Film Photography – Page 19 – tim dobbs photography

Mountain walk with FP4 instead of my beloved HP5………

I bought 20 rolls of Ilford FP4 the other week with the intention of shooting some still life and portraits but popped a roll into my Nikon F4 and went out to shoot some landscapes first.

I developed the roll using Ilfotec HC hoping to get a bit of punchy contrast in the images and I was not disappointed.FP4 does not give me the feel that I like in my images but it is still very nice, the still life stuff I shot on the walk were very nice, plenty of detail and great highlight and shadow tones.Since trying shooting some still life with HP5 I am a little torn between the 2 films for that subject. I love the contrast and grain of HP5 but the smooth tones and detail of FP4 are great.

I am going to try pushing the film next time just to see what I get grain and contrast wise and will post the results.

Landscapes do look good though I must admit and I am well happy that I have another 19 rolls in the fridge waiting to be shot 🙂 Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger………..

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/

Canon 50mm f1.4 and Ilford XP2……..

I had 2 deliveries on Friday.

A Canon 50mm f1.4 FD from West Yorkshire Cameras which was such a bargain compared to the equivalent Nikon offering as I can use it on both my Film Canon SLR’s and also my Olympus EPL-1.

And another package was from Ilford customer services with a load of different Ilford films free of charge as they will be using 2 of my film images on their website in the near future to showcase HP5+.

Firstly I must say how over the moon I am with the lens, its twice the weight and build of my 50mm f1.8 which I was pleased with but the f1.4 is so damn sharp it hurts especially on the Olympus.

The DOF and Bokeh is lovely and on my Canon T90 the viewfinder is extremely bright and easy to focus.

I am so glad I bought this, I wasn’t sure if it would be this much better than the f1.8 version as it actually is.

I have never shot Ilford XP2 before so I wasn’t sure what to expect, sadly my C-41 chemistry is shot so the results were a bit mixed but I managed to get a few shots I was pleased with.

The negatives are very easy to scan and have a very smooth tone that suits the type of images I was shooting with shallow DOF but is also nice and contrasty when stopped down a bit.I also had some SFX200 and PanF 50 which I have not shot before either so I am looking forward to see what comes out.

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger…………..

Cross processing Fuji Provia 100f…….

I decided this weekend to try my hand at cross processing some 120 slide film, I have both Velvia and Provia in the fridge and decided to try Provia first.

I have never shot slide film before let alone cross processed it so after a bit of reading up on the good old internet I set forth to give it a go.

This was the first roll through the Mamiya with the new AE Prism finder so as I didn’t know if the meter readings were actually correct I also metered by hand just to make sure the exposures were spot on.

Once the developing was complete I opened the Developing drum to be greeted with an extremely purple looking negative.

As I have not done this before I was very eager for the film to dry so I could scan them and see what I managed to get.

Once scanned I was surprised to see the subtle muted colours, from what I have seen on the web I was expecting high contrast and distinct colour shifts but instead got very smooth sharp images that suited the subject matter I shot.

Maybe if I was shooting on a bright sunny day then the effect may have been a little different but all in all I was very pleased with the results.

I will try the Velvia next just to compare them both.

Thanks for looking……………..

click on an image to view larger

Zorki 4k with Cheap Agfa 200 film……..

I saw that my local pound shop were selling new rolls of Agfa 200 iso film at £1 a roll (obviously) and picked up a load just to use when testing any old camera I pick up.

I loaded up the Zorki 4k and went out looking for anything slightly colourful on a really drab day here in the South Wales Valleys.

After developing the film and scanning it in I was pleasantly surprised at how well the Agfa film performed, there was a slight magenta look to the images but apart from that I was pretty pleased with the overall look.

I am getting used to using the Zorki’s viewfinder and managed to not cut off anything and also getting the focus spot on even at f2.8.

I think another visit to the pound shop is in order and stock up on a few more rolls is in order this weekend 🙂

Thanks for looking………….

Pocket size Rangefinder……..

I bought this camera off eBay ages ago and was not sure if it was working properly as the battery test light didn’t work but as the shutter fired I assumed it was ok.

So a few weeks ago I loaded up a roll of Ilford HP5+ and rated it at 800 iso and popped out for a short walk to eventually test the little camera.

Its is essentially a point and shoot like the Trip 35 but with rangefinder focussing which was nice and bright and very easy to use, in fact after seeing the results I am looking forward to giving this camera a run out doing a bit of street shooting.

Here is a selection of the images, the exposures were very good and so was the focussing. The sharpness of the Zuiko 38mm f2.8 lens was also very impressive.

Thanks for looking…..

More film loveliness over on my other blog at

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

A Schoolboy Error……..

I went out this morning with my Bronica SQ-Ai loaded with a roll of Fuji Velvia and proceeded to trek up to the site of the old Ocean Colliery here in Blaengarw, South Wales.

The light was great and so was the landscape and cloud formations and I set to work shooting my 12 frames of 6×6…. or so I thought.

While out I also brought my little Fuji x10 and after each shot I also took a few frames digitally just as some sort of reference to go with my notes as I have never shot 120 slide film before.

Lucky I did as when I got home I realised that the multi exposure lever was on and the 11 frames taken was really just 1…….. Gutted!!

Its a good job that film photography is just my personal pastime and not professional …

At least the results from the little Fuji were great, below is both the colour and B&W version of my audience this morning.

I am so glad I take the Fuji everywhere as this morning would have been a total waste but at least I will check my frame counter next time just in case the damn lever is down again.

Thanks for looking….

I also have another blog just featuring my film photography if anyone is interested

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

Kodak T-Max 3200 @1600………

I was given a couple of rolls of Kodak T-max 3200 a while back and after reading up on the internet that the true iso is closer to 1000-1200 iso I thought I would shoot a roll at 1600 to hopefully minimise the grain.

Yesterday was a pretty bright day so shooting outside at 1600 iso required some pretty high shutter speeds especially when I tried to open the Aperture a bit for some shallow DOF shots but my Nikon FM2n can shoot up to 4000 sec.

I developed the film in my new ilfotec HC developer and was well happy with the results.

I have shot ilford Delta 3200 at the rated speed and found the grain and contrast to be a little to strong for my taste (and I love contrasty images) so the results here were very pleasing.

Plenty of shadow detail and the highlights seemed pretty good to.

I will try my ilford 3200 at 1600 next time and compare the results I suspect that they will be very similar and as Kodak have stopped T-Max 3200 ilford is the way to go.

Thanks for looking ……. ps

I have started another blog just featuring my film images if anyone is interested it can be found at

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

A new lease of life………..

Since buying my Fuji X10 as my walk about digital camera I was going to sell my Olympus EPL-1 as I didn’t think I would use it anymore but after reading on the internet that you can get micro 4/3 lens adapters that allow you to use all manner of older lenses depending on which adapter you purchase.

As I have got back into film photography and even though I shoot Nikon primarily and have quite a big collection of lenses I also have a few Canon FD mount lenses and decided to buy a Canon adaptor just to try it out for myself.

The adaptor just cost £10 on eBay and I didn’t really expect much from it when it arrived.

After fitting the mount to the camera I attached my 28mm f2.8 which equated to approximately 56mm in 35mm format and played about for a while.

The lens metered automatically but obviously it was manual focus which on the EPL-1 was very easy to use as you can press the magnify button and get a live view close up of your subject for accurate focussing.

Shooting at f2.8 was a utter joy and the close focus was great with the 28mm, stopped down to f4.0 and over and it was sharp as a tack over all the frame.This has given my Olympus a new lease of life and I will not be selling it in the near future.

I would recommend anyone using a micro 4/3 camera to have a look at one of these adapters especially a Canon FD mount as these prime lenses are going for a song and are very good quality.

Thanks for looking…………..

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 🙂