London at Night with Expired Fuji Astia 100
The National Theatre glows red on the South Bank. 12s 50mm F8.0 Bronica SQ-A.
When I shot this roll, I hadn’t yet seen the images from last week’s blog, as I sent them off in a single batch to be developed. I shot this largely in comparison to the roll of Kodak Ektachrome I shot in the same area in April of 2022. As Ektachrome is a new formulation for a slide film I and others suspect, based on results, that this film stock has slightly more dynamic range that the longstanding Fuji offerings. I wanted to see how Astia stacked up, especially as this is less contrasty film compared to Provia & Velvia.
Looking Back towards the City of London. This time around I had my big 250mm lens to shoot distant subjects. The magenta-shifted colour cast is clearly visible and not reflective of what I could see with the naked eye. 25s 250mm F11 Bronica SQ-A.
The shard emerges between the One Blackfriars and Southbank Tower. 60s 250mm F11 Bronica SQ-A.
One big advantage of Astia over Ektachrome is reciprocity failure. Ektachrome requires no correction up until 10s which is good, but with Astia that goes all the way up to 60s which makes it much easier to use for shooting long exposures at night. My longest exposure on this night was 75s and I think that was only a few seconds above what my light meter had suggested. The required correction doesn’t suddenly increase when you cross the magic number.
The Shard from further down the Thames. 25s 50mm F8.0 Bronica SQ-A.
HMW Belfast captured from Tower Bridge. It was while I was taking this shot that I was spotted by the group from Photo Battle London. 45s 250mm F11 Bronica SQ-A.
The one challenging aspect of this shoot was just how busy the streets were, which can be a real problem when you are setting up a tripod for long exposures. The numerous vibrations from footfall and traffic are also not helpful, especially when I was standing on Tower Bridge. A couple of the images have come out a little bit soft, but I also can’t rule out this being due to poor scanning. I did digitise these quite a while ago now and my technique has improved since then.
The Sea Containers London building which I previously failed to capture on Kodak Ektachrome due to a misfire. Unfortunately this image seems to suffer from shaking and is not entirely sharp. Perhaps I will have to go back for this one. 15s 50mm F8.0 Bronica SQ-A.
In comparison to my images from the fairground there is definitely a much stronger magenta tint that wasn’t reflective of what I could see in real life. Though there is so much light pollution in London that that could be a contributing factor, it is not always so visible to the naked eye. I can’t rule out that each roll I bought has been stored under slightly different conditions over the past twenty years but given there is still good detail and no issues with fading, I think I am correct in assuming that this roll has also spent much of its life stored properly.
A view of the City of London from a different point on the Thames. 30s 150mm F11 Bronica SQ-A.
I think the colour cast gives the images their own kind of charm that suits capturing artificial lighting. None of this light is natural so why should its colours be? Is the dynamic range here less than the Ektachrome images I shot previously? Debateable, but if there are then it is still very close, though I think the Astia images definitely have less contrast. But again, is that due to the properties of the film? Or the fact it is so heavily expired? That’s all part of the fun guessing game when you have little experience shooting the fresh stuff.
The Tower of London is dwarfed by the skyscrapers in the background. 30s 150mm F11 Bronica SQ-A.
I do feel that after this shoot I need to expand my horizons a bit, and this coming Autumn and Winter I will go out and explore some new nighttime locations in London, including further up and down the Thames. It does get a bit boring if you photograph the same things over and over again, even if you bring along a different setup. A great bit of serendipity from this evening was that I bumped into a group from Photo Battle London for the first time. My Bronica-SQA catching their attention. Amusingly the photo of me standing on Tower Bridge was actually the winning image from that night, which you can see at the end of this blog. Full credit goes to Alexander Howard who took it. Certainly a successful evening shooting.
A very moody and contrasty shot of the Houses of Parliament. I feel the magenta tint works really well in this image. 30s 50mm F8.0 Bronica SQ-A.
Alexander Howard’s winning photo of me standing on Tower Bridge for Photo Battle London. For once I actually look quite cool, and luckily I happened to be wearing something that perfectly matched the colour scheme. Almost like it was planned.
If you have enjoyed this blog then please consider leaving a tip below.
