Snoopin’ with the Snoop

After giving up on consumer-level digital photography in low-light fast-action conditions, I went back to shooting basketball in the Shirk Center with my mom’s dad’s old Minolta XRTII manual SLR (no batteries needed!), and shot with a variety of film in order to choose the one I like best. All three of these films were developed by Cooper’s Imaging in CT. The summaries:

FOMAPAN action 400 black/white negative film

• Picks up detail well, but a little grainy.
• Needs slower shutter speeds (~250)
• Dark photos don’t have a lot of contrast
• Excellent dark/light contrast
• Out-of-focus shots really pull out the graininess

From the package: B/W negative film with good resolving power, low granularity and wide exposure latitude.

Ilford HP5 Plus 400 Black & White Film

scanner won’t read the photos – too dark. Think the stop-down communication between the lens and the camera body was not accurate. Too many photos too dark. Nonetheless…

• A very dull and dark negative switched into lab mode and then an auto-levels applied. Wow. Definitely can work with that, but it only works with some negatives.
  

  Original		Auto Levels		Curves
  009-01 original	–>	009-01 lab mode auto levels	–>	009-01 curves

• The negative edges curl, which makes it annoying to place in the negative holder for the scanner

Kentmere 400 Black & White Film

BH’s summary:

This is a fast black and white film geared for general use. It produces sharp images with fine grain. As a high speed film, it is suitable for normal and low light photography.

• Looks nice and bright until enlarged, and then not in focus. Humph. (But that’s my fault, not the films… unless it isn’t fast enough, but it’s bright enough to kick up the shutter speed one notch.)
• Sometimes bright, but not much contrast, which comes out when they aren’t too bright. BH says it has good contrast, but apparently not in low light conditions.
• I think this would be great for something other than Shirk photography.
• Then again, I kinda like it. There is no grain! It is a very sharp and clear film. This contrast puzzle bears a second look
  

  Icky		Nice
  Original: not much contrast	vs.	Original: better contrast; too bright?

Decision?

By the time I decide, basketball season will be over! Oh well. At least IWU’s celebration of 100 years of men’s basketball is this weekend, and I have approximately seven rolls of film (mostly Ilford).

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Eh, it’s almost June, so of course my mind is jumping (way) ahead to basketball season, and I’m back in the same town as my alma mater, so I’m thinking of Titan sports in general. I’ve had a few discussions about the merits of D-III vs. D-I basketball mania, and for those who won’t give D-III a chance, at least enjoy the following articles.

• Just Basketball, by Dave Kindred (2001) (an IWU hook)
• In a cozy little gym, it feels like the big time, by Bryan Burwell (nothing to do with IWU)

There’s also the first book that Coach Bridges published, A Dunk Only Counts Two Points. Shocked, I was, to see the prices it is selling for at Alibris’ used books, topping out at $87.50.

And of course, I must add Quill’s blog, Titan Tidbits, on which I found the links to the 2 articles.

I was fortunate enough to be back in town for most of the 2005-2006 basketball season, when the Titans again made it to the Final Four. Though I had been the men’s basketball reporter for the Titans while in school from 1998-2002, and therefore in 2001 when that team made it to the Final Four, I had taken that spring semester to study off-campus, with the Lakota Nation program at the International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership, and in doing so, was not present in person for the entire championship run.

CCIW Chat board on D3hoops.com (a most entertaining conversation)

I suppose when it gets down to the fan level, when you ignore all the national media hype present in D-I, the experiences are congruous. Yet, I think that to be a fan at a distance, it may take a bit more work to be a fan of D-III. Not that that provides a reason to be a D-III fan, but it circles back to the hype that surrounds D-I men’s basketball. Perhaps streaming technology has changed things since 2001, or maybe the steady stream of comments and posts concerning “pure” basketball has awoken small cable stations to provide footage of D-III games; this I wouldn’t know. I do know that while sitting in my room in Lower Brule, SD in 2001, I was glued to my computer, where thankfully I had a fast enough connection to hook into IWU’s home-town radio station, WJBC, and listen to the broadcasts of the playoffs, when they weren’t pushed to the side because of Illinois State games. It takes effort to uncover coverage of D-III games. And I’m lucky that I chose such a high-profile school in the world of D-III men’s basketball. As D-III schools go, IWU gets a lot of local coverage, comparatively.

Sounds like I’m saying news coverage is good! Coverage is, but I don’t like hype. When it becomes about making money over the players and the sport. With everything that the internet provides, I think D-III could eventually go they way of D-I, not with the small step to the NBA and the over-excitement this causes the money-makers, but with the possibility of bringing in funds for the schools themselves, or for the sponsors, or some third party. Unless something is written in the code books against that option. And I don’t like that possibility.