Today I picked up the prints and scans of that roll of XP2 I was shooting with my Yashica Electro 35 GT last month – and I’m already in love with that film! It’s got great tonal range, and is incredibly versatile. You can shoot it anywhere between 200 and 800 ISO without having to adjust the processing, and you can push it below or beyond anywhere from 50 to 3200. I didn’t try to do so, but I did have some over- and underexposed shots that turned out perfectly. I’m going to get more XP2 as soon as I shot the one roll of HP5 I’ve currently loaded into my camera, and then I’m going to deliberately under- or overexpose it depending on the lighting situation and see how the shots turn out.
But first, here are a couple of lab scans from this roll, processed in Lightroom.
"Curiosity" | Yashica Electro 35 GT + Ilford XP2
Continue reading The Film Chronicles: Ilford XP2
Okay, here they are! It took me a little longer than intended until I finally got to scanning some of the pictures I took with my recently acquired Yashica Electro 35 GT rangefinder film camera, but now I finally got my ass up and scanned the pictures I liked best. All were scanned directly from 13 x 18 (5 x 7) prints with 600 dpi and post-processed in Lightroom 3 beta 2. The film used was a FujiFilm Superia X-TRA 400.
At the cathedral of Cologne, Germany | Yashica Electro 35 GT + FujiFilm Superia X-TRA 400
Continue reading First batch of scans from my 35 GT
No, it’s not what it sounds like, and I didn’t buy it at Toys”Я”Us 
In fact, it’s a 1969 Yashica Electro 35 GT – one of the many fixed-lens semi-automatic rangefinder cameras produced in the 60s and 70s before SLRs became the ruling species on planet Photography.
1969 Yashica Electro 35 GT rangefinder camera | Olympus E-P1 + Cosmicar/Pentax 25/1.4 @ f/1.4, 1/100 sec, ISO 800
This is the earlier version of the GT that doesn’t yet have gold-platet innards and only goes up to 500 ISO (the later GT(N) and GS(N) models go up to 1000.) I only just received it, so I couldn’t do much testing, but what I can say is that everything works, and after cleaning it up a bit the rangefinder is bright and clear and it looks just great
May 26th, 2010, 9:36 pm | 
