Expired Film – tim dobbs photography

Shoot Saturday, Post off Monday … see scans Tuesday …. Gotta love @Filmdev

It was a lovely sunny day forecast last Saturday so I was up early and out with my Olympus OM2s loaded with a roll of expired Fuji Superia 100.

The last roll of C41 that I developed showed signs of going bad so instead of processing it myself as per usual I decided to send it off to Filmdev whom I have used on plenty of occasions before developing myself.

I have always been impressed with the service and quality I received from filmdev but this time I was over the moon because as the title of this blog post says … I shot on the weekend, popped into the post on Monday morning and when I got home from work on Tuesday afternoon I had a Paypal invoice followed by my link to download my scans.

I went for the large scans from the Noritsu HS-1800 scanner and they blew me away with the colour rendition and sharpness from the Superia.

All the images here are the scans that I received … just resized for web.

All I can say is Filmdev “Rocks” … If anyone reading this post have never tried them before then give them a go.

The prices are extremely good and along with the quality of the processing and scanning they are a must.

I have another 10 rolls of this batch of Superia 100 that I picked up from ebay so I am very happy that it works as good as the fresh rolls that I have in my fridge.

Anyway thanks for looking ….

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 🙂

#Camerachallenge …. my keepers from the roll …

I recently took part in a twitter cheap camera/film challenge arranged by twitter friend Jason Avery whereby you have to purchase a camera for £2 or your local currency equivalent and load it with the cheapest film that you can find and post the results during the given week.

I was late to the challenge as I managed to pick up a camera for £2.99 but was hanging on just to see if I could find one cheaper which sadly I didn’t so I went with this combo.

The roll of Superia 100 was given to me so you could not get cheaper than that.

I managed to finish the roll during the week but by the time I developed it I only posted a couple as it was a bit late so here are the keepers from that roll.

The camera performed pretty well, it was totally automatic but you could either force or turn off the auto flash if to want but that was it for manual controls but it did have a button that let you focus at infinity (I think it focused from 13 meters to infinity) which I used for a couple of frames.

Well here are the images …

Anyway thanks for looking ….

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 🙂

Snow day …… part two

Following on …

As I said in the previous blog post we managed to get another downpour of snow in the space of 3 weeks so this time I decided on some colour film namely Kodak Portra 400VC expired using my Nikon F100 and both the 50mm f1.4 and my old Nikkor 35-70 which isn’t the sharpest but its versatile.

Anyway here are the images ….

I have shot a couple of rolls of this film previously and it was great but I don’t know if it was the cold weather along with slightly exhausted c41 chemistry but half of the frames seemed to have a colour cast which I didn’t bother correcting as I liked the look 🙂

Anyway thanks for looking ….

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 love shooting expired film ……

Last week I managed to source some of my favorite colour negative film Fuji Reala from ebay and along side of the Reala the vendor also had some Kodak Vericolor II which I also bought to give it a try.

I have previously shot a roll of Vericolor III that I had been given and really liked the muted tone that I gave so I was hoping that this gave similar results.

I decided to take the Mamiya C330 for a run out as I had been neglecting it over the Yashica Mat 124G recently, I used both the 80mm f2.8 and 65mm f3.5.

Here are the images, only 9 as the other 3 were bracketed shots …. It was an overcast day with glimpses of sunshine now and again.

I rated the roll at 80 iso with my Sekonic meter which was pretty much spot on.

If I shoot the next roll in brighter conditions I could probably rate the film at 100 or even box speed as it didn’t seem to have lost a lot of sensitivity even though the 2 boxes had expired back in 1994 🙂

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 🙂

Expired Film Day …….

Last week, well March 15th to be precise was Expired film day where photographers were encouraged to shoot a roll of expired film, the older the better and post up and possibly win some prizes.

http://schneidan.com/expired-film-day/

My chosen film was a roll of Fuji NPS160 that expired back in 1999 and I shot it with my trusty Mamiya 645 and 80mm f2.8.

I rushed home from work hoping to catch the last rays of sun down Porthcawl Beach which we managed to do.I wasn’t sure how the colours were going to look like as NPS is more a portrait film with muted colours. With it being expired I shot it at iso 50 and told Film Dev that I pushed the film and if the could hopefully get something in the scanning for me.When I downloaded the scans I was very happy with the results, the colours were just what I was after and captured the mood of the early evening at the beach.I still have another 5 rolls of this film in my fridge and can’t wait to shoot some more weather allowing 🙂

Thanks for looking.

Click on an image to view larger…..

You can also find my film only stuff over at https://usingfilm.wordpress.com/ if you want to see more film loveliness …..

Bargain lens find … Tokina 28-70mm macro …..

I love charity shops, where ever we go if there is a charity shop then I have to browse.

I have picked up some pretty good bargains and this lens joined the list of keepers.It came boxed with Hoya filter fitted and original paperwork and was almost mint for the princely sum of £5.99.

I loaded the Pentax Program A with some expired ilford HP5 and as the weather was pretty poor I decided to push it to iso 800. As it didn’t have a date on the film and the prior storage was also not known I wasn’t really expecting the best results but thats the joy of shooting film I guess 🙂 After developing the roll I could see that quite a few frames seemed a little under exposed and in hindsight I should have given the film at least an extra 2 stops rather than the 1 stop of compensation that I did give to allow for the loss of sensitivity over the years. I was glad that I didn’t have to print this roll in my darkroom, it was quite easy to pull a lot of info from the negs with my scanner and I was pretty pleased with what I got.I don’t think that this was a good test for how sharp the Tokina is as the film didn’t lend itself to that type of test, I need to shoot some ektar or slides to test that but it was really nice to use and the handling was great.

This is a real old school type lens all metal and quite a bit of glass, it did seem a bit front heavy on the Program A but after a couple of frames it felt fine. All in all I am well pleased with this lens, usually I have the 50mm f1.7 on the Pentax all the time so the versatility of the 28-70mm range is very handy even though its not the fastest the viewfinder was pretty bright so really nice to focus with. The macro facility is handy, you can fill the frame at about 6 inches away which makes this lens very useful and I will have to shoot some fresh film to see how sharp it is.Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger……

Any comments & shares are gratefully appreciated 🙂

please visit my “Film” only blog over at https://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

if you like more film loveliness

Shooting some Ilford HP5+ that expired back in 1995…….

A few weeks ago my very, very kind cousin gave me a huge bundle of film all of which had expired over various dates.

One of the oldest was a roll of HP5+ that expired back in 1995, as none of the film had been either fridge/freezer stored for quite a while I was expecting pretty hit or miss results but I love the unexpected.I loaded up my Mamiya 645 and popped out to see what I would get.

I exposed as if it was 200 iso and processed accordingly using ilfotec HC 1+47 dilution for 8 minutes and the negatives came out fine at 1st sight.But on close inspection the sharpness and contrast were just fine but the grain in the lighter areas was pretty soft and mushy, not that I minded it was fine and towards the end of the roll the circles of the paper backing were evident in 2 of the frames.As you can see in this crop…Nevertheless I was really impressed with the film, I love grain and contrast and this roll had not really lost either, I could have most probably developed a little longer and got it even more contrasty.I love HP5, its my goto film most of the time and even if it expired 20 years ago its still great in my book…… thank goodness that Ilford are still flying the flag for film.Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger…….

You can also find more film goodness over at my “Film Only” blog at:

https://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

Another roll of colour film for a change ……..

The weather here has been terrible over the last few weeks and getting out with the camera has been difficult.

I loaded my Nikon FM2n with some expired Kodak Colorplus 200 over 3 weeks ago and only managed to finish it yesterday.

The colours that this film produced were very pleasing when scanned and complimented the subject matter, nicely subdued.

I must say that the FM2n is by far my favorite camera to use especially with the 50mm 1.8 its a quality piece of kit.

I am looking to get a Nikkor 35mm f2.8 Ai which in combination with the FM2n would be my everyday film camera. Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger…….

Olympus mju-11 & outdated Agfa Film………

Popped into Bridgend last week and noticed some old film cameras in the Heart Foundation Charity Shop most were APS format but there was an Olympus mju11 35mm amongst them, sadly not the one with the fixed prime 2.8 but with the zoom but for £5 I was not going to moan.

Eager to try it out it was loaded with some Agfa Vista 400 that expired in 2009 and out I went for a walk.

It was a very easy camera to use once I figured out how to stop the flash going off every shot and after processing the film, the results were pretty pleasing.

I will be throwing this camera in my bag and trying some street photography with it as it’s very small and compact and the autofocus performed great as long as I use fast film or shoot in the sun its a great addition to my ever growing camera collection.