Still Life – Page 2 – tim dobbs photography

Garw Valley Railway & Heritage Fair….. and my 100th post to :)

On saturday it was my local Railway & Heritage societies fair here in the lovely Garw Valley, so as good local citizens we popped along (with my camera in tow).

I have never really had any interests in trains before but thanks to a great young guide called Stephen the tour of the railway shed was a very interesting way to spend a Saturday morning.

There was loads of stuff to point my camera at and luckily I took along the D600 as the light was pretty dim in places but the camera performed excellently at iso’s up to 4000 without a problem.

click on an image to view larger……………….

All the people involved with the running of the Railway society were very enthusiastic and helpful, eager to explain in detail what was going on and their plans for the future (and didn’t mind having their photographs taken either)

All in all it was an enjoyable time and nice to see something like this going on in the Garw Valley.

Mountain walk with FP4 instead of my beloved HP5………

I bought 20 rolls of Ilford FP4 the other week with the intention of shooting some still life and portraits but popped a roll into my Nikon F4 and went out to shoot some landscapes first.

I developed the roll using Ilfotec HC hoping to get a bit of punchy contrast in the images and I was not disappointed.FP4 does not give me the feel that I like in my images but it is still very nice, the still life stuff I shot on the walk were very nice, plenty of detail and great highlight and shadow tones.Since trying shooting some still life with HP5 I am a little torn between the 2 films for that subject. I love the contrast and grain of HP5 but the smooth tones and detail of FP4 are great.

I am going to try pushing the film next time just to see what I get grain and contrast wise and will post the results.

Landscapes do look good though I must admit and I am well happy that I have another 19 rolls in the fridge waiting to be shot 🙂 Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger………..

A Digital day……for a change……………..

I decided to shoot digital this weekend for a change, I have a friends wedding coming up in a few weeks and apart from shooting my Rugby I am not using my DSLR’s all that much so I thought I would give them a runout using my Sigma 30mm f1.4.

I really love the look I get from the Sigma wide open, it really pulls the object in focus out of the frame, it does vignette a little at f1.4 but all these photos were processed in Lightroom and the lens profiles do a really good job.

I must admit that I felt like a bit of a cheat shooting digital and looking at the back of the camera checking shots, I seemed to shoot far more than I actually needed to when checking the results in Lightroom.

I would recommend the Sigma highly, it’s very sharp especially when stopped down a bit and even at f1.4 as long as you nail the point of focus the image pops.

The shot at the top of my better half was shot at iso 3200 @f1.4 focussing on the eye and with a little noise reduction in Lightroom the results were great considering it was a quick test snapshot.

Anyway after the rugby on Saturday I am back to film again until the “Digital” wedding that is but I will also shoot plenty of film there too.

Thanks for looking………..

Also please check out my Film only blog over at …..

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

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/

Canon 50mm f1.4 and Ilford XP2……..

I had 2 deliveries on Friday.

A Canon 50mm f1.4 FD from West Yorkshire Cameras which was such a bargain compared to the equivalent Nikon offering as I can use it on both my Film Canon SLR’s and also my Olympus EPL-1.

And another package was from Ilford customer services with a load of different Ilford films free of charge as they will be using 2 of my film images on their website in the near future to showcase HP5+.

Firstly I must say how over the moon I am with the lens, its twice the weight and build of my 50mm f1.8 which I was pleased with but the f1.4 is so damn sharp it hurts especially on the Olympus.

The DOF and Bokeh is lovely and on my Canon T90 the viewfinder is extremely bright and easy to focus.

I am so glad I bought this, I wasn’t sure if it would be this much better than the f1.8 version as it actually is.

I have never shot Ilford XP2 before so I wasn’t sure what to expect, sadly my C-41 chemistry is shot so the results were a bit mixed but I managed to get a few shots I was pleased with.

The negatives are very easy to scan and have a very smooth tone that suits the type of images I was shooting with shallow DOF but is also nice and contrasty when stopped down a bit.I also had some SFX200 and PanF 50 which I have not shot before either so I am looking forward to see what comes out.

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger…………..

Kodak T-Max 3200 on a Sunny Afternoon………..

A few days ago a fellow photographer gave me a load of different types of film of which were a couple of rolls of Kodak T-Max 3200.

Eager to try this film out and even though the weather was bright and sunny I loaded up my Nikon F90x as it has a shutter speed up to 1/8000 sec and popped up my local graveyard hoping to capture some gritty images.

I was pleased with the results all things considered but I may use the next roll on something more appropriate that requires that sort of sensitivity……..lol

Am I Becoming a Camera Whore…….?

This weekend I have added another camera to my collection and have come to the conclusion that I am becoming a camera whore……. lol

The Nikon FM2n that I got my hands on is a dream camera, when I was in school I looked at the Nikons and longed to own one but never managed to get one.

I have a few film cameras now and do use them but not as much as I should but this FM2n is definitely going to change that.

I have just put my first roll of film through her and it was such a good feeling ( manual only was very liberating) and really slowed my photography down to a snails pace.

I cannot see myself shooting any sports with this camera even though it goes to 1/4000 sec but having to manage the aperture and shutter speed is not as easy as the Aperture priority I have been used to for the las 30 years or so.

Here are some shots of my lovely cameras messed about with in Photoshop 🙂

Boxing Day…………….

A quiet Boxing Day here in the South Wales valleys, the weather is Grey and very wet so no trips out with the camera.

Still have the Nikon 50mm on the camera so I decided to annoy the family with some candid abstract shots around the house using the D7000 and the SB700 flash.

Not the most exciting of shots but it sums up the relaxing day at home……lol

Grunging up everyday objects……..

I have been using my iPhone and various photo apps mainly ‘instagram’ a lot lately and really enjoy the unpredictability of the results I am getting but I prefer to have a bit of control over my photography.

So as a bit of a challenge I have been grunging up some of my shots with loads of layers and textures, vignettes etc and feel just as good being in control of the end results and obviously the quality and resolution is far better to be able to print.

Usually I am a sucker for sharp, precise photographs but the iphone/instagram feel is a real passion at the moment so I hope you enjoy and any feedback will be greatly recieved

Thanks for looking 🙂

Morning walk with Instagram……

Went for a nice bracing walk yesterday before going to shoot the Rugby game and intead of dragging my Dslr around I just took my iPhone4 and used Instagram to snap some random photos for a change.

It was very liberating just using the phone camera but I did feel like I was missing something by not taking along my regular camera.

I was pleased with what I captured even though they were pretty random stuff and will not be winning many awards………..

click on image to view larger…….