Rosie's First Swim

We took Rosie, our 9-month old Golden Retriever, for a swim lesson in Santa Rosa a few weeks ago. Everything in the world is new to Rosie and she had some hesitation venturing into the big swimming pool at the dog training center.

I took my Nikon F4 loaded with some Kodak Portra 400 film. This was the first time I had ever shot this film at the box speed. I normally rate Portra 400 at 200 ISO to get more saturated colors, but I think it performed pretty well here. I also wanted to make sure that the F4’s DX reader was still functioning as designed. I love this camera and hope its 33 year old electronics keep humming along.

The F4 was Nikon’s first professional body with matrix metering. I think that the bright sunny California afternoon, Rosie’s white fur and the water provided quite a workout for the F4’s meter.

I used my AF-D Nikkor 35-70 f/3.3 - 4.5 zoom lens. Making photographs of these dogs has me thinking that I need a more robust zoom…perhaps 80-200.

Boutique Photo Lab developed my film and did the scans. They scanned the entire negative up to but not including the sprocket holes. I think it gives these shots an interesting look.