I have 2 Canon AV1’s … Chrome and Black versions, I prefer the AV1 to the AE1 as I shoot mainly in aperture priority so it works much better for me.
I have not shot with any of my Canon’s for an absolute age so dug out the black version, put on the 50mm f1.4 and loaded a roll of Fomapan 400 which is a film that is growing on me especially the cost ha ha!.
It was a pretty gloomy day but I didn’t want to push it so rarely even got to f8, mainly shooting f2.8 to f5.6.
I had some infosol 3 that was gifted me so I decided to see how Fomapan 400 looked compared to my usual ilfotecHC.
The results were pretty nice, there was quite a bit of grain but the images were contrasty and reasonably sharp considering the apertures I was using.
From memory the previous rolls of 400 I developed had slightly less grain when using ilfotecHC but nevertheless I was happy with what I got.
So here is the whole roll minus 2 shots that were accidents …
Comments most welcome …
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
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
My favorite B&W film stock has got to be ilford HP5 due to how versatile it is.
I have pushed it to 3200 and still got great results, I have also used Kentmere 400 in 35mm on quite a few occasions and was pretty happy with what I got but it never pulled me away from using HP5.
So when all the you tubers I follow suddenly started putting out videos about the new Kentmere in 120 format I was a little taken aback as I was unaware that ilford were releasing a new film.
As I am not one of the ilford chosen few I had to buy my own to try so I got a few rolls of Both 100 and 400 iso from the excellent Analogue Wonderland.
I loaded the 400 in my Yashicamat 124g and popped out to burn a roll and see what it was like.
I developed it using ilfotec DD-X 1+4 dilution for 11.30mins and scanned using my Epson V600.
First look at the negatives and they looked very flat with minimal contrast.
When scanning that is exactly how they turned out but that isn’t a bad thing because once they were in Lightroom the dynamic range was excellent and with just a few tweaks the images looked fine with great tonal range, minimal grain and nicely sharp.
Overall this film is a winner for me as it is only ÂŁ5 a roll and gives great results .. I will have to try pushing the next roll to 800 or even 1600 to see how it copes, I regularly shoot HP5 pushed and love how that looks.
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
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.
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
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 :
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 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
This years #FP4Party which takes place over on Twitter has just ended and we are all waiting patiently to see who has been shortlisted and then who goes on to win.
To be honest for me and probably quite a few of the other participants it’s nothing to do with winning or even getting shortlisted ( it is nice to be liked though) but it’s a great excuse to pick one film stock and try to see what everyone comes up with over the week.
I used 2 cameras myself … My trust pair of a Nikon F100 and Yashicamat 124G and shot just one roll in each, it would have been more but that is all I had at the time.
I didn’t post every image I shot so this post feature every photo … good and bad
Quick note .. I developed both rolls in my new developer ilford LC29 which until now I had never used before.
Also the 35mm roll was rated at 200 which I tend to do as it gives me an extra bit of exposure leeway.
Please click on an image to view larger …..
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
I have shot ilford Ortho plus in 120 format before and really loved how it looks.
Sharp as a tack and very little grain with great dynamic range.
This roll that I shot in my Mamiya RB67 over Christmas was a total accident.
I received a few rolls of film from my better half as a present as usual namely a few different Lomography films in 35mm and 120 format one of which I have never shot before … Lady Grey 400
My plan was to take out the RB67 and for some reason I thought the Lady Grey was in 120 format so when I went to get it out of the fridge I realised it was 35mm so a little disappointed and not wanting to take out an SLR I grabbed the roll next to it which was the Ortho.
Problem was it was in my mind I was going to shoot 400 iso film so I set my meter to 400 before getting the film so obviously when I swapped to the Ortho I forgot to change the light meter and went out on our little walk happily shooting away thinking I had 400 loaded.
When I got home and unloaded the roll I immediately realised my mistake and promptly jumped on the interwebs looking for any info I could find about developing times for Ortho plus when pushed to 400.
I could not seem to find out much as obviously there was no one as dull as me and made this error so after a few twitter chats I decided to process in Rodinal 1+100 dilution Stand development for 1 1/2 hours with 2 inversions( I rotated with stick actually) at start then every 30 minutes and crossed my fingers that something was salvageable.
To my surprise then I opened the tank the negatives looked perfect so I hung them ups and waited to dry.
After scanning the only slight problem that I noticed was some of the highlights had blown just a little bit which must have been down to the stand development most probably (this was my 1st time trying this method).
The highlights blowing didn’t really bother me and the sharpness and reasonable grain surprised me.
I would not recommend doing this everyday as I feel I was pretty lucky this time but it was an interesting experiment (accident) and shows just how good ilford Ortho Plus is.
Anyway here is the whole roll .. click to view larger
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
I have had my iMac for about 6 months and it has been great for everything especially photo editing in Adobe Lightroom in 4k but since the Big Sur update it has been running like a snail in treacle with all the Adobe products.
I used to edit using a PC which was starting to slow down a bit which is why I upgraded to a new 6 core, 4k iMac so in a fit of extreme recklessness I went and bought a new PC 2 weeks ago (gave my PC to my son so I don’t feel that guilty) and I wanted to test it out so loaded my Yashicamat with some trusty HP5 and went out to bang off 12 frames just to test my workflow from scanning to editing.
Considering I shot the roll in only 10 minutes I was pleased to get 12 keepers albeit very similar shots.
The PC performed brilliantly without a hitch very fast and smooth and a little easier on the eye as my PC monitor is a 28inch 4k compared with my iMac 21.5inch 4k.
Apple has since given an update to Big Sur which still has done nothing to speed up Adobe stuff so I feel a complete wipe and clean install coming over Christmas.
Anyway here are the 12 frames sorry there is not a lot of variety other than slightly different framing and apertures.
As per usual HP5 looked lovely and the Yashicamat gave excellent sharp images.
Click and image to view larger …
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
tim dobbs photography 