People, Places and Photography

Olympus OM-2, Zuiko Auto-W 21mm f/3.5, Kodak BW400CN black & white film. Shooting black and white is new to me. I’ve never really had any luck shooting black and white film. It’s probably because I stink at it.  But on a recent engagement I literally had to shoot black and white because that was what is in the camera at the time. I needed to switch to color film and I still had about 10 frames of Kodak’s BW400CN.  Yet another that was new to me is the lens I was shooting with.  It was a Zuiko 21mm f/3.5. A recent acquisition when I purchased it along with a Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.2 (which was what I was after in the first place) and a E.Zuiko Auto-T 100mm f/2.8 (a lens I already had).  But the price for the three lenses was close to a bargain as you’ll ever get on eBay. Thus I made the purchase knowing I’ll probably resell the two lenses I didn’t need. I think I’ll be keeping this copy of the 21mm now that I had the opportunity to use it in the field.  Two observations I took away from this shoot were that the Zuiko Auto-W 21mm f/3.5 is very sharp at 5.6 and beyond. Second is Kodak’s BW400CN film is very fine grain compared to Ilford’s XP2 Super 400 black and white color process film.  I shot these scenes using my internal meter on my Olympus OM-2 (very accurate compared to my Sekonic L-308 hand held meter).  Also I set my ISO on the camera to 200 rather than 400.