porthcawl – tim dobbs photography

Summer has gone ….Kodak Ektachrome 100GX

I have a backlog of rolls that I have shot over the last 2 months that I have developed & scanned but not posted.

This is a roll of Kodak Ektachrome 100GX that I shot when we still had a bit of sun here in Wales they are a mix of a day at the beach and the usual walks around my home in the Garw valley.

Obviously this film expired a few years back but if the new Ektachrome is half as nice as this I will be happy when I manage to get my hands on it.

The images were shot using my Nikon F100 and developed using the Tetenal E6 kit.

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 🙂

The Littlest Holga loves Slide film … part 4

For my 4th roll on my adventures with the Littlest Holga I decided on more slide film as we were going to the seaside and the weather was good.

The film in question was Lomography Color Slide X-pro 200 which I processed using the Tetenal E6 kit rather than X-proing it 🙂

Here are the images ..

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 🙂

First 2 rolls with my Fuji GW690iii ….

I recently managed to get one of my dream cameras into my collection the awesome Fuji GW690iii.

I have been looking for ages at a bit of a step up from my 6×6 and 6×4.5 medium format cameras with the possible idea of eventually getting into large format further down the line.

A good twitter friend gave me a stunning deal where by we swapped … I gave him my Fuji X-T10 and in return I got the Fuji and also a Samyang 8mm f2.8 fish-eye for my X-T20 …… suffice to say I am so sure I have had the best end of the deal.

Apart from the battle scars to the built in hood the camera was in excellent condition and I was excited to get out and use it.

I shot the 2 rolls over 2 weekends … the 1st was at my local beach of Porthcawl and the 2nd was up in the forestry here in the garw valley.

The camera was a dream to use even though it is big compared to my Leica rangefinder it handles very well and as the body is made up of quite a bit of plastic (very solid plastic mind) the weight is not too bothersome.

I even manged to hand hold down to 1/30th on 2 of the forest shots.

Anyway here are all 15 images ….. ( I managed to leave the lens cap on for one frame in the Reala set …. idiot)

First Fuji Reala …

Second Kodak Ektar …

The size of 6×9 negs is something to behold … it’s a bit strange just seeing 8 frames when you get it out of the tank and the level of detail you get even when scanning on my getting old Epson v500 is lovely.

I am going to get my next roll lab processed and scanned just to hopefully see just how good this lovely camera is.

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 🙂

April’s Tmax-Party entries in one place ….

This months @TMAX_party entries were shot using my lovely new Leica M2 with a Jupiter 8 50mm f2 on Tmax 400.

They were shot in 2 locations 1st at Porthcawl beach and finished off at home in the Garw Valley. To be honest Tmax is not my favorite film but I have to admit that the tones that it gives when using this camera/lens combination are lovely, its hard to tell looking here but when I look at the full res scans they are very pleasing. I will be visiting the darkroom with a couple of the beach shots to see how they print.

Thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Expired Film Day …….

Last week, well March 15th to be precise was Expired film day where photographers were encouraged to shoot a roll of expired film, the older the better and post up and possibly win some prizes.

http://schneidan.com/expired-film-day/

My chosen film was a roll of Fuji NPS160 that expired back in 1999 and I shot it with my trusty Mamiya 645 and 80mm f2.8.

I rushed home from work hoping to catch the last rays of sun down Porthcawl Beach which we managed to do.I wasn’t sure how the colours were going to look like as NPS is more a portrait film with muted colours. With it being expired I shot it at iso 50 and told Film Dev that I pushed the film and if the could hopefully get something in the scanning for me.When I downloaded the scans I was very happy with the results, the colours were just what I was after and captured the mood of the early evening at the beach.I still have another 5 rolls of this film in my fridge and can’t wait to shoot some more weather allowing 🙂

Thanks for looking.

Click on an image to view larger…..

You can also find my film only stuff over at https://usingfilm.wordpress.com/ if you want to see more film loveliness …..

Elvis has left the building … and is going to Porthcawl ……….

Popped along to the annual Elvis Festival held in Porthcawl last weekend armed only with my trusty Nikon F90x and some ilford HP5+.

Even though we were down there quite early there were plenty of characters walking about all very willing to have their photographs taken.

I was a bit worried taking the shot above due to the Gold jacket and the very bright sunlight but the camera and film coped very well (no instant feed back from the back of the camera with film….lol).

It was good to see Porthcawl busy and vibrant especially after the pretty poor summer weather we have had this year.

All in all I shot just 48 frames all day where as I would have shot hundreds if I had took my DSLR so the editing process was so much easier.

Even though the day was full of colours I am glad that I shot B&W I don’t know what it is but it gave me more of the feel of the day without any distracting colour elements in the frame.

All comments very welcome ……. thanks for looking 🙂

I love getting new camera’s especially when they are FREE………….

A few months ago a photographer friend who knew I was getting back into film photography sent me a message to say he has a Canon A1 he has never used and I could have it if I wanted it. Obviously I said YES! PLEASE! but we never got around to meeting up until last week.

After a little clean up and a visit to Camarthen Cameras http://www.carmarthencameras.co.uk/ to get a lens, a Canon FD 35mm for a princely sum of £30 I loaded it up with some expired Agfa Vista 400 and went off to Porthcawl to try it out..

The variation in the colours of the film gave the photos a vintage sort of feel but as you can see here the camera and lens performed excellently and for a total outlay of £30 I couldn’t go wrong.

I would like to Thank Gareth for his generosity and even though I really like this camera (my 1st Canon) I will not be turning to the dark-side just yet as I am too heavily invested in my Nikon equipment.

Street Shooting with Film…………

Last weekend we popped down to Porthcawl for an hour or so with my F90x loaded with ilford HP5+ thinking I would capture some gloomy shots of dark clouds and wet holiday-makers but as soon as we parked up the sun came out and so did the people.

It’s a bit of a challenge to shoot candid street photos on film as you cannot just shoot loads and find the good one’s later you have to be very patient and when a shot shows it’s self make sure you get it right.

As the sun was pretty bright and most of the times I found myself shooting into it I was not really sure whether or not I got the shots even though I deliberately over exposed trying not to get silhouettes but the camera and film combo worked great.

It was quite a nice walk around the seafront and we popped into Coney Island on the way back to the car, I could have done with a roll of Colour Film then but they say its going to be a Sunny weekend so we may pop down again, its great to have the seaside right on your doorstep.

Father’s Day and a trip to Porthcawl………….

We popped down my Mum and Dad’s on Father’s day and I was determined to get some candid portrait shots of Dad as he never likes his photograph taken and as a challenge I was using film.

As usual he was a hard subject to pin down but I did manage to get a few nice frames with pretty good expressions.

When we left we popped down the coast to Porthcawl for a nice stroll by the seaside where I shot another roll of Tri-x 400. It is getting easier to shoot manual now after 15+ rolls and it is such a nice feeling to take my time and choose the shot rather than shoot everything and look through later for the best ones.

Ok, not every shot I take on film is perfect but even the one’s that are not quite what I envisaged at the time are still keepers.

Thanks for looking….comments very welcome

Keep film alive

click on image for a larger view………….

A Day at the Fair…….

I was testing out my new Sigma 30mm f1.4 and went down Porthcawl on a nice sunny day where I saw this couple sitting in the middle of the fairground. I took a few quick snaps but they looked so interesting I asked if I could take their portrait, they were shocked that someone wanted to take their picture but duly obliged.

Nikon D7000, Sigma 30mm f1.4 1/1600sec f4 iso 100

click on image to view larger…….