First Impressions of the Babylon Kino B&W ISO 13 Film by EMGK Photographie

Baptiste from EMGK Photographie is an analogue photographer and Youtuber who lives in Lille, North of France. He shares his passion for the medium in his videos and he also organizes workshops. We decided to give him one of the very first test rolls of our new Babylon Kino B&W Babylon Kino B&W ISO 13 film that was hand-spooled (the fact that it was the very first version explains why you can see some scratches on the photos). Baptiste went out in his city for an urban Photowalk with our new Black & White slow ISO film and self-developed it afterward. Let's discover his first impressions!

Baptiste is an expert in analogue photography and he has been sharing his knowledge on is YouTube channel for 5 years now with cameras and film reviews. As a professional photographer, he's specialized in wedding and portrait photography, always in analogue. For his personal work, he does street photos, urban landscapes, and portraits.

When we asked him how and why did he started shooting in analogue, he told us :

"In reality, it's my wife who passed on her love of analogue to me 5 years ago. At that time, I was starting to get bored with digital photography. I bought my first camera (a Canon A1) and did not stop shooting rolls since. (...) you are in another state of mind when you shoot analogue photos, you have to be focused on the moment and the instant."

For his urban photoshoot with the Babylon Kino B&W ISO 13, Baptiste played with the shadows and contrasts. The photographer told us that ISO 13 was the lowest ISO he ever shot but he had tried ISO 50 before:

"It was a bit unsettling at the beginning to have to worry about the shutter speed even in bright sunlight and at full aperture. When clouds were looming, it was impossible to take a picture handled! The tripod was useful for some photos, however, I managed to take most of my photos without it. With a fast lens, with full sunshine, it's fine!"

Usually, Baptiste prefers monochrome films with a little more contrast but he told us "I must admit that the film as a certain charm. There's a lot of details and in the same time a certain smoothness. I think that the rendering is close to the old photographic processing techniques." He's curious to see the film results for portraits too, he thinks that it could be very surprising. He also thinks that the film could be great for close-ups photos with details.

After shooting his roll of Babylon Kino, Baptiste's hand developed his film with Cinestill DF96 Monobath at 21° for 6 minutes. He told us that he was a bit surprised by the film aspect which is different from a classical one! But he was quickly reassured when he scanned his images and saw that he correctly processed the roll. If you want to home develop your new Babylon Kino, you can more about the film's potential in this article.

Follow Baptiste from EMGK Photographie on his Youtube channel (videos are in French), his Facebook, his Instagram and his Website.

You can pre-order the Babylon Kino B&W ISO 13 film on our Online Shop with 20% discount on the final retail price.

written by florinegarcin on 2020-04-14 #gear #people #babylon-kino