Film Thrill from Alex Urban

"Manual focusing with the Pentax 67 is just a breeze"

Tell us about yourself.

I am 32 years old and from Regensburg, Germany. I am studying business information technology and I am also a freelance photographer.

When and how did the film journey begin for you?

In April 2014 I saw spooky photographs from the early 20th century of children wearing their hand-made Halloween masks. I wanted to recreate the setting and the mood so I decided to shot the whole project on film. After I got the film scans back from the lab I was thrilled. Since then I use film for my personal work exclusively.

What type of film do you usually shoot and what made you choose it?

For my colour work I usually shoot the Kodak Portra line. I like Portra 160 best because of the nice and muted colours. But when I am in a low lighting situation or when I need more "pop" to the colours I use Portra 400 or 800. When I shoot black and white I use Kodak Tri-X and Fuji Acros 100, but lately I am also giving C41 black and white film like Ilford XP2 a try. The instant films I use on a regular basis are Fuji FP-100C, Fuji FP-3000B and the Impossible films

What camera makes you click?

I acquired a lot of different cameras over the last year. The Nikon F100 and the Pentax 67II are my workhorses. Manual focusing with the Pentax 67 is just a breeze, much easier than with any other medium format camera I used. The F100 works just like a modern digital SLR, so it is easy to adapt when you are coming from something like a Nikon D800. For my instant photography I use a Polaroid SLR 680 and a Polaroid 600SE.

Between black and white and colour film which would you choose?

Since i started to photograph on film, I shoot a lot more colour work because the tones are much nicer than in digital when scanned in a professional lab, but at the end of the day I will always favor black and white film over colour.

What lenses do you use?

I have never been a fan of zoom lenses, so my whole lens collection consists of prime lenses. For my Nikon F100 I have a 28mm, a 35mm, a 50mm and a 85mm lens. 50mm is my most frequently used focal length by far. For my Pentax i only have a 105mm lens which equals 50mm in small format.

Do you make any experiments on film?

At the moment I am experimenting with slight underexposure of Kodak C41 films. All the time you read that underexposure in film is something you should avoid at all costs but I have seen other photographers doing it and I really like the look.

You can find Photographer's Name here:
alexurban.de
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