Texas flower with bug: I'm no biologist or botanist, but I liked this in 1978 when I was camping across West Texas. This was originally a Fujicolor 200 negative made with 55mm f/3.5...

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I'm no biologist or botanist, but I liked this in 1978 when I was camping across West Texas.

This was originally a Fujicolor 200 negative made with 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor and Nikon FTn. I copied it with a macro lens to a raw file and converted it with Negative Lab Pro Plug-in in Lightroom Classic. This image is far better than the faded 44-year-old print I have.

View the download version for best results.

(Download)

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Beautiful shot, Bill. My app says that it is a white prickly poppy.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Exactly the camera/lens combo I used back in the day. Very nice work converting an old negative to a beautiful picture.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Curmudgeon wrote:

Exactly the camera/lens combo I used back in the day. Very nice work converting an old negative to a beautiful picture.

Thanks! I would have preferred to have a Kodachrome slide of it, but this negative was a great one to test Negative Lab Pro when I first got it a couple of years ago. The film had some dye fading due to improper storage in the camera store's acid paper envelope (!). I cropped that out.

My 55mm f/3.5 macro lens was given to me in 1974 by a friend in college who FOUND IT on a New Jersey beach! I paid $55 to EPOI to have it reconditioned. It still works... My son uses it on his Lumix GH4 as a portrait and ciné lens. I also have a 55mm f/2.8 version with a frozen focus ring.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

UTMike wrote:

Beautiful shot, Bill. My app says that it is a white prickly poppy.

Thanks! That sounds right, if I recall correctly! It was all over the side of the road I was on.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

A pleasing result!

tcthome Loc: NJ

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

burkphoto wrote:

I'm no biologist or botanist, but I liked this in 1978 when I was camping across West Texas.

This was originally a Fujicolor 200 negative made with 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor and Nikon FTn. I copied it with a macro lens to a raw file and converted it with Negative Lab Pro Plug-in in Lightroom Classic. This image is far better than the faded 44-year-old print I have.

View the download version for best results.

It has the look of film. In this case the overall contrast works to your advantage, I think.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Fotoartist wrote:

It has the look of film. In this case the overall contrast works to your advantage, I think.

Thanks. The amateur Fujicolor negative films of the '70s were not as contrasty and over-saturated as the later Kodacolor emulsions. But the dye clouds left by the grain structure were a bit blurry.

I could have interpreted this negative many different ways. I chose to go to a lower key with it to preserve detail in the petals, even into the highlights. Half the challenge of working with color negatives back in the day was finding a lab that could do such things. Automated "scene balance algorithms" are seldom enough.