Nature – tim dobbs photography

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

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.

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

Fomapan 400 in 120 format is a revelation ….

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

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

An Evening walk with some Lomo CN 400 & Fuji GW690III

Short and sweet blog post today featuring a recent evening walk with my “Texas Leica” .. my actual Leica M2 has had to go to camera hospital due to a shutter curtain problem but that’s another story.

The other week after work I spotted some pretty nice light here in the Garw valley so popped out to fire off a roll of my favorite colour negative film at the minute … Lomography CN400 in the wonderful GW690III.

I didn’t walk far and to my surprise shot all 8 frames in the space of 30 minutes.

Even though the Fuji is a bit of a beast it handles really well and it is so easy to treat it like an oversized point & shoot sometime.

Well here is the whole roll … nothing really special just the Garw valley in nice light 🙂

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

#FP4Party 2021 .. all my images together ….

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 also 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 roll shot in 2021 … Kodak Ektar in the Mamiya 645 …

I imagine that quite a few photographers have struggled during the pandemic to find motivation and opportunity to shoot.

So far this year I have managed 3 rolls which is pretty poor by my usual standard.

I was going through my film stash looking for something that may give me some motivation to get out and shoot.

I realised that I have quite a few rolls of Ektar and the day was quite bright so I loaded up my Mamiya and went out for a walk with my better half.

Even though it was a lovely day I struggled to really shoot anything that pleased me, there was one or two on the roll that were ok but overall this was a poor roll.

Somehow I only ended up with 13 frames, I did manage to accidentally fire off a frame while bending down but where the other one went is a mystery as I shot 15.

It must be old age as I missed focus on 3 frames and had a little camera shake both of which are unusual with the Mamiya, I can easily hand hold at 1/30th usually.

I developed the roll using the Tetenal C41 kit and scanned with the Epson v500

Well here is my 1st roll of 2021 in all its glory …

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

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

Autumn colours .. Mamiya 645 on Kodak Portra 400vc …. the whole roll

As usual here in the South Wales valleys the weather is pretty up and down at the minute but on one of the days that the sun burst through between gale force winds and rain I went out with the Mamiya 645 with the 80mm f2.8 and 45mm f2.8 ( last 3 frames .. so damn sharp ) loaded with some expired Kodak Portra 400vc and tried to capture the lovely Autumn colours here.

I processed the roll using the excellent Tetenal C41 kit which I have managed to stretch to 26 rolls so far with no problems.

I love using the Mamiya as I can get 15 frames and to be honest I find it easier to compose the 645 format compared to square and since getting the Mamiya RB67 I felt I was neglecting its smaller/lighter little brother.

The images came out just as I wanted with plenty of lovely warm Autumn colours and as usual the Mamiya glass didn’t disappoint rendering lovely sharp images even wide open.

So 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

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

More Lomography CN400 with the Mamiya C300 … the whole roll.

I have said before and I will say it again that Lomo CN400 is my favourite colour negative film stock that is currently still being made.

I love Fuji Reala 100 but as it is not made anymore and I have a limited stock of it in my freezer I have tried most of the current films to try and get a goto film that I can rely on and that gives me the look that I like when shooting in colour.

Both Lomo CN100 and CN800 are also lovely films but I prefer the 400 iso version as it gives me a good balance in most lighting conditions.

I dug out my Mamiya C330. the other day and as I hadn’t shot colour with it for a while I loaded the lomo 400 and went out for a little walk on a nice bright but slightly cloudy day.

I developed it using the Tetenal C41 kit and scanned it with an Epson v500 using the epson scan software .. removing the dust and tweaking the frames in Adobe Lightroom.

As usual the film didn’t disappoint and neither did the C330, the colours popped and were lovely and sharp.

So here is the whole roll .. I would recommend any other film photographers to give this film a try if they have not already done so you won’t be disappointed.

Click on an image 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

1st time shooting Lomochrome Metropolis 35mm … the whole roll

I love trying new films whether they are new emulsions or just a film that I have never shot before.

Lomochrome Metropolis is an actual new emulsion developed by Lomography that according to the write up on their site can be exposed between 100 and 400 iso without any change in development.

Link … Lomo Metropolis

As it was £13 per roll and I only bought one to try I decided on the middle ground and went with 200 iso.

As some of the shots involved the sky I did use some exposure compensation .. the camera of choice was the Minolta X700 with the 50mm F1.7.

The roll was developed and scanned by FilmDev just to get accurate colours so that I can judge if I like the desaturated look that I have seen.

I shot the roll over a week so the beginning of the roll was a bit of street and the rest was a mountain walk here in the South Wales valleys.

At first sight I loved how this film looks, yes it did have a desaturated look which worked well on the street images but when you went out into the countryside it still had that look but the greens seemed to pop probably because the rest of the colours were subtle.

The film was pretty sharp and contrasty, the grain was there to be seen but at 200 iso it was very pleasant maybe at 400 it would be a bit more pronounced.

I am a bit gutted that this film is so expensive as I would be shooting it quite a bit if it were £10 or less a roll that being said I will be buying more but using it now and again depending on what I am shooting.

Well here is the complete roll … click to see an image larger

Comments most welcome