E6 – Page 2 – tim dobbs photography

Autumn colours with Kodak Ektachrome E100VS … part 1

For a change usually when I get a nice long weekend off be it summer or winter I always seem to pick the days with rubbish weather but luckily for me last weekend I got a good one.

As I still have my Tetenal E6 kit mixed from the end of the summer I decided to shoot some slide film before the chemistry went off.

As I had not shot Ektachrome for ages and with Kodak hopefully bringing back the emulsion shortly I decided to shoot 2 rolls over 2 days in both 120 and 35mm ( which will be in part 2).I went out mid Sunday morning with the Yashicamat 124G hoping to catch some nice light on the autumn leaves/trees.The light did not disappoint and maybe for the 1st time ever I managed to get 12 keepers from a roll of 120.

I set the meter at 80 iso and tried to meter for the shadows hoping not to blow the highlights too much. When shooting in bright sunlight the colours really pop really enhancing the autumn colours I can’t wait to get my hands on the “New” Ektachrome when it eventually appears.

Anyway thanks for looking ….

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All images 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 🙂

Summer Velvia 50 colours ….

Last week I did my good deed of the month by giving away a camera to a twitter photographer friend who was happy to pay the postage but also gave me a lovely surprise by also sending me a little Lomo camera along with a selection of films one of which was some Fuji Velvia RVP50 which I have not had a great deal of experience with. I have shot plenty of Fuji Velvia RVP100 in both 35mm and 120 with lovely results but the RVP50 was quite a new experience.

I loaded up the Nikon F100 as I find the metering to be the most accurate and rated the film at 25 iso as it had expired back in 2006 and processed it using the Tetenal E6 kit. When opening the developing drum the colours were popping even before holding up to the light and once I got the scans into Lightroom I began to understand why photographers rave about this iconic film stock. The day that I shot the film was bright and sunny which obviously aided the look of the images with the Reds and greens almost aglow.

Obviously I will have to add a few rolls of this to my film fridge very soon and I will look forward to loading it up the next time we get any sun here in the South Wales Valleys.

Thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

All images 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 🙂

E6 Processing …. Well how hard can it be?

As you may know if you follow any of my posts here I develop and scan all my own C41 and B&W film but until now I have either cross-processed my slide film or sent it out to a lab.

The problem with E6 is its not cheap to get processed and scanned and it seems to take at least twice as long to come back so I decided to do it myself.

So I purchased the Tetenal Colortec E6 kit and proceeded to scour the internet for hints and tips on the best way to go about the processing.

When I develop my C41 I use the 30 deg method as I find it easier to maintain that temperature rather than the 38 deg method and also (may be due to the temp fluctuations) seem to get far more uniform results.

It is a 8 step process including the pre soak/wash and except for the final Stabilizer bath the temperatures were all at 38 deg which started to get me a bit worried.

After watching some youtube videos I purchased 2 medium size plastic storage tubs in which I could put all of my bottles including my filtered water as there are 3 washes in between all of the chemical baths ( we have very hard water here so tap water washing is not an option).

I usually do my normal processing in a bowl as all of my bottles fit and the temp is not so high but by having 2 tubs and the bowl I managed to keep the temp pretty stable with plenty of kettle boils to top up.

All in all it was quite stressful for my 1st attempt, worrying about the temp and the constant 15 second agitation along with swapping thermometers about (I have 3 but could have done with more) but the thrill of seeing the film emerge from the drum was brilliant.

It was such a buzz seeing full colour images as opposed to negatives that the stress it caused was worth the effort.

This was a roll of expired Fuji Sensia 100 35mm and I have since processed my 1st roll of 120mm Kodak Ektachrome E200 which was not such a success as this roll due to me trying to push it to 400 iso but a few of the frames were so under exposed I could not get anything out of them … that is another blog maybe.

Thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Mamiya 645 & some Fujichrome Velvia 100F …………

Slide film has been a bit of a hit or miss for me over the years, back in the pre digital days I tried and mostly failed with most of my attempts at shooting slides.

Most probably as the subject matter I seemed to shoot was not really suited to the medium and I never really found the appeal that others did.

Since getting into medium format I decided to give slide film another bash so bought a few packs of both Fujichrome Velvia 100f and Provia 100f.

I shot some Velvia a while back and cross processed it with some interesting results which can be seen on my other blog http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/cross-processed-velvia-100/

But this time I had it processed E6 at AG photolab http://www.ag-photolab.co.uk/

I was quite pleased with the resultant scans even though my exposure was a bit over on most of the frames, I’m not sure if it was the Mamiya meter as it has been fine on negative film but I know that slide film is not very forgiving.

Nevertheless I am going to try another roll when the weather is right and this time meter with my Sekonic meter just to see.

Thanks for looking…. feel free to comment

Click on an image to view larger ……..