35MM FILM

DUBROVNIK ON FILM

A SUMMER TRIP TO DUBROVNIK, CROATIA, WHERE I TOOK MY 35MM FILM CAMERA AND SOME FRESH KODAK PORTRA 160.

Dubrovnik’s Old Town is an incredible maze of narrow streets swarming with fantastic bars and restaurants housed in the Old Town defence walls. With the Main portion of the Old Town on lower flat ground, both the eastern and western sides of the town have steep incline hills creating dramatic perspectives looking down from above. Steeped in historical significance and unique architecture, it’s no surprise that the film crew of Game of Thrones chose this destination as King’s Landing.

Zeb Zakovics

Author

Kodak Portra 160, The Perfect Choice?

For this trip I chose Kodak Portra 160 as my main base film stock, the reasoning for this was that I purchased a pack of five Portra 160 rolls for bright and sunny adventures throughout Europe this summer. For really bright & sunny landscapes, towns, cities and general use Kodak Portra 160 was a fantastic choice for me and I’m glad it’s what I decided to use throughout my trip to Dubrovnik.

Kodak Portra 160 is usually shot at the box speed of 160, however I decided to rate the ISO of this film roll, and all of my film rolls this summer apart from my Lisbon trip, at an ISO of 120. This is the difference between the Assigned ISO box speed of the film compared to the Nominal ISO speed found through photographers experimenting. A great example of this is Kodak Portra 800, which has a Nominal ISO speed of 400, so you would shoot Portra 800 at 400 ISO for the best results with that film stock.

This has had an effect on the images I captured this summer, as compared to the regular box speed of 160 that I used in Lisbon, of making the film produce a higher more pastel colour and haze when used with bright light. Personally I love the way these images came out at this ISO rating and would use it again in a darker setting to see the results.

Many images I captured in Dubrovnik have ocean in them, with deep blue tones and perfect highlights on the whites of the reflections in the waves. There is something magical about capturing water on film and Dubrovnik delivered some very pleasing results.

Thanks for being here ✌️