Portrait – tim dobbs photography

Eventually finished a roll in the OM1 & tried Cinestill C41 kit ….

I loaded my trusty Olympus OM1 with some Lomo CN400 way back at the beginning of June and even though I took it with me most of the time I only managed to finish it last week.

As luck would have it I had bought the Cinestill 2 bath C41 kit to try so this was the first roll in it.

The whole process was pretty easy compared to the usual Tetenal multi bath kit that I have used previously and the results were fine.

It has been ages since I last developed colour negatives and I forgot what a pain it is to spot out and colour correct as I have been sending my C41 stuff to Filmdev lab.

It will be interesting to see how long the chemistry lasts as I shoot far more B&W than colour.

It says that it should develop 24 rolls which makes it very good value for money.

Any way here are the images .. all a bit random as it was shot over weeks rather than days.

Click on an image to view larger … Ignore the grumpy old man in image 2 .. I do smile most of the time honest ha ha!

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

Also still have a handful of zines over on my etsy store as well as some hand made film canister keychains … https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto

Kodak Vision 3 50D on a sunny day ….

Ages ago I bought some hand rolled Kodak 50D from a twitter friend and as I was also given a new kit of ECN-2 chemicals also from a different twitter friend I dug a roll out of the fridge and loaded my Nikon F100 with both the 50mm f1.4 and 24-85 VR and shot the roll over one whole week.

I really like using 250D as I find it a bit more versatile that 50D due to the poor weather we seem to get more often or not here in Wales but the week just gone has been great so using 50 iso has been pretty easy for a change.

Developing using the QWD ECN-2 kit is a breeze but I find that scanning Vision 3 films quite a pain compared to C-41 as my Epson software seems to find strange colour casts on about 50% of the frames so my scanning times are probably doubled.

That said I do like how Vision 3 films look and 50D has pretty fine grain compared to both 250D and 500T which makes sense due to the lower ISO.

Well here is the whole roll warts and all … comments most welcome

You can find my previous blog about using the QWD ECN-2 kit here if you are interested …

New QWD ECN2 developer kit for Motion picture film .. Mini review .. My first 3 rolls …

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

Also still have a handful of zines over on my etsy store as well as some hand made film canister keychains … https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto

Sunny day for a change … Shooting Kodak Portra 400VC …

As to be expected here in Wales the weather has been pretty up and down … mainly down but a week ago we had a fleeting glimpse of the sun, so as I had not shot any colour film stock this year I grabbed a roll of Portra 400VC from the fridge and loaded up the trusty Yashicamat 124G and went out to make the most of the light.

I only went for a short walk as I bumped into artist Kevin Sinnott outside his gallery and popped in for a chat as I had not seen him for a while.

To make the most of the light I managed to take his portrait outside before I left for the rest of my walk.

Even though the film had pretty long expired I rated it at 200 iso and was not disappointed with how the images came out.

As I don’t have any C41 chemistry here I sent the film off to the trusty Filmdev who did a great job as usual.

So here are the images …

Comments most welcome …

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

Also still have a handful of zines over on my etsy store … https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto

I don’t take portraits … well maybe I do? .. latest zine project

I have been making my own zines for a few years now and find the whole process very enjoyable especially when you get a finished copy of your work in your hands.

“I don’t take portraits” is my latest offering and is a slightly misleading title as it only features portraits that I have sort of unknowingly shot over the past few years.

What I mean is I never intentionally go to shoot portraits but I have seemed to have accumulated at least one frame from most of the rolls of film I have shot either as a way of testing the film/lens/camera combination or just to start/finish a roll.

Last month I went totally out of my comfort zone and agreed to an interview with Euan over at Biblioscapes … https://biblioscapes.com/ to talk about this new zine.

I don’t usually do this type of thing but Euan made the whole process very relaxed and easy.

Biblioscapes is a great site featuring a wide variety of photographers and styles and I enjoy listening to all of the interviews, I am honoured to be amongst such good work.

Here are the links to my waffling if anyone is interested ..

https://biblioscapes.com/in-discussion/tim-dobbs

and the zine itself ..

https://biblioscapes.com/library/i-dont-take-portraits

I had the zine printed by the wonderful Mixam who always do a great job.

Here is a link to the online proof that they generate before it went to print.

https://mixam.co.uk/share/6161d5d06810b6546dda72c4

Comments on the zine and my waffling all about it will be gratefully received.

Also I still have a handful of copies left so if anyone of you would like one please get in touch either through Twitter .. @timdobbsphoto or email .. timd.photography@gmail.com for details.

I have a few spare zines left from previous and I will be giving one free with each Portrait zine.

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

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

Eventually trying my 1st roll of Silberra Ultima 200 …….

It must be a year or two back that I supported a Indiegogo campaign for Silberra where I received 2 rolls of film … Pan 200 & Ultima 200.

You can see my Pan 200 results here .. Silberra Pan 200 …

So here is the 2nd roll Ultima 200 … I shot it using my Nikon F100 and processed it using Rodinal at 1+25 dilution for 8 minutes.

The film was a a bugger to load onto the reel in the darkroom and was also a pain to scan due to how very thin it was .. that said once scanned I was pretty happy with how it looked.

The contrast and sharpness was nice, not bad tonal range either and to my eye the grain didn’t seen as pronounced as the Pan 200 I had shot before.

I doubt I will be shooting any more as it doesn’t really bring anything new to what I shoot that HP5 or plenty of other stocks that I regularly use, also I won’t miss the loading/scanning problems.

So here are a selection of images ….

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 🙂

My 1st roll of the New Kodak Ektachrome … all 36 frames

I have shot most of the available and discontinued slide films over the years and processed them in E6 and cross processed in C41 and it never fails to give you a great feeling holding up some slides to the light.

So obviously when Kodak announced that they were bringing back Ektachrome I couldn’t wait to get some to play with.

Once I bought a few rolls I decided to load the 1st roll into my Nikon F100 as it gives me pretty much spot on exposures when I shoot slide film.

As you can see from the 1st shot on the roll I began shooting on March 30th and I took about 4 months to complete the roll as I wanted to try it on a range of subjects and lighting conditions.

I had the film developed & scanned by AG Photographic as I didn’t want to mess up the developing and get unreliable results.

I have to say the film lived up to my expectations … colours and sharpness were great and even shooting into the sun worked, also portraits came out good too.

So here is the complete roll in the order that I shot them … comments welcomed.

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 🙂

1st time shooting Lomo Berlin 400 Kino film …..

I love shooting B&W and when I saw lomography had release 2 new film stocks recently I couldn’t wait to try some and compare it to my all time favourite B&W film … ilford HP5.

The 1st roll I tried was the Berlin 400 Kino which I loaded into my Nikon F4s with the 50mm f1.4 and tried to shoot a varied selection of subjects.

I processed the roll in Rodinal at 1+50 dilution for 13.30 mins.

I was very happy with how the scans came out, quite a chunky grain structure but I like grain and it did not distract from the image.

It is pretty contrasty with nice blacks but also held the highlights well.

I always find whatever film I process with Rodinal seems to get stronger grain and contrast so when I shoot the next roll I will develop in a different dev.

Overall I will happily use this film again … I won’t replace my HP5 but I really do recommend that you give it a go … I will push the next roll just to see what I get so watch this space.

Here is a varied selection from the roll …

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 🙂

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

This started off as a proper test as I had read in various places that you can shoot XP2 at different ISO ratings without changing the development times.

My plan was to load up my FE2 and over the space of a few days/weeks shoot the roll in different situations that required possible pushing/pulling and write down the setting to see what happens when I develop the roll eg. does it work??

The experiment went pretty good initially but about 20 frames into the roll I managed to lose my little notepad with my settings on which essentially ballsed up the whole thing as I do not have the settings to correspond to the images.

What I can say is that I shot the roll between 200-3200 iso … the shots in the bright sunshine were at the end of the roll after I realised I had lost my notepad so I think they were all 200-400 while the shot of my son on his phone was definitely at 1600 iso.

All in all after a little tweaking in Lightroom every frame I shot was perfectly useable with the higher ISO shots exhibiting quite a bit of grain but I like grain so to me that was an added bonus.

Well here is a selection of images … comments most welcome …