arts – Page 3 – tim dobbs photography

Plastic Pano camera .. Junk or Gem? …

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 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

Brand new … Expired Agfa Vista 200 .. is it still ok?

Back in 2016 or 2017 when you could buy Agfa Vista 200 for £1 in Poundland here in the UK I bought 4 packs of 10×36 exposures and 6 packs of 10×24 exposures which have been stored in my film fridge since the day I bought them.

I also bought probably 15-20 single rolls while it was still available which I have gradually used up.

The other week I wanted to give my Nikon F80 a run out ready for our week away in Tenby thinking it would be easier with the 50mm f1.8 rather than using my trusty F100.

I was looking in my kitchen fridge for a roll of film to just test the camera but didn’t have any Vista in there so I opened a pack of my 36 exposure stash which had not been touched since storing away in the fridge 4 years plus ago.

I didn’t doubt that the film would be ok as it was brand new when I bought it but as it was cheap consumer film and it was on a shop shelf when I got it I wasn’t 100% what I was going to get.

It was an overcast day but the light was pretty good but I aired on the side of caution and set the camera meter to iso 100 and shot the roll pretty quickly.

The F80 is a really nice camera to shoot .. pretty light compared to the F100 with the 50mm f1.4.

I decided to get the film developed by Filmdev so I could rule out user error with the developing but didn’t manage to send it off before we went to Tenby so I ended up taking the F100 just incase the F80 had any problems and sent the roll off with my Holiday rolls.

I needn’t have worried as the F80 and the Vista worked great, the images were sharp and well exposed with the greens really popping.

I am so pleased that I have 100 rolls stored away that I can slowly shoot knowing they are fine.

So here is a selection

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

Tenby again … One Camera, Two rolls of film … Kodak Ektar & Lomography CN800 …

We managed a short break to Tenby back in the Whitsun holidays which I blogged here https://timdobbsphoto.com/2021/07/30/short-tenby-break-on-lomo-cn400-cn800/ where I took numerous cameras and film but didn’t use most of them.

So when we returned to Tenby for our Summer hols I decided to just take one camera and less film choices .. my Pentax ME Super with the 28mm f3.5 & 50mm f1.7 along with some Kodak Ektar & Lomo CN800.

The weather was pretty great with only a few hours each day where it was a bit overcast, the majority of the days were in glorious sunshine.

When we came home I sent the films off to Filmdev who did a great job with the scans as usual.

Luckily I shot most of the Ektar on the first day with was probably the brightest day by far as you will see here …

Click on an image to view larger

Kodak Ektar …

Lomography CN 800

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

First time shooting Cinestill XX Double-X in 120 format … full roll

When Cinestill announced the release of XX Double-X I could not wait to get my hands on some to try.

I have shot Double-X film stock 5222 in 35mm that I picked up from Nik & Trick and really liked how it looked so when I realised that I could get to try it in 120 format I was pretty excited.

I bought some in both 35mm & 120 from the excellent Analogue Wonderland and waited for a suitable time an place to try it.

Last weekend we had a typical welsh August day with rain & wind and a pile of mist up on our wonderful Garw hills so I loaded up my Mamiya RB67/65mm lens and went out hoping to get some nice atmospheric misty images.

Sadly or happily depending on how you look at it by the time I got up the top of the valley the majority of the mist had dissipated but what that meant was I had more light to play with so rated the film at iso 200 and managed to stop down to f8/11 on most frames which once I had developed the roll really showed how sharp this film stock is.

After scanning and slight tweaks and dust spot removal in Lightroom the results were great .. lovely contrasty images with excellent detail and great tonal range ..

I developed it in ilford LC29 1+29 dilution for 8 mins and scanned on an Epson v500.

So here is the complete 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

Short Tenby break on Lomo CN400 & CN800 ….

A few weeks back we managed to get away for a few days for the first time since last August.

We visited one of our favorite local places … lovely Tenby.

I took along 2 cameras my Minolta X700 and Minolta XG9 with 2 lenses .. the 35-70 f3.5 and 50mm f1.4.

It was my intention to load one camera with 400 and the 2nd with the 800 for the evening.

You may notice by the lack of night shots that plan didn’t really work due to the lack of tripod and my shaky hands after a few drinks.

The first day there it was lovely sunshine while day two was overcast but my favorite images were on CN800 in the early evening sun.

I never finished both rolls while in Tenby and completed them back home but I have only posted the Tenby images here.

Lomo CN 400 is my favorite colour negative stock but CN800 is a close second.

The film was developed and scanned by the wonderful FilmDev who always does a great job at a great price.

So here are the images … Lomo CN800 first followed by CN400

Click on an image to view larger … there is a 3 shot pano of St Catherine’s Fort

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

Rollei Retro 400s … almost the whole roll

Over the last few months I have shot a few rolls of Rollei’s RPX range which I really liked the look of.

So a few weeks back I was trying to decide what film to shoot that day and came across a roll of Retro 400S which I have shot once before and was not really that happy with how the roll came out developed in Rodinal.

I checked the Massive dev chart app and saw that I could also develop it in ilfotecHC so I thought I would give it a go and compare it to the RPX 400 and the previous roll.

I have been trying to post complete rolls of film recently and this was my plan for this one but whilst out on my walk my Pentax Super A sort of developed a problem.

Nearly every time that I half pressed the shutter to activate the meter nothing happened so I was trying to press the shutter button at different angles with my finger until it worked.

The problem was that on a few occasions I fired the damn shutter giving either totally blurred/black or over exposed frames so this roll only had 31 keeper which you can see here.

I have since used the Super A again and have found that I need to rest my finger towards the front of the shutter button for a second or two and the meter activates every time now.

By using ilfotecHC rather than Rodinal the images were far more like what I have seen on the interwebs … Great Blacks, contrasty and sharp with highlights that didn’t blow out and a really nice grain.

My 1st roll seemed muddy and excessively grainy so if I buy anymore of this stock it will be getting souped in ilfotecHC for sure.

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 🙂

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

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 🙂

Shooting expired Kodak EliteChrome 400 ….

Quite a while ago I was gifted a bag full of expired slide film from a photographer friend.

The bag contained plenty of film stocks that I had never shot before mainly Kodak Elitechrome 100/400 and Ektachrome 160 Tungsten.

I have shot the 100 iso previously and it was fine even though it all had a dubious history of storage.

I was expecting the 400 iso to be slightly more more grainy and I was unsure what iso to shoot it at, I only went 1 stop with the 100 and shot that at 50.

I decided to do the same with the 400 and shot it at 200 iso using my Nikon F100 and 50mm f1.4.

The problem was that when I developed it using the Tetenal E6 kit and then scanned it was that the whole roll was slightly underexposed but also blew out some of the highlights so I was glad that I didn’t push it any more as I managed to get some pretty decent images when processing in Lightroom.

Compared to the previous 100 iso this roll faired a little worse showing much more grain and not as sharp overall but I was happy with the slightly muted colours.

Here is a selection of images from the roll .. click to view larger