Details – Page 3 – tim dobbs photography

Mamiya C3 testing ………

I recently picked up a Mamiya C3 and 65mm lens with the hope of using it for a bit of Street shooting as it has a 65mm lens which is approx 40mm ish in 35 mm terms.

I shot a trial roll of expired Ilford Delta 3200 in poor light it must be said to see what I got and after scanning the negs I got 12 frames all out of focus mainly back focussed.

I put it down to wide apertures/slow shutter-speed and not a very bright viewfinder.

Next I tried my last roll of Delta 3200 but this time on a tripod in better light and to my horror they were all back focussed just like the 1st roll.

After a bit of advice I checked the lens were mounted flush and also removed the focus screen and noticed that it had 2 quite thick card shims propping up the front of the screen. So I removed one of them and the screen seemed to sit a little more flush to the body.

All these images were shot using this configuration on Ilford Delta 400 and even though they were not all totally spot on they were far better than the 1st 2 rolls.

I may remove the other shim and replace with a slightly thinner one and see if it works.

I love using this camera it is a lovely piece of kit and hopefully I can get some good images eventually 🙂

D600 and Capture One Pro …….

Since getting my D600 and also my Fuji X-Pro1 I have noticed a pronounced slowdown in the performance of Lightroom 5.

Also Lightroom does not get the best out of my Fuji Raw files which tend to be soft and flat unless I spend extra time processing them.

After reading a lot of advice on the web I thought I would give Capture One Pro a trial run just to see if there is any improvement.Straight away the speed increase was 10 fold, the import and rendering of previews were very impressive with my 24meg D600 raw files.

Also the default rendering that Capture One gives the images was very pleasing.

I opened the “Merlin Stone” Raw image at the top of this post in Camera Raw after seeing the Capture One version and was so impressed with the depth in the colours and the sharpness of the image.

I could not get Camera Raw to render anywhere near what I got from Capture One.I get emails from PhaseOne quite regularly with money off offers to purchase their software and as soon as I get the next one I will be investing in this, the learning curve is quite steep as I have used both Lightroom and Aperture for ages but PhaseOne has loads of tutorial videos on their Youtube channel so I have plenty of viewing to do 🙂

I am looking forward to seeing the difference I can achieve with my Fuji Raw files next if the D600 images are anything to go by I will be very pleased.

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger……

Christmas Eve walk with a YashicaMat and some T-Max 400…….

A short and sweet blog post today.

I borrowed a YashicaMat from a photographer friend a few months back and it seemed to be over exposing all the time, most probably slow shutter speed problems.

To try to compensate for this I set my light meter to iso 800 and shot some kodak T-Max 400.

These are the results….it seemed to work 🙂

Thanks for looking ….

Pentax Program A & C-41 process B&W film testing………

I picked up a Pentax Program A SLR off ebay last week for less than £10, I couldn’t resist a bargain even though I have an ME Super and MV1 the benefit of the Program A is slightly lost on me as I don’t have any Pentax A lenses but for £10 it was a no brainer.

I also had the opportunity to try out some of West Yorkshire Camera’s C-41 process 400 iso Black & White film which I processed myself at home.

I popped along to a local derelict factory with the hope of capturing some nice contrasty images and I was not disappointed with either camera or film.

All the images were shot using the Pentax 50mm f1.7 lens which gave me lovely detail even shooting at f4.

I don’t normally use C-41 B&W film but I must say this film gave me great results and at the bargain price they charge its definatly worth a try.

Thanks again for looking….

comments most welcome 🙂

also check out my other blog at usingfilm.wordpress.com for more film only stuff

My Pentax K1000 out & about in the Garw ………….

Following on from my last blog where I shot my Canon AV1 this is the 2nd camera I picked up at the same time from my local charity shop.

A lot of people say that the k1000 is what they 1st started their photography journey, I myself until now have never used one I began with an Olympus OM1.The first thing that I noticed was the focussing screen was not a split prism like all my other film SLR’s so initially I found foccussing a little hard but got used to it as long as I took my time.It’s quite a heavy camera and slightly larger than most of the others I have but still felt nice in my hands, simple to use with the exposure needle in the viewfinder.It was quite a miserable day so I shot some ilford Delta 400@800 and the results were fine, the camera came with the Pentax 50mm f2.0 which performed great I was going to put on my 50mm f1.7 but to be honest I don’t shoot many frames wide open on film so I stuck with what came with the camera.All in all the camera was very enjoyable to use and I can see why it was the goto camera for teaching students, basic but a great tool for learning (excellent picture quality too). Thanks for looking….. more film stuff on my other blog

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com

click on an image to view larger.

Canon AV1…. My 1st roll………

A few weeks ago I managed to pick up 2 cameras from my local charity shop for the princely sum of £20 each.

They were a Pentax K1000 and a Canon AV1. I have a couple of other Canons A1, AE1 Program and a T90 along with quite a few FD mount lenses so I decided to test the AV1 first.I loaded up with some ilford HP5 and used my Canon 50mm f1.4 for all the shots going from f1.4 through to f11.

I must say I really liked using this camera much more than the AE1 as I shoot mainly aperture priority or manual this camera was more in line with how I shoot, to be honest I don’t really like using the AE1 much.

I popped along to a local derelict factory to see how things performed and the results were great, all the shots here are straight scans which brings me to another point.

I updated my iMac to the new OSX 10.9 Mavericks which seemed to go well except when I went to scan my negatives my Epson Scan software that I use with my v500 scanner said “Not Compatible” so I went to the epson site to update only to find that they have not yet updated their program for any of their scanners.

Luckily I have Windows 7 installed on my mac and scanned using that while I wait for Epson to pull their finger out and update the software (1 week later and still no update…Epson support are pretty poor indeed, a lot of people with scanners as doorstops I expect).

Anyway thanks for looking, comments most welcome 🙂

Click on an image to view larger…….

More film loveliness at my other blog….http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

Testing Spur Acurol-N with ilford HP5+

A few weeks back and the subject of my last post here I was sent some developer to test out by Spur Photo http://spur-photo.com/.

This time I tried out their Acurol-N developer on some Ilford HP5+. The information I was given by the company was to rate the film at iso 200 and Dev for 12 minutes at a dilution of 1-50 which I proceeded to do.

From what I have read on the web this developer should yield sharper negatives with little effect on the grain so I shot some random stuff which hopefully would show the added sharpness.

I used my Olympus OM1n and 50mm f1.8mc which has given me pretty good clean images especially at f5.6-f11, nearly all the images here were at f8.

I have never shot HP5 at iso 200 before I have nearly always pushed it as I love the contrast and grain I get from it.

I must admit I really like the images that I got, they were very sharp indeed and the grain did not seem as pronounced as I usually get with HP5 especially in large areas of uniform colour like skies in fact it was really quite smooth in comparison.

As I now have a complete darkroom setup I am going to try a few prints from the negs to see what the softer grain looks like.

Both the developers that I have tried have definitely produced different negatives than what I get from my usual dev combinations in a good way and depending on what I am after in the final image I will keep using both.

Thank you again to Spur for giving me the opportunity to try out your products I highly recommend them to all B&W photographers out there 🙂

Ilford SFX200 and Black Skies in the Garw Valley………….

I have had a roll of Ilford SFX200 in the fridge for months and decided to give it a try yesterday.

The skies here in the Garw Valley were lovely and blue with large white clouds moving about and a rich green landscape which from most of the infrared shots I have seen was going to be quite dramatic.

Sadly I don’t own a infrared filter as recommended (Hoya R72) so I made up a sort of replacement using my HOYA/COKIN filter kit and a piece of Red Gel filter from my flash filter set.I was not to sure how to go about getting the correct exposure, wether to just let the camera do it as I didn’t know if they would be under-exposed or over-exposed so I took a mixture bracketing as I went.

I also shot some without the filter just to see the difference and boy what a difference 🙂This is without……..and this is with the filter…………

After scanning in the negatives most of the frames were under-exposed but not by much the Canon T90 coped pretty well and nearly all the images came up well using Lightroom 5.The dramatic skies are what really pleased me, I love contrasty images thats why I use Ilford HP5 as my goto film most often but SFX200 really pops its such a pity it’s so damn expensive almost double the price of HP5.I will be buying some more nevertheless and also a Hoya R72 filter too as the results were just my cup of tea.click on an image to view larger……..

Thanks for looking

Garw Valley Railway & Heritage Fair….. and my 100th post to :)

On saturday it was my local Railway & Heritage societies fair here in the lovely Garw Valley, so as good local citizens we popped along (with my camera in tow).

I have never really had any interests in trains before but thanks to a great young guide called Stephen the tour of the railway shed was a very interesting way to spend a Saturday morning.

There was loads of stuff to point my camera at and luckily I took along the D600 as the light was pretty dim in places but the camera performed excellently at iso’s up to 4000 without a problem.

click on an image to view larger……………….

All the people involved with the running of the Railway society were very enthusiastic and helpful, eager to explain in detail what was going on and their plans for the future (and didn’t mind having their photographs taken either)

All in all it was an enjoyable time and nice to see something like this going on in the Garw Valley.

Found my new Favorite Film Compact 35mm Camera……..

I have over the last 12 months been buying cheap film cameras from various places like ebay and charity shops etc hoping to come across a camera that may be comparable to my various SLR’s image quality.

I know that its not really the camera but lens that gives the quality so I searched the web for some information on compact cameras and found a lot of recommendations for the Nikon TW20.

I found a couple on ebay ranging in price from 99 pence to £50 so I bid on one and managed to get it for £8 inc postage……… Bargain 🙂

It arrived quite quickly but to my complete annoyance didn’t have a battery and as it used a type that I have not got in any of my other cameras I had to wait a few more days to test the supposed image quality 😦

As soon as the battery arrived I immediately rushed out with a roll of Kodak T-MAX 400 and shot away on a nice mountain walk up here in the lovely Garw Valley.

The results from this cheap and rather ugly little camera were totally amazing, the sharpness was stunning.

I am so pleased with this purchase I cannot recommend this camera more highly, its not the most compact of things in fact its quite large for a so called compact but the images this produces really makes you forget what the camera looks like.

I would have quite happily paid £50 for this beauty and its going to be in my camera bag every time I go out.

click on an image to view larger………

Thanks for looking 🙂