I was feeling inspired by the various SF Neon walking tours I took and realized that Fillmore St in my neighborhood has a decent amount of neon signs, perfect for cataloging.
The plan: pick a good film stock to use at night, bring a tripod, and try multiple lenses. I’d shoot my 50mm on the way down the street, switch and use the 135mm on my way back.
The results: mixed!
I used Cinestill 800T film, the T being for Tungsten. I knew that Cinestill is a processed version of movie film that allows it to use the more-typical C41 process, and one of the side effects is “halation”: halo effect around lights. Unfortunately, I didn’t put it together that, if my goal was to take pictures of lights, and this film stock has lots of artifacts around lights, that of course, I would end up with these artifacts.
Additionally, I think I was a little bold using the 135mm lens for this. It has a really shallow depth of field, I have had many problems focusing it. I had a tripod! It would have been really easy for me to stop my lens down to make things sharper, but I just thought it would be different this time.
Rothy’s
The big Rothy’s sign is LED, but the small blue one is neon! It’s inside a metal case with cutouts for the letters, so it doesn’t “show off” that it’s neon the way most signs do with their exposed glass tubes.
A lot more people came up to me on this set of photos than is typical. The tripod setup made me a little more stationary. When I stopped, folded out the legs in the middle of the sidewalk, fidgeted with it to frame the shot, I’m sure it was very obvious that something out of the ordinary was happening. Maybe the fact that it’s a fairly small, neighborhoody street, and I was doing this at night alone, made people want to check in. Nobody was rude or anything but it was definitely a lot more attention than I’m used to.
Palmer’s
Le Labo
I only have the one photo of Le Labo, because by the time I was on my way back with the other lens, the sign was turned off.
D & M Liquors
D & M Liquors
The Tailor’s Son
The Tailor’s Son is a good example of halation: the sign is a plain white, there is no red to it. But based on this photo, you’d think it had a lot of red.
MUNI bus stop (not neon)
Kiehl’s
Boichik Bagels
Knocked the camera
Lens flare
The Boichik Bagels sign is the newest neon on the street, and it turned out the best! I think that the blue they use must have the least amount of red in it, so there’s less of the red halation artifacts.
The blurry shot is a fun happy accident, where the flicker of the neon shows up as separate lines, instead of one long blur. I like the lens flare in the last shot.
Woodhouse Fish Co. (neon, but not lit)
Boom Boom Room
Fillmore Florist
I’m not particularly prod of either photo of the flower shop, but taking them was interesting! For the first photo, I set up right in front of the shop with the 50mm lens. I was very still on my knees as I was fidgeting with the tripod, and I was so still that a rat walked up to me from in front of the shop! I stood up because I got a little spooked, and that in turn spooked the rat, who ran away. Sorry lil guy.
The second photo, I took from across the street with the 135mm. A security guard from the Walgreens I was in front of came to check in on me, he was pretty friendly and asked about my camera a bit. If only he knew what a garbage shot I’d end up with!
The clock at Tacobar