When I first visited Jeju island maybe almost 20 years ago, it was a popular island but not nearly as popular as today. That said, it was always quiet even with a little crowd.
However, it became an extremely popular place. Flight ticket has gone up almost triple the price of old times. So is the car rental cost. Even though I like Jeju island a lot, I try not to visit hot places as I couldn’t find peace in such a place.
Yet, I am always attracted to this mystic island.
Last week, I’ve spent a few days in Jeju with my family. I took Leica MP and Leica M Monochrom with me. I used four different 35mm films on this trip. Here are a few photos from Kodak Ektar 100 film.
As you might know, Kodak Ektar 100 has superb image quality yet it’s not so good with skin tone. (It tends to show red color too much.) So I took a lot of landscape photos.
The color of the Jeju sea is so beautiful. However, the disadvantage of taking photos of the sea with a film camera is that it’s tricky to make a perfect exposure.
If you shoot sea water during daytime, it reflects the sun. If you shoot sea water right next to black rocks (volcanic rocks) it’s even worse. The side reflects light too much while the other side absorbs it too much.
With a digital camera, this won’t be a problem, as I can easily fix it in the post-processing stage. But with film photos, overexposure or underexposure means you lose precious one frame out of 36 frames.
Contrary to my concerns, this photo turned out to be quite alright. In fact, I love it. I found that with film, a slight overexposure is always better than underexposure. Once it’s underexposed, there is nothing you can do to fix it.
Here are some more photos I took on Jeju island.
