Girls on film by Daniel Pestana
"I love Fuji because of the natural colours and by overexposing it I can get those wonderful pastel tones that I really love a lot."
Tell us about yourself.
I'm 37 years old, I'm from Reguengos de Monsaraz but I currently live in Lisbon, Portugal. I'm a Professional Translator.
When and how did the film journey begin for you?
My film journey began around 1988, when my father bought a Minolta Maxxum 7000. I started shooting with it, and the more I shot, the more I became in love with photography. It was kind of hard to get good information on how to shoot film at the time, so I learned from trial and error. It was only this year that I decided to attend a course on film photography at NAF at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon.
What type of film do you usually shoot and what made you choose it?
My favourite films are Fuji Pro 400H, Fuji Pro 160S and Kodak Tri-X 400, however I shoot other films as well. I'm currently exploring CineStill 800T. I love Fuji because of the natural colours and by overexposing it I can get those wonderful pastel tones that I really love a lot.
What camera makes you click?
My Pentax 67. I'm totally addicted to it. It's just great. The quality of the photos, the built, the aesthetic of the camera.
Between black and white and colour film which would you choose?
Definitely colour film, but it will all depend on the context. I mainly study and shoot portraits, so when confronted with a specific scenery and light, I usually decide on the spot.
What lenses do you use?
On the Pentax 67 I shoot with only one lens, the wonderful Pentax 6x7 Takumar SMC 105 f/2.4.
On the Nikon F100 I shoot with several lens, namely:
Nikon 50mm f/1.2 AI-S
Nikon Q.C 135mm f/2.8 AI
Nikon 28mm f/2.8 AI-S
Nikon 50mm f/1.4 AI-S
Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G DX (usable on full frame at f/1.8 with a little and nice vignetting)
Nikon 105mm f/2.5 AI-S (this one just blows me away, it's great)
Nikon ED AF NIKKOR 80-200mm f/2.8
Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G
Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G (best lens ever)
On the Minolta Maxxum 7000 I mainly shoot with the Minolta AF 50mm f/1.7.
I recently bought a Kiev 4 from 1962 with the Jupiter-8M 50mm f/2 lens but I haven't tried it... yet.
Do you make any experiments on film?
Yes. Well, I sometimes do some extreme experiments to better understand how a specific film will look great and what I can do with it. The last experiment I did was kind of crazy. I took my Nikon F100 with the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G DX to a friend's concert and a roll of CineStill 800T. I wanted to see how much detail I could loose on the shadows (intentionally) by underexposing them as much as possible, so that only the bright areas (where the subject was) would be visible. To do this I rated the film at box speed and I used the exposure compensation at -3EV, giving me a little more shutter speed and then I metered for the highlights. Amazingly, it worked as I expected, but the photos were very, very grainy. It allowed me to draw some important conclusions about CineStill 800T. I'll be shooting and experimenting more with it. It has a lot of potential. It would be great to have it on 120mm.
