Hot on the heels of the recent, failed attempt, here’s another one. Apologies, maybe, but I was having just too much fun I guess.
Despite being rather endless, Hipstamatic 300 is quite fun, for now at least, though I miss the old Hipstamatic and its baked-in effects. The shake to randomize was fun and it was just fast. Sure, I often got some really horrid pictures out of it, but I never had to spend any time fiddling around, I could just enjoy shooting. Now, with 300+, I have to worry about getting the shots onto the computer with the effects baked in, which means transferring via AirPlay or saving them individually as copies in the app, both of which are a bit of a bother.
I run an ssd on this MacBook Pro, and I try to avoid repeatedly saving and deleting files on it due to (completely misplaced)* paranoia about the write endurance of ssd drives.
But this isn’t about ssd write endurance or the problems I have with Hipstamatic.** This is about using the phone to play with pictures shot on film…
This time, let’s play with some real film… 4×5 film.
You probably remember this picture of my dad, shot with the Crown Graphic on Ilford HP5+.
I took it through Hipstamatic and *poof*
It’s a bit overcooked, but not too shabby, methinks. The D-type Plate film filter was a good choice for the 4×5 negative, and the Leonard lens is nice and sharp.
4×5″ negatives include a startling level of detail that is even captured, sort of, by the D7000. This is one instance where I think a proper scanner would be better, but you can quite literally count the hairs on Dad’s beard with this ‘scan.’ With a decent scanner, I expect you could see me and the Graphic View reflected back in his pupils.
Here’s a blow up of the original and the Hipstamatic version for closer comparison.
Looking up this close, at sizes one might actually print at, Hipstamatic pulled out some definition—I probably did that in the edit part and not as part of the Leonard lens or D-Type Plate—that was very likely lost due to limitations in the D7000/Nikkor 24-105mm D combo’s resolving power, but that is very likely there in spades, and even more so, in that massive negative.
Anyway, more detail from the phone edit, also more grain, and it’s a decent simulation of film grain, I suppose. What’s impressive is the complete lack of visible grain in the negative. I’m liking this 4×5 business and looking forward to shooting some more, for sure.
I’m fairly happy with this attempt at translating a film photograph into Hipstamatic. The film still wins, and I’d like to see what these negatives can put out 1) on some paper and 2) on the computer with a higher resolution scan.
So take a closer look and let me know what you think, if you think anything at all. Thanks in advance.
* The ssd in my mbp is a Samsung 840 Pro, the same one that won the write endurance test and finally wore out after writing 2,400 Terabytes of data… It’s doubtful that I’ll AirDrop that much data in this lifetime…
**On that note, it would be nice if pictures shot in the Classic mode saved as ‘Lossy’ and pictures in the Pro mode were editable, but what do I know.
