Filmsnotdead – tim dobbs photography

Rollei Retro 400s … almost the whole roll

Over the last few months I have shot a few rolls of Rollei’s RPX range which I really liked the look of.

So a few weeks back I was trying to decide what film to shoot that day and came across a roll of Retro 400S which I have shot once before and was not really that happy with how the roll came out developed in Rodinal.

I checked the Massive dev chart app and saw that I could also develop it in ilfotecHC so I thought I would give it a go and compare it to the RPX 400 and the previous roll.

I have been trying to post complete rolls of film recently and this was my plan for this one but whilst out on my walk my Pentax Super A sort of developed a problem.

Nearly every time that I half pressed the shutter to activate the meter nothing happened so I was trying to press the shutter button at different angles with my finger until it worked.

The problem was that on a few occasions I fired the damn shutter giving either totally blurred/black or over exposed frames so this roll only had 31 keeper which you can see here.

I have since used the Super A again and have found that I need to rest my finger towards the front of the shutter button for a second or two and the meter activates every time now.

By using ilfotecHC rather than Rodinal the images were far more like what I have seen on the interwebs … Great Blacks, contrasty and sharp with highlights that didn’t blow out and a really nice grain.

My 1st roll seemed muddy and excessively grainy so if I buy anymore of this stock it will be getting souped in ilfotecHC for sure.

So here are the images … comments most welcome

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 🙂

1st time shooting Lomochrome Metropolis 35mm … the whole roll

I love trying new films whether they are new emulsions or just a film that I have never shot before.

Lomochrome Metropolis is an actual new emulsion developed by Lomography that according to the write up on their site can be exposed between 100 and 400 iso without any change in development.

Link … Lomo Metropolis

As it was £13 per roll and I only bought one to try I decided on the middle ground and went with 200 iso.

As some of the shots involved the sky I did use some exposure compensation .. the camera of choice was the Minolta X700 with the 50mm F1.7.

The roll was developed and scanned by FilmDev just to get accurate colours so that I can judge if I like the desaturated look that I have seen.

I shot the roll over a week so the beginning of the roll was a bit of street and the rest was a mountain walk here in the South Wales valleys.

At first sight I loved how this film looks, yes it did have a desaturated look which worked well on the street images but when you went out into the countryside it still had that look but the greens seemed to pop probably because the rest of the colours were subtle.

The film was pretty sharp and contrasty, the grain was there to be seen but at 200 iso it was very pleasant maybe at 400 it would be a bit more pronounced.

I am a bit gutted that this film is so expensive as I would be shooting it quite a bit if it were £10 or less a roll that being said I will be buying more but using it now and again depending on what I am shooting.

Well here is the complete roll … click to see an image larger

Comments most welcome

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 🙂

Shooting expired Kodak EliteChrome 400 ….

Quite a while ago I was gifted a bag full of expired slide film from a photographer friend.

The bag contained plenty of film stocks that I had never shot before mainly Kodak Elitechrome 100/400 and Ektachrome 160 Tungsten.

I have shot the 100 iso previously and it was fine even though it all had a dubious history of storage.

I was expecting the 400 iso to be slightly more more grainy and I was unsure what iso to shoot it at, I only went 1 stop with the 100 and shot that at 50.

I decided to do the same with the 400 and shot it at 200 iso using my Nikon F100 and 50mm f1.4.

The problem was that when I developed it using the Tetenal E6 kit and then scanned it was that the whole roll was slightly underexposed but also blew out some of the highlights so I was glad that I didn’t push it any more as I managed to get some pretty decent images when processing in Lightroom.

Compared to the previous 100 iso this roll faired a little worse showing much more grain and not as sharp overall but I was happy with the slightly muted colours.

Here is a selection of images from the roll .. click 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 🙂

Shot my 1st roll of Kodak Ektar in ages … Here is the whole roll

For the first time in a while we had a lovely sunny Saturday the other week so I wanted to shoot colour on one of my mountain hikes.

I considered shooting some slide as I have quite a few rolls of expired film in my fridge as well as a couple of rolls of new Kodak Ektachrome but as I was going through my film stash I came across a roll of Ektar that expired back in 2015.

I am pretty sure that I bought it new and it has been lost in my fridge since then.

I don’t really shoot Ektar that often, in fact I probably have only shot 5 or 6 rolls in the past so I decided to use that for a change.

I do like how Ektar looks when I have used it and also there are loads of gorgeous images on the internet so instead of developing it myself I sent it to the awesome filmdev to get the scans right rather than me having to mess around trying to get the “Ektar Look”.

I shot the roll with my Nikon FE2 and the Nikkor 50mm f1.8 pancake lens that looks and works great with the FE2.

So here is the whole roll including the 1st test shot while loading the film (not very good but as it’s the whole roll I left it in) also the last 2 frames were shot indoors just to finish the roll.

I tried to look for subjects that would lend themselves to the Ektar look namely punchy Reds & Greens.

At the time of writing this blog Analogue Wonderland are running a competition to shoot Ektar along with a super discount on purchasing 120 and 35mm Ektar if anyone wants to take a look (I am not affiliated to them I just love the service they supply) just click the link to visit the website for details.

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

Expired film day 2020 …… ilford XP1 … the whole roll

Back in March this year just before all this Covid 19 lockdown stuff I entered the Expired film day competition like I have done on previous years.

The whole point is to get out and shoot as much old expired film over a 3 day weekend then submit 3 of you best images with the chance to win some lovely film prizes.

I was luck to win a prize last year so I was very surprised to win again this year considering the really high standard of the other entries.

I have loads of expired film but I came across some old ilford XP1 on eBay so I was excited to give it a go and with fingers crossed manage to capture something worthwhile.

Somehow I messed up and shot 1st frame on my Mamiya 645 while getting it out of my bag with the lens cap on so only ended up with 14 final images.

I rated the roll at 100 iso and it was developed/Scanned by filmdev

I asked them to push it one stop in development as well if poss and explained what I was trying to do with the images.

Here is a link to the Expired film day website … Click here

And here is the image that I was lucky to have selected for a prize … Click here

So here is the complete roll ….

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 🙂

Fuji Reala 500D developed in C41 Chemistry …. Something went wrong but I think I like it

I have shot Reala 500D quite a few times and love the subdued colours when developed in C41 chemistry.

This weekend was quite drab and rainy here in Wales so I wanted to shoot colour film stock on my walk and at 1st I was going to shoot either Lomo 400 or 800 but I have been using both of those stock quite a bit recently so I remembered I still had a few rolls of Reala 500D in the fridge so I went with that for a change.

I shot it at iso 250 using my Minolta X700 with the 50mm f1.4 with the hope of getting less grain as I have seen plenty of images on the internet shot at least 1 or even 2 stops over that have looked lovely.

I have processed remjet backed film before so I mixed up a big jug of soda crystals with warm water and proceeded to fill/shake/discard the solution a few times before development to remove the remjet.

The 1st fill came out black as normal and got lighter by the 3rd fill but to my surprise the 4th and subsequent fills were coming out greeny yellow.

I used all my solution and then developed the roll as normal.

Once out of the tank the film looked pretty normal to the naked eye, maybe a little on the dark side but it wasn’t until I went to scan the images I realised there was something wrong.

There were areas of magenta and green and quite a bit of grain.

At first I was well cheesed off but after tweaking the RGB channels individually on each frame in Epson scan I did get some reasonably even colours which I then managed to edit further in Lightroom.

After the initial depression of the 1st scans I really liked how most of the photos looked … Obviously the colours were pretty wrong but overall I feel that they all seem to work for the subject matter.

I am not really sure what went wrong but my assumption was that the remjet removal bit was at fault.

The C41 chemistry is only 8 rolls old so I think that was not the problem .. also the film itself was from a batch that I have shot before that was fine.

So here is the best selection … 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 🙂

Sunny day walk with my Daughter & some Kodak Portra 400VC …

I have been working all the way through this pandemic lockdown which is a blessing as I think I would have gone nuts if I had to stay home so on the weekends I make the most of it by going on a long walk here in our lovely Garw Valley.

Most weekends if she isn’t working too I have been joined by my daughter who has been eager to explore the many different walks we have here in our vicinity.

I bought quite a few rolls of Portra 400VC from Mr Cad ages ago so I thought it was about time that I shot some of it so I loaded my trusty Mamiya 645 and went out on a hot Saturday morning to do a 8 mile trek around our valley.

After developing the roll I had some issues namely strange light leaks in different places and of different intensities so I immediately thought the camera was at fault even though I have never had a problem like this on any other rolls.

After posting on Twitter asking if anyone had any idea what it could be most people suggested the camera which would have been the obvious choice so I loaded up a roll of ilford SFX and shot that the following day under the same sunny conditions only to find they were all perfect … no leaks so on this occasion I think the problem was with the film itself.

I bought about 20 rolls and have shot 7 or 8 previously and all were fine except this one.

As most of the leaks occurred on the edges I managed to salvage quite a few frames with a little cropping which was pretty easy as it was a 6 x 4.5 frame.

See this original scan sample here

Anyway here are the final images … please click 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 🙂

Eventually trying my 1st roll of Silberra Ultima 200 …….

It must be a year or two back that I supported a Indiegogo campaign for Silberra where I received 2 rolls of film … Pan 200 & Ultima 200.

You can see my Pan 200 results here .. Silberra Pan 200 …

So here is the 2nd roll Ultima 200 … I shot it using my Nikon F100 and processed it using Rodinal at 1+25 dilution for 8 minutes.

The film was a a bugger to load onto the reel in the darkroom and was also a pain to scan due to how very thin it was .. that said once scanned I was pretty happy with how it looked.

The contrast and sharpness was nice, not bad tonal range either and to my eye the grain didn’t seen as pronounced as the Pan 200 I had shot before.

I doubt I will be shooting any more as it doesn’t really bring anything new to what I shoot that HP5 or plenty of other stocks that I regularly use, also I won’t miss the loading/scanning problems.

So here are a selection of images ….

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 🙂

Shooting my Fuji GW690iii with wide format 35mm film like an Xpan ….

I have always fancied an Xpan but like most film cameras especially so called “top end” cameras they demand bonkers money.

So when I got my hands on my Fuji GW690iii I remembered a post over on Emulsive showing how to shoot 35mm film giving you panoramic images similar to an Xpan.

So recently I performed the modification which is totally reversible and went out to shoot a roll of Fuji Sensia 200 just to see if it worked.

My framing was a bit hit or miss and I decided to scan the frames to show the sprockets which was a little awkward on my Epson v500 but I managed it eventually.

Here is the link to the original article if you are interested, I didn’t think there was any point just repeating it on my blog as EM writes far better than I 🙂 … TEXPan ……

Well here are the images … Overall I was pretty happy with the results which look great when you first pull them out of the tank as big slides, I managed to get 13 usable frames from a 36 exposure roll but did have bit of a light leak which only showed up when using this mod and is fine when I reverted the camera back to 120 🙂

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 time shooting Kentmere 400 ..the whole roll ….

I have been meaning to try Kentmere film for absolutely ages.

I have read blogs and reviews where people have sung it’s praises comparing it to my beloved ilford HP5 at a bargain price.

I have had some 100 iso in the fridge for ages but recently I picked up some of the 400 so for the first roll I decided to rate it at box speed just to get a feel of the film.

My goto camera for testing 35mm is my Nikon F100 which meters very consistently so I can sort of compare film stocks, well at least to my eye anyway.

I processed it in ilfotecHC 1+15 dilution for 4 minutes 30 seconds as per massive dev app times and scanned with my old Epson v500.

The results were great I was very happy with how the film performed.

There was plenty of detail with pretty nice grain and the tonal range was very pleasing.

Considering it only costs £3.80 per roll from the most excellent Analogue Wonderland (link here : kentmere-400-film-35mm-b-w-iso-400)

Its extremely good value especially if it pushes well like I nearly always do with HP5.

I will try my next roll at 1600 to see it it holds up …

So here are all the frames … comments most welcome