This year has not been the best if I am honest and my photography has suffered as my desire to shoot all but deserted me.
I have only shot 25 rolls of film this year which is a fraction of what I normally shoot and even though I have developed and scanned them all, many of the rolls have just sat in my lightroom catalog un-edited.
As the weather this week has been horrendous ( I did get out and shoot one roll last weekend) I have been going through the images in the catalog and started to edit as I have had a week off work.
Here is the first roll shot on my Minolta 600si and developed using ilfotec DD-X.
I shot this back in April. I have tried Berlin before and new the images would be pretty contrasty.
I think the subject matter here was not the best for this film as the excessive contrast in busy images tends to muddle the scene unless viewing large.
Nevertheless I was pretty pleased with the results.
Anyway here is the whole roll, comments most welcome.
Please click a photo to view larger
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
When I heard that Kodak were producing Gold in 120 format I was pretty excited .. not because it was Gold as I haven’t really shot too much of it in the past and to be totally honest I had to look on the internet for samples just to see what it was really like .. I was excited because I shoot film 95% of the time I was happy that there was another film stock on the market.
I pre ordered a 5 pack from the brilliant https://analoguewonderland.co.uk/ and eagerly waited for it to arrive which wasn’t all that long to be fair.
As it was a 200 iso film I didn’t want to rush out and just shoot the film I wanted to try it in nice light so it was a fortnight before I eventually shot it.
I used my trusty Yashicamat 124G and went out on a nice long walk in the sun.
I had the roll dev/scanned by https://filmdev.co.uk/ and was very happy with the results.
The film was lovely and sharp and considering how bright it was on the day the latitude was great with no blown highlights and plenty of detail in the shadows and very little grain.
Like many of the examples online that I have seen the film gives a nice warm look which obviously helps if you shoot it in the sunshine.
My usual colour negative film is Lomo CN400 which I love but Gold 200 really impressed me, the only thing that I would like is is the extra stop that CN 400 gives but for my next roll I will push it to 400 just to see how it performs.
I would thoroughly recommend this film and the best thing is the price compared to others on the market … it’s great value
Anyway here is the whole roll …. comments welcomed
Please click a photo to view larger
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
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
The Mamiya C330 is a camera that I always seem to get great results with no matter what film or subject matter but it seems that this year this is only the 2nd time that I have shot with it.
I was going through my camera bags trying to sort out what cameras were stored where and I came across the trusty C330and decided to take it out for a change as I have been neglecting it.
I have a few rolls of Acros that I was kindly given that had expired back in 2019 so I wanted to see how they performed.
I have a couple of lenses for the C330 55/65/80/180 and 250 .. I mainly use the 55mm when I am out shooting landscapes but I decided on the 80mm f2.8 as it was very overcast and shooting 100 iso film meant I was probably going to be shooting shallow DOF stuff pretty much wide open.
After my little walk I developed the roll in ilford LC29 1+19 dilution for 5 minutes and scanned with my new Epson V600.
Considering I shot most of the frames at f2.8 the images were lovely and sharp with good contrast .. I have shot very little Acros in the past but I can see why everybody likes it.
Very smooth grain and punchy sharp images I will have to get hold of some of the new Acros to compare.
So here are the images .. comments most welcome
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
I have loads of cameras all of which produce technically excellent images due to the metering/lenses and the ability to choose how you want the image to look as you can determine the aperture to control depth of field or the shutter speed to control the exposure.
I have always liked panoramic images and have in the past shot 35mm in my Fuji Gw690iii to get a sudo pano look and as I am very unlikely to find an Xpan in a charity shop I am going to have to make do shooting multiple frames and sticking them together to get my panos.
The other day I was going through my camera drawers and various camera bags and came across a little plastic camera that I didn’t know I had.
I am sure I never bought it so I must have been given it at some point.
Not knowing anything about it other than it said PN919 on the front I checked out Google to find that it was a rebadged Vivitar by the Readers Digest magazine from years ago.
It gives you the option of shooting straight 35mm or with a flick of a switch it gives a fake pano by just exposing the centre of the frame ( you could just do this in Lightroom on a full frame but where’s the fun in that”.
What I like with this camera which is also the same when I shoot my Holga and Diana cameras is the fact that I can just worry about the content and composition of what I am shooting and let everything else be what it will be.
I loaded it up with a roll of trusty ilford HP5 and went out for a walk to test it out.
When I got home I went to rewind the film and it was very loose and didn’t seem to be rewinding, I thought that the film take up spool had let go of the leader and I had not shot any frames so opened the back in very dim light only to find that it had fully wound on to the take up spool.
I quickly closed the back and attempted to rewind again and eventually it did start to rewind albeit very stiffly.
I developed it in ilford LC29 1+19 dilution and when I opened the tank I was pleased to see that only the last few frames had been affected with the back being opened.
Overall I was pleased with how the images look, they are not all that sharp but the pano effect coupled with the gritty HP5 look made me smile.
Would I recommend this camera if you could find one? .. in a word Yes! as it’s a fun thing to try, I wouldn’t pay a lot for it but if a cheap one came up then give it a go.
Here are all the images along with some images of the camera showing the pano mechanism.
There are also one or two full frames images there just to see the difference
Comments most welcome ….
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
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
Click on an image to view larger…
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
When Cinestill announced the release of XX Double-X I could not wait to get my hands on some to try.
I have shot Double-X film stock 5222 in 35mm that I picked up from Nik & Trick and really liked how it looked so when I realised that I could get to try it in 120 format I was pretty excited.
I bought some in both 35mm & 120 from the excellent Analogue Wonderland and waited for a suitable time an place to try it.
Last weekend we had a typical welsh August day with rain & wind and a pile of mist up on our wonderful Garw hills so I loaded up my Mamiya RB67/65mm lens and went out hoping to get some nice atmospheric misty images.
Sadly or happily depending on how you look at it by the time I got up the top of the valley the majority of the mist had dissipated but what that meant was I had more light to play with so rated the film at iso 200 and managed to stop down to f8/11 on most frames which once I had developed the roll really showed how sharp this film stock is.
After scanning and slight tweaks and dust spot removal in Lightroom the results were great .. lovely contrasty images with excellent detail and great tonal range ..
I developed it in ilford LC29 1+29 dilution for 8 mins and scanned on an Epson v500.
So here is the complete roll …
Comments most welcome .. click on an image to view larger
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
My first blog post this year was a roll of Kodak Ektar using my Mamiya 645 and I pointed out that I rarely shoot Ektar but here you go I have shot another roll using the same camera.
Ektar is a pretty sharp film stock especially when you shoot it in 120 format and with good light which really shows on this roll which I was really pleased with.
I developed it with the Tetenal C41 kit and scanned using my Epson v500 which gives pretty good scans with 120.
So here is the roll .. I have only posted 12 frames as I duplicated some of the tree at the end of the roll which were all more or less identical.
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
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
Click on an image to view larger
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.
Click on an image to view larger
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
tim dobbs photography 