Misadventures in Velvia

Al and I went to see Blood Simple at the Hollywood Theater last night. That was pretty awesome. Even better to have an emcee before the movie who actually knew M. Emmet Walsh and had some fun stories about him.

I took my X100V along because I just got a black mist filter for it and the Hollywood district is the perfect place to grab a few shots with one of those, just to see what it does. I also broke a small rule and changed several things at once: I forgot I'd set up the X100V to experiment with a different film simulation and a few in-camera settings from my usual, and also to just save jpegs.

I didn't go out expecting to do much. I just knew I'd be walking by a few things (like Chin's kitchen, above) and it'd be interesting to see what the filter did. I didn't give myself a ton of time: We've got a membership at the Hollywood and have been going to more and more movies there, so at some point I'll give myself a little more time.

So, I grabbed a few shots of the theater and a few of Chin's Kitchen, fiddled with them in Lightroom a little last night, then woke up to see what I thought in the light of day.

The filter itself is great. It does what I was hoping.

The pictures ... eh. There was a way to get a better shot, but I didn't have a ton of time and someone was having what sounded like a very loud psychotic break in the shadows where I'd have stood.

And also "eh" because I was experimenting with some in-camera settings that I didn't model with X Raw Studio but instead decided to just see what would happen. They don't quite work for me (though I did warm up to them a little when I realized I was editing from habit and overcompensated in some ways the film simulation and settings I was using don't require).

I had a brief twinge of "man, if I'd saved these in raw, I could have done so much more to pull these back ..." and then remembered that this is another thing I'm experimenting with: Using pictures I take as a more meaningful record of where I am at a given point in time and space.  This small set is indelibly marked in that way, and I'm glad for that.