Fuji GW690iii – tim dobbs photography

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

A walk to Ocean Colliery in the mist with Rollei Retro 400S ….. the whole roll

I have shot a few rolls of Rollei Retro 400 and love how you get really deep blacks while holding shadow detail and especially in 120 format how much detail it produces.

A few weeks back it was pretty gloomy with quite a bit of mist here in the valley which screams Black and White to me so I loaded up my Fuji GW690iii and went for a walk up to the site of the last colliery to close here in the Garw valley.

The landscape has long been transformed since the mines went and on the site are 2 lovely lakes.

As the Fuji only takes 8 frames and I didn’t bring any more film with me I had to be selective with my shots trying not to waste any.

So these 8 frames are my walk from the commemorative plaque at the entrance to the site, then the bottom lake & Sculpture followed by the lovely top lake surrounded by mist.

This type of image works well with Rollei Retro in my opinion and I was pleased to have got 8 keepers from the roll.

So here are the images … comments most welcome

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

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 🙂

Disaster or Happy accident? … 1st time shooting Rollei CR200

Last week I partook in a film swap with a twitter friend who had never shot my favorite colour negative film” Fuji Reala ” so I sent him some in return for some of his film one of which was a roll of Rollei CR200 colour reversal film in 120 format.

I have never shot this film before so I was intrigued to find out how it looked so I loaded up my Fuji GW690iii and visited my favourite tree and shot away.

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Didn't manage to get any FP4 today so out shooting some Rollei CR200 for the 1st time in the Fuji GW690iii @emulsivefilm #beniceshootfilm #believeinfilm #Wales #saynotoxpro #landscapephotography

A post shared by Tim Dobbs (@timdobbsphoto) on Mar 10, 2019 at 9:39am PDT

I returned home and processed the film as normal in the Tetenal E6 kit and when they emerged out of the tank they seemed ok at 1st glance when I hung them to dry.

The only difference in my procedure was that I left it to dry overnight so when I went to scan it I was really confused as the colours were totally wrong, I immediately thought that I had my scanner settings wrong but after a few attempts with different settings nothing changed much or got even worse.

I dug out my lightbox and had a look at the film which instead of having the usual black rebate/frame it was purple.

I double checked the box that it was actually a reversal film incase I had got it wrong and obviously it was.

So to cut a long story short I have absolutely no idea what went wrong here … it does appear a bit like Solarization but no light got to the film while I was developing so I can only assume that the roll of film has had a very varied storage life.

So here are the images …. any comments welcomed …

After my initial shock and disappointment I actually really like the look and would love to be able to replicate it 🙂

Please click a photo 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 🙂

Fuji GW690iii & two rolls of ilford HP5@ at 800…

Two weeks ago we had a bit of a storm here in South Wales called “Callum” and I decided to brave the wind/rain and crappy light with the Fuji GW690iii and a few rolls of my fav B&W film HP5+ which I rated at iso 800 just to get some decent DOF in the images.

To be fair the weather was not all that bad by the time I got up to the top of the valley and I managed to get decent speeds with apertures of f8 to f11 on most shots.

The GW690 gives bonkers negatives with heaps of detail and the HP5 gave lovely grain at 800 with plenty of contrast without losing either the shadows or highlights.

Here are the 12 best images from the 2 rolls, the last image was shot on the Monday after the storm as I didn’t finish the 2nd 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 GW690III and Rollei RPX 400 in the mist ….

During my holiday last week I planned on trying to shoot a roll of film everyday which due to the rubbish weather I didn’t manage but I did shoot some Rollei RPX 400 in the Fuji GW690III.

As I said the weather was pretty grim here in South Wales so I decided to push the film to 800 iso so that I could at least stop down the aperture to attempt to get some decent DOF.

I developed the roll in ilfotec HC at 1+15 dilution for 5.30 mins and scanned using my Epson v500.

Overall I was impressed with how the film performed especially as I pushed it a stop, the level of detail was excellent and the grain was pretty smooth.

I have done a few prints from this roll and they really look good on paper, so much nicer to have a print in your hands than just on the screen ….. Print your stuff I say.

Anyway here are the 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 🙂

HP5 shines when shot in 6×9 …..

I have probably said loads of times on this blog that ilford HP5 is by far my favourite B&W film stock.

I love the contrast and grain especially when pushed to 1600 iso and beyond.

I mainly shoot it in 35mm with the odd roll in 120 now and again so when I got my Fuji GW690iii I was eager to see how it looks in 6×9 format.

I shot it at box speed and developed it in ilfotecHC at 1+31 dilution and I was not disappointed with the results.

Here are all 8 frames …. click on an image to see 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 🙂

6×9, Fuji Reala & sunshine equals happiness …..

A short little blog post today.

As my C41 chemistry has gone off I have been sending my films off to the wonderful Filmdev to process and scan.

If I didn’t shoot so many rolls I would gladly give all my film to them as they are such an awesome lab but it would get really expensive so I will treat myself once or twice a month and carry on sending certain rolls to them as the results are brilliant.

Anyway this is a roll of my favourite Fuji Reala shot in the Fuji GW690iii the other weekend while out up the mountain in glorious sunshine.

I love how reala renders greens especially in good light and all these frames have an abundance of green to savour … ha ha

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 2 rolls with my Fuji GW690iii ….

I recently managed to get one of my dream cameras into my collection the awesome Fuji GW690iii.

I have been looking for ages at a bit of a step up from my 6×6 and 6×4.5 medium format cameras with the possible idea of eventually getting into large format further down the line.

A good twitter friend gave me a stunning deal where by we swapped … I gave him my Fuji X-T10 and in return I got the Fuji and also a Samyang 8mm f2.8 fish-eye for my X-T20 …… suffice to say I am so sure I have had the best end of the deal.

Apart from the battle scars to the built in hood the camera was in excellent condition and I was excited to get out and use it.

I shot the 2 rolls over 2 weekends … the 1st was at my local beach of Porthcawl and the 2nd was up in the forestry here in the garw valley.

The camera was a dream to use even though it is big compared to my Leica rangefinder it handles very well and as the body is made up of quite a bit of plastic (very solid plastic mind) the weight is not too bothersome.

I even manged to hand hold down to 1/30th on 2 of the forest shots.

Anyway here are all 15 images ….. ( I managed to leave the lens cap on for one frame in the Reala set …. idiot)

First Fuji Reala …

Second Kodak Ektar …

The size of 6×9 negs is something to behold … it’s a bit strange just seeing 8 frames when you get it out of the tank and the level of detail you get even when scanning on my getting old Epson v500 is lovely.

I am going to get my next roll lab processed and scanned just to hopefully see just how good this lovely camera is.

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 🙂