The photographic kit for our honeymoon consisted of two manual-focus 35mm film cameras (one for traditional black-and-white film and one for color). The film was developed and printed upon our return by A&I in Hollywood, and the negatives were scanned with a film scanner to produce the images in this gallery.
Canon Canonet QL17 GIII: This rangefinder, with a non-interchangeable 40mm f/1.7 lens, was used primarily with black-and-white film. In good light, a B+W 022 yellow filter was usually in place. This camera's light meter is a CdS type, which is not nearly as sensitive as the silicon meter in the A-1. For this reason, I used the A-1 with pushed black-and-white film in the dim caves of Champagne. The Canonet was loaded with color film at the same time.
Canon A-1: This SLR was used with color negative film, but for the exception mentioned above. Traveling lens kit consisted of three prime lenses:
Before this trip, my bag options consisted of a LowePro Mini Trekker and a LowePro TLZ Mini. The Mini Trekker was too big for this trip, and the backpack form factor wasn't what I wanted in Paris. I wanted a back that I could access while wearing it, so I bought a LowePro Nova 4 AW shoulder bag, and took it along with the TLZ Mini. It was the right size to hold all the camera gear (along with our 8x42 roof prism binoculars during the flight, to keep them out of checked luggage). I probably don't abuse my bags as much as some people, but I've always been very happy with LowePro products.
The subset of the gear that I took with me on any given day depended on how much walking we planned to do, and how my back was feeling. The 135/2.3 is a pretty big hunk of glass and metal, and often stayed in the hotel room (the notable exception being when we went to the zoo). Occasionally, I just took the Canonet in the TLZ Mini.
For the most part, the color film used was Fujicolor NPH portrait film exposed at EI 320 or 400. This is film that A&I consistently prints beautifully on Fuji paper. Two rolls of Fujicolor Superia Reala were also shot at EI 100 when I expected good light (one in the Canonet when we went to Champagne, and one in the A-1 at the zoo).
The primary black-and-white film was Ilford HP5+, a traditional ISO 400 silver halide film. The roll used in the A-1 in Champagne was exposed at approximately EI 1600 and developed accordingly. (In practice, many frames were underexposed, because I kept the shutter speeds to 1/15 or 1/8 of a second, handheld. The ambient lighting was so faint that even at f/1.8 and EI 1600, the negatives are thin.) One roll of Ilford FP4+ was shot at its normal speed, EI 125, prior to the wedding. Everything else was HP5+ at EI 400.
In total, I shot 7 rolls each of B&W and color.
The negatives were scanned with a Nikon Coolscan V ED 4000 ppi film scanner, using Vuescan software. All of the scans were made at archival quality: full resolution, 16-bit-per-channel samples, little or no clipping of shadows or highlights. Unfortunately, my image processing software, the GIMP, does not yet support 16-bit samples, so they were downconverted to 8 bits per channel for editing. We should have registered for Photoshop CS2 as a wedding gift! Given the "flat" contrast that I scanned with, there was substantial quantization from the conversion. But for screen display, I don't think the problem is too serious.
Next, the black-and-white negatives were spotted using the "clone" tool, because the scanner's infrared dust-and-scratch removal does not work with silver-based films. Digital spotting is faster than spotting prints, but I still don't enjoy it. I apologize for any scratches I was too lazy to remove.
Then, the images were adjusted for levels (black and white point), brightness (gamma), and contrast. A moderate S-curve was often applied to boost midtone contrast. Color images were color balanced to look OK on my non-color-managed Trinitron CRT. Some images architecture were rotated slightly to correct verticals; slight cropping was necessary as a result. Otherwise, the images are uncropped. Finally, the images were downsized for web display, and given a moderate unsharp mask treatment with ImageMagick. The web page gallery was produced with igal on FreeBSD.