{"id":43681,"date":"2026-02-25T06:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=43681"},"modified":"2026-02-21T20:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T01:56:15","slug":"filmpack-8-first-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/filmpack-8-first-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"FilmPack-8 First Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I recently downloaded DxO’s FilmPack8. Over the last few weeks I’d been experimenting with the older FilmPack-7 and I wanted to sample the latest offering to see what I can do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My approach is not scientific, but rather a trip into the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve been scanning my father’s black & white negatives and I came across a roll of 35mm Kodak Plus-X that he exposed in 1963. Many of these photos were made around Bird-in-Hand and Paradise, Pennsylvania, near where Kris and I now live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the photos depicted Pennsylvania Railroad GG1s near Irishtown Road in Bird-in-Hand (I’m saving those for a later post), others show Strasburg Rail Road’s excursions in its early days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has some interesting photos made with a Leica M and a telephoto lens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday, Kris, Seamus-the-Dog and I were driving around, and I decided to emulate some of my father’s images of the Strasburg Rail Road using my Nikon Z7-II digital camera. Then I converted one of the images using DxO FilmPack-8 with the Kodak Tri-X plug in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although exposed in the same general vicinity as my father’s image from 63 years ago, it is not in precisely the same place. I was aiming to re-capture the spirit of the earlier image, but not recreate it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought they make a neat comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DxO is offering a discount to Tracking the Light readers. If you are interested in buying DxO PureRaw, FilmPack 8 or other DxO programs, the discount code \u201cTRACKINGTHELIGHT\u201d will work for 15% off for any new customer at\u00a0shop.dxo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
My father’s image exposed with a Leica M using Kodak Plus-X in 1963, 35mm neg scanned with an Epson V600 scanner, file scaled using Adobe Lightroom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
My photograph from Saturday (Feb 21, 2026); Nikon NEF RAW file exposed using a Z7-II with 70-200mm lens, file converted using DxO FilmPack8 with the Kodak Tri-X 400 plug in to resemble the visual quality of that traditional black & white film.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Same file as above, with some nominal adjustment to contrast and exposure to make the image more pleasing while retaining the classic black & white film appearance. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday, Kris, Seamus-the-Dog and I were driving around, and I decided to emulate some of my father’s images of the Strasburg Rail Road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6060,10,6108,48],"tags":[8261,8535,5295,8537],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-bmx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43681"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43681"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43686,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43681\/revisions\/43686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}