The last roll of RPX 400 in 120 that I shot a while back had some weird artefacts and strange grain, it was expired I grant you but I have never had that problem with this stock before.
I bought a few rolls of fresh film after this problem and got around to shooting some last weekend.
Suffice to say it worked fine, I really like the look of this film in medium format.
It has a great range of tones, nice and sharp with minimal grain.
I shot it using my Mamiya 645 & 80mm f2.8 developed in ilfotecHC 1+15 dilution.
The only thing that I don’t like about this stock is that it is a bit curly so is not the easiest to scan using my Epson v600.
Well here is the whole roll warts and all
Please click on an image to view larger …
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
My first blog post this year was a roll of Kodak Ektar using my Mamiya 645 and I pointed out that I rarely shoot Ektar but here you go I have shot another roll using the same camera.
Ektar is a pretty sharp film stock especially when you shoot it in 120 format and with good light which really shows on this roll which I was really pleased with.
I developed it with the Tetenal C41 kit and scanned using my Epson v500 which gives pretty good scans with 120.
So here is the roll .. I have only posted 12 frames as I duplicated some of the tree at the end of the roll which were all more or less identical.
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
As usual here in the South Wales valleys the weather is pretty up and down at the minute but on one of the days that the sun burst through between gale force winds and rain I went out with the Mamiya 645 with the 80mm f2.8 and 45mm f2.8 ( last 3 frames .. so damn sharp ) loaded with some expired Kodak Portra 400vc and tried to capture the lovely Autumn colours here.
I processed the roll using the excellent Tetenal C41 kit which I have managed to stretch to 26 rolls so far with no problems.
I love using the Mamiya as I can get 15 frames and to be honest I find it easier to compose the 645 format compared to square and since getting the Mamiya RB67 I felt I was neglecting its smaller/lighter little brother.
The images came out just as I wanted with plenty of lovely warm Autumn colours and as usual the Mamiya glass didn’t disappoint rendering lovely sharp images even wide open.
So here is the whole roll .. 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 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 have quite a large stock of expired film acquired from friends/fellow photographers and eBay and I usually know the storage details of nearly all of it but sometimes I get hold of some rolls that have no information on how it spent it’s life.
Last week the cloud formations up here in the South Wales valleys was pretty nice so I went out with my Mamiya 645 and 45mm f2.8 lens with a roll of ilford Delta 400 with the intention of getting some pretty detailed images of the landscape up here.
The film expired in 2004 so I rated it at 200 iso and proceeded to shoot the roll.
To be honest I have only had trouble with expired ilford film when it has been much older that this and even then it was still usable so when I opened up the development tank and was greeted with some pretty murky negatives I was pretty disappointed.
Once I began scanning it became evident that the whole roll was under exposed quite a bit and the grain was very pronounced unlike how Delta usually looks.
I also suspected that my fix was on its last legs which didn’t help matters (new batched already mixed for next time).
The Epson scan software struggled to find the edges of some frames which meant I had to scan each frame individually.
Once in Adobe Lightroom I have spent the last week back and fore between Lightroom & Photoshop trying to get the best out of the scans and I managed to salvage 9 frames which I am happy to post.
Anyway …. lesson for today … Know how your film has been stored before taking any important shots.
Also buy more fresh Delta 400 because if I managed to get these images with a crappy old roll imagine what they would look like on fresh film and maybe with my Fuji Gw690ii 6×9.
Here are the images … comments most welcome
Please click a photo to view larger
All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email
Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of spending time with world renowned artist Kevin Sinnott who lucky for me lives here in Pontycymmer where he also has his studio and his most excellent gallery “Studio 18”.
My first thoughts about this series of images was to shoot it completely on film which after my initial test shoots was not going to show how I pictured the project in my mind where I had some sort of control over the colours of the paintings.
So I used a mix of film & Digital hopefully to give a good overview of a working artist.
Before we start here is a very brief snippet about Kevin that I procured from the web….
Kevin Sinnott
Born in Sarn, South Wales in 1947, Kevin Sinnott is a contemporary Welsh artist with a truly international reputation. He trained at Cardiff College of Art & Design, Gloucestershire College of Art & Design and at the Royal College of Art, London. Kevin remained in London throughout the 1970s and 80s, building a very successful career, and exhibiting at leading London galleries, major galleries in the USA and mainland Europe. Kevin’s work is collected worldwide and he is represented in many important public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His large canvas, ‘Running Away with the Hairdresser’ has proved to be one of the National Museum and Galleries of Wales’s most popular acquisitions. Kevin returned to live in Wales in 1995 and has quickly established himself at the forefront of the renaissance in Welsh painting. While his work is primarily concerned with human relationships, the influence of the south Wales landscape is strongly felt in his paintings. He was elected to the Royal Cambrian Academy in 2007.
I will include some links at the end of the post to various articles featuring Kevin that may be of interest.Hopefully this will be the start of an ongoing project where I hope to spend time with artists in their studio or place of work where I can document the process of their discipline whether they are a painters, photographers, illustrators, musicians, sculptors etc
This 1st post may be an exception as Kevin gave me unlimited access to him and his studio for which I am so grateful.
I was very lucky with my timing as Kevin was in the middle of a painting on the day we arranged for me to pop over to do the studio shoot.
I was privileged to watch him work and then re work the painting “SuperMam” which will feature in most of the following images, please excuse the slight colour variations as obviously they are a mix of Film & Digital.
The paintings need to be seen in life to appreciate them 🙂
The images were shot on a mixture of Kodak Portra 400, Fuji Pro 400H for the colour and ilford HP5+ and Kodak T-Max for the B&W.
Cameras used were Nikon F100, Mamiya 645, Mamiya C330 and Leica M2.
Digital were Nikon D600, Fuji XT-1 and Fuji X-Pro1
I have been taking part in a Twitter competition #SummerFilmParty where the photographers have to use certain types of film during shoot week then over the following 2 weeks develop and then post the results.
Today was the last posting day so I decided to also post all my entries her together.
I used 2 cameras … Nikon F90 with a 50mm f1.4 & Sigma 105mm f2.8 with some Kodak Ektar.
and Yashica Mat 124G with Fuji Reala 100 both rolls developed and scanned at home.
Here they are in no particular order … Obviously the Square images are from the Yashica Mat 🙂As usual it was fun to be a part of …. here is the link to Emulsive where you can see the info about this and future competitions .. Summer Film Party also here is the Twitter link @summerfilmparty
Thanks for looking ….
Click on an image to view larger
All images are available as prints just drop me an email
I seem to have a slight backlog of films to post at the moment what with the Tmax Party and Expired film day.
I shot this roll of Portra 400vc back at the end of February on a quite bright but overcast afternoon.I have noticed that this film when shot in these lighting conditions give a nice subtle muted colour palette.Next time I shoot this film I will try it in poor conditions to see how it performs then.These were shot on the Mamiya 645 with the 45mm f2.8 and home processed/scanned.
Since September I have been a participant in the #FP4Party over on Twitter/Emulsive.org …. http://emulsive.org/articles/introducing-fp4party where we all shoot some Ilford FP4 over a week then edit and post during the next 2 weeks followed by a vote at the end of the month to pick a winning favourite.I have not really shot a lot of FP4 mainly thinking that it isn’t as versatile as my Favourite film HP5 but since this Party began I must say I am really loving the look I get with FP4 and also how easy it is to print in the darkroom too.I have posted a few of these over on twitter as entries to the challenge but I thought it would be good to post them all together here on my blog too.
This was my shortlisted entry ….
I was lucky this month to actually get one image picked to enter the final vote which was great as the standard is pretty high and getting better every time as more and more people are joining upIt’s great to be part of this film community, I love seeing what others are shooting which helps me to improve my own photography.
Check out emulsive.org … @FP4Party on twitter for more detailsI am not sure what I will be doing for this month’s Party I may try pushing it or even do a bit of flash photography as an experiment, what ever I do it will be fun anyway 🙂
…. That’s my Boy 🙂
Even my son joined in last month … ps I am the scruffy one on the left 😉
Thanks for looking ……
click an image to view larger……..
Thanks for looking … I also have a “Film Only” blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want to take a look
Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of spending time with world renowned artist Kevin Sinnott who lucky for me lives here in Pontycymmer where he also has his studio and his most excellent gallery “Studio 18”.
Hopefully this will be the start of an ongoing project where I hope to spend time with artists in their studio or place of work where I can document the process of their discipline whether they are a painters, photographers, illustrators, musicians, sculptors etc
As usual it was fun to be a part of …. here is the link to Emulsive where you can see the info about this and future competitions .. 
tim dobbs photography 