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Saturday, September 14th, 2019
For the longest time I have wanted to take my 10×8 camera into town to do some large format photography and recently I finally managed to do it on a Saturday morning. Even though I only took one lens – the smallest and lightest I have that is suitable for 10×8 photography – the combined weight of the camera, tripod and film holders is more than my back can comfortably handle so I have to drag the camera around with a foldable hand cart which works really well. I took with me both Ilford Delta 100 b&w film and Fuji Velvia 100F transparency film. Below are a couple of shots made with the Delta 100, I’ve processed the Velvia and the shots turned out very nicely but I haven’t scanned them yet. The group shot of the Zappi’s Cycling Club was very impromptu – I was photographing the Sheldonian Theatre on Broad Street when I was approached by one of the cyclists about photographing them with my big camera.
[Tech info:] 10×8 field camera, Nikon 210mm f5.6 lens, Delta 100 film (expired), developed in Ilford DD-X with a Jobo processor.
Posted in Architecture, film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 10x8, black&white, ddx, film, ilford, oxford, people
Tuesday, July 30th, 2019
This set of pictures is part of an ongoing project to document the historic suburb of Jericho in Oxford which I have been doing on and off since 2013 mainly during my lunch break. It’s possible I have pictures from before 2013 but that’s the oldest date in my archive that I have tagged ‘Jericho’. Whenever I have a camera or film to test I often walk around Jericho and see what catches my eye, often photographing the same things in different light at different times of the year. The streets are usually very quiet which is why I don’t have many pictures of people. Quiet pictures of a quiet place.
A whole range of film formats is represented here from 35mm up to 5×4 large format. Hopefully soon I will be doing some 10×8 photography around Jericho but that won’t be during my lunch break!
These pictures were made with the following cameras: Bronica ETRSi, Rolleiflex 3.5 Automat, Bronica SQA, Pentax 645, Leica M6, Yashica Electro 35, Graflex Crown Graphic, Pentax P30N; and the following films: Ilford FP4, Kodak Plus-X, Eastman Double X, Fuji Acros 100, Kodak Tri-X.
Posted in Architecture, Oxford, People | 4 Responses »
Tags: 645, bronica, crown graphic, electro 35, etrsi, film, graflex, jericho, leica, m6, pentax, sqa, yashica
Wednesday, June 12th, 2019
These shots are from a lunch break session of testing paper negatives. In previous tests I had found using ID11 film developer diluted to 1+2 tamed the contrast nicely compared to using Ilford Multigrade paper developer but having run out of ID11 I wanted to test D76 film developer which I had just mixed up (apparently they are both based on the same recipe). The sky was very overcast which kept the contrast down and I was in-between rain showers.
[Tech info:] Graflex Crown Graphic 5×4, 135/4.7 lens, Ilford Multigrade RC paper (ISO 6), D76 1+2 dilution, 2 mins.
Posted in Architecture, film, Oxford | No Responses »
Tags: 135mm, 5x4, crown graphic, d76, lunch break, oup, paper negative
Friday, March 30th, 2018
Last month I visited the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley for the second time and on this trip I decided to take along a large format camera for a change. The most portable 5×4 camera I have is a modified Polaroid 110B which folds up nicely to make it very portable and easy to travel with. I’ve got some sheets that I haven’t developed yet and those will follow in a future blog post.
[Tech info:] Polaroid 110B, Yashinon 127mm lens, Ilford FP4 film (expired), developed in Kodak HC110 1+31. Last shot was made on Fomapan 100 (expired), developed in Rodinal 1+25.
Posted in Architecture, film | No Responses »
Tags: 5x4, black country, black&white, film, fp4, hc110, polaroid 110B
Sunday, October 15th, 2017
For quite a while I have wanted to use some Fuji Acros 100 film for night photography because it supposedly does not suffer from reciprocity failure for exposure times up to 1 minute and now that it has started to get darker earlier I decided it was finally time to give it a go. On this occasion I was joined by Graeme – one of the presenter’s of the Sunny 16 podcast – which made for a fun evening of photography and chat. We got lucky with the weather and the temperature was unusually mild for the end of September which made standing around for long exposures no problem at all. The last shot below of the Radcliffe Camera was exposed for just over 1 minute and I added in a little light painting on the roof for good measure. This film certainly didn’t lose sensitivity for such a long exposure time and I will be using it again for more night photography soon.
[Tech info:] Fuji GW690, Fuji Acros 100 film, developed in Rodinal 1+25.
Posted in Architecture, film, Oxford | 3 Responses »
Tags: 6x9, acros, black&white, film, fuji, night, oxford, rodinal
Tuesday, June 6th, 2017
Ducker & Son Ltd, Turl Street, Oxford, traditional shoemakers since 1898. All gone now. Soon to be a wine shop, right next door to the Whiskey Shop. Just what Oxford needs. When I found out that Duckers was closing for good I felt compelled to document what was left of the shop. Over the years I have photographed the shoes in the window countless times but this was the first time I had actually set foot inside the shop. It’s a real shame to see this shop close. When I got there in my lunch break there were lots of people coming and going and it was difficult to not be in the way with a tripod set up. I wanted some nice quality pictures so I decided to take a Pentax 67 with a wide-angle lens. I knew the shop was quite dark inside so film choice was very simple – Neopan Acros 100 because it doesn’t suffer from reciprocity failure until you go past 1 minute exposures. Most of my exposures were around the 30 seconds mark. I only had enough time to finish one roll of 10 frames but that was more than enough to get these results.
[Tech info:] Pentax 67, 50/4, Neopan Acros 100 developed in Rodinal 1+50.
Posted in Architecture, Oxford | 3 Responses »
Tags: 6x7, acros, black&white, duckers, film, oxford, pentax, rodinal, turl street
Saturday, March 18th, 2017
I recently bought a batch of expired large format 5×4 sheet film that I’m unfamiliar with so I made some test shots during my lunch break to see what they would look like. The film expired in 2005 and as I have no idea of how it’s been stored since then I decided to rate the film at ISO64 instead of 100. The camera I used is my smallest and most portable 5×4 camera which is a Polaroid 110B that I had converted by Randy at holgamods.com. It’s a thing of beauty and a joy to use.
[Tech info:] Polaroid 110B, Mac 100 UP b&w film (expired 2005), rated at ISO64 and developed in Rodinal 1+25 for 8mins in a Jobo.
Posted in Architecture, Equipment, film, Oxford | No Responses »
Tags: 5x4, film, maco, oxford, polaroid 110B, rodinal
Monday, February 22nd, 2016
A generous friend of mine (thanks Clive) gave me an Olympus OM1 that he had been given over 10 years ago but never got around to using it. I was very pleased to accept it as I’ve been curious about the Olympus OM1 for a long time. I keep hearing so many positive things about it but I don’t have any experience of Olympus SLR cameras having been a lifelong Nikon user. It turned out that the light meter doesn’t work in this OM1 but fortunately it’s a manual mechanical camera and still works fine without the light meter or batteries. These shots are from the first test roll I put through it during my lunch break.
[Tech info:] Olympus OM1, Zuiko 50/1.8 lens, Kodak TMAX 1oo developed in Kodak HC110 1+31. Pakon scans.
Posted in Architecture, Equipment, film, Oxford, People, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: black&white, film, hc110, olympus, OM1, pakon, tmax100
Monday, February 9th, 2015
Yesterday I taught a landscape photography workshop at New College with Anthony (the current Oxford University Photographic Society President) and after a classroom session we all went out into the New College grounds to do some photography. The sky was very clear which made for quite contrasty light with nice shadows. I decided to take my Polaroid 110B to do some large format photography on Kodak Plus-X Aerographic film to test out how it handled contrast. Overall I think the film handled the contrast very well, especially in this first image below. I only took six sheets of film with me and to save time I bracketed the first two shots and then used my last two on Anthony (we couldn’t decide on jacket on or off so we shot both).
[Tech info:] Polaroid 110B, Kodak Plus-X Aerographic film, processed in Kodak HC110 (1+31) for 5 mins.
Behind-the-scenes – film drying in the darkroom
Posted in Architecture, film, Oxford, Portrait | 4 Responses »
Tags: 110B, 5x4, aerographic, anthony, black&white, film, hc110, new college, oxford, plus-x, polaroid, portraits
Sunday, January 25th, 2015
Towards the end of the Christmas break I did some photography at Magdalen College to test out a Russian lens I had mounted to use with my Speed Graphic 5×4 camera. How appropriate that I would meet up with a Russian flickr contact of mine who was visiting Oxford with his girlfriend. Along with my Speed Graphic I took my Leica M2 which I used for these shots. The light was fading fast but the 400 speed of Ilford XP2 was just fine. There are some shots from this session still to come which I made on Kodak Vision 3 500T motion picture film.
The results from my Speed Graphic can be found here and here.
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander 50/1.5 Nokton, Ilford XP2 (expired), processed in a Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scan.
Speed Graphic 5×4
Posted in Architecture, film, Oxford, People, Portrait | 2 Responses »
Tags: black&white, film, konstantin, leica, m2, magdalen college, oxford, portraits, voigtlander, xp2
Tuesday, January 13th, 2015
Here are a few more shots from the first time out with my Industar 210mm large format lens. I only took six sheets of film with me and I used two sheets on one of the shots because the light was changing and I decided to try out a greater depth of field on the second sheet. I ended up preferring the light on the building in the first exposure so that’s the one I’ve posted here.
[Tech info:] Graflex Speed Graphic, Industar 210/f4.5 lens, Kodak Plus-X Aerographic film, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6 mins.
Posted in Architecture, Equipment, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: 5x4, aerographic, black&white, film, graflex, hc110, industar, oxford, plus-x, portraits
Saturday, January 10th, 2015
This afternoon I visited Magdalen College to test out a new (old) lens I recently fitted to a lens board for my Speed Graphic and here is the first test shot made on Fuji FP-100C instant pack film. I also took some b&w sheet film with me and those shots will follow at a later time. The beauty of FP-100C is being able to bleach the black carbon backing from the back and ending up with an almost large format sized negative. This shot was made late in the afternoon as the light was fading and I used the slowest shutter speed on my Speed Graphic (1/30th) knowing that the print would be a little on the under-exposed side but also knowing that the negative gives you an extra 2 stops of exposure. It’s nice to get two shots for the price of one – the only instant film that does.
[Tech info:] Speed Graphic 5×4, Industar 210/4.5 lens, Fuji FP-100C instant pack film.
Neg
Print
Posted in Architecture, Equipment, film, Oxford | No Responses »
Tags: 5x4, film, fp100c, fujiroid, graflex, industar, magdalen college, oxford, speed graphic
