i bought a load of special kodak vision 500t film to shoot in various christmas markets in munich & hamburg and here are the results!
I have shot Kodak Vision 500T before, although it is not an easy to find or cheap film for that matter. It tends to be self rolled and can be found under branding such as Silbersalz (which I have shot before) others. I got my rolls from Analog Amsterdam and was very pleased with the results, I also got some Vision 250D, which I particularly like.
Shots taken at the Christmas Market at Munchener Freiheit in Munich, which is more of an arts & crafts type market with live music. I like how the Christmas lighting came out, although it is interesting how everything else is pitch black. That being said, these were all shot handheld without flash.
Some portrait style shots also including the market at Marienplatz.
Not Christmas Market related but I snapped up these two transport related views, I really like the colours and in particular the second shot in the Marienplatz U-bahn that I always feel the need to photograph.
Munich’s pink Christmas market.
A huge selection of photos taken all over Hamburg, including the wonderful Christmas market at the main city hall/Rathaus - in my opinion one of the nicest in Germany.
Some portrait shots including Christmas lighting across the city.
overall observations
I really enjoyed taking all these shots, I think I used 3 rolls of Kodak Vision 500T in Munich & Hamburg. The film was really good value at €5,75, although finding a place to develop them can be a bit tricky as there are not that many places that take care of these special cinematic films. I had all my films developed and scanned at FilmSpeedLab (Berlin based) with good results.
I don’t really shoot high ISO colour film anymore, and gone are the days I would lean on Kodak Portra 800 due to cost, although with a medium format camera that is probably the best film to get really nice full scene colours. That being said, I really liked many of the Kodak Vision 500T shots, although it seems to work best during twilight hours as I think in very dark scenes you lose a lot of the scene and only see bright colours. If you compose the scene well enough the dark “negative space” can work to your advantage.
I hope you felt some Christmas cheer (even though it is now February) from looking at these and thanks for coming along for the journey, I really enjoyed taking these shots and thanks to my fellow photographer/walkabout friend Andrea in Munich & Stephanie in Hamburg.
See you next time!
Neil
