The last roll of RPX 400 in 120 that I shot a while back had some weird artefacts and strange grain, it was expired I grant you but I have never had that problem with this stock before.
I bought a few rolls of fresh film after this problem and got around to shooting some last weekend.
Suffice to say it worked fine, I really like the look of this film in medium format.
It has a great range of tones, nice and sharp with minimal grain.
I shot it using my Mamiya 645 & 80mm f2.8 developed in ilfotecHC 1+15 dilution.
The only thing that I don’t like about this stock is that it is a bit curly so is not the easiest to scan using my Epson v600.
Well here is the whole roll warts and all
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I have not been shooting too much recently and have been trying to force myself to get out to get back into the swing of shooting most days.
It was a reasonably bright day but quite cloudy so for a change I decided to use a point & shoot for a change hoping that the limitations would get me going.
I loaded up a roll of Lomo Lady Grey 400 in my Pentax Espio 140M and we went out for a walk.
After about 3 or 4 shots my wife pointed out that she thought that the flash was going off when I was shooting which seemed strange given that I was using 400 speed film on a bright day but it was.
It was then I realised that Lomo Lady Grey does not have a DX code and the little Espio defaults to iso 25 if there is no code.
So I disabled the flash and just continued with the roll hoping that I could salvage something while developing.
I did a search on the internet for the best development times but there was not a lot but a few twitter friends recommended stand development in Rodinal.
So I mixed 3ml of dev with 297ml of water, did 4 inversions and left to stand for 30 minutes followed by 3 more inversions and another stand for 15 minutes.
And surprisingly I got images albeit quite over exposed but nevertheless it seemed to work.
After scanning there were a few images that I couldn’t use due to the exposure and quite bad camera shake but here are the ones that worked.
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I have quite a collection of different films that I have yet to tryout .. One being Rollei RPX 25.
I really like RPX 400 especially in 120 format so I bought a few rolls of all the Rollei films in both 35mm and 120.
As it was a really bright sunny day ( I got sunburnt) I loaded my Nikon F100 with a roll of RPX25 and went out for a nice walk .. with a short detour to the pub and shot the roll.
I developed it in ilfotecHC and here are the images.
The results were very pleasing … really sharp/contrasty and minimal grain.
Obviously using iso 25 film is not something you can do all the time unless you use a tripod otherwise I would shoot this regularly as I really love the look.
Well here is the whole roll all 36 images … comments most welcome
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This year I really want to push myself and get back to shooting more so even though the weather was pretty poor I forced myself to go out and get the first roll in the bag.
I have not shot any ilford Delta for ages and as luck would have it my @emulsivesanta gifted me a roll of Delta 400 which I loaded into my Yashicamat 124g and went out.
I debated whether to push it to 800 but decided against as I wanted to see just how sharp Delta 400 was when shot at less than f8 .. nearly all the frames were either f3.5 or f4 .. I did manage f5.6 on the Graffiti container image.
To be honest my walk only took about 45 minutes and luckily the rain held off.
I developed the roll in ilford DD-x 1+4 dilution for 8 minutes and scanned with my Epson v600.
I was very happy with just how sharp the images were and that I managed to pretty much nail the focus on the wide open frames, Delta 400 is very sharp and with very little grain compared to my beloved HP5 ( I do like grain mind ).
Maybe it’s the way I like to scan ( I scan pretty flat and boost contrast in Lightroom ) but the images seemed less contrasty than HP5 even with my usual boost but it didn’t matter as the look suited the compositions.
Overall I would say that Delta 400 is a great film I should really get some more especially in 120 format as it costs only 50 pence more per roll compared to HP5 in Analogue Wonderland’s store.
I bet if I shot this at f8+ on a bright day in my Fuji GW690iii the scans would be scarily sharp.
So here is the whole roll .. nothing really exciting (I did like the sheep shot thought)
Comments most welcome .. click image to view larger
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Back in 2016 or 2017 when you could buy Agfa Vista 200 for £1 in Poundland here in the UK I bought 4 packs of 10×36 exposures and 6 packs of 10×24 exposures which have been stored in my film fridge since the day I bought them.
I also bought probably 15-20 single rolls while it was still available which I have gradually used up.
The other week I wanted to give my Nikon F80 a run out ready for our week away in Tenby thinking it would be easier with the 50mm f1.8 rather than using my trusty F100.
I was looking in my kitchen fridge for a roll of film to just test the camera but didn’t have any Vista in there so I opened a pack of my 36 exposure stash which had not been touched since storing away in the fridge 4 years plus ago.
I didn’t doubt that the film would be ok as it was brand new when I bought it but as it was cheap consumer film and it was on a shop shelf when I got it I wasn’t 100% what I was going to get.
It was an overcast day but the light was pretty good but I aired on the side of caution and set the camera meter to iso 100 and shot the roll pretty quickly.
The F80 is a really nice camera to shoot .. pretty light compared to the F100 with the 50mm f1.4.
I decided to get the film developed by Filmdev so I could rule out user error with the developing but didn’t manage to send it off before we went to Tenby so I ended up taking the F100 just incase the F80 had any problems and sent the roll off with my Holiday rolls.
I needn’t have worried as the F80 and the Vista worked great, the images were sharp and well exposed with the greens really popping.
I am so pleased that I have 100 rolls stored away that I can slowly shoot knowing they are fine.
So here is a selection
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I have shot Fomapan in both 100 and 400 iso in the past on 35mm and have tried different developers but have never been all that impressed with the results I have achieved.
I have seen lovely images shot using this film so I bought some Fomapan 100 and 400 in 120 format to give that a go.
I also bought some ilfotech LC29 developer at the same time so I loaded my Mamiya C330 with a roll of 400 and on a really cloudy overcast afternoon I went out and shot the roll at my local haunts where I have had nice results in this type of weather/lighting before.
Even though it was not the brightest of days I still managed to shoot most of the frames at between f5.6 and f11 hoping to test how sharp Fomapan 400 is.
After development the negatives looked pretty contrasty so I was excited to scan and see what I had.
The initial scans using my Epson v500 and Epson scan were promising and once in Lightroom/Photoshop the images blew me away … really nice contrast, not too punchy and sharpness in spades.
The C330 always gives me contrasty sharp images on most film stocks and didn’t fail here either.
Fomapan in 120 is like chalk and cheese compared to 35mm, I never got anything like this even from Fomapan 100 yet alone 400.
Suffice to say I immediately bought more Fomapan 400 and will be shooting it much more in future.
Here is the whole roll .. comments most welcome
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All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
Everytime there is a new film released onto the market I always try to get a roll or two to try.
So when Lomography announced the Babylon 13 and Fantome 8 kino films I immediately purchased some.
As they are 8 & 13 iso respectively and as I have a slight aversion to using tripods I have been waiting for the brighter weather to return here in Wales.
Last weekend the weather was looking pretty nice for a change so I dug out a camera that I have not used in ages .. my Ricoh X-RX and the Pentax 50mm f1.7 & 35mm f3.5 and proceeded out to my usual haunts here in the Garw valley.
By the time I was ready to leave it began clouding over but I had loaded the film so I went up the mountain anyway hoping that I would have enough light to be able to had hold at reasonable apertures.
As it turned out I only got to f5.6 once with most of the shots either wide open or f4 at best.
On my return I checked the massive dev app to see what I could develop it with and decided on ilfotecHC 1+31 dilution for 9 minutes.
The negatives looked fine out of the tank if slightly underexposed at first glance.
When dry and I cut them into strips for scanning it was apparent that this is a very curly film stock so I was imagining problems with my Epson v500 but apart from a few frames that I had to manually locate rather than the thumbnail scan method it went well.
Once into Lightroom the film was a revelation .. I was expecting soft, dark images due to not being able to stop down and hand holding at 1/30 sec but no .. the images had bags of detail and plenty of tone in both highlight and shadow areas.
The grain was pretty much non existent which is expected from such a low iso film but still it was nice to see.
Would I recommend this film stock? … definitely I would but with the caveat that you need good light or a tripod to get the best results even though I seemed to get lucky on this occasion I think as the Pentax 28mm f3.5 is a really sharp lens even wide open and the metering on the Ricoh did an excellent job too.
Well here is almost the whole roll as I bracketed a few frames so had multiples of certain images.
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This years #FP4Party which takes place over on Twitter has just ended and we are all waiting patiently to see who has been shortlisted and then who goes on to win.
To be honest for me and probably quite a few of the other participants it’s nothing to do with winning or even getting shortlisted ( it is nice to be liked though) but it’s a great excuse to pick one film stock and try to see what everyone comes up with over the week.
I used 2 cameras myself … My trust pair of a Nikon F100 and Yashicamat 124G and shot just one roll in each, it would have been more but that is all I had at the time.
I didn’t post every image I shot so this post feature every photo … good and bad
Quick note .. I developed both rolls in my new developer ilford LC29 which until now I had never used before.
Also the 35mm roll was rated at 200 which I tend to do as it gives me an extra bit of exposure leeway.
Please click on an image to view larger …..
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
I love trying new films whether they are new emulsions or just a film that I have never shot before.
Lomochrome Metropolis is an actual new emulsion developed by Lomography that according to the write up on their site can be exposed between 100 and 400 iso without any change in development.
As it was £13 per roll and I only bought one to try I decided on the middle ground and went with 200 iso.
As some of the shots involved the sky I did use some exposure compensation .. the camera of choice was the Minolta X700 with the 50mm F1.7.
The roll was developed and scanned by FilmDev just to get accurate colours so that I can judge if I like the desaturated look that I have seen.
I shot the roll over a week so the beginning of the roll was a bit of street and the rest was a mountain walk here in the South Wales valleys.
At first sight I loved how this film looks, yes it did have a desaturated look which worked well on the street images but when you went out into the countryside it still had that look but the greens seemed to pop probably because the rest of the colours were subtle.
The film was pretty sharp and contrasty, the grain was there to be seen but at 200 iso it was very pleasant maybe at 400 it would be a bit more pronounced.
I am a bit gutted that this film is so expensive as I would be shooting it quite a bit if it were £10 or less a roll that being said I will be buying more but using it now and again depending on what I am shooting.
Well here is the complete roll … click to see an image larger
Comments most welcome
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
I have been working all the way through this pandemic lockdown which is a blessing as I think I would have gone nuts if I had to stay home so on the weekends I make the most of it by going on a long walk here in our lovely Garw Valley.
Most weekends if she isn’t working too I have been joined by my daughter who has been eager to explore the many different walks we have here in our vicinity.
I bought quite a few rolls of Portra 400VC from Mr Cad ages ago so I thought it was about time that I shot some of it so I loaded my trusty Mamiya 645 and went out on a hot Saturday morning to do a 8 mile trek around our valley.
After developing the roll I had some issues namely strange light leaks in different places and of different intensities so I immediately thought the camera was at fault even though I have never had a problem like this on any other rolls.
After posting on Twitter asking if anyone had any idea what it could be most people suggested the camera which would have been the obvious choice so I loaded up a roll of ilford SFX and shot that the following day under the same sunny conditions only to find they were all perfect … no leaks so on this occasion I think the problem was with the film itself.
I bought about 20 rolls and have shot 7 or 8 previously and all were fine except this one.
As most of the leaks occurred on the edges I managed to salvage quite a few frames with a little cropping which was pretty easy as it was a 6 x 4.5 frame.
See this original scan sample here
Anyway here are the final images … please click to view larger ….
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
tim dobbs photography 