Details – tim dobbs photography

1st roll of 2022 .. ilford Delta 400

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

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek

Testing my 2nd Pentax Super A with Kodak TMax P3200 ….

About 6 months ago I picked up an SLR that I have wanted for ages a Pentax Super A.

I already have a few other Pentax’s including a Program A which is very similar but the Super has a top shutter speed of 1/2000 sec compared to 1/1000 which also shows on an LCD panel on the top.

To cut a long story short I somehow managed to lose that camera on a night out (Don’t ask) so I really wanted to get another one.

Super A’s are not that easy to get hold of especially in good condition but I managed to get one that was almost perfect but I needed to test it just to confirm I had a good one (as it was not cheap).

I had a few rolls of TMax P3200 that had just expired from Analogue Wonderland, I had already shot some before and were fine so I loaded up and went out for a local walk.

As you can see from a selection of images the camera worked great and I felt happy paying slightly over the odds for my 2nd copy.

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

It goes all the way to 1.1 …..

A twitter friend posted the other week that he was selling a recently purchased lens for a really good price that I could not refuse.

I have the Voigtlander 35mm Ultron f1.7 for my Leica M2 so the chance to add a 50mm to my bag was welcomed.

The 7 Artisans 50mm f1.1 is a pretty impressive piece of kit to be honest, it felt really well built and is pretty heavy to boot.

And when attached to the M2 it felt well balanced but it was noticeably heavy when carrying but was great to shoot.

I loaded a roll of Kodak Ektar and set out to test how well it performed.

The viewfinder on the M2 is lovely and bright normally but maybe it was in my head but it did seem brighter and the focusing patch was very easy to get focus quickly.

The lens barrel did creep into the finder but not into the 50mm framelines so it was not a problem.

Anyway here is a selection of images shot at various apertures … only the one of my son at the end was shot wide open at f1.1 as it was too bright when I was out and didn’t have an ND filter with me.

Overall I am extremely pleased with the lens, it is not as sharp as the Ultron wide open or even at f2.8 but how it renders the out of focus areas is lovely so its a keeper for me for sure.

Anyway thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Trying out a new film stock …. Orwo N74

Quite a while back I was gifted some film by a Twitter friend which I have steadily been trying out … all of which have been film stock that I have never used before.

This week was the turn of some Orwo N74 which is a 400 iso motion picture stock and after looking it up online it was described as having an excellent tonal range and great contrast which sounded right up my street for a B&W film look.

I rated it at box speed and decided on using my Nikkormat FTN and Nikon 35mm f2.5 as the trial camera, as I don’t have a lens with the aperture coupler prong so I used the stop down metering way of setting my exposures which seemed to have worked out well.

The film has a good exposure latitude and I didn’t get much shadow blocking or highlight blowout given that I was not 100% sure that the metering method was totally accurate.

I developed the roll in Rodinal 1+50 dilution for 13 minutes inverting twice every minute.

Overall I was pleased with the results more so with the closeup/shallow DOF shots than the Landscape type shots.

The grain didn’t lend itself to sweeping skies to my eye in fact it was a little distracting while the sharpness and contrast was great.

I may buy some more and either try stand development in Rodinal or use some IDII/D76

Here is the link to the film stock here in the UK .. https://ntphotoworks.com/shop/product/orwo-n74/

So here are the shots … click on an image to view larger Approx 100% crop

Thanks for looking ….

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

All images on both my blogs are available as prints just drop me an email

#Camerachallenge time ….

Over the last week or so I have been taking part in the #camerachallenge on twitter organised by fellow photographer Jason Avery @Jaysargo who came up with the idea of buying a camera for under £5 or equivalent in any other currency and then shooting and posting the results followed by a twitter Q&A today all about the process.

I am always looking on ebay and in charity shops for cameras so that part was not new to me so this challenge was right up my street.

I managed to get 2 cameras for under the £5 price both of which were Pentax Espio’s … the 115 and 140 which differed slightly but the main difference was the zoom length as the numbers in the names suggested 38mm to 115 and 140mm.

Also the 115 had a so called macro setting that the 140 did not have while the 140 has an extra spot af setting and both of those were useful, it would have been nice to have both on one camera.

They both also had a pano setting which only seemed to crop to the centre of the 35mm frame and most importantly you could shoot without the flash if you wanted and not be automatically forced to use it .

Also there was a landscape af mode on both which I assume focussed to infinity and stopped down the lens to achieve a greater DOF. I tried all the of the available modes and was pretty impressed with the results. The Espio 115 shot a roll of Kodak Tmax 400 while the 140 already had a roll of what turned out to be Tudor XFG 100 which had 6 frames already shot.

I developed both rolls at home and here are some of the images.

First the Pentax Espio 115 & Tmax 400

And the Espio 140 and Tudor XFG 100

All in all both cameras were great and if I had used a better roll of film in the 140 instead of the expired roll that was already in there I would have said that both cameras had great lenses that gave very sharp and contrasty results.

This challenge has been good fun and I would recommend other film photographers reading this to give it a try … follow Jason and keep a lookout for the next challenge, I am not sure how it will differ from this one but thats the fun really.

It just goes to show that you don’t need expensive kit to get nice images and also how cheap it is to get into film photography.

After the Q&A today I may give one of these cameras away to someone who is interested in getting into film photography so follow me on twitter or leave a comment below.

Thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Garw Valley Mountain Walk with some Velvia 50 ….

After some friendly banter with a fellow twitter photographer about how slide film should not be cross processed and that it was almost a sin I decided to shoot a roll of Velvia 50 as the Gods intended and get it processed and scanned by AG Photographic and here are the results. They were shot using my Nikon F100 and Nikkor 24-85 VR … they are untouched scans that I got back from AG and I am pretty happy with the results, I still love to Xpro E6 but I have just bought a Tetenal E6 kit and have started processing my own so I am now almost a convert … ha ha I am pleased that the exposures were pretty spot on which I don’t worry about when I know that I am going to xpro the roll … I did notice the difference in colour when shooting with the sun behind me compared to in front, I could have warmed them up a bit in Lightroom but I thought I would just post as is….

Thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

April’s Tmax-Party entries in one place ….

This months @TMAX_party entries were shot using my lovely new Leica M2 with a Jupiter 8 50mm f2 on Tmax 400.

They were shot in 2 locations 1st at Porthcawl beach and finished off at home in the Garw Valley. To be honest Tmax is not my favorite film but I have to admit that the tones that it gives when using this camera/lens combination are lovely, its hard to tell looking here but when I look at the full res scans they are very pleasing. I will be visiting the darkroom with a couple of the beach shots to see how they print.

Thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Testing the Ricoh XR-P & Rikenon P 35-70mm Macro ….

I remember this camera when it came out back in 1984 and at the time would have loved to own it but never did until very recently, I did get the later model the XR_X but never got on with it back in the day but since re-purchasing one a year or so ago I actually enjoy using it.

Anyway the XR-P was a pretty advanced camera back in the day and had various programmed exposure modes that required the use of a Rikenon P lens and not the Pentax A version.

I have a few Pentax SLR’s along with some A lenses so when I bought this camera I also purchased a Rikenon P lens just to give it a run out.You may have noticed that many of these images are similar to my previous blog on shooting FT12 high contrast film … the reason is I took both cameras out on this walk, I was going to blog this a little later but I thought it may be a benefit seeing the two together for a comparison. The camera was a breeze to use, I shot all the images using various of the modes with no problems.

The lens also performed quite well albeit a little soft at the wider apertures but pretty nice at f8 and over.

The film was a fresh roll of Agfa Vista 200 processed and scanned at home. I doubt very much that I will use this camera in any of the modes other than Aperture priority or manual to be fair but its nice to have the option.

Its a very, very nice handling camera even though it feels a bit cheaply built in comparison to my Nikon or Canon SLR’s nevertheless its size and weight mean that with a little Pentax 50mm its a great walk around camera and I will be shooting it quite a lot in the future.

Thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

First time using FT12 high contrast film ….

I recently was gifted a few different rolls of film from a fellow photographer whom I met on twitter, they were all films that I have never shot before.

I will be testing them all over the next few weeks, the first one is FT12 50 iso high contrast Black & White that can be found over at Nik & Trick

After reading up about it on the internet it seems to be a replacement for Eastman Kodak’s SO-331 which yields really high contrast images with Deep Blacks and very white Whites which is how I like my B&W to look most of the time.The instructions said that for best results it would need to be Stand Developed in Rodinol which is something that I have never tried either so the whole process was completed new to me so I proceeded with fingers crossed. I shot the roll using my Nikon F4s & 50mm f1.4 and the development was Stand in Rodinol 1+100 for 45 minutes.

The negatives were unbelievably sharp and contrasty but with very little grain …Maybe this film is not the best for flattering portraits but landscapes or anything with good detail in good light then this film really pop’s.

Even though there is very little shadow or highlight detail it doesn’t really matter as the film has a great look of its own.

I will definitely be buying some of this to shoot again now I know what sort of conditions/subjects suit it best.

I may even shoot a roll of portraits with a single light so create a really dark look.

Thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

1st roll of Kodak Portra 400VC in 35mm format …

A few weeks back I managed to get hold of quite a bit of expired Kodak film from MrCad here in the UK, most of it was in 120 format but I did also get a few rolls of Portra 400vc in 35mm to try.I was a pretty nice day last weekend so I thought I would give a roll a go in the Nikon F100.

When I shot some of the 120 when I got it the sun was blazing here and the images really popped, I loved the colours so I was hoping for the same with the 35mm and to be fair the images that had really good light really shone.
I am so pleased that I bought loads of this film, after just shooting 3 rolls I am hooked.

All I need now is some sunny weather to do it justice, even though I was pleased with most of the images its the one’s in the best light that showed the best of the film. Roll on the summer I say 🙂