A short and sweet blog post today.
I borrowed a YashicaMat from a photographer friend a few months back and it seemed to be over exposing all the time, most probably slow shutter speed problems.
To try to compensate for this I set my light meter to iso 800 and shot some kodak T-Max 400.
These are the results….it seemed to work 🙂
Thanks for looking ….
I popped out yesterday with a newly acquired Pentax MV1 and some ilford FP4 looking to test it out and took along my trusty Fuji x10 as well.
The Pentax worked fine but as it has been a pretty busy weekend I am still to develop the roll of film yet so for a change I am posting some digital stuff 🙂
All of the shots were shot in Raw format and processed in Lightroom 5.
The light was pretty harsh as I went out at midday but it made the B&W conversion that much more gritty which suited the subject matter.
Short and sweet post this time, any comments are greatly appreciated 🙂
Following on from my last blog where I shot my Canon AV1 this is the 2nd camera I picked up at the same time from my local charity shop.
A lot of people say that the k1000 is what they 1st started their photography journey, I myself until now have never used one I began with an Olympus OM1.
The first thing that I noticed was the focussing screen was not a split prism like all my other film SLR’s so initially I found foccussing a little hard but got used to it as long as I took my time.
It’s quite a heavy camera and slightly larger than most of the others I have but still felt nice in my hands, simple to use with the exposure needle in the viewfinder.
It was quite a miserable day so I shot some ilford Delta 400@800 and the results were fine, the camera came with the Pentax 50mm f2.0 which performed great I was going to put on my 50mm f1.7 but to be honest I don’t shoot many frames wide open on film so I stuck with what came with the camera.
All in all the camera was very enjoyable to use and I can see why it was the goto camera for teaching students, basic but a great tool for learning (excellent picture quality too).
Thanks for looking….. more film stuff on my other blog
http://usingfilm.wordpress.com
click on an image to view larger.
A few weeks back and the subject of my last post here I was sent some developer to test out by Spur Photo http://spur-photo.com/.
This time I tried out their Acurol-N developer on some Ilford HP5+. The information I was given by the company was to rate the film at iso 200 and Dev for 12 minutes at a dilution of 1-50 which I proceeded to do.
From what I have read on the web this developer should yield sharper negatives with little effect on the grain so I shot some random stuff which hopefully would show the added sharpness.
I used my Olympus OM1n and 50mm f1.8mc which has given me pretty good clean images especially at f5.6-f11, nearly all the images here were at f8.
I have never shot HP5 at iso 200 before I have nearly always pushed it as I love the contrast and grain I get from it.
I must admit I really like the images that I got, they were very sharp indeed and the grain did not seem as pronounced as I usually get with HP5 especially in large areas of uniform colour like skies in fact it was really quite smooth in comparison.
As I now have a complete darkroom setup I am going to try a few prints from the negs to see what the softer grain looks like.
Both the developers that I have tried have definitely produced different negatives than what I get from my usual dev combinations in a good way and depending on what I am after in the final image I will keep using both.
Thank you again to Spur for giving me the opportunity to try out your products I highly recommend them to all B&W photographers out there 🙂
I was recently contacted by a German company http://spur-photo.com/Â that makes B&W developer to see I I would like to try out their products and blog my results Good or bad.
Needless to say as I love shooting and developing my own film I jumped at the chance and the following images are the 1st results.
I shot some Ilford HP5+ rated at 640 iso and used the Spur NHC diluted 1+12 for 9 minutes @20Ëš
This developer from what I have seen and read gives nice contrasty sharp negatives and as you can see from the 1st results that is very true.
Even though both the sharpness & contrast is increased quite a bit the grain has not suffered as a consequence which is great when I come to print anything above 10 x 8.
Also both the shadow and highlight detail is very impressive.
I love the look of HP5 and after my 1st try of this Developer/film combination I am extremely happy with my results as they give me the type of images I love.
All the images below are straight scans with some dust removal but no other editing.
click on an image to view larger….
I have had a roll of Ilford SFX200 in the fridge for months and decided to give it a try yesterday.
The skies here in the Garw Valley were lovely and blue with large white clouds moving about and a rich green landscape which from most of the infrared shots I have seen was going to be quite dramatic.
Sadly I don’t own a infrared filter as recommended (Hoya R72) so I made up a sort of replacement using my HOYA/COKIN filter kit and a piece of Red Gel filter from my flash filter set.
I was not to sure how to go about getting the correct exposure, wether to just let the camera do it as I didn’t know if they would be under-exposed or  over-exposed so I took a mixture bracketing as I went.
I also shot some without the filter just to see the difference and boy what a difference 🙂
This is without……..and this is with the filter…………
After scanning in the negatives most of the frames were under-exposed but not by much the Canon T90 coped pretty well and nearly all the images came up well using Lightroom 5.
The dramatic skies are what really pleased me, I love contrasty images thats why I use Ilford HP5 as my goto film most often but SFX200 really pops its such a pity it’s so damn expensive almost double the price of HP5.
I will be buying some more nevertheless and also a Hoya R72 filter too as the results were just my cup of tea.
click on an image to view larger……..
Thanks for looking
Last week I rented a lens from Lensfettish.com as I had a 30% discount code so I decided on the Sigma 35mm f1.4DG as I had read reviews about it and wanted to see if it was as good as I had heard.
On opening the box I was surprised at the size and weight of the lens compared with my DX Nikon 35mm 1.8 and my Sigma 30mm 1.4, it was a bit of a beast.
The first shot I took in the kitchen (above) was wide open at f1.4 and I was blown away even looking at the camera screen. The lens was razor sharp 🙂
I proceeded to shoot loads of random stuff around the house before popping out for a quick walk.
The sharpness and contrast of this lens was astounding even wide open the point of focus was so sharp and at f8 the detail was stunning.
The following day we popped to Cardiff and I did a little street shooting mainly between f2.8 and f4 and again the lens performed great.
On the Sunday (my last day before returning the lens) we went along to the Bridgend Show where I gave it one last run out and again the resultant images were so pleasing.
I must admit that if I had a spare £699 in my pocket I would buy this lens in a shot, the 35mm focal length was very nice as a walk around lens just a bit more versatile than my Nikon 50mm f1.4 afs which is my usual goto lens.
I also tried it on my Nikon F80 and shot a couple of frames but am yet to finish the roll to see how it performed ( I bet is good 🙂  )
Thanks for looking
Click on an image to view larger……………
I have over the last 12 months been buying cheap film cameras from various places like ebay and charity shops etc hoping to come across a camera that may be comparable to my various SLR’s  image quality.
I know that its not really the camera but lens that gives the quality so I searched the web for some information on compact cameras and found a lot of recommendations for the Nikon TW20.
I found a couple on ebay ranging in price from 99 pence to £50 so I bid on one and managed to get it for £8 inc postage……… Bargain 🙂
It arrived quite quickly but to my complete annoyance didn’t have a battery and as it used a type that I have not got in any of my other cameras I had to wait a few more days to test the supposed image quality 😦
As soon as the battery arrived I immediately rushed out with a roll of Kodak T-MAX 400 and shot away on a nice mountain walk up here in the lovely Garw Valley.
The results from this cheap and rather ugly little camera were totally amazing, the sharpness was stunning.
I am so pleased with this purchase I cannot recommend this camera more highly, its not the most compact of things in fact its quite large for a so called compact but the images this produces really makes you forget what the camera looks like.
I would have quite happily paid £50 for this beauty and its going to be in my camera bag every time I go out.
click on an image to view larger………
Thanks for looking 🙂
Years ago after my 1st couple of cheaper slr’s I was lucky enough to have been given some Pentax mx and a few cracking lenses.
After using the Pentax mx for a while I decided to upgrade but instead of getting another Pentax the new camera out at the time was the Ricoh XRX which was all singing and dancing and also had the Pentax K mount so I didn’t have to change my lenses.
Last week I came across one on ebay with the starting price of 99p so as I have still got a few Pentax k mount lenses I decided to bid and see how it went.
To my amazement I was the only bidder and got it for the starting price (postage was £6 though).
Eager to be reunited with an old friend I loaded it up with some Fuji Superia 400 and using the 50mm f1.7 and 70-210 f4 went for a walk.
I was really nice to use and to be honest all the modes the camera possessd were really not needed as I have always shot Aperture Priority or Manual.
The lenses performed really well and as my C-41 chemicals were shot I tempted fate and took the film to Tescos but for a change the negs were pretty good no scratches for a change (mind you it was not the Bridgend store it was the Talbot Green one).
I am not sure how often I will be using this camera but it is really nice to have one again after all these years.
Click on an image to view larger…………
Thanks for looking 🙂
I mainly shoot B&W film and process it myself but bought some Kodak Ektar recently and was waiting for a reasonably bright day to go out and give it a try.
I have looked at images on the web shot on this film and read how sharp it was and I was not disappointed.
As it wasn’t a sunny day, it was pretty overcast I was shooting from f1.8 – f4 for the whole roll and the images really popped.
I am not totally pleased with the colours but I am putting that down to my chemicals coming to the end of their life, I am sure if I change them the colours will be a bit more vibrant.
Mind you my subject matter wasn’t the most colourful in the first place  🙂
I also have some Kodak Portra 400 and will be giving that a try soon to, I love the look Portra gives to people.
Thanks for looking
Click on an image to view larger…………
tim dobbs photography 