black and white – Page 10 – tim dobbs photography

Another reason to keep my Olympus EPL-1……….

If you have read my last post I was thinking of selling my Olympus EPL-1 since getting a Fuji X10 but have had a change of heart.

Looking back through my Aperture catalogue I came across a folder of photographs where I was playing with the various Art Filters that are built in to the camera.

To be honest the 2 filters I found I used over and over were the Pinhole and the Gritty B&W featured here.

The Pinhole is not to overpowering and boosts the contrast and colours while adding a vignette.

While the B&W is an acquired taste….. I love strong, contrasty B&W which is how I shoot my film photography so I love the filter.

The only thing I don’t like about the Olympus is the lack of viewfinder but since being able to use my Canon lens and the Art filters make up for that and the camera will stay in my bag and not on eBay 🙂

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…….

Zorki 4k & Ilford HP5+……..

A week or two ago my wife got me a Zorki 4k for christmas so before she wrapped it up I insisted on putting a roll of film through it just to make sure all was well.

We bought the camera from West Yorkshire Cameras who specialise in affordable film cameras, I must say that they are great lads and highly recommend that if you are interested in film photography to pay them a visit.

I have bought numerous things from them and their service is excellent.

http://wycameras.com/

I used some Ilford HP5+ and processed it in ilfotec DDX.

The viewfinder was reasonable bright considering its age and even though the weather was poor focussing was not really a problem but I did find that composing in the portrait format was hit and miss as I am used to an SLR.

I just took a load of random shots using the light-meter app on my iPhone to set the exposure and was pretty pleased with what came out.

The 50mm f2.0 Jupiter lens was pretty sharp when stopped down a little but still looked nice at f2.8 as you can see with the first shot of the barbed wire fence.

I am pleased that after shooting the first roll all seems well with the camera and I am looking forward to trying a bit of street photography with it.

Thanks for looking

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

First attempt at pushing Film ……

After reading some stuff on the internet and viewing some samples I decided to give B&W push processing a go.

Most of the articles I read used Kodak Tri-x so that is what I used to.

Using the Massive Dev chart app on my iphone http://www.digitaltruth.com/ I determined that I needed to develop for 10 minutes in ilfotec ddx 1+4 if I pushed the film from 400 to 800 which I thought was a good starting point just incase pushing it any faster may result in a ruined negative.

The weather today here in the South Wales valleys was pretty poor, dark and wet so it needed at least 800 iso.

I shot most of the roll outside with pretty random subjects, just looking for something with detail and contrast and finished the roll indoors using just lamplight.

The results were great, the grain was almost identical to Tri-x shot at its native speed. To be honest if you didn’t know that I pushed the film I could have told people they were at 400iso.

I really like the results I am getting using ilfotec ddx it seems to give a really good balance between sharpness/contrast and minimal grain.

Just for the record all these shots were taken using my Nikon F90x and nikkor 50mm f1.8.

I will try pushing it to 1600 or 3200 next time as I like grain in my images and 800 is definitely not a problem for the film/dev combination.

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger………

Trying out Ilford HP5+ in some new developer……….

I few weeks ago I bought some new developer and last week I shot a roll of 120 Ilford Delta 400 and a roll of 35mm Ilford HP5+ with the intentions of seeing what the resulting negatives where like.

I posted the 120 Delta images last week and was extremely pleased with the results so this week I am posting some of the 35mm HP5 shots which I am also very pleased with.The Grain that I love with HP5 is still there in the negatives albeit a little more smooth to my eyes but the detail and sharpness is far more evident.

I diluted the developer 1+9 and processed it for 16 minutes as per the Massive Dev chart app and can definitely will be using this combination as my standard routine from now on.

Also as the developer is in liquid form I only have to mix what I need when I need it rather than mixing up a batch and storing.

I even took a shot of my wife’s hand while cooking @f1.8 which I rarely shoot at such a wide aperture on film but even then the detail was great.I would therefore thoroughly recommend this developer to anyone, I will shoot a roll of Tri-X and some T-Max next just to see how they fair.

Thanks for looking….. comments always welcomed 🙂

click on an image to view larger…………

Mamiya 645 as my new walk about camera……….?

Loaded up the Mamiya 645 with some Ilford Delta 400 yesterday and decided to do a spot of Landscape photography with the intention of some nice shallow DOF shots as well as the traditional views.

After the first mile and a half I began to realise that the Mamiya is not a walk around camera its built like a tank and weighs like one too.

Nevertheless I was determined to get some shots and to try out the new B&W developer I recently bought …. Ilfotec DD-X.

The results from the camera and film/dev combination were lovely, I shot most of the closeup detail at f2.8 – f4 and stopped down to f11 for the views.

The detail captured was great all these shots had minor touchup in Photoshop mainly dust and a few hairs and a little curves adjustments.

I so love this camera, I bought it with the sole intention of portrait work but the stunning negatives I am getting from it means I am going to try to use it as an allround camera……

I think I may try a bit of street photography next …. 🙂

Please 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 🙂

Street Shooting with Film…………

Last weekend we popped down to Porthcawl for an hour or so with my F90x loaded with ilford HP5+ thinking I would capture some gloomy shots of dark clouds and wet holiday-makers but as soon as we parked up the sun came out and so did the people.

It’s a bit of a challenge to shoot candid street photos on film as you cannot just shoot loads and find the good one’s later you have to be very patient and when a shot shows it’s self make sure you get it right.

As the sun was pretty bright and most of the times I found myself shooting into it I was not really sure whether or not I got the shots even though I deliberately over exposed trying not to get silhouettes but the camera and film combo worked great.

It was quite a nice walk around the seafront and we popped into Coney Island on the way back to the car, I could have done with a roll of Colour Film then but they say its going to be a Sunny weekend so we may pop down again, its great to have the seaside right on your doorstep.