black and white – Page 7 – tim dobbs photography

1st roll of Ilford PanF 50 ………

I have had a roll of ilford panf 50 in my fridge for a few months now and every time I go to get a roll of film I see it sitting there by itself and I never seem to give it a go that is until about 2 weeks ago.

It was quite a bright morning so I decided to load up the Canon T90 – 28mm f2.8 and headed up the mountain.

As I was climbing the clouds were building and by the time I reached the top and began walking across towards the Memorial flag here in the Garw valley the darker it got….. not very good when you have a 50 iso film in your camera.

Nevertheless I managed to keep shooting albeit mainly at f4 – 5.6 and pretty slow shutter speeds.I processed the film in ilford Ilfotec HC and hung up to dry wondering if I managed to get many shots without blurring.And out of 36 frames I managed to get quite a few very sharp almost grainless images, I did slightly bump up the contrast on these scans in Lightroom and apart from cloning out a few dust spots these were pretty much straight scans.I am not sure when I would ever use this film as I prefer the contrast and grain that I get with my Favourite film HP5+ but the results were pretty nice, I may print some of the negatives in the darkroom just to see what they are like.Thanks for looking ….

click on an image to view larger ……

Testing my Canon AF35M with Ilford FP4@200…….

I picked up this little point & shoot a while back now it was only a few quid off e-bay but have not had much chance to try it out.

As I have a couple of days off work I thought it was time to see if it was working or not.Before we braved the cold and frost I loaded up some ilford FP4 and rated it at iso 200, popped in a couple of AA batteries and shot a quicky of one of my camera shelves with the inbuilt flash.

We then went for a walk in the bright sunshine but freezing temperatures.After developing the negatives I was extremely pleased with what the camera produced, lovely and sharp with great contrast and only 2 shots actually missed focus and they were most probably my fault as I was slightly too close. This camera is slightly bigger than my fav Nikon L35AF which fits my pocket perfectly which was the only thing that I didn’t really like about this excellent little camera.

The picture quality well exceeded my expectations, I will put a roll of Ektar through it next and will post the results.

Thanks for looking……..

Tamron 35-70mm f3.5 macro testing with my Olympus OM2n and some HP5……..

The other week I came across an Olympus OM10 in a local car boot sale. As I already have my original OM10 I didn’t really need another but it did have a nice looking Tamron 35-70mm zoom with it and a Manual adapter so I asked the seller if he would sell me them as I didn’t need the camera and he agreed to £10 which was a bargain and after paying he said I may as well take the camera for free as he has had no interest so double win.Today was the 1st time using it on my OM2n and it worked great, 35-70 is a very handy focal length spread and f3.5 throughout was also useful.It’s not the sharpest lens ever in fact its a little soft until you get to f8 but to be honest I really don’t mind as as a walk around lens its far more useful than being stuck with my 50mm. All in all for £10 I am well pleased and this lens will be permanently on my OM2n.

Thanks for looking………

Mamiya C3 testing ………

I recently picked up a Mamiya C3 and 65mm lens with the hope of using it for a bit of Street shooting as it has a 65mm lens which is approx 40mm ish in 35 mm terms.

I shot a trial roll of expired Ilford Delta 3200 in poor light it must be said to see what I got and after scanning the negs I got 12 frames all out of focus mainly back focussed.

I put it down to wide apertures/slow shutter-speed and not a very bright viewfinder.

Next I tried my last roll of Delta 3200 but this time on a tripod in better light and to my horror they were all back focussed just like the 1st roll.

After a bit of advice I checked the lens were mounted flush and also removed the focus screen and noticed that it had 2 quite thick card shims propping up the front of the screen. So I removed one of them and the screen seemed to sit a little more flush to the body.

All these images were shot using this configuration on Ilford Delta 400 and even though they were not all totally spot on they were far better than the 1st 2 rolls.

I may remove the other shim and replace with a slightly thinner one and see if it works.

I love using this camera it is a lovely piece of kit and hopefully I can get some good images eventually 🙂

The Streets of London with the Fuji X-Pro1 …………

We have just got back from a few days in London which was a present for my 50th from the better half.

It was a few days of excessive eating and drinking with a little bit of walking and photography, in fact we really blended in with the 1000’s of typical tourists.I shot all the time with my Fuji X-Pro and the XF 18mm f2 except for a few of the night shots where I used the XF 18-55 f2.8 and then processed them with SilverEfex as I felt the B&W contrasty feel gave the look I was after.I shot both day and night and the X-Pro performed great, I really love this camera the quality of the raw files is top notch even at iso 3200.Street photography is so easy in a place like London, nobody seems to mind you shooting not that has ever stopped me but I could spend hours just walking and shooting.

Next time I am going to shoot some film as well…It was an enjoyable few days and even though I shot less than 100 frames nearly all were keepers (I shot quite a few on my iPhone too).

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

Thanks for looking

1st ever roll of Fomapan 100 …….

My favorite film is ilford HP5, I also shoot Delta 400 and T-Max 400 but after reading quite a few posts on the internet and recommendations from some fellow Twitter photographers I bought 5 rolls of 35mm Fomapan 100.

I shot it at box speed and processed it in Ilfotec HC at 1+9 dilution and the results were very pleasing.

The images shot in bright sunshine where lovely and contrasty with plenty of detail in both Shadow and Highlights while the one’s shot in low natural light almost glowed while still holding detail.I am extremely pleased with this film and after reading more on the web I will be getting some Rodinol next as this seems to give even better results.

Please click on an image to view larger …….

Thanks for looking, comment most welcomed 🙂

Fuji X-E1 & 18-55mm on the streets of Aberystwyth ……

Last weekend we went to Aberystwyth to pick up Amy for the summer and in between all the carrying/cleaning and throwing out bin bags I managed a walk along the seafront to see where her next terms accommodation will be and took the X-E1 with the new zoom instead of the primes.

It’s very handy to be able to zoom slightly especially if I see a shot and have to get it quick, its not so good when attempting shooting from the hip as I got far more missed shots than I did when I tried it with the 18mm prime.

Click on an image to view larger ……….

View from the top……. testing Spur Ultraspeed Vario

Amy came home from Uni for a couple of weeks and she fancied a walk up the valley, so as I had just received some new sample film developer from Spur Photochemie http://spur-photo.com/ in Germany I loaded up the OM2n with some ilford FP4 and rated it at 400 iso to test how the developer performed.

The developer in question was Spur Ultraspeed Vario and is used when you want to push or pull your film and keep as much detail and contrast in your negatives possible.

It is a 2 bath dev and this is the 1st time that I have processed this way.

Both mixes were 1+11 when rating FP4 at 400 and was processed 5 minutes for the 1st bath and followed by 15 minutes for the 2nd.

Agitation was 30 sec constant inversions then stand for the remaining 4:30 and the 2nd bath was also 30 sec constant inversions then twice every minute thereafter.

The results were very impressive indeed, the shadow/highlight detail was excellent and the sharpness and contrast were great too.

I will try pulling some FP4 next just to get a comparison and will post the results.

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger…….

Fuji X-Pro 1 on the street …….

I treated myself to an early 50th birthday present last week …. a Fuji X-Pro 1 along with the xf 18mm f2 and 35mm f1.4.

This post is short and sweet and is just to show my 1st quick attempt at some close street shooting using the 18mm wide open at f2 just as a test.The lens is very sharp even at f2, obviously not the best aperture to be sure of getting the image but as it was an experiment I wasn’t to upset at the missed shots.

I had a few surprised looks as I took the images but I didn’t feel as conspicuous like I do that close with my Dslr.I am shooting Raw and Jpeg at the moment and I must say the Jpegs are really nice, great colour and sharpness and seem to have the added bonus of a little lens correction in camera over the Raw (not drastic but noticeable) which makes a difference with the 18mm.

I will post a lot more in the next blog, I have just tried the 35mm at f1.4 and its gorgeous 🙂

Thanks for looking …….

A bit of Street Shooting for a change ………

A short and sweet blog post today.

Popped into Bridgend on Sunday to get a few things and took the D600 for a change with the idea of shooting some street stuff.There was a few people milling around and I tried some shooting from the hip as well as straight shooting with varying success.

I shot all of these at f8 in Aperture priority with the focus set manually at approx 10-12 ft.I only shot about 30 frames in total and was very pleased that I managed to get this many keepers, not that they are pushing any boundaries in street photography but still they seemed to work, especially when converted to Black & White. Thanks for looking …….

please check out my other blog dedicated to my Film Photography at

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

and also my Flickr stream if you are interested 🙂

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timdobbsphotography/