This post sees me head south-west of Munich to the Berchtesgaden Alps to the world famous Königsee Lake. Join me and my Hasselblad for a tour around this amazing lake.
I have visited the Königsee area with my analogue gear before, including large format and Aerochome film posts. The Berchtesgaden Alps area is around 160km south west from Munich and totally worth it for a long day trip. This post seems me visit the Königsee along with my Hasselblad camera. I also had a roll of Kodak Tmax 100 in my Nikon LF35AF camera, but due to issues with the focus, I only had a few decent picture I decided to use for this post. For my Hasselblad I had one roll of Kodak Porta 160 (I kinda wish it were Portra 400 but I used what I had…).
More details on the Königsee here, but in summary, it is the third deepest lake in Germany with a depth of 190m, and is said to have the cleanest water of any lake in the country.
One of the many low boats used to transport tourists across the lake. The water of this lake looks like the Caribbean, you can’t quite believe you are in Germany.
Some black & white shots of the main touristy area at the foot of the lake where the boats leave from. These shops are cropped from standard 35mm film.
St Bartholomew church.
3 ducks, 3 boats, 3….something else?
A through the viewfinder shot and the final image. The lake is surrounded by mountains up to 2,700m high, it is quite the sight.
Hard to see in the photographs, but very impressive in real life - I could have stood there for hours just taking it all in.
I really like this black & white shot, even though on colour film this scene is really very immersive. I like the shapes in this shot.
Probably one of the nicest lakes in Germany to row on!
This shot came out quite a bit darker than I was expecting, but I like the colours at least at the bottom of the image.
A shot of the mountain range from the boat.
A few shots of the boating area arriving at St. Bartholomew church.
Overall observations
I can only very highly recommend a visit to the Königsee lake and general area. There are other attractions in the vicinity including cable cars and the Eagle’s nest, both also highly worthwhile a trip. Although I had a really great day out (this being my fourth visit to the area), I was a bit disappointed with the colour shots. I find Kodak Portra 400 a better all-round film and has a real “pop” to it when shot at ISO 320. Whilst Portra 160 is supposed to be more for skin tones and portraits (at least that is what I understand), the colour grading of these shots was a bit too dark and dull compared to real life. Regardless of the film used, I still thoroughly enjoyed using the Hasselblad again and taking my time composing the shots.
Thanks for stopping by!
Neil
