Delayed satisfaction definitely has its power... that must be why I'm so happy to receive my films back.  I don't think I get this excited looking at digital files at the end of the days of shooting.  So far my glassware has been working wonderfully as my light meter, I almost use it exclusively for shooting film now.

I didn't think BW film was good at capturing sunrises, but I gave it a shot anyway.

Everyday, we let many moments pass by.  Being a photographer in training, I noticed those moments, and while I'm appreciative of them, I also understood that I failed to capture them.  There are times, though, where I recognized something and decides to go grab the camera, and when the results came out, I'm so glad.  This shot has been waiting for probably 2 months.  I don't know why I like it... I can hardly remember why I took it, but it speaks to me now, just as it spoke to me then.

Here's a roll that's been sitting on the shelf for a while.  Most of the images were captured in November at the Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas.  It was the first time I took the Rolleiflex SL66 out to take some landscapes.  A few important lessons were learn: 1) that's not the right hood for this lens, 2) it's hard to take an interesting BW landscape shot.  The first lesson is evident in all of the shots I took, but the second lesson is only realized after I scanned the negatives.  I thought I had captured a bunch of interesting shots, but in BW, I lost the beautiful colors of the red canyon and are left with just a bunch of rocks.  Now I understand what people mean by focusing on the forms and contrast, because those are the characters that will show through.  I ended up with a couple exposure left that I spent while on a biking trip with my son, testing out the built-in tilt function of the SL66.  If you look closely in those shots, you'll see the plane of focus isn't parallel to the film.

I believe this is roll #10 and #11.  I try to keep film always loaded in the SL66, so that I can pick it up and shoot a couple of frames whenever I'm inspired.  Due to the cost of film and processing, I usually shoot portraits because I think pictures of love ones will increase the values of these negatives over time.  Do you see a black bar about a third of the way from the left?  It's back!  Last time I thought it was solved by going to a different film processor, but now I think it may have something to do with shooting in bright day light.  Maybe there's some kind of light leak that causes the stripe as I advance the film.  I shall be more careful next time.

Truth be told... if these were shot on the M9, I would have probably processed them as color.  However, I'm not unhappy with what I see from the B&W film at all.  On our trip to the Silver Saddle Ranch, I wanted to test out my Light Meter glassware, so I brought the Rolleiflex SL66 and used my Google Glass solely for exposure evaluation.  I think they came out rather well.  I brought the 50mm f/4 Distagon and I'm amazed by the sharpness and details in some of the shots.  Here are a few more:

Back in May, during our weekend stay in Palm Springs, I took a couple of rolls with the Rolleiflex SL66 and just got it developed.  Since I got some weird stripes from my old online processing place, I decided to try another place.  This place, The Darkroom, is awesome.  They provide a mail-in envelope and is very reasonably priced.  This time I tried out some TMAX400 film, and I'm in love.  I like it much more than Tri-X!

A few weeks ago, I sent my 4th and 5th roll shot with the SL66 in for processing.  It came back today!  With great anticipation, I open the envelopes and got ready to scan.  As I inspected the negatives and watched the scan comes alive on my computer, I was amazed with how rewarding shooting films can be.  It's strange because I know I probably could have capture the same shots with digital and might even get better exposures, but knowing the limitations in the medium and number of available shots, I felt more proud of each properly framed, focused, and exposed shots.  Please have a view of the shots below:

I returned the lame film scanner I got from Costco and bought the Epson V600 from B&H Photo & Video.  All I can say is... WOW!  That's what I'm talking about!  At first, I didn't know what DPI to scan it in, so I started from 4800dpi and worked my way down to 1200dpi and settled there.  At 1200dpi, the scan time and file size are manageable and I'm able to get very good scan quality.  Here are some more:

It's been a long time coming... My father-in-law first gave me the Rolleiflex SL66 around November last year.  In the middle of the first roll, the mirror locked up and the film crank got stuck.  I had to send it in for service and didn't get it back until mid January.  After the painful wait... I quickly shot two more rolls and sent the film in to be developed.  Finally, today, the negatives came back and I scanned them on this cheap film scanner that I bought from Costco just for this camera.  Well... here are a few of the results:

The full set can been seen [HERE].