candid – Page 2 – tim dobbs photography

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/

Garw Carnival 2013 & Kodak Portra 400………..

I love my Nikon F4s but as I seem to have collected 50+ cameras over the last 12 months I don’t get to shoot with it very often.

This weekend I decided to load it up with some film and attempt to shoot with it but when I opened the back I realised I had a rewound roll of Kodak Portra 400 sitting in it.

As I have not developed any colour film for a while I was not sure if my C-41 chemistry was shot or not but I thought I would give it a try. (I didn’t even know what was on the film)

To my surprise when the film came out of the tank it was from last years Garw Carnival back in September if I remember correctly and the negs seemed to look ok albeit with a slight yellow cast but after scanning I liked the look so didn’t colour correct them.

Moral of this little story is make sure you remove completed film rolls from your camera and also make a note of what you actually shot on it 🙂

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view Larger…….

Any comments greatly appreciated 🙂

Testing the Sigma 35mm f1.4 DG…………..

Last week I rented a lens from Lensfettish.com as I had a 30% discount code so I decided on the Sigma 35mm f1.4DG as I had read reviews about it and wanted to see if it was as good as I had heard.

On opening the box I was surprised at the size and weight of the lens compared with my DX Nikon 35mm 1.8 and my Sigma 30mm 1.4, it was a bit of a beast.

The first shot I took in the kitchen (above) was wide open at f1.4 and I was blown away even looking at the camera screen. The lens was razor sharp 🙂

I proceeded to shoot loads of random stuff around the house before popping out for a quick walk.

The sharpness and contrast of this lens was astounding even wide open the point of focus was so sharp and at f8 the detail was stunning.

The following day we popped to Cardiff and I did a little street shooting mainly between f2.8 and f4 and again the lens performed great.

On the Sunday (my last day before returning the lens) we went along to the Bridgend Show where I gave it one last run out and again the resultant images were so pleasing.

I must admit that if I had a spare £699 in my pocket I would buy this lens in a shot, the 35mm focal length was very nice as a walk around lens just a bit more versatile than my Nikon 50mm f1.4 afs which is my usual goto lens.

I also tried it on my Nikon F80 and shot a couple of frames but am yet to finish the roll to see how it performed ( I bet is good 🙂 )

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/

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 🙂

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.

The Bridgend Show…………

Awful weather for this years Bridgend Show, wellies were the order of the day.

This year I decided to just take my film camera a Nikon FM2n with a Nikkor 35mm and try and capture some reportage style shots using ilford HP5.

We went quite early on the Saturday and there was not a great deal going on but I hope I managed to capture a few nice shots.

Father’s Day and a trip to Porthcawl………….

We popped down my Mum and Dad’s on Father’s day and I was determined to get some candid portrait shots of Dad as he never likes his photograph taken and as a challenge I was using film.

As usual he was a hard subject to pin down but I did manage to get a few nice frames with pretty good expressions.

When we left we popped down the coast to Porthcawl for a nice stroll by the seaside where I shot another roll of Tri-x 400. It is getting easier to shoot manual now after 15+ rolls and it is such a nice feeling to take my time and choose the shot rather than shoot everything and look through later for the best ones.

Ok, not every shot I take on film is perfect but even the one’s that are not quite what I envisaged at the time are still keepers.

Thanks for looking….comments very welcome

Keep film alive

click on image for a larger view………….