Camera – Page 2 – tim dobbs photography

Trying Kodak Gold in 120 format … the whole roll

When I heard that Kodak were producing Gold in 120 format I was pretty excited .. not because it was Gold as I haven’t really shot too much of it in the past and to be totally honest I had to look on the internet for samples just to see what it was really like .. I was excited because I shoot film 95% of the time I was happy that there was another film stock on the market.

I pre ordered a 5 pack from the brilliant https://analoguewonderland.co.uk/ and eagerly waited for it to arrive which wasn’t all that long to be fair.

As it was a 200 iso film I didn’t want to rush out and just shoot the film I wanted to try it in nice light so it was a fortnight before I eventually shot it.

I used my trusty Yashicamat 124G and went out on a nice long walk in the sun.

I had the roll dev/scanned by https://filmdev.co.uk/ and was very happy with the results.

The film was lovely and sharp and considering how bright it was on the day the latitude was great with no blown highlights and plenty of detail in the shadows and very little grain.

Like many of the examples online that I have seen the film gives a nice warm look which obviously helps if you shoot it in the sunshine.

My usual colour negative film is Lomo CN400 which I love but Gold 200 really impressed me, the only thing that I would like is is the extra stop that CN 400 gives but for my next roll I will push it to 400 just to see how it performs.

I would thoroughly recommend this film and the best thing is the price compared to others on the market … it’s great value

Anyway here is the whole roll …. comments welcomed

Please click a photo to view larger

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

I don’t take portraits … my latest zine

A slightly misleading title but it is something that I did believe until I was going through my archive of images a couple of months back looking for an older image to print for someone.

More often or not I seem to take at least one image per roll of film especially on 35mm either deliberately or as a test for the film if I have not used that film/camera/lens combination before or as a last shot off the roll.

Anyway they all seem to build up when you go back through the numerous folders/years in my Lightroom catalog.

I have taken peoples portraits when asked or if I am doing some sort of project but it is not something I have ever steered my photography towards, I did shoot a few weddings a couple of years back and didn’t really enjoy the overall experience .. shooting was the easy bit ha ha!

So I decided to pull together all of my film portraits and attempt a zine which is different to every other zine I have produced so far.

Whittling the images down to what would be a nice little zine was hard and it eventually ended up 52 pages and could have easily doubled that.

It is A5 size saddle stitched, Soft touch laminated cover, 52 pages B&W/Colour on 150gm matt stock printed by Mixam Print.

As per usual the twitter film community responded to it well and most of the 30 copies sold pretty quickly which was nice as when I do a zine I use the monies from the sales to go for my next zine that way I seem to be able to produce more zines almost free of charge after my 1st zine.

I still have a few copies left and if anyone is interested you can DM me on Twitter .. @timdobbsphoto or email timd.photography@gmail.com or I have an etsy shop too … https://etsy.me/3vd9H4p .. for the last few copies I will be including a free 2nd zine featuring a friend who makes Lovespoons which is also in my etsy shop if you want to take a look.

Anyway here is a sample selection of the portraits featured in the zine ….

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

1st roll of 2022 .. ilford Delta 400

This year I really want to push myself and get back to shooting more so even though the weather was pretty poor I forced myself to go out and get the first roll in the bag.

I have not shot any ilford Delta for ages and as luck would have it my @emulsivesanta gifted me a roll of Delta 400 which I loaded into my Yashicamat 124g and went out.

I debated whether to push it to 800 but decided against as I wanted to see just how sharp Delta 400 was when shot at less than f8 .. nearly all the frames were either f3.5 or f4 .. I did manage f5.6 on the Graffiti container image.

To be honest my walk only took about 45 minutes and luckily the rain held off.

I developed the roll in ilford DD-x 1+4 dilution for 8 minutes and scanned with my Epson v600.

I was very happy with just how sharp the images were and that I managed to pretty much nail the focus on the wide open frames, Delta 400 is very sharp and with very little grain compared to my beloved HP5 ( I do like grain mind ).

Maybe it’s the way I like to scan ( I scan pretty flat and boost contrast in Lightroom ) but the images seemed less contrasty than HP5 even with my usual boost but it didn’t matter as the look suited the compositions.

Overall I would say that Delta 400 is a great film I should really get some more especially in 120 format as it costs only 50 pence more per roll compared to HP5 in Analogue Wonderland’s store.

I bet if I shot this at f8+ on a bright day in my Fuji GW690iii the scans would be scarily sharp.

So here is the whole roll .. nothing really exciting (I did like the sheep shot thought)

Comments most welcome .. click 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

Last post of 2021 …… Shooting my favorite B&W film stock ilford HP5@800

This year I have only shot 54 rolls of film, probably my lowest quantity since getting back into film photography years ago.

I don’t have a definitive reason for this maybe just how things are in the world at the moment has obviously curtailed my photo opportunities.

At least half of the rolls remained in the cameras for at least a week whereas I nearly always managed to shoot and develop usually the same day unless I intended to send certain rolls to a lab.

So my early New Years resolution is to shoot much more.

Anyway the weather here in Wales for the last 2 weeks has been bloody awful with the only opportunity to shoot would be indoors or out in the God awful rain.

I don’t really mind shooting in the rain when it is accompanied with some mist as I can get out up here and get some atmospheric images.

I have quite a few cameras as you may have noticed if you follow this blog so when I decided to brave the elements last week I dug out my trusty Olympus OM1 with the 50mm f1.4 and loaded it with some ilford HP5 that I rated at 800 with the hope that I could get some frames above f4.

To be honest there was only a few times I got to f5.6/8 most of the images were f4 and below but all the same I was very happy with what I got.

Shooting the OM1 is great it’s such a brilliant camera with the benefit of not needing batteries other than for the light meter I think any film photography should have one in their collection.

I processed the roll in ilfotech LC29 1+19 dilution for 9.30 mins and scanned with my Epson v600

As I have mentioned before I prefer the look of HP5 when pushed to 800/1600 or even 3200 than actual box speed, the increased contrast and grain gives me the sort of look I imagine when taking the shot and works great in the conditions I had here.

Also I managed to stitch together a 7 frame pano which is the featured image at the top.

So here is what I got .. I have shot very similar compositions and scenes before on this blog on various other film stocks so take a look back through my archive if you want to compare.

Click on an image to view larger in a lightbox…..

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

Mamiya C330 and Fuji Neopan Acros …

The Mamiya C330 is a camera that I always seem to get great results with no matter what film or subject matter but it seems that this year this is only the 2nd time that I have shot with it.

I was going through my camera bags trying to sort out what cameras were stored where and I came across the trusty C330and decided to take it out for a change as I have been neglecting it.

I have a few rolls of Acros that I was kindly given that had expired back in 2019 so I wanted to see how they performed.

I have a couple of lenses for the C330 55/65/80/180 and 250 .. I mainly use the 55mm when I am out shooting landscapes but I decided on the 80mm f2.8 as it was very overcast and shooting 100 iso film meant I was probably going to be shooting shallow DOF stuff pretty much wide open.

After my little walk I developed the roll in ilford LC29 1+19 dilution for 5 minutes and scanned with my new Epson V600.

Considering I shot most of the frames at f2.8 the images were lovely and sharp with good contrast .. I have shot very little Acros in the past but I can see why everybody likes it.

Very smooth grain and punchy sharp images I will have to get hold of some of the new Acros to compare.

So here are the images .. 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

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

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

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