Test shots from my Ensign Reflex camera which unfortunately have failed because of the cheap reading glasses I was using to focus the dim image on the ground glass in the waist level finder. All the shots are out of focus to varying degrees and I can only apologies to the nice people I photographed. It was a fun session so not a complete loss.
[Tech info:] Ensign Reflex, Aero Ektar 7 inch lens, 6×9 roll film holder, Ilford HP5 (expired), developed in Promicrol 1+14.
On 29th December 2020 there was an unusually bright moon so I ventured out to do some moonlighting. The moon was possibly a day away from being full and the sky was completely clear. Here’s a shot of a flooded meadow I had been photographing at the end of December (more of those pictures to come). The exposure time for this was 2 minutes. I bracketed exposures and made a 3 minute exposure which has a brighter sky but the reflection in the water is not as clear.
[Tech info]: Mamiya Universal, 50/6.3 lens, Fuji Across 100, 6×9 back, developed in Ilford Ilfosol 3, 1+9 for 6m 30s in a Jobo.
It’s always a privilege spending a day with the Endeavour crew and even more so when it’s at the studio where the interior sets are built. The day I picked on series 7 to visit the studio coincidently happened to be the wrap day for the series and I was asked to make a group shot of the crew before their lunch break. I did the same on series 5 but this time the group was larger and even the caterers managed to squeeze in. A nice record of a fun day. More pictures to follow.
[Tech info:] Fuji GW690, Delta 400 @ ISO 800, developed in DDX 1+4.
Giffords Circus came to Oxford on their 2019 tour and I went along to do some photography as I have done in previous years. It’s always nice to see familiar faces there and some new ones too. For these shots I used a Fuji 6×9 rangefinder camera which has a 90/3.5 lens that is not interchangeable. It’s a hulk of a camera but I really like the large viewfinder and the 3:2 aspect ratio of the frame compared to 6×7. The 90mm isn’t really a portrait lens so I tend to go a little wider than just head and shoulders.
[Tech info:] Fuji GW690, Fuji 400H (expired) film, Noritsu scans.
Some pictures from the first Sunday Scramble of this year, held at Bicester Heritage Centre. This roll ended up in the camera for 10 months with one frame remaining so it’s nice to see these shots, finally.
[Tech info:] Fuji 6×9, 90/3.5, Fuji 400H (expired), Noritsu scans.
Here are some pictures from my first visit to the Bicester Heritage Centre where they were holding a sunday scramble classic car event. It was very busy so I didn’t manage to get many opportunities to make shots with a clear background.
[Tech info:] Fuji 6×9, Fuji 400H film (expired), dev and scanned by FilmDev.co.uk
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.
Here are two group shots I made on the last day of filming of Endeavour 5, episode 4 at the HQ. I thoroughly enjoyed spending the day with them all and I’m glad we managed to find the time to fit this in.
[Tech info:] Fuji 6×9, Ilford HP5 film developed in Kodak HC110 1+31, 5 mins.
Checked shirt Friday crew.
St Giles’ Fair rolled into town last week and this is the first of what will probably be quite a few blog posts of pictures shot over the three days (including setting up). This year I only used black & white film for a change. It was nice to see some familiar faces again and as usual there was lots going on and plenty to photograph. I missed the fair last year so I was crossing my fingers for nice weather this time which we were fortunate to have. In the second shot down you can see Tommy Noyce who has been visiting St Giles’ Fair since he was 6 years old. He is now 73. The well known galloping horses carousel has been in his family for three generations and takes five trucks to transport. Sadly it no longer comes to St Giles’ Fair. The last frame below was made on the way back to my office during my lunch time visit to the fair – two of the tailors from Clements & Church on Little Clarendon Street.
[Tech info:] Fuji 6×9, Neopan Acros 100 developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 14 mins.
This set of images were made with what I think is the oldest camera I currently own – a Voigtlander Bessa I 6×9 folder from 1936. It works incredibly well for its age but it is a little quirky (it has separate viewfinder windows for focussing and composing) and it’s not particularly fast to use in a hurry but I do enjoy the size of the frames on the film and it folds down to a very compact size which makes it perfect for carrying around. I’ve only put three rolls through it so far and I think I’ll try a roll with this camera mounted on a tripod to see how much sharper the images become.
[Tech info]: Voigtlander Bessa I 6×9 folder, 105mm Skopar lens, Fuji Acros 100 film, developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 5:30.
Here are some medium format shots I made during my recent lunch time session with Tori. I previously posted a couple of Fujiroid bleached neg shots here. The format for these shots was 6×9 which is one of my favourite medium format aspect ratios but I only have one camera that was designed to use that format and these shots reminded me that I don’t use it enough. You get 8 shots of 6×9 on a 120 size roll so it’s not a format for the trigger happy. For this shoot I decided to use fresh film stock for a change and while I can’t see a huge difference compared to some of my expired film shots I do think that the contrast was handled better on the contrasty back lit shots. We were a bit rushed in this session because I wanted to use medium format, 35mm and Fuji pack film all within 25mins which is not easy when you’ve got lots of people moving around during lunch time and you have to keep stopping to wait for a clear background but Tori was very patient despite the cold weather and we got everything done in time.
[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/2.8, Kodak Tri-X 400, processed in Kodak Xtol 1+1.
I haven’t used my Mamiya Universal press camera for a while so I decided to dust it off for a quick shoot with Imogen during my lunch break. No matter how hard I try I still don’t like rangefinder camera’s. I like to use wide aperture’s for shallow depth of field and having to focus in the middle of the frame and then recomposing is not helpful for maintaining critical focus. The thing I like about the Mamiya Universal is the versatility of being able to shoot so many different film formats and also full-frame Polaroids. These were all made with a 6×9 roll film back which gives you 8 frames on a roll of 120.
[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/2.8, 6×9 roll film back, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 7:30.
