Film – Page 2 – tim dobbs photography

Trying Silberra Orta 50 ….

As I have said before I am trying to spice up my photography this year by trying different things so I decided to try out a roll of film that has been in my fridge for ages … Silberra Orta 50.

I have had this roll for over 2 years and have tried ilford’s Ortho offering before digging this out.

I really liked how Ortho 80 looked when I tried it so I was looking forward to seeing how Orta 50 compared as they are both Orthochromatic films.

You can see my previous blogs of Ortho 80 here:

ilford Ortho Plus pushed to 400 by accident but I think it worked … the whole roll

Eventually trying ilford Ortho Plus 80 …..

It was a reasonably bright day so I loaded my Nikon F90 which I have been neglecting recently and went out for a walk.

When I returned home and opened the Massive Dev app to decide how to develop the roll I realised that the only developer that I had that was suitable was Rodinal which as it happens was the developer I used when shooting Ortho 80 last time.

The dilution/times were 1+25 for 11 minutes

The resulting negatives were extremely contrasty looking out of the tank and just the same when scanning.

I am not sure if it is the developer or the film stock itself but most of the images had a sort of a glow about them and quite a few of the highlights had blown out.

The overall look was pleasing and I liked the contrast and sharpness but compared to ilford Ortho 80 the tonal range was far more compressed.

If I had to choose which stock I would shoot again it would have to be Ortho 80 to be honest as Orta 50 was a bit too harsh for me and the grain was a little too intrusive but that may have been the fault of using Rodinal.

So here is most of the roll minus some duplicate frames.

Please click a photo 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 🙂

ilford XP2 in B&W chemistry … the whole roll …

One of the things I want to do this year is try different things with my photography as I feel that last year not only was my film roll count down compared to previous years it was also very samey.

Out of the first six rolls shot this year I didn’t really do much different to usual so with number seven I decided to see how ilford XP2 looked in B&W chemicals compared to C41.

I did a bit of research on the interwebs and decided to shoot the roll at 640/800 iso in my Yashicamat 124G and process it using ilford DD-X 1+4 dilution for 13.30 mins.

Once out of the tank at first glance the negs seemed rather thin and quite under exposed with the base looking a pale pink colour.

But on scanning I was really surprised how they looked, yes they were a little under exposed but nothing that Lightroom couldn’t handle and the images had bags of contrast and sharp as a tack.

The grain was pretty noticeable and I did have some weird effects in the sky but that was probably due to the fact it was expired film rather than the B&W chems.

Overall I was very happy with the roll and would develop XP2 in B&W again, most probably at box speed and fresh rather than pushing it.

I have experimented before shooting XP2 at various iso’s on the same roll then developed in standard C41 and got excellent results .. see here :

Trying ilford XP2 at different ISO ratings on one roll ….

Anyway here is the whole roll … nothing really special here but it was an experiment so I don’t mind ..

Please click a photo 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 🙂

I don’t take portraits … my latest zine

A slightly misleading title but it is something that I did believe until I was going through my archive of images a couple of months back looking for an older image to print for someone.

More often or not I seem to take at least one image per roll of film especially on 35mm either deliberately or as a test for the film if I have not used that film/camera/lens combination before or as a last shot off the roll.

Anyway they all seem to build up when you go back through the numerous folders/years in my Lightroom catalog.

I have taken peoples portraits when asked or if I am doing some sort of project but it is not something I have ever steered my photography towards, I did shoot a few weddings a couple of years back and didn’t really enjoy the overall experience .. shooting was the easy bit ha ha!

So I decided to pull together all of my film portraits and attempt a zine which is different to every other zine I have produced so far.

Whittling the images down to what would be a nice little zine was hard and it eventually ended up 52 pages and could have easily doubled that.

It is A5 size saddle stitched, Soft touch laminated cover, 52 pages B&W/Colour on 150gm matt stock printed by Mixam Print.

As per usual the twitter film community responded to it well and most of the 30 copies sold pretty quickly which was nice as when I do a zine I use the monies from the sales to go for my next zine that way I seem to be able to produce more zines almost free of charge after my 1st zine.

I still have a few copies left and if anyone is interested you can DM me on Twitter .. @timdobbsphoto or email timd.photography@gmail.com or I have an etsy shop too … https://etsy.me/3vd9H4p .. for the last few copies I will be including a free 2nd zine featuring a friend who makes Lovespoons which is also in my etsy shop if you want to take a look.

Anyway here is a sample selection of the portraits featured in the zine ….

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

Mamiya C330 and Fuji Neopan Acros …

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

I also have some zines over on my Etsy store if anyone wants a look .. or message me to buy direct ..

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Plastic Pano camera .. Junk or Gem? …

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

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

I also have some zines over on my Etsy store if anyone wants a look .. or message me to buy direct ..

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Brand new … Expired Agfa Vista 200 .. is it still ok?

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

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

I also have some zines over on my Etsy store if anyone wants a look .. or message me to buy direct ..

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Tenby again … One Camera, Two rolls of film … Kodak Ektar & Lomography CN800 …

We managed a short break to Tenby back in the Whitsun holidays which I blogged here https://timdobbsphoto.com/2021/07/30/short-tenby-break-on-lomo-cn400-cn800/ where I took numerous cameras and film but didn’t use most of them.

So when we returned to Tenby for our Summer hols I decided to just take one camera and less film choices .. my Pentax ME Super with the 28mm f3.5 & 50mm f1.7 along with some Kodak Ektar & Lomo CN800.

The weather was pretty great with only a few hours each day where it was a bit overcast, the majority of the days were in glorious sunshine.

When we came home I sent the films off to Filmdev who did a great job with the scans as usual.

Luckily I shot most of the Ektar on the first day with was probably the brightest day by far as you will see here …

Click on an image to view larger

Kodak Ektar …

Lomography CN 800

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

I also have some zines over on my Etsy store if anyone wants a look .. or message me to buy direct ..

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

First time shooting Cinestill XX Double-X in 120 format … full roll

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

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

I also have some zines over on my Etsy store if anyone wants a look .. or message me to buy direct ..

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Short Tenby break on Lomo CN400 & CN800 ….

A few weeks back we managed to get away for a few days for the first time since last August.

We visited one of our favorite local places … lovely Tenby.

I took along 2 cameras my Minolta X700 and Minolta XG9 with 2 lenses .. the 35-70 f3.5 and 50mm f1.4.

It was my intention to load one camera with 400 and the 2nd with the 800 for the evening.

You may notice by the lack of night shots that plan didn’t really work due to the lack of tripod and my shaky hands after a few drinks.

The first day there it was lovely sunshine while day two was overcast but my favorite images were on CN800 in the early evening sun.

I never finished both rolls while in Tenby and completed them back home but I have only posted the Tenby images here.

Lomo CN 400 is my favorite colour negative stock but CN800 is a close second.

The film was developed and scanned by the wonderful FilmDev who always does a great job at a great price.

So here are the images … Lomo CN800 first followed by CN400

Click on an image to view larger … there is a 3 shot pano of St Catherine’s Fort

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

I also have some zines over on my Etsy store if anyone wants a look .. or message me to buy direct ..

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Another roll of Ektar in the Mamiya 645 ….

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.