Pontycymer – Page 17 – tim dobbs photography

Pocket size Rangefinder……..

I bought this camera off eBay ages ago and was not sure if it was working properly as the battery test light didn’t work but as the shutter fired I assumed it was ok.

So a few weeks ago I loaded up a roll of Ilford HP5+ and rated it at 800 iso and popped out for a short walk to eventually test the little camera.

Its is essentially a point and shoot like the Trip 35 but with rangefinder focussing which was nice and bright and very easy to use, in fact after seeing the results I am looking forward to giving this camera a run out doing a bit of street shooting.

Here is a selection of the images, the exposures were very good and so was the focussing. The sharpness of the Zuiko 38mm f2.8 lens was also very impressive.

Thanks for looking…..

More film loveliness over on my other blog at

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

A Schoolboy Error……..

I went out this morning with my Bronica SQ-Ai loaded with a roll of Fuji Velvia and proceeded to trek up to the site of the old Ocean Colliery here in Blaengarw, South Wales.

The light was great and so was the landscape and cloud formations and I set to work shooting my 12 frames of 6×6…. or so I thought.

While out I also brought my little Fuji x10 and after each shot I also took a few frames digitally just as some sort of reference to go with my notes as I have never shot 120 slide film before.

Lucky I did as when I got home I realised that the multi exposure lever was on and the 11 frames taken was really just 1…….. Gutted!!

Its a good job that film photography is just my personal pastime and not professional …

At least the results from the little Fuji were great, below is both the colour and B&W version of my audience this morning.

I am so glad I take the Fuji everywhere as this morning would have been a total waste but at least I will check my frame counter next time just in case the damn lever is down again.

Thanks for looking….

I also have another blog just featuring my film photography if anyone is interested

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

Kodak T-Max 3200 @1600………

I was given a couple of rolls of Kodak T-max 3200 a while back and after reading up on the internet that the true iso is closer to 1000-1200 iso I thought I would shoot a roll at 1600 to hopefully minimise the grain.

Yesterday was a pretty bright day so shooting outside at 1600 iso required some pretty high shutter speeds especially when I tried to open the Aperture a bit for some shallow DOF shots but my Nikon FM2n can shoot up to 4000 sec.

I developed the film in my new ilfotec HC developer and was well happy with the results.

I have shot ilford Delta 3200 at the rated speed and found the grain and contrast to be a little to strong for my taste (and I love contrasty images) so the results here were very pleasing.

Plenty of shadow detail and the highlights seemed pretty good to.

I will try my ilford 3200 at 1600 next time and compare the results I suspect that they will be very similar and as Kodak have stopped T-Max 3200 ilford is the way to go.

Thanks for looking ……. ps

I have started another blog just featuring my film images if anyone is interested it can be found at

http://usingfilm.wordpress.com/

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 🙂

Bargain of the century ……… Loving 6×6 format

On Boxing day I treated myself to a Mamiya C330s TLR but after 3 rolls of film determined that there was something wrong with the focus and sent it back. After posting on facebook about what had happened I was contacted by a fellow photographer who said he had got some 6×6 equipment if I was interested.

I said that I would definitely be interested if I had not just spent my camera fund on the C330s and was waiting to see wether it was to be replaced/fixed. He told me that he had stored the equipment for the last 10 years and was never going to use it and because I was really getting back into film that the price would be very good for me.

So I jumped into the car and popped over to Maesteg to have a look and as you can see from the photos above I have managed to bag myself the deal of the century.

The total inventory is as follows :

Bronica SQ-Ai, Bronica SQ-A, Ae prism finder, 2x 80mm f2.8, 150mm f4, 40mm f4, 250mm f5.6

all in working order 🙂

The weather has been rubbish over christmas but I managed to get out for an hour yesterday to try out the new kit.

I shot on Kodak T-MAX 400 and processed it in Infosol 3 1+9, I was very,very pleased with the results.

It was nice aslo to use an AE Prism Finder rather than my light-meter, it was almost like using my SLR.

6×6 format is so nice, I am loving shooting and composing in the square format it is so much different to what I am used to.

My son is getting fed up with me asking him to pose so I can test my equipment so I tried something a bit different with this shot which I thought worked in the square frame.

And the sharpness of the 80mm at f4 was superb….

I am so pleased with this equipment and so grateful to have got it at an unbelievable price I hope I can push my film photography to the next level.

Thanks for looking…….

Zorki 4k & Ilford HP5+……..

A week or two ago my wife got me a Zorki 4k for christmas so before she wrapped it up I insisted on putting a roll of film through it just to make sure all was well.

We bought the camera from West Yorkshire Cameras who specialise in affordable film cameras, I must say that they are great lads and highly recommend that if you are interested in film photography to pay them a visit.

I have bought numerous things from them and their service is excellent.

http://wycameras.com/

I used some Ilford HP5+ and processed it in ilfotec DDX.

The viewfinder was reasonable bright considering its age and even though the weather was poor focussing was not really a problem but I did find that composing in the portrait format was hit and miss as I am used to an SLR.

I just took a load of random shots using the light-meter app on my iPhone to set the exposure and was pretty pleased with what came out.

The 50mm f2.0 Jupiter lens was pretty sharp when stopped down a little but still looked nice at f2.8 as you can see with the first shot of the barbed wire fence.

I am pleased that after shooting the first roll all seems well with the camera and I am looking forward to trying a bit of street photography with it.

Thanks for looking

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

First attempt at pushing Film ……

After reading some stuff on the internet and viewing some samples I decided to give B&W push processing a go.

Most of the articles I read used Kodak Tri-x so that is what I used to.

Using the Massive Dev chart app on my iphone http://www.digitaltruth.com/ I determined that I needed to develop for 10 minutes in ilfotec ddx 1+4 if I pushed the film from 400 to 800 which I thought was a good starting point just incase pushing it any faster may result in a ruined negative.

The weather today here in the South Wales valleys was pretty poor, dark and wet so it needed at least 800 iso.

I shot most of the roll outside with pretty random subjects, just looking for something with detail and contrast and finished the roll indoors using just lamplight.

The results were great, the grain was almost identical to Tri-x shot at its native speed. To be honest if you didn’t know that I pushed the film I could have told people they were at 400iso.

I really like the results I am getting using ilfotec ddx it seems to give a really good balance between sharpness/contrast and minimal grain.

Just for the record all these shots were taken using my Nikon F90x and nikkor 50mm f1.8.

I will try pushing it to 1600 or 3200 next time as I like grain in my images and 800 is definitely not a problem for the film/dev combination.

Thanks for looking

Click on an image to view larger………

Alternative Colour Developing………….

I have been developing my own B&W films for a while now and have experimented with various films and developers and have a good idea what I will get out of my negatives.

I have also been processing my colour films to but the results have been very inconsistant, I have noticed that the roll after processing varied from the start to the end, not drastically but there was a difference.

At first I put it down to my inexperience of C-41 processing but after reading up on the internet It seemed to point to the developing temperature varying slightly.

As I develop by hand and not with a processor I try to maintain the required 38 degrees C by placing the drum in warm water in-between inversions and maybe the outer frames of the film were at the proper temp while the inner frames were slightly under.

The Tetenal C-41 kit I use can also be used at 30 degrees C using different developing times which is a far easier temperature to maintain.

http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/tetenal-c41-kit-1l-681-p.asp

These shots are from the first roll of Fuji Superia 400 I tried using this method and from the first frame to the last the development was perfectly even.

No colour shift whatsoever, I was going to stop developing C-41 before I tried this but now I am happy with the results and will carry on.

Thanks for looking, comments most welcome

click on an image to view larger……….

Trying out Ilford HP5+ in some new developer……….

I few weeks ago I bought some new developer and last week I shot a roll of 120 Ilford Delta 400 and a roll of 35mm Ilford HP5+ with the intentions of seeing what the resulting negatives where like.

I posted the 120 Delta images last week and was extremely pleased with the results so this week I am posting some of the 35mm HP5 shots which I am also very pleased with.The Grain that I love with HP5 is still there in the negatives albeit a little more smooth to my eyes but the detail and sharpness is far more evident.

I diluted the developer 1+9 and processed it for 16 minutes as per the Massive Dev chart app and can definitely will be using this combination as my standard routine from now on.

Also as the developer is in liquid form I only have to mix what I need when I need it rather than mixing up a batch and storing.

I even took a shot of my wife’s hand while cooking @f1.8 which I rarely shoot at such a wide aperture on film but even then the detail was great.I would therefore thoroughly recommend this developer to anyone, I will shoot a roll of Tri-X and some T-Max next just to see how they fair.

Thanks for looking….. comments always welcomed 🙂

click on an image to view larger…………

Mamiya 645 as my new walk about camera……….?

Loaded up the Mamiya 645 with some Ilford Delta 400 yesterday and decided to do a spot of Landscape photography with the intention of some nice shallow DOF shots as well as the traditional views.

After the first mile and a half I began to realise that the Mamiya is not a walk around camera its built like a tank and weighs like one too.

Nevertheless I was determined to get some shots and to try out the new B&W developer I recently bought …. Ilfotec DD-X.

The results from the camera and film/dev combination were lovely, I shot most of the closeup detail at f2.8 – f4 and stopped down to f11 for the views.

The detail captured was great all these shots had minor touchup in Photoshop mainly dust and a few hairs and a little curves adjustments.

I so love this camera, I bought it with the sole intention of portrait work but the stunning negatives I am getting from it means I am going to try to use it as an allround camera……

I think I may try a bit of street photography next …. 🙂

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