Yashicamat 124G – tim dobbs photography

Sunny day for a change … Shooting Kodak Portra 400VC …

As to be expected here in Wales the weather has been pretty up and down … mainly down but a week ago we had a fleeting glimpse of the sun, so as I had not shot any colour film stock this year I grabbed a roll of Portra 400VC from the fridge and loaded up the trusty Yashicamat 124G and went out to make the most of the light.

I only went for a short walk as I bumped into artist Kevin Sinnott outside his gallery and popped in for a chat as I had not seen him for a while.

To make the most of the light I managed to take his portrait outside before I left for the rest of my walk.

Even though the film had pretty long expired I rated it at 200 iso and was not disappointed with how the images came out.

As I don’t have any C41 chemistry here I sent the film off to the trusty Filmdev who did a great job as usual.

So here are the images …

Comments most welcome …

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

Also still have a handful of zines over on my etsy store … https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto

Trying Kentmere 400 in 120 format …. the whole roll

My favorite B&W film stock has got to be ilford HP5 due to how versatile it is.

I have pushed it to 3200 and still got great results, I have also used Kentmere 400 in 35mm on quite a few occasions and was pretty happy with what I got but it never pulled me away from using HP5.

So when all the you tubers I follow suddenly started putting out videos about the new Kentmere in 120 format I was a little taken aback as I was unaware that ilford were releasing a new film.

As I am not one of the ilford chosen few I had to buy my own to try so I got a few rolls of Both 100 and 400 iso from the excellent Analogue Wonderland.

I loaded the 400 in my Yashicamat 124g and popped out to burn a roll and see what it was like.

I developed it using ilfotec DD-X 1+4 dilution for 11.30mins and scanned using my Epson V600.

First look at the negatives and they looked very flat with minimal contrast.

When scanning that is exactly how they turned out but that isn’t a bad thing because once they were in Lightroom the dynamic range was excellent and with just a few tweaks the images looked fine with great tonal range, minimal grain and nicely sharp.

Overall this film is a winner for me as it is only £5 a roll and gives great results .. I will have to try pushing the next roll to 800 or even 1600 to see how it copes, I regularly shoot HP5 pushed and love how that looks.

Anyway here is the whole roll, comments most welcome.

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

Expired Kodak Portra 160 VC .. the whole roll …

Ages ago I bought quite a bit of expired film from MrCad which comprised of mainly Kodak Portra VC in 160 and 400 in both 35mm and 120 format.

I have used the 400 speed quite a bit and had great results so I decided to give the 160 a go in my Yashicamat 124g as it was a particularly sunny day a few weeks back.

I metered with the Yashicamat as I forgot my light meter and I rated the film at 100.

The film was developed and scanned by Filmdev.

The images were lovely and warm with good contrast … very similar to my previous blog post when I tried the new kodak Gold 200 but a bit sharper and almost no grain to speak of.

I have another 14 rolls of this so I am really happy that even though expired it works great.

Well here is the whole roll … comments most welcome

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

Trying Kodak Gold in 120 format … the whole roll

When I heard that Kodak were producing Gold in 120 format I was pretty excited .. not because it was Gold as I haven’t really shot too much of it in the past and to be totally honest I had to look on the internet for samples just to see what it was really like .. I was excited because I shoot film 95% of the time I was happy that there was another film stock on the market.

I pre ordered a 5 pack from the brilliant https://analoguewonderland.co.uk/ and eagerly waited for it to arrive which wasn’t all that long to be fair.

As it was a 200 iso film I didn’t want to rush out and just shoot the film I wanted to try it in nice light so it was a fortnight before I eventually shot it.

I used my trusty Yashicamat 124G and went out on a nice long walk in the sun.

I had the roll dev/scanned by https://filmdev.co.uk/ and was very happy with the results.

The film was lovely and sharp and considering how bright it was on the day the latitude was great with no blown highlights and plenty of detail in the shadows and very little grain.

Like many of the examples online that I have seen the film gives a nice warm look which obviously helps if you shoot it in the sunshine.

My usual colour negative film is Lomo CN400 which I love but Gold 200 really impressed me, the only thing that I would like is is the extra stop that CN 400 gives but for my next roll I will push it to 400 just to see how it performs.

I would thoroughly recommend this film and the best thing is the price compared to others on the market … it’s great value

Anyway here is the whole roll …. comments welcomed

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

ilford XP2 in B&W chemistry … the whole roll …

One of the things I want to do this year is try different things with my photography as I feel that last year not only was my film roll count down compared to previous years it was also very samey.

Out of the first six rolls shot this year I didn’t really do much different to usual so with number seven I decided to see how ilford XP2 looked in B&W chemicals compared to C41.

I did a bit of research on the interwebs and decided to shoot the roll at 640/800 iso in my Yashicamat 124G and process it using ilford DD-X 1+4 dilution for 13.30 mins.

Once out of the tank at first glance the negs seemed rather thin and quite under exposed with the base looking a pale pink colour.

But on scanning I was really surprised how they looked, yes they were a little under exposed but nothing that Lightroom couldn’t handle and the images had bags of contrast and sharp as a tack.

The grain was pretty noticeable and I did have some weird effects in the sky but that was probably due to the fact it was expired film rather than the B&W chems.

Overall I was very happy with the roll and would develop XP2 in B&W again, most probably at box speed and fresh rather than pushing it.

I have experimented before shooting XP2 at various iso’s on the same roll then developed in standard C41 and got excellent results .. see here :

Trying ilford XP2 at different ISO ratings on one roll ….

Anyway here is the whole roll … nothing really special here but it was an experiment so I don’t mind ..

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 🙂

1st roll of 2022 .. ilford Delta 400

This year I really want to push myself and get back to shooting more so even though the weather was pretty poor I forced myself to go out and get the first roll in the bag.

I have not shot any ilford Delta for ages and as luck would have it my @emulsivesanta gifted me a roll of Delta 400 which I loaded into my Yashicamat 124g and went out.

I debated whether to push it to 800 but decided against as I wanted to see just how sharp Delta 400 was when shot at less than f8 .. nearly all the frames were either f3.5 or f4 .. I did manage f5.6 on the Graffiti container image.

To be honest my walk only took about 45 minutes and luckily the rain held off.

I developed the roll in ilford DD-x 1+4 dilution for 8 minutes and scanned with my Epson v600.

I was very happy with just how sharp the images were and that I managed to pretty much nail the focus on the wide open frames, Delta 400 is very sharp and with very little grain compared to my beloved HP5 ( I do like grain mind ).

Maybe it’s the way I like to scan ( I scan pretty flat and boost contrast in Lightroom ) but the images seemed less contrasty than HP5 even with my usual boost but it didn’t matter as the look suited the compositions.

Overall I would say that Delta 400 is a great film I should really get some more especially in 120 format as it costs only 50 pence more per roll compared to HP5 in Analogue Wonderland’s store.

I bet if I shot this at f8+ on a bright day in my Fuji GW690iii the scans would be scarily sharp.

So here is the whole roll .. nothing really exciting (I did like the sheep shot thought)

Comments most welcome .. click image to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

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

#FP4Party 2021 .. all my images together ….

This years #FP4Party which takes place over on Twitter has just ended and we are all waiting patiently to see who has been shortlisted and then who goes on to win.

To be honest for me and probably quite a few of the other participants it’s nothing to do with winning or even getting shortlisted ( it is nice to be liked though) but it’s a great excuse to pick one film stock and try to see what everyone comes up with over the week.

I used 2 cameras myself … My trust pair of a Nikon F100 and Yashicamat 124G and shot just one roll in each, it would have been more but that is all I had at the time.

I didn’t post every image I shot so this post feature every photo … good and bad

Quick note .. I developed both rolls in my new developer ilford LC29 which until now I had never used before.

Also the 35mm roll was rated at 200 which I tend to do as it gives me an extra bit of exposure leeway.

Please 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

I also have some zines over on my Etsy store if anyone wants a look .. or message me to buy direct ..

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/timdobbsphoto?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Expired Portra 800 & a slightly faulty Yashicamat 124G …

I have been using my Yashicamat 124G quite a bit this year as it is such an easy medium format camera to use and gives great results but the last 3 rolls that I have shot I have noticed a bit of a problem.

After loading and winding on to frame one then making the first shot the camera will not wind on.

The only way I have since found to carry on shooting with the roll is to fire the shutter again.

When this happened with the first two rolls I ended up with a double exposure as I was unsure whether or not the camera had actually made an exposure … this roll features such an image.

Obviously after 2 rolls having this problem when it happened on the third occasion I placed my hand over the taking lens and fired the shutter which saved the first frame and allowed me to wind to the second frame.

The strange thing with this roll is not only was the first frame a double exposure it also overlapped as you can see in the second image, it has only done this once so I am at a loss to what is going on.

I have shot loads of rolls with this great camera over the years with no problems whatsoever so if anyone out there has any ideas please let me know please.

So here are a few of better images … it was a really overcast drab day (which is why I used Portra 800) which really did wonders with the greens.

Even though the film expired 8 years ago I still shot it at box speed and processed using the Tetenal C41 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

First roll shot in 2021 … Kodak Ektar in the Mamiya 645 …

I imagine that quite a few photographers have struggled during the pandemic to find motivation and opportunity to shoot.

So far this year I have managed 3 rolls which is pretty poor by my usual standard.

I was going through my film stash looking for something that may give me some motivation to get out and shoot.

I realised that I have quite a few rolls of Ektar and the day was quite bright so I loaded up my Mamiya and went out for a walk with my better half.

Even though it was a lovely day I struggled to really shoot anything that pleased me, there was one or two on the roll that were ok but overall this was a poor roll.

Somehow I only ended up with 13 frames, I did manage to accidentally fire off a frame while bending down but where the other one went is a mystery as I shot 15.

It must be old age as I missed focus on 3 frames and had a little camera shake both of which are unusual with the Mamiya, I can easily hand hold at 1/30th usually.

I developed the roll using the Tetenal C41 kit and scanned with the Epson v500

Well here is my 1st roll of 2021 in all its glory …

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

20 minute walk with some ilford HP5 and my Yashicamat 124G …..

I have had my iMac for about 6 months and it has been great for everything especially photo editing in Adobe Lightroom in 4k but since the Big Sur update it has been running like a snail in treacle with all the Adobe products.

I used to edit using a PC which was starting to slow down a bit which is why I upgraded to a new 6 core, 4k iMac so in a fit of extreme recklessness I went and bought a new PC 2 weeks ago (gave my PC to my son so I don’t feel that guilty) and I wanted to test it out so loaded my Yashicamat with some trusty HP5 and went out to bang off 12 frames just to test my workflow from scanning to editing.

Considering I shot the roll in only 10 minutes I was pleased to get 12 keepers albeit very similar shots.

The PC performed brilliantly without a hitch very fast and smooth and a little easier on the eye as my PC monitor is a 28inch 4k compared with my iMac 21.5inch 4k.

Apple has since given an update to Big Sur which still has done nothing to speed up Adobe stuff so I feel a complete wipe and clean install coming over Christmas.

Anyway here are the 12 frames sorry there is not a lot of variety other than slightly different framing and apertures.

As per usual HP5 looked lovely and the Yashicamat gave excellent sharp images.

Click and image to view larger …