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Monday, January 5th, 2015
These shots are from a few days ago during a photo walk around town with a fellow film photographer friend of mine, Chris. Neither of us had anticipated the icy cold wind that had come in and after braving it up until the light started to fade we decided to head to the Natural History Museum which is not only one of my favourite places to photograph but it’s also guaranteed to be warm 🙂 I made a mistake with this roll because it came in a batch of mixed expired films and had no box. At a glance the roll looked like Fuji Neopan 100 Acros but it was actually Neopan 400. I wanted to test Acros pushed 1 stop in Xtol developer but because this was an ISO 400 film I ended up over-exposing it by 1 stop and then pushed it 1 stop in the developer. I’m amazed I got anything usable from the roll and it’s a credit to the latitude of film.
[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/2.8, Fuji Neopan 400 (expired), rated at ISO 200 and pushed 1 stop in Xtol 1+1 for 13 mins.
Posted in Oxford, People | No Responses »
Tags: 6x7, black&white, film, mamiya universal, natural history museum, oxford, xtol
Sunday, January 4th, 2015
A couple of weeks before Christmas I went into town on a sunny Saturday morning to photograph the Christmas market that had been set up on Broad Street and just generally see if there was much going on. I also wanted to test out some Kodak Gold film which I haven’t used in decades and after seeing lots of fantastic results online from other photographers I felt that a sunny winter morning would be good conditions for testing. As it turned out I found it difficult to do much photography because of the volume of shoppers around but I did manage to do some photography and here’s a selection.
[Tech info:] Konica Hexar AF, Kodak Gold 400 (expired), processed in a Rollei Digibase C41 kit. Pakon scans.
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Tags: film, gold, hexar, kodak, konica, oxford, pakon, people
Saturday, January 3rd, 2015
Happy New Year! Despite my best efforts I’m sorry to say I didn’t manage to post very much last month (December 2014) and although I’m not into new year resolutions I do plan to try to post more this year if only to share some of the mountain of images I made in 2014. It’s not going to be easy because I haven’t slowed down in making new images and don’t plan to any time soon so let’s see what this new year brings…
During a recent end of year tidy up I came across a box of Fomapan 100 5×4 sheets that I had forgotten I had. I thought it would be wise to test some of them before using them on any important shots so I decided to do some still life photography of one of my wife’s orchids which I’ve been meaning to photograph for a while. The light was very flat and less than ideal but I went ahead because Fomapan can tend to be on the contrasty side and you can’t get much contrasty than white petals on a black background. The film seems to be okay and for my next shots I’ll try to do some with a wider contrast range.
[Tech info:] Wista field 5×4, Schneider 150mm and 180mm lenses. Fomapan 100 processed in Xtol 1+1 for 8 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, Still life | No Responses »
Tags: 5x4, black&white, film, fomapan, orchids, oxford, wista, xtol
Sunday, December 7th, 2014
Kodak 500T film is designed to be used in tungsten light but as I do most of my photography during my lunch break I wanted to test how it looked  when used in daylight with an 85B colour correction filter. These shots were all made on the same day during my lunch break (apart from the last shot which was made without a filter after work).
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5, Kodak 500T film, processed with a Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scan.
Posted in film, Oxford, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 500t, film, leica, m2, nokton, oxford, pakon, voigtlander
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014
It’s been a long time since the last time I can remember pushing Kodak Tri-X film to ISO 1600 and processing it in Rodinal developer so that’s what I decided to do a few weeks ago. There are a mix of images on this roll ranging from some night portraits that I made during a photography class I was teaching to Ruskin art students on the High Street during their drawing sale to raise funds for their end of year degree show. I’d like to do some more work with Art students but they seem to be an illusive bunch so it’s currently a work in progress.
[Tech info:] Nikon FM2, Zeiss 50/1.4 lens, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), rated at ISO 1600, processed in Rodinal 1:50 for 18 mins.
Posted in Art, film, Oxford, People, Street portraits, students | No Responses »
Tags: black&white, film, fm2, oxford, people, portraits, rodinal, students, Tri-X
Saturday, November 29th, 2014
These are the first shots from my Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5 lens which I tested during my lunch break yesterday. Technically this is the second roll of shots with this lens – the first roll was unusable because I forgot to close the back door of my M2 properly so the film wasn’t flat and the whole roll was out of focus. That’s what can happen when you’re excited to use a lens you’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. Lesson learnt. The weather was heavily overcast sky with a really gloomy feel everywhere. It’s the kind of light I would never usually waste a roll of film with but I really wanted to see how this lens performed so I decided to go out regardless and I must admit I do like the results, especially the bokeh, this lens is definitely a keeper. My thanks go to Jason Howe for all of his help and advice about this lens which I prefer for b&w over my Summicron 50/2. I’ll be keeping the Summicron because I shot some slide film with it and the results look fantastic so I can see it being useful for colour (as suggested by my friend Anthony).
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voitlander Nokton 50/1.5, Ilford Delta 400 (expired), processed in Kodak D76 1:1 for 14 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Street portraits, students | No Responses »
Tags: black&white, d76, delta 400, film, leica, m2, oxford, pakon, people, portraits
Tuesday, November 25th, 2014
Recently I managed to pick up a roll of quite unique film and these are some of my first test shots with it. The roll is 350ft long and 5 inches wide so it’s perfect for being cut down to 5×4 inch sheets to use for large format photography. The film is Kodak Plus-X Aero film that was developed for aerial photography – this is stock used by the M.O.D. and expired in 2000. During my lunch break yesterday I went into town hoping to make some test portraits because the tonal range in this film is more like what you find in wet plate photography and I wanted to know if it was going to be usable for portraits. I’m very happy with the results which look very smooth tonally and the grain is almost non existent.
[Tech info:] Polaroid 110B (modified for 5×4), Kodak Plus-X 2402 Aero film, ISO 100, processed in Rodinal 1:50 for 14 mins.
Here’s the camera I used (shown below with a roll film back). Modified by Randy at HolgaMods.com
Posted in Oxford, People, Portrait, Street portraits, students | No Responses »
Tags: 110B, 5x4, aero, black&white, film, oxford, people, plus-x, polaroid, portraits, rodinal
Friday, November 21st, 2014
In between lots of wet weather over the past couple of weeks we’ve had some nice dry spells and I managed to finish off a roll of film in my M2 during my lunch time photo walks. A bit of a mixed bag here including a shot of me from the generous photographer with the Polaroid camera. I spotted him crossing beaumont street while loading in a fresh pack of Impossible b&w film so I stopped him to ask if I could make a quick portrait of him and he was happy to oblige (picture at the bottom of this post). I don’t know what caused the bright white patch in the middle of the picture but it does make it a bit more mysterious.
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Summicron 50/2 (rigid), Ilford FP4 (expired 12/99), processed in D76 stock for 8.30.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits, students | No Responses »
Tags: ashmolean, black&white, d76, film, fp4, impossible, leica, m2, oxford, people, portraits
Monday, November 17th, 2014
These shots were made to test out a camera/lens combination I put together. The body is a Pentax 645N and the lens is a 105/2.4 designed for a Pentax 6×7 body but I’m using a lens adapter that allows this lens to be mounted on a smaller format body. I recruited the help of a friend for some of the testing (thanks Jean Pierre) and  I experimented with different apertures to see how the depth of field looked, I also added in a portable LED light for some fill which worked out particularly well. The portrait in the top right hand corner is of Paul from Covered Arts, we went to school together many moons ago and it was nice to bump into him during his coffee break.
[Tech info:] Pentax 645N, 105/2.4 lens (attached with a 6Ă—7 to 645 adapter), expired Ilford HP5 film, processed in Kodak D76 1+1 for 13mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, Portrait | 1 Response »
Tags: 645, black&white, d76, film, HP5, oxford, pentax, people, portraits
Wednesday, November 12th, 2014
Now that winter is here and the weather is getting colder and wetter I think it’s the perfect time to start posting my coverage of the trashing that happened here in Oxford during the summer when it was a lot warmer and sunnier. This was such a lot of fun to photograph but also quite difficult, not only because I had to avoid getting in the firing line of the various liquids that were flying around but also because I kept getting accused of being from the Daily Mail after they published an article about binge drinking and used pictures of Oxford students getting trashed to illustrate it – the two things couldn’t be further apart. It’s hardly surprising really because if the Daily Mail are good at one thing it’s publishing lies – just ask George Clooney.
[Tech info:] Nikon F100, Agfa Vista 200 (Poundland) film, processed and scanned by ASDA Swindon.
Posted in film, Oxford, students | No Responses »
Tags: agfa vista, asda, exams, f100, film, nikon, oxford, students, summer, trashing
Tuesday, November 11th, 2014
This is my second set of pictures from the Remembrance Sunday event on St Giles in Oxford. After I finished the roll of Ilford Pan F I loaded a roll of Kodak TMAX 100 film into my M2. While I had another roll of Pan F in my bag, I decided to use the TMAX because I didn’t know how the extreme contrast was going to render so I thought I’d cover all bases by using a different stock. It was also a good experiment to see how different both films might be in the same conditions. For this roll I also changed lenses for a different perspective.
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Summicron 50/2 (rigid), Kodak TMAX 100, processed in Kodak HC110 1:31 for 6 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People | No Responses »
Tags: black&white, film, hc110, leica, m2, oxford, people, remembrance sunday, summicron, tmax
Monday, November 10th, 2014
Here’s a set of pictures from the Remembrance Sunday service and parade that took place on St Giles yesterday. I’ve never been before so I didn’t quite know what to expect but the scale of the event was very impressive. After a wet and miserable Saturday we were fortunate to have a dry and sunny morning but even though the contrasty light made photography difficult I did like the long shadows and rim lighting. I packed my Leica M2 because I wanted to be discreet without using a noisy camera and apart from some difficulty with the rangefinder when looking towards the sun I soon found a workaround so it wasn’t too bad.
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voightlander Nokton 35/1.2 II, Ilford Pan F (expired), processed in Kodak D76 stock.
Posted in film, Oxford, People | 1 Response »
Tags: black&white, d76, film, leica, m2, oxford, pan f, people, remembrance sunday
