In September we took a long-anticipated and much-needed break on the North Yorkshire coast. A place that we've both enjoyed visiting since we were young, and somewhere we've revisited several times over the past few years. My partner and I both have family history in Yorkshire (I was born there, for a start) so given that we met in Cambridge, and she actually grew up near London, we are lucky to both have fond childhood memories in this area.
I took a lot of photos, of course, as I always do. I took three cameras with me - my Canon R10 with RF 28mm prime lens, my little Nikon Zoom 310 AF point and shoot camera, and my Holga 120N. For 35mm I packed Lucky C200 exclusively. For 120, I had Ilford HP5+.
I have a lot of images to share, so I thought I'd split this post into different parts. I've also separated film photos from digital - they have such a different look to them, that I don't think they work together. Over the years I've tried many film emulation presets for my digital photos, and some of them I quite like, but I've always found it hard to match the soft, warm tones of film.
I'd also mention that in digitising the Lucky C200, I tried three different negative conversion apps/plugins, and all gave wildly different results. The idea that a particular film stock has a certain look might hold up in terms of darkroom printing, but when you digitise the negatives, it all depends so much on how you process them. In summary, I found Negative Lab Pro gave quite inconsistent results, which would require a lot of tweaking using the plugin to achieve a kind of harmony across each of the rolls. Filmomat SmartConvert was much more consistent, but the colours came out kind of brownish by default. In the end I liked the results from Negmaster Negsets the most - not only were they consistent and pleasing to look at, but the process was so simple. Apply a profile, adjust the exposure and intensity, maybe tweak the white balance slightly, and you're done. I like that kind of simplicity.
One other thing to note - and I think this might be a Lucky C200 issue rather than a conversion issue - is that bright yellows came out quite 'interesting'. There was a tendency for them to become a deep orange. It did vary slightly between the different conversion plugins, and Negsets probably gave the most true-to-life result with the yellows, but it was a feature across the board. I've never noticed this before with Kodak Gold, so I think it's a quirk of the Lucky film. Which, by the way, I do love, and would definitely use again.
Anyway, here are some images. Brace yourself, it's a long one...
1. Whitby views
(Nikon Zoom 310 AF and Lucky C200)
2. Walking back along the coast to Whitby
(Nikon Zoom 310 AF and Lucky C200)
3. Views from and around the 199 steps
(Nikon Zoom 310 AF and Lucky C200)
4. Intermission: seagull
(Nikon Zoom 310 AF and Lucky C200)
5. Walking Whitby to Runswick Bay
(Nikon Zoom 310 AF and Lucky C200)
6. Staithes
(Nikon Zoom 310 AF and Lucky C200)
7. Runswick Bay again
(Holga 120N and Ilford HP5+)
8. Staithes again
(Holga 120N and Ilford HP5+)
9. Walking by the North York Moors Railway, Goathland to Grosmont
(Canon R10 and RF 28mm)
10. Walking back on the coastal path to Whitby
(Canon R10 and RF 28mm)
11. Monochrome on the West Pier
(Canon R10 and RF 28mm)
12. Walking between Sandsend and Runswick Bay
(Canon R10 and RF 28mm)
...and that's it! If you've made it this far, thanks for sticking with me. I hope something in there was interesting, or enjoyable, or inspiring... or just not boring.
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