Portrait – Page 4 – tim dobbs photography

Toy camera time……..

I have a few older film cameras that sort of give the Lomo effect which I sometimes like the look of but I wanted to get a proper Lomo camera so managed to pick up this Holga 120gn off ebay for just £6.

I wasn’t really expecting much when I opened the parcel but it was still a slight shock to feel how cheap the camera was. Nevertheless I proceeded to load her up with a roll of Ilford Delta 400 only to find out it did not have the film masks so I was only able to shoot 6×6 but that was ok.12 extremely quick frames later and into the darkroom I went wondering if anything was going to appear on the film. It felt a little strange shooting every frame at 1/100sec @f11 as that was the only setting when sunny but every frame came out albeit slightly up and down in exposure but nothing that could not be tweaked while scanning the negs.

Here are the 12 shots in all their glory….lol

ps. the double exposure portrait of me was shot by Ben, a happy accident which is one of the reasons to shoot this Lomo style 🙂 click on an image to view larger……….

I also have a dedicated film blog over at http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

feel free to pop over and have a look

Testing the Sigma 35mm f1.4 DG…………..

Last week I rented a lens from Lensfettish.com as I had a 30% discount code so I decided on the Sigma 35mm f1.4DG as I had read reviews about it and wanted to see if it was as good as I had heard.

On opening the box I was surprised at the size and weight of the lens compared with my DX Nikon 35mm 1.8 and my Sigma 30mm 1.4, it was a bit of a beast.

The first shot I took in the kitchen (above) was wide open at f1.4 and I was blown away even looking at the camera screen. The lens was razor sharp 🙂

I proceeded to shoot loads of random stuff around the house before popping out for a quick walk.

The sharpness and contrast of this lens was astounding even wide open the point of focus was so sharp and at f8 the detail was stunning.

The following day we popped to Cardiff and I did a little street shooting mainly between f2.8 and f4 and again the lens performed great.

On the Sunday (my last day before returning the lens) we went along to the Bridgend Show where I gave it one last run out and again the resultant images were so pleasing.

I must admit that if I had a spare £699 in my pocket I would buy this lens in a shot, the 35mm focal length was very nice as a walk around lens just a bit more versatile than my Nikon 50mm f1.4 afs which is my usual goto lens.

I also tried it on my Nikon F80 and shot a couple of frames but am yet to finish the roll to see how it performed ( I bet is good 🙂 )

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger……………

Another camera added to my collection……..

You can never have to many cameras, well thats what I believe anyway.

I picked up a lovely Kiev 4 this week from my favorite camera dealers West Yorkshire Cameras.

It came with a 135mm f4 and a Jupiter 8, 50mm f2 lens which surprisingly is reasonable sharp wide open, both the shots above were taken at F2 using ilford HP5.

The only problem I had when first using it was the arrangement of the rangefinder window as it is where my hand goes to fire the shutter instead of over the lens like other rangefinders I have tried.I popped out for a walk to give the camera a run out.

It has a selenium meter but after a quick glance at the manual to try to understand how it works I got a bit lost so I used my Zeiss Ikon Ikophot lightmeter instead.

The camera was a joy to use as long as I remembered not to put my finger over the rangefinder window, the focussing was very quick and easy due to the really bright viewfinder.

I tried most of the shots at f4 to f8 as it was rather bright and the shutter only went to 1/1000 sec.I was extremely impressed with the sharpness and contrast from the lens from f4 and up. And even at f2.8 the look I got was really nice, I am so pleased with this camera.

I love my Zorki 4k but this really puts that in the shade especially when trying to focus in low light.

I cannot use the 135mm yet as I need an external viewfinder but the 50mm is so good I am not in a rush to get one yet.Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger………

Rainy day and HP5…………..

Dark, dreary and wet day here in the valleys today and the forecast isn’t that good all weekend so how can I shoot my weekly roll of film?

I decided to try my Sigma 105mm f2.8 on my F4 using some Ilford HP5 @400 just to see how the autofocus coped with the really short DOF.

It seemed to manage pretty well, I only shot 2 or 3 shots on manual focus because it would not snap to the spot I wanted.

The viewfinder is so bright on the F4 it was very easy to shoot really close up.

I wandered around the house for about an hour trying to capture something remotely interesting that may benefit from the B&W film look.

My magazine arrived as I was shooting so as it was B&W photography it felt appropriate to shoot it along with my growing collection of Canon FD glass.

I love the look of HP5 anyway but I wasn’t expecting it to look so good for still life subjects.

As my guitar is black the tones HP5 produce are lovely, I processed the film using Ilfotec HC which gave really nice grain very complimentary to the subject matter.

I shot the last 3 frames with my 50mm f1.8 and managed to candidly capture my better half handheld 1/15 @f1.8

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger………..

I have another blog just dedicated to my film photography if you are interested pop over and leave me a comment.

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

1st roll of film in 4 weeks…………

For the last 4 weeks I have been really neglecting my blog due to a really persistant chest infection which not only laid me very low but it stopped me doing what I love…. shooting film.

So this weekend as I am feeling much better I was determined to shoot at least one roll of film so I loaded up the Bronica with some Ilford Delta 400 and set it to shoot at 800 as I was visiting my parents and knew that the light indoors would not be the brightest.

My dad is getting used to me pursuing him around the house with my camera so gave up and posed for me for once 🙂

Mum doesn’t really like having her photograph taken so I had to be a bit sneaky and managed one or two frames.

The same goes for my wife so most of the shots of her are candids not really portraits 🙂

I found that shooting at iso 800 in 6×6 format on Delta doesn’t really increase the grain much when processed in infosol 3 and really helps when trying to hand hold in poor light.

I think I will most probably shoot at 800 most of the time as the benefits out weigh the little extra grain you get ( I love film grain anyway ).

Thanks for looking and I am hoping to post a lot more frequently this year.

Comments most welcome 🙂

Bargain of the century ……… Loving 6×6 format

On Boxing day I treated myself to a Mamiya C330s TLR but after 3 rolls of film determined that there was something wrong with the focus and sent it back. After posting on facebook about what had happened I was contacted by a fellow photographer who said he had got some 6×6 equipment if I was interested.

I said that I would definitely be interested if I had not just spent my camera fund on the C330s and was waiting to see wether it was to be replaced/fixed. He told me that he had stored the equipment for the last 10 years and was never going to use it and because I was really getting back into film that the price would be very good for me.

So I jumped into the car and popped over to Maesteg to have a look and as you can see from the photos above I have managed to bag myself the deal of the century.

The total inventory is as follows :

Bronica SQ-Ai, Bronica SQ-A, Ae prism finder, 2x 80mm f2.8, 150mm f4, 40mm f4, 250mm f5.6

all in working order 🙂

The weather has been rubbish over christmas but I managed to get out for an hour yesterday to try out the new kit.

I shot on Kodak T-MAX 400 and processed it in Infosol 3 1+9, I was very,very pleased with the results.

It was nice aslo to use an AE Prism Finder rather than my light-meter, it was almost like using my SLR.

6×6 format is so nice, I am loving shooting and composing in the square format it is so much different to what I am used to.

My son is getting fed up with me asking him to pose so I can test my equipment so I tried something a bit different with this shot which I thought worked in the square frame.

And the sharpness of the 80mm at f4 was superb….

I am so pleased with this equipment and so grateful to have got it at an unbelievable price I hope I can push my film photography to the next level.

Thanks for looking…….

150mm f4 and a new scanner…….

Since getting my Mamiya 645 the other week I have been on the lookout for a 150mm lens to shoot portraits with. A facebook friend who just happens to run West Yorkshire Cameras http://wycameras.com/ messaged me after reading my last blog post to say he had a Mamiya Sekor 150mm f4 for sale if I was interested at a very, very reasonable price :-).

Needless to say I bought it immediately and when it arrived it was a lovely piece of kit. The only problem now was that my scanner an Epson v330 photo would only scan 35mm not medium format so more expenditure was need, luckily there was a sale on in PC World and I managed to pickup an Epson v500 http://bit.ly/VvbQBZ

The scanner is an awesome machine I re-scanned some of my recent negatives which I was very happy with originally and there was a noticeable difference especially in the highlight and shadow detail captured.

I eagerly shot a roll of Fuji 400H pro and rushed into the darkroom to see the results the lens produced.

What I did notice after scanning and viewing in Photoshop was the extreme shallow depth of field even at f8 when using the longer focal length which when my focus was spot on really made the subject appear almost 3d.

To get the best results at F4 I would have to use a tripod and spend a bit of time making sure that what I wanted to be in focus was spot on because there is little margin for error when wide open.

The type of look this camera and lens gives me is exactly what I want when taking a portait and something I cannot come close to using my crop sensor digital slr’s.

I can get something similar using a film slr and a 100mm f2.8 but the quality of the negative is so much better at 6 x 4.5.

I now have taken over two shelves in the fridge with my films since stocking up on Kodak T-Max 100, Portra 400 and some Ilford Delta 400 in 120 format.

click on an image to view larger…….

New camera and this time its not a charity shop cheap one………..

Finally bit the bullet and got myself a proper camera… a Mamiya 645 1000s and as soon as it arrived I knew it was love at first sight….lol.

It is built like a tank, pretty heavy but not difficult to handle. I was really eager to try it out just incase of problems so I could return it to the shop … http://www.ffordes.com/home

I loaded up a roll of Kodak T-MAX 100 so that I could process it here at home easily but by the time I got in from work the light was rubbish so after learning how to use the mirror up facility on the camera and a tripod I dragged Ben out the garden and shot off 15 frames.

The settings were 1/30 sec @f2.8 so I was praying that I got something off the roll, I processed it in Perceptol 1+3 for 19 minutes as stated in the Massive Dev Chart iphone app and was astounded at the clarity and tonal range of the images.

There was a few where my focus was not totally spot on but the DOF is so shallow at f2.8 that I was not too bothered at least I know the camera and lens are keepers and that I like the look of T-Max, the grain was virtually non existant processed in Perceptol.

I will be shooting a roll of Fuji pro 400h on the weekend and getting it processed and scanned by AG photographic http://www.ag-photolab.co.uk/ hopefully to get better quality than I can at home.

Next on my list is the 150mm f2.8 and an AE Prism Finder …. 🙂

Click on an image to see full size

Thanks for looking………

Elvis has left the building … and is going to Porthcawl ……….

Popped along to the annual Elvis Festival held in Porthcawl last weekend armed only with my trusty Nikon F90x and some ilford HP5+.

Even though we were down there quite early there were plenty of characters walking about all very willing to have their photographs taken.

I was a bit worried taking the shot above due to the Gold jacket and the very bright sunlight but the camera and film coped very well (no instant feed back from the back of the camera with film….lol).

It was good to see Porthcawl busy and vibrant especially after the pretty poor summer weather we have had this year.

All in all I shot just 48 frames all day where as I would have shot hundreds if I had took my DSLR so the editing process was so much easier.

Even though the day was full of colours I am glad that I shot B&W I don’t know what it is but it gave me more of the feel of the day without any distracting colour elements in the frame.

All comments very welcome ……. thanks for looking 🙂

Vintage looking photos from Vintage Cameras ………

Here are a selection of test photographs using the 3 vintage cameras I was loaned (see last blog post).

First one is with the Agfa Isolette using ilford Delta 3200….

The next 2 were with the Zorki 4 using expired Agfa Vista 200 as you can see with the 1st shot the shutter was sticking…..

And the last selection was with my favorite camera to use the Yashica Mat using expired Fuji Neopan 400…….

I have really enjoyed using all 3 cameras especially the Yashica and considering the film used had expired I am very pleased with the results, I am going to have to get myself a nice medium format camera very, very soon………. Thanks again to Mike and Andy 🙂

click on an image to view larger………