@EMULSIVEfilm – tim dobbs photography

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…

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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 ..

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First time shooting Cinestill XX Double-X in 120 format … full roll

When Cinestill announced the release of XX Double-X I could not wait to get my hands on some to try.

I have shot Double-X film stock 5222 in 35mm that I picked up from Nik & Trick and really liked how it looked so when I realised that I could get to try it in 120 format I was pretty excited.

I bought some in both 35mm & 120 from the excellent Analogue Wonderland and waited for a suitable time an place to try it.

Last weekend we had a typical welsh August day with rain & wind and a pile of mist up on our wonderful Garw hills so I loaded up my Mamiya RB67/65mm lens and went out hoping to get some nice atmospheric misty images.

Sadly or happily depending on how you look at it by the time I got up the top of the valley the majority of the mist had dissipated but what that meant was I had more light to play with so rated the film at iso 200 and managed to stop down to f8/11 on most frames which once I had developed the roll really showed how sharp this film stock is.

After scanning and slight tweaks and dust spot removal in Lightroom the results were great .. lovely contrasty images with excellent detail and great tonal range ..

I developed it in ilford LC29 1+29 dilution for 8 mins and scanned on an Epson v500.

So here is the complete roll …

Comments most welcome .. 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

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

Another roll of Ektar in the Mamiya 645 ….

My first blog post this year was a roll of Kodak Ektar using my Mamiya 645 and I pointed out that I rarely shoot Ektar but here you go I have shot another roll using the same camera.

Ektar is a pretty sharp film stock especially when you shoot it in 120 format and with good light which really shows on this roll which I was really pleased with.

I developed it with the Tetenal C41 kit and scanned using my Epson v500 which gives pretty good scans with 120.

So here is the roll .. I have only posted 12 frames as I duplicated some of the tree at the end of the roll which were all more or less identical.

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

Fomapan 400 in 120 format is a revelation ….

I have shot Fomapan in both 100 and 400 iso in the past on 35mm and have tried different developers but have never been all that impressed with the results I have achieved.

I have seen lovely images shot using this film so I bought some Fomapan 100 and 400 in 120 format to give that a go.

I also bought some ilfotech LC29 developer at the same time so I loaded my Mamiya C330 with a roll of 400 and on a really cloudy overcast afternoon I went out and shot the roll at my local haunts where I have had nice results in this type of weather/lighting before.

Even though it was not the brightest of days I still managed to shoot most of the frames at between f5.6 and f11 hoping to test how sharp Fomapan 400 is.

After development the negatives looked pretty contrasty so I was excited to scan and see what I had.

The initial scans using my Epson v500 and Epson scan were promising and once in Lightroom/Photoshop the images blew me away … really nice contrast, not too punchy and sharpness in spades.

The C330 always gives me contrasty sharp images on most film stocks and didn’t fail here either.

Fomapan in 120 is like chalk and cheese compared to 35mm, I never got anything like this even from Fomapan 100 yet alone 400.

Suffice to say I immediately bought more Fomapan 400 and will be shooting it much more in future.

Here is the whole roll .. comments most welcome

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

Lomography Babylon 13 Kino film .. Overcast day and no tripod .. let’s go for it ….

Everytime there is a new film released onto the market I always try to get a roll or two to try.

So when Lomography announced the Babylon 13 and Fantome 8 kino films I immediately purchased some.

As they are 8 & 13 iso respectively and as I have a slight aversion to using tripods I have been waiting for the brighter weather to return here in Wales.

Last weekend the weather was looking pretty nice for a change so I dug out a camera that I have not used in ages .. my Ricoh X-RX and the Pentax 50mm f1.7 & 35mm f3.5 and proceeded out to my usual haunts here in the Garw valley.

By the time I was ready to leave it began clouding over but I had loaded the film so I went up the mountain anyway hoping that I would have enough light to be able to had hold at reasonable apertures.

As it turned out I only got to f5.6 once with most of the shots either wide open or f4 at best.

On my return I checked the massive dev app to see what I could develop it with and decided on ilfotecHC 1+31 dilution for 9 minutes.

The negatives looked fine out of the tank if slightly underexposed at first glance.

When dry and I cut them into strips for scanning it was apparent that this is a very curly film stock so I was imagining problems with my Epson v500 but apart from a few frames that I had to manually locate rather than the thumbnail scan method it went well.

Once into Lightroom the film was a revelation .. I was expecting soft, dark images due to not being able to stop down and hand holding at 1/30 sec but no .. the images had bags of detail and plenty of tone in both highlight and shadow areas.

The grain was pretty much non existent which is expected from such a low iso film but still it was nice to see.

Would I recommend this film stock? … definitely I would but with the caveat that you need good light or a tripod to get the best results even though I seemed to get lucky on this occasion I think as the Pentax 28mm f3.5 is a really sharp lens even wide open and the metering on the Ricoh did an excellent job too.

Well here is almost the whole roll as I bracketed a few frames so had multiples of certain images.

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

An Evening walk with some Lomo CN 400 & Fuji GW690III

Short and sweet blog post today featuring a recent evening walk with my “Texas Leica” .. my actual Leica M2 has had to go to camera hospital due to a shutter curtain problem but that’s another story.

The other week after work I spotted some pretty nice light here in the Garw valley so popped out to fire off a roll of my favorite colour negative film at the minute … Lomography CN400 in the wonderful GW690III.

I didn’t walk far and to my surprise shot all 8 frames in the space of 30 minutes.

Even though the Fuji is a bit of a beast it handles really well and it is so easy to treat it like an oversized point & shoot sometime.

Well here is the whole roll … nothing really special just the Garw valley in nice light 🙂

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

#FP4Party 2021 .. all my images together ….

This years #FP4Party which takes place over on Twitter has just ended and we are all waiting patiently to see who has been shortlisted and then who goes on to win.

To be honest for me and probably quite a few of the other participants it’s nothing to do with winning or even getting shortlisted ( it is nice to be liked though) but it’s a great excuse to pick one film stock and try to see what everyone comes up with over the week.

I used 2 cameras myself … My trust pair of a Nikon F100 and Yashicamat 124G and shot just one roll in each, it would have been more but that is all I had at the time.

I didn’t post every image I shot so this post feature every photo … good and bad

Quick note .. I developed both rolls in my new developer ilford LC29 which until now I had never used before.

Also the 35mm roll was rated at 200 which I tend to do as it gives me an extra bit of exposure leeway.

Please click on an image 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 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

Expired Portra 800 & a slightly faulty Yashicamat 124G …

I have been using my Yashicamat 124G quite a bit this year as it is such an easy medium format camera to use and gives great results but the last 3 rolls that I have shot I have noticed a bit of a problem.

After loading and winding on to frame one then making the first shot the camera will not wind on.

The only way I have since found to carry on shooting with the roll is to fire the shutter again.

When this happened with the first two rolls I ended up with a double exposure as I was unsure whether or not the camera had actually made an exposure … this roll features such an image.

Obviously after 2 rolls having this problem when it happened on the third occasion I placed my hand over the taking lens and fired the shutter which saved the first frame and allowed me to wind to the second frame.

The strange thing with this roll is not only was the first frame a double exposure it also overlapped as you can see in the second image, it has only done this once so I am at a loss to what is going on.

I have shot loads of rolls with this great camera over the years with no problems whatsoever so if anyone out there has any ideas please let me know please.

So here are a few of better images … it was a really overcast drab day (which is why I used Portra 800) which really did wonders with the greens.

Even though the film expired 8 years ago I still shot it at box speed and processed using the Tetenal C41 kit.

Click on an image 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

First roll shot in 2021 … Kodak Ektar in the Mamiya 645 …

I imagine that quite a few photographers have struggled during the pandemic to find motivation and opportunity to shoot.

So far this year I have managed 3 rolls which is pretty poor by my usual standard.

I was going through my film stash looking for something that may give me some motivation to get out and shoot.

I realised that I have quite a few rolls of Ektar and the day was quite bright so I loaded up my Mamiya and went out for a walk with my better half.

Even though it was a lovely day I struggled to really shoot anything that pleased me, there was one or two on the roll that were ok but overall this was a poor roll.

Somehow I only ended up with 13 frames, I did manage to accidentally fire off a frame while bending down but where the other one went is a mystery as I shot 15.

It must be old age as I missed focus on 3 frames and had a little camera shake both of which are unusual with the Mamiya, I can easily hand hold at 1/30th usually.

I developed the roll using the Tetenal C41 kit and scanned with the Epson v500

Well here is my 1st roll of 2021 in all its glory …