The AGO Film Processor is a compact, rechargeable device that converts your existing Paterson tank into an automatic rotary processor. You just need to warm up your chemistry, attach the AGO to the tank, press start, and babysit the thing. No stopwatch in hand, no manual agitation needed.

The AGO’s secret

The star feature is Active Time Compensation. As your chemicals cool during development, the AGO monitors the temperature in real time and adjusts the remaining time automatically. You don’t need to hover with a thermometer. You don’t need to compensate manually. The machine tracks the drift and does the math while you make a sandwich (or espresso, if you know me…). Many people think it warms up and keep chemicals temperature though, it doesn’t, it just monitors and compensates time for you according to the chemistry’s instruction manual guidance.

Agitation is rotary and continuous. This produces more consistent negatives and since the tank stays horizontal, it cuts chemistry use by up to 60% compared to standard agitation. For C-41, where you’re reusing developer across multiple rolls, those savings accumulate fast.

Here’s a table from VintageVisual’s website comparing the advantages of AGO.

Presets for different chemicals/recipes

Getting started is easier than any review made it sound when I first looked this thing up. The AGO ships with built-in presets for the most common processes: C-41, E-6, black and white, RA-4 paper. For most people, that covers everything. You pick your process, load it up, and go. When you develop multiple rolls with the same chemistry and need to bump development time to account for exhaustion, you adjust the preset and you’re done. Custom programs are managed through the AGO’s built-in Wi-Fi from your phone or computer, and it’s genuinely simple.

There’s one setup step people worry about more than they should. Three holes need to be drilled into the funnel of your Paterson tank so chemistry can flow in and out during rotary mode. Vintage Visual includes an adhesive drilling template, and the whole thing takes about four minutes. They also sell pre-drilled funnels if you’d rather skip it entirely. After that, you forget it ever happened.

Battery and design

A few more practical details worth knowing. The unit charges via USB-C and the battery life is impressive. The AGO picked up a Red Dot Award and a TIPA World Award in 2025, and is trusted by over 3,000 film photographers across more than 30 countries.

There are a few minor complaints worth being honest about. The bottom of the unit isn’t rubberized nor water sealed, so it slides on a smooth counter and water might get in if you’re not cautious. Pouring chemistry through the small opening takes some practice. The USB-C charging port has no cover, something Vintage Visual has acknowledged and is addressing in newer builds. None of this would stop me from recommending it. I added some rubber feet, as well as electrical tape around my unit, for better water-sealing.

Customer Support

Vintage Visual’s Discord and support are some of the best I’ve come across in the film photography world. Questions get answered fast, firmware updates ship regularly, and it feels like a team that actually uses the product. That community matters more than most gear reviews give it credit for, especially when your chemicals are at temperature at 11pm and something looks slightly off.

The price is €439, around $529 USD. For what it does, and how much it changed the way I develop and ultimately how much I shoot, I think about that number for about two seconds every time I remember what this workflow looked like before.

This is a preliminary review, not a full breakdown. If you want the detailed version covering specific film stocks, chemistry comparisons, and a full walkthrough of the software, drop a comment below. If enough of you are interested, I’ll make it happen.

You can buy one from this link, also, check their blog. I don’t get any commision and I’m here just to write nice things for you.

Consider subscribing to Camera Clara if you liked this article. It’s free. No spam, never, I promise.

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Dev results

Is it any good? You might ask. Well… almost every photo you see here in CameraClara has been developed by RafLabs, has been with the AGO, here are a couple of examples:

This past weekend I photographed João Bosco in Princeton. If his name does not ring a bell, take a few minutes and listen to Incompatibilidade de Gênios, or anything from his catalog with Aldir Blanc. He is one of the great Brazilian songwriters alive, a guitarist whose humbleness, lyrics, narratives and techniques reshaped what a single acoustic guitar could do, and at 79 he still tours like someone with something to prove. He trained as an engineer before music took him in another direction.

Most of the stage photos I am sharing here come from the sound check. Honestly, this is when I prefer to shoot artists. The room is empty, the band is loose, and I can walk right up to the stage without elbowing anyone. That mattered for this shoot in particular, because I was working with a 65mm lens on the Mamiya 7ii (a 35mm equivalent on full frame) and a 35mm on the Leica M7. Both lenses ask you to get close. During a real concert that is impossible. During a sound check, it is exactly the point.

I shot everything on Kodak Tri-X, 35mm and medium format. Nolan shot Oppenheimer on Double-X, the cinema cousin of the same emulsion, for the parts of the film grounded in fact. Same family, different format, same instinct. Color would have been wrong. Color would have explained too much, and some things don’t need explanation because they’re just beautiful.

The day before the concert, we got a surprise. Since João had been invited to perform by the director of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), the director offered us a private tour. The IAS is not open to the public. It is a working research institute, and you only walk through those halls if someone there invites you. We were invited.

I left the film cameras in the car because I thought we were going on a normal campus walk, not into the actual rooms. Inside the offices I used my phone to register the moment.

We stood inside the office that was once Oppenheimer’s, and is still used by the current director. We also stood inside Einstein’s office.

We walked through the library at Fuld Hall, where both of them worked. João, Angela, and the family were quiet inside those rooms. There is a particular silence people fall into when they understand where they are standing.

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I kept thinking about it on the drive home. Both men trained in technical disciplines before their work moved past the technical and into something the world remembers. Standing in that office, the parallel did not feel like a stretch. It felt like the reason we had been invited.

I want to say something honest, and I hope it does not sound like false modesty. I was there because Julia Bosco, Angela, and Guto Wirtti are friends of mine. Real friends. The kind of friends who feel like family, who think to include you in something like this, who pick up the phone and say come with us. Julia is João's daughter. Angela is his wife. Guto has been his bass player for years. Kiko and Ricardo are João’s bandmates, also my friends. They are all brilliant, generous, funny, and curious, and the fact that I get to stand close to them, to photograph them, to share a weekend like this one, is something I do not take for granted. I felt lucky to be alive. Lucky to be Brazilian. Lucky that the people I love also happen to be the people I most admire.

These photos matter to me more than most things I have made this year. The moment was real. That is what matters, more than the names involved. A Brazilian artist, a Brazilian photographer, both standing inside a building where the 20th century turned, on a weekend in New Jersey. Tri-X seemed like the only honest way to record it.

This makes the pitch for CineStill Df96 hard to resist. One bath, three minutes (fresh chems), flexible room temperature, add 15 seconds per roll. No stop, no fix, no second pour. For anyone new to home developing, or anyone tired of juggling chemistry bottles, it sounds like the easy path into black and white, right?

Well...

And in some ways, it is. The chemistry really is simpler because the chemical does it all.

The process, though, hides complexity the marketing doesn’t talk about much. In this post I want to focus on one thing in particular that surprised me, and that I think surprises most Df96 users who come from traditional developers.

Starting with the fact that…

The Df96 Monobath uses temperature for pushing, not time

Df96 as part of a small family of “unconventional” developers rather than a one-of-a-kind oddity.

Most traditional black and white developers treat temperature as the constant you hold. For instance, you stick with a specific temperature and you vary the time to push or pull. Dev charts for D-76, HC-110, DD-X, or Rodinal all assume this structure: pick a target temperature and vary time. A Tri-X at 400 in HC-110 is one time. Same film pushed to 1600 is a longer time. Temperature stays put.

The CineStill Df96 monobath flips this logic around. The time is a checkpoint, not a knob. According to the manual, 3 minutes at 27°C/80°F is the minimum time needed for the developer to complete and the fixer to finish its job (with constant agitation [recommended]). In order to push the film a stop, you gotta raise the bath temperature by 10°F (about 6°C). Lowering the temperature pulls it.

This relation between three variables: agitation method, temperature, and time, render a difference. In other words, this is a small shift in thinking that has big consequences.

With a traditional developer, a two or three degree drift during development is a mild inconvenience you can correct with a time adjustment later (or even by rebringing the roll to a bath), or just shrug off. With Df96, that same drift is a half-stop push or pull you won’t see until you scan, that makes the Df96 something more complex than it looks, and might defeat the purpose of the simplicity of just using one bottle to rule them all.

That’s why CineStill sells a water heater/circulator

Worth noticing: CineStill themselves sell a water circulator on their site. It’s a sous vide unit dressed up for film work. The product exists because temperature control matters more than the “any room temperature” marketing suggests for their products, both for the Monobath and the Cs41 Color Simplified 2-bath kit (but that’s expected).

You can develop at any temperature in the 65-95°F range and get an image. But if you care about consistency across a roll, a month, or an archive, the temperature of that bath matters more than it would with other B&W chemicals.

OK, the water circulator solves half the problem because your chemistry reaches target temperature. But you’re still agitating by hand in a vertical tank, and “intermittent” is still whatever you think it is.

The agitation question is what makes it complex

The second thing that surprised me is agitation. CineStill’s Df96 manual gives three recipes for fresh chemicals:

3 min at 80°F with constant agitation
4 min at 75°F with intermittent agitation
6 min at 70°F with minimal agitation

It also defines what each agitation mode means:

The question is: What is “intermittent agitation”? What is “minimal”? Let’s break this down, because two things jump out once I read these carefully.

1. Constant agitation is actually the least precisely defined of the three. “Fluid inversions and/or rotations, while changing direction” is a description of behavior, not a spec. How fast? How many inversions per minute? The Laboratorist decides. This ambiguity is fine if you’re doing it by hand (you’ll find a rhythm that works), but it means different people on constant agitation can still produce different results. That said, it’s the most efficient mode when you use a rotary agitation machine, which I’ll cover later on.

2. From these 3 agitation suggestions, constant agitation is the only one of the three that has a clean mechanical definition. The tank moves continuously for the full time. No interpretation required, nonstop. The problem is that constant agitation by hand, for three straight minutes, is tedious and sometimes inconsistent. Nobody inverts a tank perfectly evenly for three minutes. Your arm gets tired, your rhythm drifts, and you’ve introduced variance you can’t measure. Not to mention the fear by bromide drag lines.

The intermittent and minimal specs exist, but they demand manual timing. “30 seconds constant, then 10 seconds every minute” sounds simple, but it’s not mechanically accurate. The spec exists; hitting it reliably by hand, roll after roll, is another matter.

That’s why...

A rotary film processor REALLY helps

A rotary processor puts the tank on its side and rotates it continuously. Constant agitation becomes automatic. Same rpm, same direction cycle, every time. You’ve locked the agitation variable. No more guessing what “minimal” means because you’re not using minimal anymore.

Pair that with temperature monitoring and you’ve handled both of Df96’s variables adding complexity. The chemistry stays at spec by the water circulator, and the agitation stops being a source of variance with the rotary processor.

I use the AGO Film Processor from Vintage Visual. It’s a compact rotary unit that fits any Paterson tank, rotates the tank at a set RPM, and reads chemistry temperature through a probe. If the temperature drifts during the run, it stretches or shortens the time to compensate (well, that might not matter for Df96, so I’d better keep it consistent...), For Df96 in particular, this removes the two things that make the monobath inconsistent. JOBO’s rotary systems (the CPP and CPE lines) do a similar job, and there are a few other rotary options if you hunt around. The category is the recommendation. The AGO happens to be my pick because it’s small, quiet, it works with tanks I already own, and their customer support are simply stellar.

By the way, the Df96 manual also states that processing time should never exceed 8 minutes. That’s a hard stop, the chemistry is considered exhausted past that point. And since higher agitation means shorter times, constant agitation takes the longest to reach that ceiling. In practice, a fresh bottle of Df96 gets you 20 rolls at constant agitation, 16 at intermittent, and only 8 at minimal. That’s another strong argument for constant agitation, more negatives per bottle.

A CameraClara cheatsheet for Df96 on a rotary processor (AGO, Jobo, etc.)

After researching this for a while, I put together a table. I laminated it and keep near my sink in at RafLabs. Base times at 80°F/27°C constant agitation with the AGO, which also increase shelf-life), with the +15 second reuse compensation CineStill specifies, plus push columns for +1 and +2. I am making this available for you, at no cost!

The identical time columns are the whole point. As we now know, with Df96, pushing is done by raising temperature, not extending time. The time value is a minimum for self-completion, as I said, a safety checkpoint. Temperature is what changes the development. I wanted the time repeated across columns as a visual reminder on purpose.

Simple where it counts, complex where it matters. Do I recommend it?

Df96 is absolutely worth using. The chemistry simplicity is real, and a rotary processor with temperature awareness takes care of the rest. But it’s honest to say the monobath isn’t the “pour and forget” product the bottle suggests. It’s a fast, flexible process that trades chemistry complexity for process control. If you understand that trade, you’ll get great negatives. If you don’t, you’ll wonder why your rolls look inconsistent and blame the film.

To summarize, the monobath is simple at one point and complex at another. Knowing which is which is most of the battle. Here’s a result, with a well-deserved zoom for you to observe the grain structure of an ISO 400.

Additional links

CineStill Df96 Processing Instructions (a.k.a. manual)

Cinestill Resources Page

Additional notes

1. For readers in tropical or very cold climates: if your ambient room temperature is already past 82°F or below 65°F, passive temperature control won’t be enough. You’ll need to actively cool or warm the chemistry before pouring. A friend of mine in Manaus, Brazil (), has to ice-bath chemicals during the Summer because his kitchen sits at 35°C year-round. This is worth knowing before you commit, especially if you’re using chemicals that rely on temperature, like the Df96.

2. Worth noticing that everything I wrote here is wrote in the bottle and in the manuals. I am just sharing my discovery and points of attention you should have when using this fantastic chemical to develop your own rolls.

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Find the full episode in this post’s header. Below, some highlights worth reading even if you watch the whole thing, especially if you are curious to learn if food photographers eat the dishes after photographing (sorry for the clickbait, I have to do it to survive 😂).

Shooting for a living

Max photographs food on location with one light during operating hours. Cheese goes cold, meat loses its shine, soups stop steaming. He shoots fast. Every time, someone asks who’s eating all the food. “I am,” he says, staring at 15 dishes.

I asked if clients request artistic direction. His method: say “I got it” and ignore it.

Sensors, shutters, and fake blur

He rented the Sony A9 III and showed why global shutters matter. A drone propeller at 1/8000s looks banana-shaped on a regular sensor. On the A9 III, perfectly straight. Every pixel reads at the same instant.

The fake depth of field debate came up. Software blur still can’t handle hair, glasses, or the gradual falloff from sharp to blurry. A decade of “it’s just a matter of time.” We’re still waiting.

Film, cameras, and strong opinions

I shared my Japan mistake: 20 rolls of CineStill 800T, shot temples and snow in Sapporo. Cold and flat. There’s a meme: “If NASA used CineStill 800T,” and there’s a gas station on the moon. Because that’s what we do.

Max said, “Can I say something controversial?” and dropped: “I’m not a fan of halation.” Bold move. Let’s all now altogether cancel him on the Internet. 😅

Near the end he casually pulled out a Leica IIIC from 1941. Delivered to the Luftwaffe. 85 years old. It works.

We want to do more of these. Go subscribe to Max Adams on YouTube. Almost 80K subscribers and he still responds to everyone.

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Camera Clara is a film photography newsletter. If you're reading this and haven't subscribed yet, you can do that here.

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There’s this idea that cropping is cheating. That a “real photographer” gets it right in camera, every time. Framing well matters, yes. But the best photo in the world is useless if you didn’t take it because you were worrying about perfect composition in the moment.

Bresson talked about the decisive moment, but he spent hours in the darkroom with his printer adjusting the frame. The mythology of the perfect, untouched capture is exactly that.

Medium format

Yesterday I went out shooting in Manhattan with my friend Brian. I had a medium format camera and I came home with frames that looked average at full width and fantastic once I cropped them to what I actually wanted. Like finding a gemstone inside rough rock. The information was always there. I just needed to remove what didn’t belong.

Panoramas too. Crop a single 100 MP frame into a wide aspect ratio and you still have enough resolution for a large print. No stitching, no overlapping frames, no tripod. Just one shot and a crop.

For this set I processed everything through Dehancer on desktop with a Portra 800 emulation. I wanted warmth and grain without shooting actual film, and Dehancer gets closer to real stock behavior than anything else I’ve tried.

These cameras are pricey and not everyone can justify the investment. But the lesson applies at any resolution: don’t be afraid to crop. The shot you recompose in post is better than the shot you never took because the framing wasn’t perfect.

Film is expensive, slow, and fragile. I’m not quitting it. But I need a backup plan, and I need that plan to be good.

Why I care about film simulation

I can’t stand the look of digital straight out of a digital camera, so I shoot RAW in DNG and run everything through film simulation software.

What I need from the software is simple: don’t crash, stay consistent across a full session, and produce grain that looks like actual film grain, not a texture pasted on top.

My wallet thanks.

How Dehancer got here

Dehancer started in the cinema and video world. Two or three years ago, when I first looked into it, there was nothing useful for still photographers. Everything was built for video editing applications like DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, or Premiere.

Now they have a Lightroom Classic plugin, and more importantly, Dehancer Desktop: a standalone app currently in beta. There’s a HIGH industry need for applications to perform film simulations on PHOTOS rather than videos, and even though, 10 out 10 videos on YouTube about Dehancer are related to DaVinci Resolve. I am here to change that.

Dehancer Desktop solves the workflow problem

The Lightroom plugin creates a virtual copy, exports a TIFF to Dehancer, and brings it back. That doubles your storage per image. On Adobe Creative Cloud, where storage costs add up fast, this becomes a real problem at volume.

Dehancer Desktop skips all of that. You import RAWs directly, apply your simulation, copy and paste edits across images, batch export to JPEG. No TIFFs. No doubled storage. No Lightroom dependency.

It’s beta, macOS only, and it still crashes here and there. But the core workflow is already solid, at least to me.

What works

The film profiles are accurate. Dehancer calibrates them from analog darkroom prints using colorimetry and densitometry, not from scanner output. The grain reacts to exposure and tonal values instead of sitting flat on the image. You can control size, intensity, and resolution. Over sixty film profiles, including cinema stocks, with print film simulation and push/pull controls.

The halation nation!

Halation is the red-orange glow around bright highlights on film stocks like CineStill 800T and 400D. It happens because light passes through the emulsion layers, bounces off the film base, and scatters back into the red-sensitive layer. The behavior is non-linear: it depends on the intensity and spectrum of the light source, the film format, and the emulsion chemistry. CineStill’s halation is extreme because the remjet layer that absorbs residual light has been removed, and the chemical layer closer to the film is the red one.

Most software treats halation as a radial red glow applied around bright pixels. That misses the physics. Real halation only appears where luminance exceeds the film’s latitude. Dehancer offers halation controls, which already puts it ahead of most tools on the market.

My first impression was not ideal. The halation bled into shadows and midtones where it had no business being, and the results looked artificial. Then I spent more time with the sliders and realized the tool is actually decent. It just demands fine-tuning for every single photo. There’s no “set it and forget it” here.

And here’s the thing: your eye needs to be trained. You need to know what would and wouldn’t produce halation in a real shot. Which highlights are bright enough, which light sources have enough red in their spectrum, where the glow should stop. I have a lot of experience shooting CineStill 400D and 800T, so I can spot when the simulation is off and adjust accordingly. If you don’t have that reference, you might end up overcooking.

With careful adjustment, the results can be convincing. But if you’re careless with the parameters, the halation will pass through dark elements and ruin the image. It’s a tool that rewards patience and punishes laziness.

After spending a good amount of time dialing in my own CineStill 800T look in Dehancer, I decided to sell it as a preset.

Watch out some of the built-in presets

The built-in presets don’t just switch the film profile. They also apply print simulation, color head, and other adjustments. The ILFORD HP5 preset, for example, produces a sepia tone that I know the HP5 never had.

I also noticed the Ilford XP2 simulation renders more neutral than HP5 in Dehancer, which seems backwards. XP2 is a C-41 chromogenic stock with a natural tint; HP5 is traditional B&W with no tint at all. The HP5 preset’s print simulation causes this.

Strip it back to just the film profile, no print, no color head, no developer, and the result is clean black and white. The way it should be.

This feels like a leftover from Dehancer’s cinema origins, where the negative-to-print pipeline is standard. For still photography, I believe presets should default to the film profile alone.

The next step

I think that the next step for me is to adapt my digital way of shooting to match what Dehancer would need to nail film simulations. I got a Pro Black Mist filter to use when I want to emulate the 800T. This photo was made using it.

Bottom line

Dehancer Film is the most capable film simulation tool I’ve used for photography. The profiles are accurate, the grain is convincing, and Dehancer Desktop finally solves the batch processing problem for photographers who shoot volume and want to save on Cloud storage.

Halation is usable but demands trained eyes and per-image tuning. The presets carry too much baggage from the video side. But the foundation is there. In the past, here in Camera Clara, I had reviewed DxO Film Pack 8, and the fact they don’t have halation in their presets annoyed me a bit.

Also, handling digital versions of my photos teaches me more and more about the film stocks I'm used to working with. Creating these digital presets out of what I think film looks like helps me train my eye, helps me noticing things I took for granted when I just shot film. This turns me into a better light writer.

I’ll be posting video tutorials on how I use Dehancer in my workflow. And I’m planning a direct comparison between real film scans and Dehancer simulations of the same scenes. Stay tuned.

Shooting digital is fun again.

Disclosure: Dehancer provided me with a license to test their software. No financial compensation was involved. These are my honest opinions.

I realized I forgot to include the coolest medium format photos in that post, so here they are!

If you are coming to NYC, include the Staten Island Ferry as a photographic route

Contact sheet

Film roll

The iT32 has no mounting foot of its own. That job belongs to the X5, a separate unit that connects magnetically and acts as both a hot shoe mount and a wireless trigger. Buy the X5 transmitter for Canon, another for Nikon, and the same flash body works on both. Extending to a new camera brand costs only $20, a fraction of buying a new flash. I said 20 bucks for a flash radio transmitter, yep, you read it right…

Specs at a glance

Guide number: GN 18 (ISO 100, fixed 28mm coverage)

Power range: 1/128 to 1/1

Recycle time: ~1.5 seconds

Battery: Built-in USB-C rechargeable, up to 510 full-power flashes

Sync speed: HSS up to 1/8000 sec (1/80,000 sec with Sony global shutter cameras)

Wireless range: Up to 80m (263ft) when attached; 20m (66ft) when separated

Flash modes: TTL, Manual, Multi (stroboscopic)

Display: Color touchscreen

Dimensions: 10 x 6 x 4 cm / ~170g with X5 (it’s tiny!)

Compatible systems: Canon, Fujifilm, Leica, Nikon, Olympus/Panasonic, and Sony.

Price: $79 for the flash body, $19–25 for each X5 trigger, or $99–104 for a kit with one X5.

Real life test

I was in Brazil last week. I did a photowalk with my friend , from the newsletter A OBSCURA, and we went to Arpoador with the iT32. We shot fill flash in daylight and used it as the primary light source after dusk.

Check out the difference of what the GN18 did as a fill flash:

And as a primary light source (wait a minute! I recognize that…)

What makes it interesting

The modular design is the whole point. When the X5 is attached, the iT32 works like any TTL on-camera flash. Pull the X5 off, and it automatically switches to wireless trigger mode, controlling the iT32 remotely. No re-pairing, no menus. Just pull them apart and keep shooting.

The magnetic mount is stronger than it looks. The flash physically slots into a recessed mount; the magnets assist but do not do all the work. Pushing it from front, back, or side does not budge it, even on my heavy Leica M body.

TTL is reliable and consistent for close work: portraits, macro, still life, and small products. High Speed Sync works as expected for balancing flash with bright ambient light, although, I don’t recommend it too much due to color variation. Recycle times are quick enough that you are mostly not waiting between shots.

The tradeoff is light power. GN18 has limits. Bouncing off high ceilings, lighting large groups, or overpowering strong sunlight from a distance will push it past its range. Close to your subject, or with deliberate off-camera placement, it performs well.

Who it is for

Multi-system shooters who are tired of carrying multiple flashes. Film photographers who want a light travel flash that still supports TTL. Anyone stepping into off-camera flash for the first time without wanting to spend a lot.

For professionals who need real output power, the Godox V350 or AD100Pro makes more sense. The iT32 is aimed at semi-professionals who want to work with light without the bulk, and have a handy flash ready to go in any ocasion.

At $99 all-in, the system is hard to argue with. Just buy one and put in your bag, and you’re good!

Today I want to share an underestimated spot around the New York area: the Staten Island Ferry, a free attraction that serves both tourists and locals who commute from/to Staten Island.

We all know at this point that there’s something magical about ferry boat lighting. When skies are dimmed, the light that gets inside the boat is poetic. When it’s beautiful outside, you have a mobile island where you can compose beautiful landscapes.

If you are around the New York area, I strongly recommend taking the ferry from NYC to Staten Island. The stations have great light with the Statue of Liberty in the background, and the ride is smooth and pleasant. It’s free, and you can go back and forth as many times as you want. One day I’ll spend my entire day just riding back and forth, because the more you observe, the better angles you find, the lighting changes, and you become more aware of the locations.

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I had never set foot in a favela. I lived in Rio for thirty years, always with Rocinha right there, visible from every corner of the Zona Sul (or from the traffic if you were driving past), and I never once went in. From a distance it looks like a painting: the biggest favela in Brazil, made up by thousands of houses stacked up the hillside, each one with its little blue water tank on top, lights at night as if the sky had slipped down onto the slope. Up close, I had no idea. And I had no idea because I never went. Thirty years living next door and I never went. That sentence alone says a lot about the kind of prejudice we carry without realizing it. I didn’t avoid Rocinha for any concrete reason. I avoided it because I absorbed the idea that it wasn’t for me, that it was dangerous, that there was nothing interesting in there. The whole city works like this: the favela is right there, everyone sees it, and almost nobody goes in. This post is, among other things, an attempt to dismantle some of that prejudice.

The idea came up while I was still in New York, planning the trip. I knew I wanted to do something in Rocinha, photograph it somehow, but I didn’t know exactly what. I thought about those Instagram drone videos, about those jeep tours they do for foreigners, or about just staying on the outskirts. My friend Edgard, who lives in São Conrado, was going to set something up. The plan was simple: barbecue at his place, then go see Rocinha.

What happened was, on the day of the barbecue, the barbecue gas tank ran out. Edgard went up to Rocinha to buy a new one and, while he was there, asked one of the mototaxi (motorcycle+taxi) drivers at the base of the hill what the best way to do a photography tour would be. The guy asked if we wanted the tourist experience or the real thing. Edgard, Rio born and raised, asked for the real thing. The guy suggested going by mototaxi. And just like that, from an empty gas tank, one of the most striking experiences of my life was born.

I went up prepared to feel vulnerable. I brought disposable cameras from Gelatin Labs. One in my pocket, another in Edgard’s, light enough not to draw attention and cheap enough not to hurt if they disappeared. Phone in the other pocket. No good camera, no Leica, and I regret that a little, because I still haven’t developed the film from the disposables as I’m writing this. That choice to leave the good camera at home also says something…

I went afraid of being robbed in a place where, in the end, nobody even glanced at my pocket. We plan these visits based on what television and Instagram have sold us, not based on what the place actually is.

It was me and Edgard, each on the back of a mototáxi, one behind the other. The climb is steep and the streets are narrow, the kind of street that doesn’t show up on Google Maps because the satellite image is swallowed by the swarm of houses. The driver dodged pedestrians, other bikes, dogs, kids, all of it at a speed that wasn’t fast but felt fast because the space was so tight. The self-organization of the whole thing is as efficient as a beehive, one that happens to have its King Drone somewhere up there (if you know what I mean…)

When the motodriver stopped at a point and rode off to turn the bike around, pointing it toward the next destination, I admit a small wave of panic hit. I’d look around, see dozens of alleyways branching off in every direction, and think: if this guy leaves me here alone, I am completely lost.

But he didn’t leave. And what he showed us was worth every second of unease.

Our guide took us to a barber at the top of the favela. A guy cutting his hair on a rooftop terrace, watching football on a makeshift TV, with a view I’ve never seen anywhere else. On one side, São Conrado and the ocean. On the other, the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon and the entire Zona Sul (the most noble and expensive part of Rio). That view only exists there, at that exact spot. No five-star hotel, no tourist lookout delivers that. The barber working calmly, the TV tuned to an Eurocup match, Barcelona was playing. He had the entire city at his feet with that view. The simplicity of that scene stayed with me more than any postcard.

There are parts of the route I took where you can’t take photos or film. Our guide warned us ahead of time and we respected it religiously. The reason is practical: there are areas where people walk around armed, and I’m not talking about pistols. Military-grade rifles, as tall as the person carrying them. The community wants to protect its external image and prevent visitors from filming only that and posting it online. Fair enough. And that is exactly the point. If you search “Rocinha” on YouTube, most videos show guns and tension. That’s the clickbait culture of our current society. Nobody films the barber on the rooftop, the football tournament in the alley, the mother walking her kid to school in the morning. The favela gets reduced to what scares people, never to what works. In one of those alleys, on the way to see a football pitch where local tournaments are held, we crossed paths with two young men carrying rifles. I did what any polite person would do: I said “good afternoon.” The young man replied “good afternoon, sir,” with a naturalness that disarmed me more than I was already disarmed.

Rocinha is controlled by the Comando Vermelho (CV), the largest criminal faction in Rio de Janeiro. The territory was taken from the former group Amigos dos Amigos (Friends of Friends) in 2018. Even so, there is an internal order. Our guide explained that inside the favela, physical fights are forbidden, that everything must be resolved through dialogue, that conflict within the community is not tolerated. And there is a protection for visitors: if something happens to us on a tour, the person who suffers the most consequences is the one responsible for the visit (in this case, the mototaxi drivers).

On the way down, motorcycle traffic was heavy and everyone was socializing. Mototaxi drivers greeting each other, chatting in the middle of the street, laughing, cracking jokes. A loudspeaker van blasting ads for a Northeastern food stand. I filmed a little on my phone. I saw a motorcycle hit a bus on the way down, the rider fell but got up without much damage. Life went on.

What impressed me the most, looking back, were two things. The first is the absurd number of photographic scenes that exist in that area. Rocinha is a territory practically untouched in the world of photography books, and every corner delivers a ready-made composition. Light, texture, layers, life. Next time, I’m bringing the Leica. Because it is safe, yes. The picture the media paints about what happens inside the favela is very different from the reality of those who live there and those who visit.

The second thing is resilience. The climbs are brutal. The streets never end. The houses stack up in ways that defy any urban planning logic. And inside those walls, more than 70,000 people wake up every day, go to work, raise children, get haircuts on a rooftop with a million-dollar view. Rocinha was once considered the most heavily armed favela in the world. Today it is a community with hotels, which they call “viewpoints”, with restaurants, shops, and people who welcome you with open arms if you show up with respect.

When the tour ended, Pix (Brazil’s equivalent to Venmo/Zelle) wasn’t working to pay our guides. So they took us to a supermarket, we withdrew cash from an ATM, and I bought three boxes of chocolates: one for each mototaxi driver and one for the rooftop barber. I wished them a happy Easter. They were thrilled and made a video call on WhatsApp to show the barber, who was just as happy. I got their contact info, added them on Instagram. Humble, hardworking people who welcome you like they’ve known you for years. They invited us to a “baile funk” (their street party, massive) the next day, but I was already heading back home.

I regret living thirty years in Rio without ever going up just as much as I regret only bringing a disposable camera.

If you’re reading this and you’ve never been inside a favela, I understand. I was that person for three decades. We grow up hearing it’s dangerous, that there’s nothing to do there, that it’s another world.

It is another world, yes. Just not in the way they told you.

Next time I come to Rio, I’m going to the best barbershop in the city, with the best view. I’m going there for a proper shave, the way my mom likes it!

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Rio,

I lived with you for thirty years and never gave you the credit you deserved. I grew up near the beach, had friends my whole life, met my wife and raised my son there. And still, when I left, I didn’t look back. First I moved to São Paulo for work, then to New York, carrying the conviction that I had made the right call.

Ten years later, I return as a wide-eyed tourist. And I’ll be honest: I return quite embarrassed.

Embarrassed because I used to loathe you. I thought everything was disorganized, messy, too hot. I wanted systems, I wanted standards, I wanted to buy cheap electronics. When I looked outward, all I could see was everything you weren’t. I never stopped to see what you always were.

I had to live a decade in the United States to understand what eating well actually means. Sounds trivial, but it isn’t. Here in Rio, I walk into any restaurant and the food is homemade. Fresh, cooked to order, with ingredients that still remember where they came from. The other day I had coconut juice blended with coconut water (rather than tap water) at a corner juice bar, something so simple I would never have appreciated it at twenty. That just doesn’t exist in New York. There, a green juice costs twelve dollars and tastes like grass with an aftertaste of good marketing. After ten at night, your options are fast food or loneliness. In Rio, I sit down at a restaurant at eleven and eat a full meal, made from scratch, for a price that wouldn’t cover the tax in Manhattan. Let alone the tip. Fresh meat, fresh fruit, fresh everything. Brazilian agriculture delivers something no amount of American money can buy: real food, all the time, for everyone.

And speaking of things money can’t buy, there’s a trait in cariocas (people who live in Rio) that I always criticized and now, ironically, admire: the absence of systems (and mobile Apps). In the United States, the waiter sends your order to a terminal, the kitchen receives it, a different person brings it out. Nobody talks to anyone. Efficient? Yes. In Rio, the waiter is the same person who greets you, takes your order, and carries your plate. If you ask to swap the bread on your sandwich, he walks into the kitchen and talks directly to the person cooking it. If you want your fries cut thinner, they go in there, in the kitchen, and personally negotiate it with whoever is doing the frying. There is no protocol. There is conversation. This “jeitinho brasileiro,” this constant improvisation that we love to criticize when we live here, is what allows a level of customization I have never found anywhere else in the world (other than extremely luxury places). In the US, if an item is not on the menu, it does not exist. In Rio, the menu is merely a suggestion.

That informality extends to everything, including your body. The heat and humidity strip away any pretense of formal elegance. Havaianas reign. The other day I walked down to Bibi Sucos in mesh shorts (no underwear, obviously), flip flops, and a shirt I should have thrown away years ago. Nobody looked twice. There is a classy & fancy Rio, of course, the malls in São Conrado, the boutiques at Village Mall. But in daily life, nobody cares if you’re wearing Armani or a Dollar Tree tee. Rio sets the bar through comfort. And there is something beautiful in that, something bohemian that has nothing to do with partying or excess. It has to do with knowing how to live. With choosing to feel good over looking good. With transparency in its truest sense: humility and intellectual honesty. With choosing what is really important, which is health, happiness, and good food.

I know the weight of what I’m saying. I know this admiration comes easy when you arrive with dollars in your pocket (5:1 ratio to their local currency, Brazilian Real), ordering an Uber Black for ten bucks on a ride that would cost two hundred in New York. I know the Rio I’m describing is the Rio of the "Zona Sul” (the South part of Rio), and that most cariocas face problems I don’t have to face on this visit. Safety is still the number one issue, by far. A motorcycle with two riders and headlights off at night is still synonymous with danger. That is real, and I won’t pretend otherwise. Life in Rio is a pandora's box, and people have a very short fuse, ready to fight over the most mediocre things you can imagine.

How can a people so rich in what matters spend their energy on things so small? I used to be the same. And I needed to move 5,500 miles away for a decade to notice.

But even with all of that, there is something in the people of Rio that doesn’t exist in the rest of Brazil, much less the rest of the world. A warmth, a lightness, a willingness to make things work with whatever is at hand. And I needed ten years away, winters at minus thirteen degrees, pasteurized food, and a very well-organized loneliness to finally see what you offered me for free, every single day, right in front of my eyes.

Rio, my bad. I lived thirty years with you and spent a good part of that time wanting to be somewhere else. I don’t know if I’ll ever come back for good. But now, at least, I know what I left behind. I’m not complaining either. Life abroad is good. But this right here? This is something else.

Rio, You’re the GOAT.

Raf

My friend Hans took me to visit the Boeing factory and gave me a ride back to downtown after. It was raining, obviously (it's Seattle). At some point I thought about just going back to the hotel, but the rain stopped and I made my way to the Pacific Boardwalk instead.

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The scene was made for CineStill 400D. I had 800T with me, but I tend to prefer the 400D at night, even at the lower ISO. The 35mm lens helped with camera shake too since most of these shots were taken at 1/30s.

The light, the drizzle, the neons, the reflections. Everything was there. All the photos in this post came from the same roll.

You can find the camera, film and Lab development in each shot.

Contact sheet

If you don’t know them yet: they’re two LA-based film photographers who develop film in the most chaotic places imaginable, film the whole process, edit it with great energy, and post it on YouTube. Think about Spider Man asking for 50 bucks (lmao), a Scientology security guard showing up and challenging them in their matching blue jumpsuits while trying to evangelize the church, chemicals flying inside a UHAUL at 7am (LMAO), red wine as a film developer, camo faces paint in the woods, a bucket melting onto someone’s arm in LA traffic, and much more fun!

The content is awesome in the best way, and the technique is actually solid.

We talked about temperature tolerance in C-41 (more forgiving than most people think), what happens when developer gets exhausted, and what it actually feels like to invert blix and dev by mistake (I’ve been there).

They also dropped some news: a FridgeFilm original film stock is coming soon, with pre-orders opening shortly. Name and box design are still under wraps.

Watch their videos on YouTube and follow them on Instagram at @fridge.film. I’m already planning a New York collab with rowboats on the Central Park lake. They’re in.

YOU don't wanna miss this episode, I guarantee you will have a good time watching it!

Thank you SO MUCH Kat and Everett, you rock!

Got home, pulled the SD card, plugged it in. Nothing. Completely empty. No error message, no corrupted files, just blank. I still have no idea what happened, and at this point I’ve accepted I never will. I think it was my storage USB that corrupted the SD card filesytem or so.

I also had the Mamiya 7ii with me for medium format shots. Those rolls are safe, sitting on my bathroom drying from development. I’ll post the results once they’re scanned and converted.

Before starting the recovery process, I turned the camera on and recorded this tutorial, because you might need it one day.

If you would like any help with this, please consider being a paid subscriber to Camera Clara, and I would be more than happy to help you out.

Rescued photos

All taken with the Leica M10-R and a 50mm f/1.4 Summilux. Imagine losing these…

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Note 2: This is not a traditional review in the sense we will fully cover tech specs. That’s not what CameraClara is for (go to PetaPixel or DPReview for that, they do a better job). Of course we will talk about specs here and there, but our conversation is focused on bringing the perspective from what an experienced street photographer thinks about Ricoh’s new street-photography camera.

Juno Morrow is a NYC street photographer known for her bold color work. Follow her at instagram.com/juno.morrow.

We sat down for a live stream to talk about her first weeks with the Ricoh GR IV HDF. Juno has been shooting street in New York for decades, mainly with a Nikon ZF. The GR IV is a big departure. Here is what she thinks so far.

What’s the HDF thing?

HDF stands for High Definition Filter. It’s a built-in diffusion filter on the lens that softens the image with a slight glow, similar to what you’d get with a physical filter in front of the lens. Ricoh sells it as a creative option for a more cinematic or film-like look. The HDF version costs $100 more than the standard GR IV.

The effect is more intense than Juno expected. The standard lens already has some diffusion built in, which she had only heard one other creator mention before buying. She has mostly kept HDF mode off and wonders whether she should have saved the $100 and bought the standard version. Still, it’s a nice option to have.

Positive points of the Ricoh GR IV HDF

The size is the main draw, and it delivers. Juno is an overpacker by her own admission, often carrying several cameras and heavy lenses. Having something this light and pocketable is a real relief. She looks like a tourist with it, which works well for street. People notice it, shrug, and move on quickly.

The lens is impressive. Zone focusing is also easier than expected, with the deeper depth of field on APS-C making snap priority mode much more forgiving than on full frame. The menu is well designed for street photography. If you skip auto-area AF and lean on snap priority, shooting is fast and straightforward.

Negative points of the Ricoh GR IV HDF

Build quality is the main concern. The buttons feel loose, the battery compartment is flimsy, and after just a few days, crud is already getting stuck in the lens mechanism. For a camera at this price, it does not inspire confidence.

The screen is bad. Low resolution, fixed, no tilt. Juno compared it to a screen from a 2008 DSLR, and the actual spec backs that up.

High ISO is a weak spot. Colors and dynamic range fall apart before noise becomes obvious. It’s acceptable at 3200 but nothing to celebrate. She notes this is her first APS-C camera in 14 years, so her tolerance for sensor limitations may be lower than most.

Metering is unusual. In night scenes, the camera meters for highlights and the results can come out very dark with no adjustments.

Framing from low angles is harder than expected. The camera is light enough, but the lack of a real grip makes it tricky to control the angle precisely.

What does she think?

She went in knowing the trade-offs and so far the camera is doing what she needed it to do. Remember me to ask Juno again about the camera in six months.

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At $8,999 (+tax!), it’s Leica’s answer to photographers who want M lenses without the rangefinder learning curve. The sensor is the same 60 MP full-frame chip found in the M11. The EVF runs at 5.76 million dots, borrowed from the Q3 family, though capped at 60fps instead of the Q3’s 120fps. The body looks almost identical to an M11-P.

In plain terms: it is an M11 without a rangefinder and with a built-in EVF where the finder used to sit.

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For current M10 and M11 owners, this raises a question worth thinking through: why spend $9,000 on a new body when the Visoflex already solves the same problems, for a fraction of the cost?

What the Visoflex actually is

The Visoflex is Leica’s hot-shoe-mounted electronic viewfinder for M cameras. Slide it onto the hot shoe, and your rangefinder becomes a mirrorless-style camera with live view, focus peaking, and magnification. Remove it, and you’re back to the pure rangefinder experience. There are two modern versions: the Typ 020 (for M10 bodies, with GPS built in) and the Visoflex 2 (for M11, with a 3.7 MP OLED display).

Although the above picture shows the Visoflex 2, I prefer the previous version, the Typ 020 (a.k.a. Visoflex 1).

Between the two, the Typ 020 has something the Visoflex 2 lost: mojo. The newer version is more refined but also more fragile, with a known dust problem around the diopter dial. Many owners tape it shut right after purchase. The older Typ 020 feels sturdier, more mechanical, and frankly more at home on a rangefinder camera. If you shoot an M10, the Typ 020 is still the better pick, both in feel and because it adds GPS geotagging with zero extra steps.

Don't buy the Leica M EV1

There are five good reasons to stick with the digital Leica M body you might already have:

1. You keep the rangefinder. The M EV1 asks you to give up the one thing that makes an M camera worth owning. With a Visoflex on your M10 or M11, the optical finder is always there. You shoot with it for street work, travel, and anything that benefits from the speed of a split-image patch. The Visoflex goes on when you need it and comes off when you don’t.

2. Battery drains slower when you control it. The M EV1’s EVF is always on. One user averaged around 350 shots per charge shooting in EVF mode. With a Visoflex, you remove it the moment it isn’t needed, and your battery lasts as long as it normally would.

3. It tilts to 90 degrees. Both the Typ 020 and Visoflex 2 tilt upward to 90 degrees, letting you shoot from waist level while looking straight down into the finder, like a medium format camera. The M EV1’s built-in EVF sits fixed to the body. You don’t get that option.

4. Vintage and non-coupled lenses become usable. Ultra-wides like 21mm, telephotos at 90mm and beyond, Leica R lenses via adapter, old Soviet glass, anything that doesn’t couple to the rangefinder mechanism works correctly through the Visoflex. You see exactly what the lens sees, with focus peaking and magnification. This is one of the strongest practical arguments for the Visoflex that rarely gets enough attention.

5. The price difference is hard to ignore. A Visoflex 2 runs around $650 new. The Typ 020 goes for even less. And right now, used prices have dropped further because the M EV1 announcement caused a wave of people selling their Visoflex units in a panic. That panic is your opportunity. You can find a Typ 020 or Visoflex 2 on eBay for well under $500, sometimes significantly less, at a moment when the accessory has never been more capable or relevant.

Something I forgot to add to this post

a.k.a. “Ok Raf, how does the shit look like”, give me a video, bro…

What the M EV1 does better

The EV1’s EVF is sharper at 5.76 MP versus the Visoflex 2’s 3.7 MP, and integrated directly into the body without any lag from the hot shoe connection. If you’re shooting a Noctilux at f/0.95 on fast-moving subjects, the EV1 offers more focus confidence. It also removes the risk of the Visoflex collecting dust in the diopter or sliding off the hot shoe.

That said, the 5.76 MP EVF runs at 60fps. The Q3, a camera that costs less than the EV1, ships with the same resolution finder at 120fps. Leica is asking you to pay a premium M price for an EVF that’s already behind another camera in their own lineup. For $9,000, you’d expect the best EVF Leica makes. You’re not getting it.

What do I think?

Spending $9,000 on the M EV1 when you already own an M10 or M11 is hard to justify. The M EV1 gives you an EVF, live view, focus peaking, and compatibility with wider and longer lenses. The Visoflex gives you all of that too, for a few hundred dollars, without asking you to abandon the rangefinder that makes the M system what it is.

The EV1 is not a smarter camera. You lose the optical finder permanently. You lose the ability to shoot waist level. You lose battery flexibility. You gain a built-in EVF that runs at 60fps, slower than what Leica already ships in the Q3. For a body at this price, that’s simply unnaceptable.

If you’ve been sitting on the fence about picking up a Visoflex, this is actually the best moment to buy one. The EV1 launch shook the used market and prices dropped. People panicked and listed their Visoflex units well below what they were selling for six months ago. The smarter move is to take advantage of that, keep shooting your M the way it was meant to be shot, and spend what’s left on film, glass, or anything else that actually improves your photography. I got mine for $250 used in Mint condition.

The driver

Yesterday, while browsing my Substack timeline, I found a note from talking about how he uses his Ricoh GR IV for snapshotting daily scenes.

Aside from the great snapshots he posted, what caught my attention is that he mentioned that his Leica M is still his love, and he eventually shoots with it when he is looking for more intentional shooting. I identified myself with that statement.

Then, I commented this out:

And that’s where Andreas came up with something interesting…

This, furtherly, made me reflect around my visual identity, and ultimately, write up this post, which talks about about visual identity, film recipes, how the usage of film entangles with all that, and how did I develop my own photographic language.

Coincidentally (or not…), I kinda followed the very same route, so nowadays I also don’t own anything Fuji related (except for the GFX to scan the negatives and professional digital medium-format work here and there).

My photographic life

I photograph for 25 years now. So I won’t summarize all these time in here, but just the last 10 years. A decade ago, I bought Fuji X-Pro3, and as the internet rat I am, I quickly got entangled with the film recipes from Fuji X Weekly. I installed a couple of them in my X-Pro3 and started shooting JPG only. Along with my words, I’ll post some images for you to see what I did with it.

I, then, got seduced by the looks and LUTs and left aside my cultural/artistic/identity part…

Although that proves versatility, and proves that I am a powerful photographer able to execute anything I would imagine, it also proves that I had no identity, otherwise, where is my book with tens of Macro pictures? Do I have one? No.

Can you see the drama? I’m like an intentionless powerhouse (which is worse than being incompetent).

Going through my Lightroom Library exploring shots from 2019 to 2024 is a roller coaster!

I had a X-T5, a X-Pro3, a x100v, and 7 lenses for the X system, including the beefy 100-400mm. If I need to summarize my Fuji life, I can say that I went after the affordable rangefinder experience, but ended up with too much heads-up display stuff, and an annoying auto-focus by wire that introduces latency and makes street photography more difficult.

The result of this? My work fron 2019 to 2024 was experimental, with each album looking like it was taken by a different photographer. Full of good-looking pictures alone, that don’t connect with each other.

That’s when I sold every single piece of equipment I had.

It was time for a reset

In 2024, I dove deep into the Leica ecosystem, bought a Leica Q2, then later a Voitgländer Bessa R2A, a bunch of M lenses, Leica film bodies, the M10-R. I learned development and scanning. In 1 year, I mastered the 35mm film thing.

Nowadays, I’m fine when handling film, and when I’m shooting digital, I am back into the roots of mixing film simulation, but this time, on the computer using software to simulate presets based on films I already know.

I also developed a software to add film information on the photos. It uses the predominant color of the shot, followed by film stock, camera, and other cool information. I called it ShotOn, and I’ve been consistently using it online for 1 year now.

Let’s take a look at the difference…

Rather than randomly photographing macros, cityscapes, color cut-outs, and whatever random shit that gets in front of me, this journey helped me to go out and photograph with INTENT.

Take a careful look at the following photos, taken across multiple days with different cameras and films, they all document how living in Manhattan is expensive and brutal. It’s now part of a project I’m doing called “Excuse-me, Do You Have a Reservation?” — which is probably the most spoken phrase in Manhattan to politely deny something to someone. Having all those in film unify the look because of the grain and film stuff, so once the hardware talks the same language, it gets easier for the mind to do the same.

That’s photographing with intent. I am documenting Manhattan’s hustle life. That can easily turn into an interesting book that conveys something solid, a society critique, to say the least.

That’s how big photography books in history had been formed, like The Americans (Robert Frank, 1958/1959), On Photography (Susan Sontag, 1977), The Photographer’s Eye (John Szarkowski, 1966), The Pencil of Nature (William Henry Fox Talbot, 1844–1846), and many others.

I think that Leica being pricey helped me with this unitary way of thinking. One camera, fixed lens. Keep things simple. Go back to basics. Helped me reset things out.

Did it need to be Leica? No, though, the lack of distractions, and focus on the culture and language, helped me realize what was missing…

Did I need to pass through this to develop this mindset? Yes, I think so. I say the journey wasn’t useless because it gave me the technique to not miss shots like these.

Leica naturally aligns with street-photography. Rangefinder cameras align with slow shooting. Manual focus lenses align with zone-focusing.

Less variables, more space to critique your own thing.

Where did I land?

Now, I am either shooting film, or DNGs on the M10-R and applying software film simulations to mimic the films I usually shoot with film, or shooting film at all. More flexibility, less experimentation, more defined language.

These are some painted billboards I am collecting every time I visit Manhattan, as part of a new project called “Old Manhattan”, with photographs of endangered billboards on walls amidst the skyscrapers. I think that gives you a better idea of what I mean when I say that I am now photographing with intent. Again, this will all go to a book once I collect enough photographs.

Less is more

My visual identity now tends to be more intentionally locked, and that helps at shooting time because I now see scenes that would work or not with my vision.

Being more deliberate helps my visual identity being more consistent, I know how to better control variables, composition, or even know if I should go out or not.

It’s like the Light and I developed an intimate relationship.

This is more deliberate than experimenting with a myriad of film recipes from an unknown website rendering in unexpected results.

Why is this important?

If you want to do anything a little bit more serious with photography, you need that consistency across your work. It’s like describing the difference between a photography book someone would be interested in buying, versus your latest vacation album.

It doesn’t matter if it’s black and white, or pastel tones, or topic-related, like only shooting trash cans at a specific angle. It should be about being deliberate without being mono-thematic.

When we talk about the way a photograph looks, a film stock helps with achieving that look because it’s embedded in the film, and there aren’t a myriad of film stocks around. Again, limitation enhances creativity.

Today, I can say that I have my roots based on film photography, and when I shoot digital, I have a trustable reference.

It’s all about references

To me, digital photography is supposed to be edited. I don’t think sensors do a good job of delivering out images that are ready to be published (or shared). It lacks in texture, in personality. Digital sensors are a tool that capture information with minimum loss, for you to add your personal touch.

Getting in touch with film helped me developing my eye towards that personal touch. In today’s world of AI, software allucination, and randomness, this consistency is the most important thing a visual artist must have.

Film gave me these references.

Every photographer does good and bad photos. What you perceive as a good photographer, is a photographer that only shares work that consistently strikes the same look or purpose. Henri Cartier-Bresson had bad photos. Sebastião Salgado had bad photos. Evandro Teixeira, Daido Moriyama, Ansel Adams (well, perhaps this one didn’t, LOL), Annie Leibowitz, Steve McCurry, Andreas Gursky — I guarantee all of these photographers make bad photos as well.

Their knowledge relies on two things: curation and intent.

They start with photographing with intent — that filters out lots of nonsense, noise, and provide consistency across the subjects I photograph.

Then, they curate, curate, curate, curate. They have teams of people looking, debating, filtering, culling, name it. When they come up with a book, you have a selection of photos that they know it will be impactful.

The more culture you consume, the more references you have. The more references you have, the more consistent you can be.

Film definitely helps with that.

Digital brings convenience, and one of the most underrated ones is the Auto ISO setting, available on most cameras, which is something I’ve been using more frequently recently, so in this post, I’ll describe some thoughts about using this feature.

Most (if not all) digital cameras allow you to do full-auto, Av, and Tv. Av as in Aperture Value, and Tv as in Time Value. I'm using Canon nomenclature because that's what I started with, but these terms vary according to the manufacturer.

We all know the exposure triangle is made of Aperture (f/), Shutter Speed (s.s.) and ISO.

In summary, Av is when you set the aperture and ISO, and the camera calculates the shutter speed. Tv is when you set the shutter speed, and the camera calculates the aperture — all for the exposure to be set according to what you define in the Exposure Compensation, which is typically set to 0 EV.

PS: Av is only available on cameras that are able to electronically set the aperture on the lens, or cameras that are a mechanical marvel, so among all these modes, it's the most “expensive” one.

Something oftenly underlooked is the Auto ISO, where you set the shutter speed, the aperture, and the camera changes the ISO to satisfy the needed exposure. Something that got later introduced in digital cameras, because it's not a possibility with film.

Turns out, this method benefits street photography by a lot, because you can set a fairly closed aperture (like f/8), configure a manual focus lens to focus everything in between 1.5m-4m, set a shutter speed where you are sure there won't be camera shake (like 1/250 s.s.), and let the camera increase or reduce the ISO automatically for a well-exposed scene (according to the metering mode).

Ideally, on digital cameras, we would like to use the ISO as lower as possible to reduce noise and increase dynamic range, and luckily, most cameras allow you to set up a maximum ISO setting for the Auto-ISO, while also setting a 1/f minimum shutter speed to avoid camera shake. Let me explain, because this isn't so intuitive as it looks…

As you can see, in my M10-R, I have it set as 1600 for the max ISO, while respecting 1/f of a shutter speed. That said, the closer the aperture, the faster the shot tends to be.

For example: Let's say I set f/4, the maximum exposure time would be 1/4 sec.

In the same scene, if I set f/8, less light would be coming in because I am closing the aperture, that would make the camera to lower the shutter speed, but that could introduce camera shake, that's where the 1/f thing comes in.

In this case, the rule of 1/f would assume, making the maximum shutter speed 1/8 sec (in case of f/8), that would make the ISO go up, sacrificing digital noise rather than resulting in a blurry image.

Turns out that digital cameras nowadays do a very decent job on everything below ISO 3200, and if you have a Monochrom camera, these values can go up to ISO 64000 without a noise disturbance.

These settings are pretty much smart!

Here are some shots I took using this method. It's easy because I don't need to concern with focus, as my f/ is usually fairly closed for zone-focusing.

What are your thoughts? When you're shooting digital, do you usually use semi-automatic modes? Do you go full manual? I usually keep alternating between different methods, but I want to know about how you do!

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It was 2 degrees Celsius. The kind of cold that makes your fingers stiff within minutes. Film gets brittle, batteries drain faster. Everything was telling me to just get on the train.

I walked instead. I made five digital photographs, which later then I used DxO FilmPack 8 for a Fujifilm Neopan 400 film simulation.

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Here are the photographs I took in this session, in a cold, but still good looking city.

This guy had the choice of using one of the tens of the available Citibikes, but instead he chose to go on his own, that caught my attention.

Followed by these restaurant chairs, parked there perhaps for weeks. This indicate that the ice slows down everything, including the local economy.

What's frozen and humanless in one side, has lots of emotions and entertainment on another. These people playing ping pong near Herald Square is a frequent scene, and I always photograph it. I think that if I find all photos of people playing ping pong in this specific urban ping pong table, I can make an entire book out of it.

As Valentine's Day approaches, I saw many men with flowers, I tried to make that a theme, but I was only able to photograph the two pictures below. Perhaps if it wasn't too cold, I would go with that intention on photographing this specific matter: people with roses, Valentine theme.

What does it mean to be a photographer?

As you might know, I carry my camera almost every day. I carried it today at 2 degrees with every reason not to. That’s what being a photographer means to me: the camera is part of your daily life, and I am always ready to use it.

I have friends who call themselves photographers, but spend entire photo walks just talking, and bring their cameras just to keep it locked inside their backpacks. They don’t shoot. They don’t study references. Ask them about Daido Moriyama or Saul Leiter and they don't know who you're talking about.

I mentioned these two because in these photos, there are lots of inspiration from them. To me, that's what photography is about, and it becomes way funnier when you have references and go for it.

I'm saying that because I've been on the other side of the game. I was the guy who was all about owning a high-end body and a fast lens with an entire portfolio wide open at f/1.2, everything blurred into oblivion, a subject floating in bokeh.

Every. Single. Image.

Tacky as fuck.

What I mean is that buying gear doesn’t make you a photographer any more than buying a piano makes you a musician. Study the culture, consume photography books, have conversations about art, watch photography documentaries, write about it, research references, that's what matter.

Just go!

You don’t need a plan. You don’t need a full afternoon. You don’t need to fill a roll. And you definitely don’t need the latest body or the fastest lens.

You need the intention, and the willingness to walk a few extra blocks.

Your cellphone does it.

PS: If you want a 15% off discount on DxO FilmPack 8, use the code RAF15, that’s exclusive for you, CameraClara reader.

I drove to Ridgewood, parked, and we grabbed coffee at a local pastry shop. Everything is local, and Anton knows the history of these places.

I brought the M10-R with an orange filter to push more contrast from the black and white shots. The weather was warm for winter, with snow still on the ground. Black and white photography works well for snow because we all know it gets dirty and dark after a few days. But with high-grain black and white, that grime softens out. It passes as charm rather than pollution. It becomes more poetic.

I like walking through calm neighborhoods with my camera. On the way to Sook Pastry, I saw the Columbia Bank building and photographed it.

The coffee shop, owned by a French-Korean couple, has a warm European feel inside. Incredible pastries, and my espresso and ambiance was top notch.

After leaving the coffee shop and walking through the neighborhood, I saw this scene, I had to capture it. Try guessing why…

Lula is the name of Brazil’s president, and the composition felt symbolic with that twisted American flag right behind it. For context: Lula recently made Trump back down in negotiations over tariffs with Brazil.

Anyway, we walked toward the restaurant and I took a few more black and white shots along the way. These were shot in RAW and converted with DxO FilmPack 8 using my Kodak Tri-X simulation, which produces accurate results.

The Leica social effect

Time to eat. Anton and I sat down at a restaurant where a friend of his is the owner. His friend is Massimo Sola, and the place is called Sola Osteria.

We ordered an octopus appetizer with potatoes, followed by the best lasagna I’ve ever had in my life, cooked by Massimo himself.

When we finished eating, the Chef came to our table to talk to our friend Anton…

Massimo noticed my camera, and asked: “Is that a Leica? That’s cool! Which one is it?”

*Conversation starts*

This happens constantly. I’ve lost count of how many conversations started because someone spotted my camera. It’s ridiculous, honestly. Leica carries so much recognition that strangers approach me about photography all the time. I call this the Leica social effect.

We started talking cameras. Anton pulled out his Nikon. Massimo mentioned he was looking to buy one himself. Anton, reliable local guide that he is, gave him tips on nearby stores with the best deals. I took the liberty of photographing Massimo holding Anton’s camera.

I sent Massimo the pictures and printed one as a fine art print. I’ll sign it, frame it, and bring it to him the next time I visit. I’m making Camera Clara stickers to put on the back of framed photos, but here’s the one I printed in A3+ fine art:

Interested in buying a Camera Clara fine art print for yourself? Click here and check out the catalog!

This is what I love doing most. And regardless of whether Leica is good, bad, expensive, or fancy, one thing holds true: it’s a camera that will start conversations about photography, and get you new friends, which is all that matter.

After 20 minutes talking and having a good time, we had to return home to pick our kids at school, so I shot Massimo an e-mail with the photos, and now we are photo friends, he will let me know when he buys a camera, and we will photograph together.

His restaurant is VERY cozy and wam, certainlly a must visit if you are near Ridgewood, like, c'mon, seriously, look how cozy this photo is. Now imagine negative temperatures outside, and a hot lasagna with wine inside, along with friends conversation. Life is good, huh?

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PS: If you're interested on getting DxO FilmPack 8, use the code RAF15 for 15% off at the checkout. I don't earn any comission from this. I am just recommending good product.