Ilford SFX200

I went to Badlands National Park, SD, in July. This is one of the places where I deadly wanted to go. It is not too famous like Grand Canyon, but its landscape is so unique and wonderful. I prefer this kind of places. It was not an easy trip - it took more than eight hours to get there from Minneapolis. The climate was tough - very hot and dry. I drank a lot of water.

I used Ilford SFX200 film, which is semi-infrared film that is sensitive to infrared lights, with my Rolleiflex. I put a HOYA R72 infrared filter on the Planar taking lens. Since usual exposure meters are not calibrated to measure infrared lights (they are only good for visible lights), it is difficult to determine the exposure level. I had to make it using some test data and by my intuition. The sensitivity of SFX 200 is ISO = 200 as its name says, and the R72 filter requires four to five steps more exposure. On a very fine day, F = 11 and shutter speed = 1/250 at ISO = 100 are a typical setting. So I set them to F = 11 and shutter speed = 1/30 (+3 steps = +4 from the filter -1 from the film). I put the camera on a tripod to avoid camera shake when I shot.

Now I've got the results. They look pretty good, although maybe a little more exposure would have made them better. The infrared effect was dramatic - all green things (like grass and leaves) turned white, and blue skies became dark black as if it was at night. I think I was quite successful to visualize my impressions of the landscapes I saw there, and I got to like this film very much.