Garw Railway and Heritage Societies – tim dobbs photography

The weather this weekend here in the South Wales valleys has been awful, Dark & very wet.

A walk up the mountain was out of the question but as luck would have it the Garw Valley Railway had an open day so knowing from past visits the light inside the shed was very low I loaded the Nikon F100 with some HP5 and pushed it to iso 3200 and used the AF-s 50mm f1.4.

Even shooting at 3200 I was having to open up the lens to f2.8 or wider to get a reasonable shutter speed so the sharpness I managed to get was pretty impressive.I have pushed HP5 before and I knew that the contrast/grain it produces would suit the type of subjects I was shooting.

The only disadvantage to pushing this much was losing the highlights but it didn’t spoil any of the shots really.I processed the film in Ilford ilfotec HC 1+15 dilution for 11 minutes agitating twice every minute which managed to keep the grain well in check while giving excellent sharpness.

HP5 is such an excellent film stock its so versatile in in my personal opinion looks better when pushed than box speed but I love deep blacks and contrasty/grainy images so it suits me.

I had 3 frames left when I got home and fired them off in the house wide open just as a test and to finish the roll so I could see the results.

The combination of the F100 and the af-s 50mm f1.4 is great the focus is spot on and the lens is so sharp. Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger …..

You can also find me at https://usingfilm.wordpress.com/ which is all film only loveliness …

On saturday it was my local Railway & Heritage societies fair here in the lovely Garw Valley, so as good local citizens we popped along (with my camera in tow).

I have never really had any interests in trains before but thanks to a great young guide called Stephen the tour of the railway shed was a very interesting way to spend a Saturday morning.

There was loads of stuff to point my camera at and luckily I took along the D600 as the light was pretty dim in places but the camera performed excellently at iso’s up to 4000 without a problem.

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

All the people involved with the running of the Railway society were very enthusiastic and helpful, eager to explain in detail what was going on and their plans for the future (and didn’t mind having their photographs taken either)