photography experiment | FUJI X WEEKLY

Night Experiments — First Troy Paiva Inspired Pictures

*Tacoma Nights* – Buckeye, AZ – Fujifilm X-T5 & 23mm f/1.4 – Vivid Velvia (modified)

I have an upcoming project, and as part of that I want to create some Troy Paiva inspired night photos. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Troy creates nighttime photos of abandoned buildings, cars, airplanes, etc., illuminated by colored lights and the full moon (check out his Instagram). For this project, I want to do something similar for some of the pictures. I don’t have very much experience with this type of photography, so I need some practice before attempting the important images.

Some critical parts for this project arrived yesterday, namely lights and a Fujinon 23mm f/1.4 lens*. I’m not sure yet if the 23mm f/1.4 is the lens that I want to use, but I think it might be. We’ll see. Fujifilm let me borrow it, so I can try it out before deciding. More important than the lens are the lights, which are cheap Neewer mini portable LED lights I found on Amazon for $27 each. I purchased two. All of this arrived in the mail yesterday, so as soon as the sun went down and the (nearly) full moon came up, I grabbed my trusty tripod, set up the camera, and took some test shots.

*Illuminating Truck* – Buckeye, AZ – Fujifilm X-T5 & 23mm f/1.4 – Vivid Velvia (modified)

Because I parked on a dirt lot, it stirred up the dust. I had no intentions of having the car lights on, but it looked cool, so I tried a handful of exposures with the car lights. I set one LED light to red (actually, I thought it was a rusty orange color) and the other to green (I thought it was teal), placing the red light in the backseat and the green in the front. The Recipe I used was Vivid Velvia, but I modified it slightly, setting Color to +3 instead of +4 and Highlight and Shadow both to -2. I tried a few different angles. Then I moved the lights from inside the truck to underneath, placing them behind the passenger-side wheels. After a handful of shots I moved them back inside.

I quickly realized that two lights weren’t enough for what I wanted to achieve. More ideally I needed four, so I ordered some more once I got home. But, not to be defeated, I made a double-exposure picture using the multiple exposure feature in the camera, moving the lights in-between the shots. At the time, I was a little afraid that the Vivid Velvia images were a little too punchy, so I switched to an experimental Recipe I’ve been working on (not sure yet if it will get published); however, in retrospect, I think I should have stuck with what I had been using.

*Starlight* – Buckeye, AZ – Fujifilm X-T5 & 23mm f/1.4 – Vivid Velvia (modified)

Overall, the experiment was a failure in that I didn’t quite achieve what I was hoping to achieve; however, it was a success in that I learned some important lessons. It’s a step closer to the goal. For certain, I need more practice. That’s the point of this article: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Don’t expect that your idea will work on the first try, and don’t get discouraged when it doesn’t. Learn from what went right and what went wrong. Go back out on another occasion and try again. With enough practice, eventually you’ll get it. I will practice a few more times before beginning the project.

Below are a couple more pictures I made last night. The image at the top of this article is my favorite, and the closest to what I want to create (although it’s definitely not quite right). The double-exposure at the bottom is another that’s along the lines of what I’m looking for. I’ll keep trying, and eventually get it right. I can’t wait for that to happen, and I’ll be thrilled when it does.

*Edit: I mistakenly said the lens was the Fujinon 18mm f/1.4 when it was the Fujinon 23mm f/1.4. Guess that’s what happens when I write an article before my first cup of coffee after just six hours sleep. Won’t do that again. My apologies, and I hope it doesn’t cause any confusion or problems.

*Stars & Lights* – Buckeye, AZ – Fujifilm X-T5 & 23mm f/1.4 – Vivid Velvia (modified)

*In-camera double exposure with possible upcoming Recipe*

This post contains affiliate links, and if you make a purchase using my links I’ll be compensated a small amount for it.

Fujifilm X-T5 in black:
Amazon, B&H, Moment, Nuzira
Fujifilm X-T5 in silver:
Amazon, B&H, Moment, Nuzira
Fujinon 23mm f/1.4:
Amazon, B&H

Making Color Pictures Using Acros, B&W Toning & Multiple Exposures

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Ritchie Roesch

This is a combination of 8 B&W Exposures with different color toning applied to each.

The Fujifilm X100V, X-Pro3 and X-T4 cameras have a new tool for toning black-and-white pictures in-camera. I mentioned in my article about this new toning feature that there’s the potential to get creative with it, especially when combined with multiple exposure photography. I thought that it might be possible to create color pictures using the Acros film simulation, B&W toning and multiple exposures. This is certainly an unusual use of those tools! A sturdy tripod is a requirement for this experiment.

On my X100V, there are 1,368 possible colors to tone B&W pictures, but I concentrated on the more bold options. To make this work, the best results are found in the +/- 15-18 range. My camera has four multiple exposure options: Additive, Average, Bright and Dark. Additive and Average won’t work for this project because it muddies the colors. Bright and Dark will work, and they work similarly. For Bright, the camera compares the exposures and chooses only the brightest pixel at each location; for Dark, it chooses the darkest pixel. I found that one option typically works better than the other, depending on the scene. You could get creative and adjust the exposure of each image to control which colors are chosen; however, I didn’t do that for these pictures.

At first I tried using just three exposures: one with Toning set to WC -18 MG 0 (Blue), one set to WC +18 MG -18 (Red), and the other set to WC 0 MG +18 (Green). This worked alright, but there are not any in-between colors. The transitions from one color to the next are harsh. Still, I was able to create color pictures this way.

After a little experimenting, I decided that eight exposures worked better (you can combine up to nine). In addition to the Toning described in the previous paragraph, I added one with WC 0 MG -18 (Magenta), WC -18 MG -18 (Purple), WC -18 MG +18 (Teal), WC +18 MG +18 (Yellow), and WC +18 MG 0 (Orange-Red). This made the color transitions a little less harsh, but it’s still not ideal. The pictures look strange and nothing like “normal” color photographs. I also tried reducing some colors to as low as +/- 15 (instead of 18) in an attempt to control the outcome a little, but it’s hard to know what you’ll get until you’ve made all eight exposures.

The results remind me of some cross processing experiments that I did a number of years ago. You can get weird results, depending on the film and process. The toned B&W multiple exposures on my X100V loosely resemble the “worst” cross-processing results from those analog experiments years ago. This isn’t something that I’d want to do all of the time, but it was fun nonetheless. Most people will never try this, but a few of you will. I can see someone doing an abstract photography project using this technique.

I used three exposures for this picture.

Another three exposure picture.

This is an eight exposure image.

Another eight exposure picture.

I used eight exposures for this picture.

Another eight exposure picture.

Eight exposures. The wind moved the grass between exposures.

This is another eight exposure image.

I never really thought that I’d be creating color images from black-and-white in-camera. The results aren’t especially great, so it’s not really a practical thing, more gee-whiz. I do believe, with practice and experimentation, it’s possible to get better results. I hope that you found this article interesting, and perhaps even a few of you were inspired to do your own experiments.

This post contains affiliate links, and if you make a purchase using my links I’ll be compensated a small amount for it.

Fujifilm X100V Black Amazon B&H
Fujifilm X100V Silver Amazon B&H