The personal blog of a film photographer. I use 35mm, medium format, large format, toy cameras, instant Polaroid land cameras, rangefinders, pinhole cameras, SLRs, TLRs, viewfinder cameras and old pre World War 2 folding cameras.
Saturday 10 December 2016
End of Holiday in the Lakes
Same as usual, Shanghai Pan 100, Rodinal, Ilford Fixer, RA50.
Cool.
Wash the tank and leave to dry. Then start packing up.
Thursday 8 December 2016
More Film Dev and Field Camera
Developed some more film whilst at the hotel and then went out to take some photos of a nearby Stone Circle.
I used the wooden sheet film case that I made recently to store my film. I loaded up the dev tank in the dark and reloaded the double dark slides with Shanghai Pan 100 (aka GP3) sheet film.
Did the development in the bath room – Rodinal 1:49 dilution, Ilford Rapid Fixer, RA50 wetting agent.
I developed the photos from Blea Tarn (field camera and pinhole camera).
The dev photos I put on Instagram went down well.
Then went to Castlerigg Stone Circle with a boot full of photography equipment.
And took some photos with the pinhole cameras and the 4x5 field camera.
Tuesday 6 December 2016
Blea Tarn
I used a Sekonic light meter. This meter is a little pricey, but it’s awesome.
I’m shooting my usual staple for 4x5 – Shanghai Pan 100 (aka GP3 – though GP3 is only really the name for this film when it’s sold in 120 format as far as I understand). I like shooting 2 stops down from wide open, which in this case is f/11. This gives a 2s exposure.
With reciprocity taken into account, that comes out at 8s.
The tarn was like glass – there was no wind at all.
Developing Film in a Hotel…
Three sheets of Shanghai Pan 100 (aka GP3) 4x5 film loaded in the SP-445 dev tank. Using Rodinal at 1:49 dilution and Ilford Rapid Fixer.
The ‘Massive Dev Chat’ app is awesome.
Three (two from my field camera, one from my 4x5 pinhole camera) negatives drying on the edge of the bath.
Monday 5 December 2016
Pinholes in Scotland
Did a day trip to Scotland whilst I was on holiday in the Lake District.
The 8x10 setup on a tidal loch. There was no where to place the tent pegs, so I had to tie the guy ropes around rocks. There was no wind, so hopefully there will be no blur.
The 8x10 has an effective aperture of f/400. This gives an exposure time of 10s.
I should really add the exposure compensation in the reciprocity app (and I should take the screen shot before the timer counts down too). I metered at ISO 50 which is why there’s no compensation showing. The adjusted exposure for reciprocity is 33s.
Next I move on to the 4x5 camera. I wanted to get a similar photo to the one from the 8x10 so I can get a feel for the sharpness, field of view, etc between the two cameras.
The 4x5 has an effective aperture of f/200. This gives an exposure time of 5s.
Again, I metered at ISO 50 instead of ISO 100, so the meter reading already has +1 stop of exposure compensation. Taking reciprocity into account gives 11s of exposure.
Thursday 1 December 2016
Making a Wooden Box for my 4x5 Film
Using the ‘shooting board’ and plane to make the ends square. I planned to use use butt joints for this as I am about to go on holiday and I want to take the finished box with me.
Quick glue up using a box clamp.
Some boards I had previously glued up for a different project that went nowhere. These would be the top and bottom of the box.
The boards glued on the top and bottom and a heavy weight added. In the future I will use clamps, as this didn’t work so well.
Closed box with oversized edges. Next to trim down the edges, then cut the box open.
I used a little wooden block plane to trim the boards down to size, along with a sander when close.
Looking good so far.
Carefully cutting the box open by hand.
Success!
Gluing little pieces in to held keep the lid in the right place as the box closes. This will also help the clasp align.
The clasp I plan to use.
Hinges and clasp fitted.
The shut line is a little uneven
But the two boxes of film fit like a charm
I adjusted the hinges a bit to get a better shut line, then gave it a nice coat of bee’s wax furniture polish. Job done.
Thursday 24 November 2016
Pinhole Camera – 4x5, 60mm – Test Image
The 0.3mm pinhole has an effective aperture of f/200 for the 60mm focal length. This gives an exposure of 10s with +1 stop for reciprocity failure compensation.
Which I timed on my phone.
And then used the ‘Massive Dev Chart’ app to help with the development (awesome app, you should get it). I processed the 4x5 sheet film (Shanghai Pan 100, aka ‘GP3’) in Rodinal at 1:49 dilution.
I normally print my negatives, so wasn’t setup to take a scan (photo) of a 4x5 negative. I placed the negative on my tablet computer. This resulted in a bit of a weird image (as you can see the pixels) but was good enough for a test.
With the image inverted in GIMP. The grey area on the left is an inverted white reflection of my ceiling. Good enough for a test. Looks like I needed to add more reciprocity failure compensation.