Pentax Spotmatic F with Candido800

I’m a Pentax person at heart. I think there’s a combination of the fact that K-mount cameras were all I could get my hands on as a kid, courtesy of my uncle’s Chinon CE-5 and the K100D I managed to get for far, far below market value as a teenager. Formative experiences coupled with the relative cheapness of lenses owing to the K-mount’s longevity and backwards compatibility made it a compelling piece of vendor lock-in for someone who is just one of those tedious open-source advocate types. Pentax M42 cameras have a similar appeal: the lens mount was basically ubiquitous for a while and the lenses are readily adaptable onto newer mirrorless bodies.

I like the area around the Barbican in London: it’s one of the few areas that central that actually feel designed to be lived in rather than to be traveled through, worked in or expoited as a tourist in. There’s interesting architecture, paths through buildings designed to be walked through and a genuine intentionality about it that sets it apart from a lot of (especially modern) developments in the city. This makes it a great place to photograph: there’s things going on; there are people doing interesting things in places you can actually access. Unfortunately, I was on frame 35 of this roll by the time I got there. I think the shots above and below make the point I want to make though: there’s a lot there to like to look at.

Candido800 is just CineStill 800T is just Kodak Vision 500T: it’s another rebadged, de-remjetted, respooled cine film. It’s also £4/roll cheaper at Analogue Wonderland than CineStill 800T, so who’s to say if the proliferation of respoolers into the marketplace is a good or a bad thing. We have the characteristic red halation in this film as well, and the hallmarks of respooling gone slightly wrong: a red line across some frames in the reel. I expect I just got unlucky on that, so I’m trying to not have hate in my heart.

The Helios 44-2 that I shot this entire roll with is known for its ‘swirly’ rendition of out-of-focus areas, and I think the above shot taken of some Christmas-related stuff on the south side of Westminster Bridge represents this well: the out of focus lights aren’t rendered as circles, but rather as ovals pointing towards the centre of the frame. I like it, but the lens is kind of… shit optically: at least for my copy, it feels very difficult to get a sharp image a f/2. From f/4 onwards though, it is perfectly capable. Optical perfection is a little overrated though: a little character, a little chromatic abberation here and there can add plenty to an image as long as it’s not too distracting.

The film does render colours pleasingly even in overcast conditions, which surprised me given that it’s already quite a cool film. The green of pandan and purple of ube in the bilogs (obtained from Mamasons) above is shown with a good level of saturation, even against the red of the table in the background. Given that daytime lighting conditions in London in winter can necessitate a slightly faster film if you still want to hand-hold a camera, photos turning out like this is definitely a boon.