olympus – tim dobbs photography

Forgotten roll of Lomo CN400 from the summer ….

I have been getting really behind with my blogging … I have loads of rolls that I have shot over the last few months that I have scanned but have only edited one or two frames that I have then posted to social media but not done anything with the rest.

This roll is a case in point … last August there was an event in Bridgend town centre with stalls, street entertainers and live music.

The weather was pretty good and I took my Olympus OM2s which was already loaded with my favorite colour negative film stock Lomography CN400 which I had shot 2 frames already from a trip to Cardiff.

I only shot about half of the roll during the event as I somehow found myself in the pub so I finished the rest the following day which is why there is a strange juxtaposition of images here 🙂

The Lomo film worked great as usual I love the colours it produces especially if you slightly over expose it 1/2 to 1 stop but process as normal.

Here is a selection from the roll

Click any 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 🙂

Lomography F2/400 ….. What’s it like then?

I had seen this film advertised for a while but never seemed to be able to get my hands on any as it was always sold out.

Lucky for me a few months back I got a roll sent to me by a fellow twitter photographer along with various other eclectic film stocks.

I was pretty excited to try it out and loaded my Olympus OM1n as I had not shot it for ages and managed to get quite an array of images over a 2 week period … Grey day/Sunny day, Night time and some close ups too.

I had the roll developed and scanned by Filmdev

The images were really punchy with quite a bit more grain than I was used to with Lomo CN400 which is my current goto colour negative stock.

Even though the grain was present I was really happy with how they looked, the colours were lovely and had an almost X-Pro/vivid look where the reds and greens popped and pretty sharp too.

I think the images in really good light or night time scenes with lights worked the best for me, in fact if I can get hold of some more I would definitely go night shooting.

Here is a selection from the roll ….

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 🙂

Autumn turns to winter on Fuji Reala 500D …

I have had a roll of Fuji Reala 500D sitting in my fridge for ages waiting patiently for me to try and the other week I decided to give it a go just to see how the colours compare with the last few rolls of different films where I have tried shooting the autumn colours here in the South Wales valleys. As usual here in Wales the weather is always a lottery and this roll features lovely autumn sunshine followed by thunderous conditions and heavy rain.

To be fair the light didn’t really make much difference to how this film looked, it had quite a muted palette which really complimented how the images actually were as it was just about winter really.

I was tempted to tweak the colours in Lightroom after my initial scans thinking that they were too bland but after my dust removal and slight exposure tweaks I realised that I really liked the subtle look.

I must admit that I really love this film so much so I bought a load last week and will be shooting it quite regularly in the future as it is a pretty versatile colour stock especially being iso 500 with not a lot of grain either.

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 🙂

Expired Fuji Sensia 400 after the rain …

I only just realised while backing up my Lightroom catalogs that I had forgotten to post this blog which should have been posted before the Ektachrome 2 parter.

As I may have mentioned in my previous posts that I have some mixed E6 chemistry that I want to use up before it goes off so my last few rolls have been slide film. I have quite a few different slide stocks stored in my fridge and the day I shot this we had just had a huge downpour and I was not really sure whether or not the rain would come back so I loaded up some Sensia 400 rated at 320 iso into my Olympus OM10 for a change as I haven’t used this camera for years, I usually use either the OM2s or OM1n when I want to go down the Olympus route.

I paired it up with the lovely Zuiko 50mm f1.4 that I managed to pick up recently. Lucky for me the rain held off for a while and the sun peaked out to give a nice warm look to the Sensia.

Anyway thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

All images 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 🙂

The Jury is still out on shooting Fomapan 100 …..

My favorite film is ilford HP5 but I am not adverse to shooting any film really and I have a varied collection stored in my film fridge.

This is the 3rd roll of Fomapan 100 that I have shot and I am still not sure what I make of it.

I think from my experience that portraits are most probably the best for this film as it gives a lovely glow that looks great on people but tends to soften landscapes. It definitely has a very original look and does bring something different to a landscape I may get one of these printed large and see what I think.

All the images were shot using the Olympus OM2s with the Zuiko 35mm f2.8 and processed in ilfotec HC 1+22 dilution for 7 minutes.

Thanks for looking

I have a film only blog over at usingfilm if you want to take a peek ……

click any image to view larger …..

Trying a new C-41 Developing/scanning service…..

After having fairly inconsistent results from processing my own C-41 at home I have been using AG Photographic to develop my negatives and then scan them on my Epson v500.

I have been pretty satisfied with what I have got and the cost has not been too high either but scanning colour negatives is pretty time consuming trying to get some sort of uniformity in appearance.

I recently came across a company online “Filmdev” who will develop and scan at various sizes depending on what I want, then let me download the images from the web before sending me a dvd with the hires tiff files and my negatives. All for the brilliant price of £5 for the 3600×2400 or £8 for the 4500×3000 scans. ( they also scan at 5400×3600 for £12 )

After posting off 2 films 1x Kodak Portra 400 & 1x Agfa Vista 200 expired I had a telephone call off David the owner telling me they have received my films and was there any particular things I required like push/pull, tiff scans or jpeg or a certain look to the scans all for no extra cost.

I decided on just straight process and corrections just to have some sort of reference next time I send more films.

I must say the results were excellent, great colours and very sharp clear scans with no dust/hairs etc, I was very impressed and suffice to say I will be sending all my films to them from now on.

The 1st gallery is the Agfa Vista 200 expired shot on my Olympus OM2n with the 35mm f2.8.

The 2nd gallery is the Kodak Portra 400 shot on my Nikon F100 with the 50mm f1.4.

Links to the company are here : http://www.filmdev.co.uk/

Thank you for looking any comment very welcome 🙂

Canon 50mm f1.4 and Ilford XP2……..

I had 2 deliveries on Friday.

A Canon 50mm f1.4 FD from West Yorkshire Cameras which was such a bargain compared to the equivalent Nikon offering as I can use it on both my Film Canon SLR’s and also my Olympus EPL-1.

And another package was from Ilford customer services with a load of different Ilford films free of charge as they will be using 2 of my film images on their website in the near future to showcase HP5+.

Firstly I must say how over the moon I am with the lens, its twice the weight and build of my 50mm f1.8 which I was pleased with but the f1.4 is so damn sharp it hurts especially on the Olympus.

The DOF and Bokeh is lovely and on my Canon T90 the viewfinder is extremely bright and easy to focus.

I am so glad I bought this, I wasn’t sure if it would be this much better than the f1.8 version as it actually is.

I have never shot Ilford XP2 before so I wasn’t sure what to expect, sadly my C-41 chemistry is shot so the results were a bit mixed but I managed to get a few shots I was pleased with.

The negatives are very easy to scan and have a very smooth tone that suits the type of images I was shooting with shallow DOF but is also nice and contrasty when stopped down a bit.I also had some SFX200 and PanF 50 which I have not shot before either so I am looking forward to see what comes out.

Thanks for looking

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

Another reason to keep my Olympus EPL-1……….

If you have read my last post I was thinking of selling my Olympus EPL-1 since getting a Fuji X10 but have had a change of heart.

Looking back through my Aperture catalogue I came across a folder of photographs where I was playing with the various Art Filters that are built in to the camera.

To be honest the 2 filters I found I used over and over were the Pinhole and the Gritty B&W featured here.

The Pinhole is not to overpowering and boosts the contrast and colours while adding a vignette.

While the B&W is an acquired taste….. I love strong, contrasty B&W which is how I shoot my film photography so I love the filter.

The only thing I don’t like about the Olympus is the lack of viewfinder but since being able to use my Canon lens and the Art filters make up for that and the camera will stay in my bag and not on eBay 🙂

Olympus mju-11 & outdated Agfa Film………

Popped into Bridgend last week and noticed some old film cameras in the Heart Foundation Charity Shop most were APS format but there was an Olympus mju11 35mm amongst them, sadly not the one with the fixed prime 2.8 but with the zoom but for £5 I was not going to moan.

Eager to try it out it was loaded with some Agfa Vista 400 that expired in 2009 and out I went for a walk.

It was a very easy camera to use once I figured out how to stop the flash going off every shot and after processing the film, the results were pretty pleasing.

I will be throwing this camera in my bag and trying some street photography with it as it’s very small and compact and the autofocus performed great as long as I use fast film or shoot in the sun its a great addition to my ever growing camera collection.

“Bridgend Mashup” digital version……..

As I said in my previous blog post I also shot some of the action type stuff digitally which was so much easier than trying to shoot full manual on my film camera…….

The band shots were also shot on film and I prefer the more gritty feel of the film shots over the cleaner/sharper digital ones.

As you can see in this post there are far more digital photographs than film but that is the thing I like about film it makes you choose your shots far more carefully.

There is no way I would go back to shooting film for everything but I will be taking a film camera be it an SLR or a compact like my Olympus Trip everywhere alongside my DSLR as I feel it really compliments the digital shots and I really enjoy shooting and processing film again.

Thanks for looking

click on an image for a larger version…….