Two Cameras One Kind of Film

Over time, I certainly have used the same kind of film in different cameras, but I had never intentionally put the same film in different cameras at the same time. I had a couple rolls of Kodak Portra 400, and I decided to load one in my Minolta XE and one in my Minolta Hi-Matic 11 to see if the results differ.

That said, I didn’t specifically set out to do a side-by-side comparison. I didn’t shoot the exact same shot with each camera so I conducted a much more informal comparison.

There was one day where I used both cameras so at least the weather and lighting were similar. Holly and I took a long walk to Old City.

I had previously shot 23 pictures with the Minolta XE (see below) and then finished the roll as we walked east toward Old City. I was using my Minolta Rokkor 50mm f/1.7 lens. I chose that because it was as close as I could get to the Hi-Matic’s Rokkor 45mm f/1.7 .

Here are the pictures from the XE I took on our walk to Old City.

Here are the pictures I took with the Hi-Matic the rest of the walk.

Perhaps unsurprisingly since I used the same film with comparable lenses, the results are pretty similar.

What I have noticed in the past is that blue skies are deeper and richer with the Hi-Matic. Unfortunately, it was a little overcast during that walk.

A couple of pictures from separate walks illustrate this, although it was still a little cloudy during my outing with the XE.

Here are the rest of the pictures I took with the Minolta XE.

And here are the rest of the photos from my Minolta Hi-Matic 11. Many of these were taken along the 34th Street Bridge and in the Grays Ferry Crescent Trail Park which are just a little over a mile from where we live. Despite being relatively close, we had never been to either before. One of the great things about city life is that we’re still finding new places to explore even after living here for 9+ years.

If I put the same film in different cameras at the same time again, I should at least take a handful of the same pictures so I can get some sense of any differences. As I mentioned, this was a very informal comparisons.