Portland is full of fun and free events year-round. One of these is the annual Peacock Lane Christmas Street lights. I dug out some expired tungsten-based slide films, and brought them to shoot with the local PDXFilmleague for the December photo meetup. Click here to see the Kodak version shot during the same session.
Camera settings: The film is tungsten color-based, which is great for shooting Christmas lights. However, since the base ISO is 64, all shots were taken on a tripod. Most shots are set to f/2.8 at 1s exposure, which is still slightly underexposed according to the internal light meter. I did not bring a release cable, and as a result, some of these are a little blurry due to the camera shake.
We came here too early. The light started at 6 pm, and we were waiting for the lights to turn on. Peacock Lane was already closed, so at least it was easy to walk around, and we didn’t have to all squeeze onto the small sidewalks. After meeting with a few other PDX leaguers, 6 pm rolls around and the shoot begins!
Most of the houses on Peacock Lane participate in the Winter Lights Festival, but there is definitely a varying degree of enthusiasm. I guess most people know what they got themselves into when moving to this street, as the show has been going on for at least a hundred years. I tried to capture the nicer houses but my camera setup (with the tripod) means I’ve to stand further away, and so the compositions are… okay.
Film-wise, These came out fantastic. I like the colors, it wasn’t very difficult to edit, and a little warmer than I was expecting but just a touch. Considering that I’m shooting an ISO 64 film at night, using 1-second exposure, on slide film, these are amazing. Moreover, compared to the next set (shot on Kodak Ektachrome 64T, the competition), these came out much better. RTP64Tii is probably one of the better slide films ever created. The tungsten film based means that flash can be used generously, which I assume was mostly used for indoor professional portrait shoots, and thus, the colors came out amazing. I should try to take a roll for a portrait session!
Date: Dec 13th, 2024.
Issue 87. Volume 13. Chapter 6. MA199_P67