Analog film photography and cameras

how difficult would it be to do it inside a dark bag to reduce any potential film wastage?

You only need to load the loader in the dark (assuming you use a regular ‘daylight loader’). I use a Watson style loader. It’s fine.

Got a few more back from the GA645zi, really enjoying shooting on this right now going to try cut down on the pint spending and have this on me at all times.

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Reading your post before scrolling to the pictures really didn't prepare my for how awesome your shots came out.
Really strong compositions and portra colours are lush.
Really good work!

I can't get my head around, why it looks like there's motion blur on skater, but not the shadow..

Image is superb imo.

The shadow is from the flash, which only fires for that 1/1000 of a second. But the skateboarder is still moving through the other 1/30 second as the shutter is open, so a bit of blur.

If I had been 90º to where I was, skateboarder going left to right more across the frame, it'd be more pronounced blur than that.

Deep depth of field with sun, colours and fast exposures looks great. Honestly don't get why you'd prefer shallow depth of field with any of these. First one the canopy has a weird solarised/negative look, in a good way.

Not necessarily with the ones on the previous page, but have a look at those two. There's a lot happening in the background.

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Let me first say I think there's some really cool shots!

Everyone recommended Portra 400, so that's what I got, but because it was always sunny and the film is so sensitive, I always had to keep the aperture closed almost all the way

So the EOS 300 can do 1/2000 ..was it really so bright you had to shoot at that speed and stop down completely??
Half of them don't look like it - especially not the last two you posted.

Anyways here's a few thoughs, maybe helpful -

..if you're absolutely certain it's going to be bright as fuck then yes, get 160 not 400.
160 isn't that much less sensitive than 400 though.
You can shoot 400 set at 200 or 100 (just hack the DX code) and some would argue you should do so, anyway. Remember it's not like with digital where your highlights blow out rather quickly - with colour negative film it's quite the opposite, you want to 'build up' details in the shadows.
You can get a camera body that can do 1/4000 or 1/8000.
You can also just focus not on the subject but quite a bit closer to the camera - if you are forced to stop down anyway and are shooting at top speed your subject will be sharp, and this will stop making the foreground look awkwardly unsharp and can helpa bit with making stuff that's far away razor sharp. Keep the 1/3 -2/3 rule in mind.

Good luck, enjoy, and keep up the good work!

Thanks for the advice mate :)
So the camera was set to aperture priority mode and I was shooting mostly at 1/1500 and metering for the lights - I thought this would give me nice, contrasty shots. But in most instances, the outcome was this ^^, or that:

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There's a lot happening in the background

Find a better background? Not being sassy, something I know I need to work on in my stuff. Heres an example, see if you can spot the skater and board

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Yet another approach, especially if you want to shoot the skater and not necessarily the whole park / surroundings - use a longer lens.

Or shoot from above.

Longer lens it is

Or from below.

With negatives, it's better to meter for the shadows. Modern pro film stocks will handle huge overexposure, but get grungy quickly if underexposed. It looks like that might have happened on a few of yours, and the scanner is trying to pull out detail that isn't there.

Always best to rate negative film at less than box speed just to help this a bit

Heres an example of Portra 400 shot 6 (SIX!) stops over:

https://petapixel.com/2018/02/05/test-reveals-exposure-limits-kodak-portra-400-film/
You can pretty much shoot it at any speed you want below 400 and get very useable results

Firstly, you deffinitely have some better shots than you’re giving yourself credit for, shooting skateboarding is notoriously difficult of course.

As others have mentioned you need to expose for your shadows and not the highlights with negative film (something you just have to get used to coming from digital, where the inverse is correct)

Otherwise I’d say just really try to think about other ways to try & create contrast within the image:

Composition - there’s nothing worse than a distracting background, unfortunately some spots will be difficult to shoot for this reason. You might find an angle which really compliments the trick but is just too messy for an image to really work. For instance with this shot you could have shot it like half a second later which would put the subject on a slightly cleaner background, as displayed on my highly accurate diagram below. (however you would also then not have the guy in the background perfectly positioned within the skaters legs which is a cool little detail. so it’s swings & roundabouts)

Otherwise a long lens + a flash would work too, but I do really much prefer skateboarding shot in natural light when possible.

Look at Rafael Gonzalez’ work if you’ve not done so already too, his work is beautiful!
Shooting black & white would be a good exercise too, that way you force yourself to think about how the composition & light creates contrast not the colours available in the scene.

Also note that overexposing the film will give you less contrasty files when scanned but you can pull a LOT of colour and contrast from Portra when you have a nicely exposed/flat scan.

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Thanks so much! I may actually try to shoot black and white for a while, not just skateboarding but in general.

@TooTallTim thanks!

Have a look at Fred Mortagne's skate photography too, incredibly good black and white work and composition

I was gonna say French Fred, he's the best

I just took my own advice and bought his book!

I had a GA645 a few years ago but find myself recently lusting after one of the fuji rangefinders.

Few more from the roll, shot on portra 400

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These are great: http://apertureleica.com/product/pre-owned/voigtlander-bessa-t-black/

Would've bought if I already didnt have one. cc/ Tina