Friday, January 20, 2023

El Vado, pinholed

 Some blue sky and bright sun prompted me to load some Fomapan 100 in my pinhole camera.  I then headed down Central to the motels near where Route 66 crosses the Rio Grande.  The area is undergoing rapid development and the few remaining motels are being surrounded by multi-story apartments and shops.  The El Vado, closest to the river, was built in 1937 and restored in 2018 with the help of a 2 million dollar grant from the city.



The Fomapan 100 negatives had good density with two second exposures and I was pleased with the film's grain and tonalities.  This was the last roll of Fomapan I had in the refrigerator and I probably won't buy any more even though I was satisfied with its performance.  It is $6.49 at both Freestyle and B&H, while Ilford's new Kentmere 120 is still just $4.99 from the Film Photography Project.  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a nice shot Mike. It is nice to see the old historical places protected and restored. My dad worked down the street from there at an old Philips 66 gas station in the early 1940's. I once did an experiment with Foma pan 100 and Kodak 400TX both developed in Diafine, the Foma exposed at 160 and the TX at 800, and the film curves were identical. You could lay one on top of the other. The developer had some influence I'm sure. But the thing that caught my eye was that the grain was pretty much the same on both films. But the price difference!

Mike said...

Fomapan is nice stuff for most situations. It gets a little tricky doing long exposures because of reciprocity failure, but a small list of meter values and compensation adjustmens takes care of that.