of the most difficult animal in the world to photograph: a tuxedo cat. In this case, William MeowcAvoy, my handsome little man. I definitely could have gone up a stop or two to get more eye detail, but I do see the value of the flat tone curve in this instance.
My next stop was the Denver Zoo. It was the night of the Volunteer Appreciation Party, and I wanted to bring something a little different for photos of that night. Right at the entrance were two of the ambassador animal care staff sharing some of the more charismatic ambassadors. In further effort to increase contrast, I kept a red filter on through all of these, all done on the Tamron 70-200/2.8 g2. The fact that the contrast is just about at the minimum of what I personally care for means I’ll likely go back to my good old tri-x after I finish up the Delta in my freezer.
As part of the volunteer appreciation, the Toyota Elephant Passage care staff brought out Billy for a demonstration with a little more detail, fun, and adult discussion than the normal every day demo. I really like the way the Delta rendered these scenes with the red filter. It really brings out the handsome in our young man Billy.
I don’t know why I keep trying to get good pictures of our Fishing Cats. It’s just not going to happen; the window is garbage. They’ve got a very nice habitat, they’re cute and engaging as hell, but their window is one of the most deceptively bad in the entire zoo. Our eagles were as noble as always.
This is probably my favorite shot in the roll. The way the evening light was breaking through the trees at the flamingo pond was too good not to capture. This is one of those that reminds me I haven’t fallen slave to the digital era; I saw the light, I knew the shot I wanted, and I knocked it out in one fully manual shot. Zoomed in on the highlighted flamingos, metered for them, then pulled back to the composition I wanted. Got exactly what I was looking for (or I would have with Tri-X : D).
I alluded to this in a previous post. I had the roll to finish up on a trip to Arsenal. Caught a Swainson’s Hawk on one of the first trees and knew it was time to act. I did what I never thought I’d do and put the F5 into continuous high. Eight frames per second is not a cheap prospect on film, but sometimes you just know it’s the right place to do it. The last frame is the winner of the pack. Frame 5 would have been incredible if he’d have been facing toward me. But let’s be honest, 25 years ago, back in the proper ending age of film, any of these are shots that the average person would love to get. There’s obviously a bit less contrast here; I had swapped to the 150-600 and I’m not shelling out for a 95mm red filter.
Next up in the F5 is a roll of my old favorite color film: Ektar 100. We’ll see when I get the hankering to pump out those frames.
The Zootographer 