Film – Page 19 – tim dobbs photography

1st roll of Ilford PanF 50 ………

I have had a roll of ilford panf 50 in my fridge for a few months now and every time I go to get a roll of film I see it sitting there by itself and I never seem to give it a go that is until about 2 weeks ago.

It was quite a bright morning so I decided to load up the Canon T90 – 28mm f2.8 and headed up the mountain.

As I was climbing the clouds were building and by the time I reached the top and began walking across towards the Memorial flag here in the Garw valley the darker it got….. not very good when you have a 50 iso film in your camera.

Nevertheless I managed to keep shooting albeit mainly at f4 – 5.6 and pretty slow shutter speeds.I processed the film in ilford Ilfotec HC and hung up to dry wondering if I managed to get many shots without blurring.And out of 36 frames I managed to get quite a few very sharp almost grainless images, I did slightly bump up the contrast on these scans in Lightroom and apart from cloning out a few dust spots these were pretty much straight scans.I am not sure when I would ever use this film as I prefer the contrast and grain that I get with my Favourite film HP5+ but the results were pretty nice, I may print some of the negatives in the darkroom just to see what they are like.Thanks for looking ….

click on an image to view larger ……

Testing my Canon AF35M with Ilford FP4@200…….

I picked up this little point & shoot a while back now it was only a few quid off e-bay but have not had much chance to try it out.

As I have a couple of days off work I thought it was time to see if it was working or not.Before we braved the cold and frost I loaded up some ilford FP4 and rated it at iso 200, popped in a couple of AA batteries and shot a quicky of one of my camera shelves with the inbuilt flash.

We then went for a walk in the bright sunshine but freezing temperatures.After developing the negatives I was extremely pleased with what the camera produced, lovely and sharp with great contrast and only 2 shots actually missed focus and they were most probably my fault as I was slightly too close. This camera is slightly bigger than my fav Nikon L35AF which fits my pocket perfectly which was the only thing that I didn’t really like about this excellent little camera.

The picture quality well exceeded my expectations, I will put a roll of Ektar through it next and will post the results.

Thanks for looking……..

Tamron 35-70mm f3.5 macro testing with my Olympus OM2n and some HP5……..

The other week I came across an Olympus OM10 in a local car boot sale. As I already have my original OM10 I didn’t really need another but it did have a nice looking Tamron 35-70mm zoom with it and a Manual adapter so I asked the seller if he would sell me them as I didn’t need the camera and he agreed to £10 which was a bargain and after paying he said I may as well take the camera for free as he has had no interest so double win.Today was the 1st time using it on my OM2n and it worked great, 35-70 is a very handy focal length spread and f3.5 throughout was also useful.It’s not the sharpest lens ever in fact its a little soft until you get to f8 but to be honest I really don’t mind as as a walk around lens its far more useful than being stuck with my 50mm. All in all for £10 I am well pleased and this lens will be permanently on my OM2n.

Thanks for looking………

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 🙂

Mamiya 645 & some Fujichrome Velvia 100F …………

Slide film has been a bit of a hit or miss for me over the years, back in the pre digital days I tried and mostly failed with most of my attempts at shooting slides.

Most probably as the subject matter I seemed to shoot was not really suited to the medium and I never really found the appeal that others did.

Since getting into medium format I decided to give slide film another bash so bought a few packs of both Fujichrome Velvia 100f and Provia 100f.

I shot some Velvia a while back and cross processed it with some interesting results which can be seen on my other blog http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/cross-processed-velvia-100/

But this time I had it processed E6 at AG photolab http://www.ag-photolab.co.uk/

I was quite pleased with the resultant scans even though my exposure was a bit over on most of the frames, I’m not sure if it was the Mamiya meter as it has been fine on negative film but I know that slide film is not very forgiving.

Nevertheless I am going to try another roll when the weather is right and this time meter with my Sekonic meter just to see.

Thanks for looking…. feel free to comment

Click on an image to view larger ……..

1st ever roll of Fomapan 100 …….

My favorite film is ilford HP5, I also shoot Delta 400 and T-Max 400 but after reading quite a few posts on the internet and recommendations from some fellow Twitter photographers I bought 5 rolls of 35mm Fomapan 100.

I shot it at box speed and processed it in Ilfotec HC at 1+9 dilution and the results were very pleasing.

The images shot in bright sunshine where lovely and contrasty with plenty of detail in both Shadow and Highlights while the one’s shot in low natural light almost glowed while still holding detail.I am extremely pleased with this film and after reading more on the web I will be getting some Rodinol next as this seems to give even better results.

Please click on an image to view larger …….

Thanks for looking, comment most welcomed 🙂

View from the top……. testing Spur Ultraspeed Vario

Amy came home from Uni for a couple of weeks and she fancied a walk up the valley, so as I had just received some new sample film developer from Spur Photochemie http://spur-photo.com/ in Germany I loaded up the OM2n with some ilford FP4 and rated it at 400 iso to test how the developer performed.

The developer in question was Spur Ultraspeed Vario and is used when you want to push or pull your film and keep as much detail and contrast in your negatives possible.

It is a 2 bath dev and this is the 1st time that I have processed this way.

Both mixes were 1+11 when rating FP4 at 400 and was processed 5 minutes for the 1st bath and followed by 15 minutes for the 2nd.

Agitation was 30 sec constant inversions then stand for the remaining 4:30 and the 2nd bath was also 30 sec constant inversions then twice every minute thereafter.

The results were very impressive indeed, the shadow/highlight detail was excellent and the sharpness and contrast were great too.

I will try pulling some FP4 next just to get a comparison and will post the results.

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger…….

Back to shooting some film again……

As its Easter Bank holiday and the weather here has been quite nice for a change I made the most of the time and got out shooting some film again.My camera of choice was the Mamiya 645 with the 80mm f2.8 and a roll of Kodak Ektar 100.The light up in the forestry was changing minute to minute so I didn’t know what the results would be, I was going from 1000sec @ f11 to 60sec @ f2.8 so I was quite happy when I scanned the negs that there was minimal camera shake on the slower ones ( didn’t take my damn tripod)All in all I was pleased with the results, it was nice to just have 15 shots to play with rather than the hundreds I have shot with my new Fuji X-Pro 1 lately.I will be shooting a lot more Ektar in the future I like the sharpness and the colours it gives, may try some portraits next just to see how thay come out.Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger………..

Another roll of colour film for a change ……..

The weather here has been terrible over the last few weeks and getting out with the camera has been difficult.

I loaded my Nikon FM2n with some expired Kodak Colorplus 200 over 3 weeks ago and only managed to finish it yesterday.

The colours that this film produced were very pleasing when scanned and complimented the subject matter, nicely subdued.

I must say that the FM2n is by far my favorite camera to use especially with the 50mm 1.8 its a quality piece of kit.

I am looking to get a Nikkor 35mm f2.8 Ai which in combination with the FM2n would be my everyday film camera. Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger…….

Garw Carnival 2013 & Kodak Portra 400………..

I love my Nikon F4s but as I seem to have collected 50+ cameras over the last 12 months I don’t get to shoot with it very often.

This weekend I decided to load it up with some film and attempt to shoot with it but when I opened the back I realised I had a rewound roll of Kodak Portra 400 sitting in it.

As I have not developed any colour film for a while I was not sure if my C-41 chemistry was shot or not but I thought I would give it a try. (I didn’t even know what was on the film)

To my surprise when the film came out of the tank it was from last years Garw Carnival back in September if I remember correctly and the negs seemed to look ok albeit with a slight yellow cast but after scanning I liked the look so didn’t colour correct them.