Roll of film 010 – Danish beach racing Ilford FP4

This is my final set of images from danish beach racing at Rømø Motorfestival. These are shot on Ilford FP4 black & white film on my Minolta Hi-Matic 7s. If you want to see the ones shot on Kodak Ektar 100 look here: Roll of film 008 – Rømø Motorfestival Ektar 100 or if you want to see the ones shot on Fujifilm C200 – which in my humble opinion is better than the Ektar ones then look here: Roll of film 007 – Rømø beach race

Up until this point my favorite images I shot from the event was the C200 ones. I think the Ektar ones became too saturated for an event with that many colors. But seeing these on FP4 I am suddenly unsure about which ones I like the most. These have really turned out better that I hope. Especially considering that I have had some issues with images turning out way too overexposed in the highlights before on the Hi-Matic. And by all accounts a fully lit and sunny beach is bound to give trouble with these shortcomings.

But as you will see, somehow it played along and gave really good images. The happy conclusion here is that it seems like I have finally figured out the right settings for shooting FP4 to my liking. I actually had a somewhat complicated relationship with FP4 from the beginning. When I got the first images back from the Hi-Matic 7s, that was also a new camera to me, I was somewhat disappointed. The highlights was blown and I was unimpressed with the sharpness.

Working a bit of magic on them in post-processing helped somewhat. But the fun thing is that it took a good couple of weeks before I had grown to like them. I suddenly looked back through the first roll of FP4 I had been disappointed by and suddenly I found quite a lot of images that I liked in the roll that I had missed the first time around.

This seemed to repeat itself with each successive roll of FP4 I got back from the lab. I was closer and closer but my initial impression was always disappointment.

Which brings me all the way to this current roll of FP4, that I have had sitting in the camera for several months before finishing it. But this time I was not disappointed when I looked at the pictures. I actually really liked a lot of them right of the bat. Some I still had to turn the exposure down a bit. But overall I was in no way disappointed.

I wonder what that will mean for the future, will I then look back at them and be disappointed or fall deeply in love with them? As an overall roll I cannot remember ever being this satisfied with a full roll of black & white.

Let’s get to some pictures. You are not here to read anyway.

Pictures

First one is of a good old Harley. There was so many of these old beauties. I am still unsure about whether I will ever get to own one or I will go for a vintage Triumph instead. But if I do, then the style of this one will be exactly what I am after.

And of course for my current bike not to feel left out, it is pictured here in foreground along side numerous others. It was quite the ride to get here as you can read in the post with Fuji C200 images linked in the beginning. But my god that bike has been bulletproof and just soaked up the miles this year. It is almost as if I need to look for a more unreliable number 2 bike to have tinkering to do. That was part of the idea of buying old and this one just goes and goes.

This guy stood on top of the bed of an old truck and was clearly looking for someone to arrive. Everything about him was so damn cool. I even asked him to pose for a picture, which probably is my first ever “portrait” of a stranger. But as you will see my abilities was inadequate, as I should have predicted that his face would disappear ind the shade of his hat.

The first one here I really like.

The next one here clearly shows my failure unfortunately. I had actually looked forward to get that one back from the lab. But it is all a learning experience. And I still like it a little bit.

Lets have a full view of the event. Or at least as much as I could fit into one frame. I really like the amount of detail that is still present in the image while the delicious grain softens it up a little. Almost all my “landscape” shots so far has been washed out on black and white film. So really pleased with this. It does show some of the size of this danish beach racing event.

Before I get into the habit of praising myself too much, let me present another image that did not turn out exactly as I had wanted. A lot of detail is lost here but I am also shooting into the sun, so the error is surely on me. Then landscape shot above is shot in the opposite direction.

Here the highlights are blown out, but there is still a good amount of detail and contrast in the actual subject. And just look at this crazy creation. The beach was full of custom hotrods like this.

I am a little bit unsure about whether Batman would drive the one above or below if he did danish beach racing. Both incredible machines. Just look at the size of that thing below. I have seen smaller buses.

In this image below shooting into the sun actually worked really well as opposed to the one two images above where shooting into the sun hid most of the subjects. Here it enhances contrast and creates a look I really like!

Not much to say about this one. I just really like it. Sharp as can be and even though shot in direct sunlight backlit, still has some contrast.

And finally this one. No special reason for having this as the last one. But maintaining detail in the sky while not blowing out the white roof really means that I must have nailed exposure on this one. Really proud of that as I had a lot of issues with exposure on this camera and film, as mentioned earlier.

That was all. As I have mentioned I am really pleased with the images from the event. The only thing I regret is that I did not shoot more black & white images. I shot 2 rolls of color but only 10-12 black & white. I guess I did not expect them to turn out as good as they did.