Tom Wood - photographer

This link is to an article about photographer, Tom Wood. He has been taking street photos of people since the 1970s. Some great photos here. He has an exhibition on in London. Must be worth a visit!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-19873074

Zeiss Ikon Maximar

A bit of autumn sunshine encouraged me to have another go with the Maximar. As I discovered the first time I used it, its quite a complex process. I loaded up the plates with very old FP4 sheet film, I still have problems getting it the right way around in the plate with the emulsion to the light. The film does have notches  on the top left to aid the process but I still managed to get it wrong on 2 of the 3 plates!

Focusing on the ground glass screen in sunlight is impossible so I needed my dressing gown over my head!

To process the sheets, last time I used the 'taco' method in a Paterson type tank with hair bands to hold the films. This did not work well as the hair bands disintegrated and left deposits over the film. This time I used elastic bands. This was not much of an improvement! The films were not full immersed in the developer and so have undeveloped strips on one side. I used stand development with Rodinal 1+ 100 for 1 hour. Negatives are a little dark. Maybe because the film is so old and it has lost some of its sensitivity.

This shot was taken in a mirror, dark section on the lower right is where the negative was not developed.

Focus is a little soft on this one but I think the negative was the wrong way around in the holder with the emulsion to the rear.

If its sunny tomorrow I might try again.

World's first colour film

Very interesting article from the BBC web site about a colour cine film from 1902.

Watch it here

Infra Red

A while a go I bought a couple of rolls of Ilford SFX200 . This is not true Infra Red film, but has 'extended red sensitivity'. Recently I got a chance to try the film out. The results are, at best, 'mixed'! I loaded it up in my Nikon F801and put a 25A red filter on the front of the zoom lens it has. The F801 has auto focus which is a good thing as its pretty much impossible to manually focus with the red filter on. All the pictures were of vegetation (trees grass etc) and water (lakes, canals) and I was hoping for some dramatic light coloured vegetation and dark sky. I was pretty disappointed!
Only the photos taken in full sunshine showed any signs of the IR effects I was hoping for. Here a couple of the best ones:

This photo of a tree is one of the few where the green of the tree shows up as a lighter colour

Although its not obvious on these small versions of the photos, the film is pretty grainy. I developed it in Ilford DD-X which is the recommended developer.

Sky turned out quite well on this one but hardly dramatic!

The Ilford data sheet for the film suggests getting the right exposure might be difficult, so I followed the advice and bracketed shots at -1, -2  stops but these were too dark and the F801 meter got the exposure correct. It also says that for the most dramatic effects use a R72 filter.

So, conclusions?
1) You don't get much of a dramatic effect with a 25A filter.
2) You don't hardly any effect unless the sun is out.

Next?
I will probably get hold of a R72 filter. This is a very dark red filter, which will take about 4 stops off the exposure so I will need a tripod. I will load the next roll in my Nikon F, this of course is manual focusing so I will need to take the filter off to frame and focus the photo. Then wait for a sunny weekend!

Panoramic photos

This is an interesting short news item on panoramic photos from the BBC web site:

Here

However rather annoyingly the presenter says nobody uses film any more (not true!) and then later in the item shows the Lomagraphy 360 Spinner camera which uses film!

I am certainly tempted to try the Bubblescope iPhone attachment, they have it on Amazon here, but delivery is 1-3 months!!

TTV

I have wanted to try a Through The Viewfinder (TTV) shot for a while so when I was finishing off a roll of Kodak Porta 160 in my Olympus OM-2 I took the opportunity to try a shot through the waist level finder (WLF) of my Exakta Varex 11a. The resulting photo has proved very popular in Flickr:

Spurred on by its success I tried a few more, although this time I used my Lumix digital camera. It actually is pretty tricky to get the lighting and the focus just right. The couple of TLR cameras a have (A Rollicord and a Microcord) produce viewfinder images which are really too dark. My Kodak Brownie Reflex 20 was a little better:

Here it is viewing my Varex IIa.

But I still got the best results with the WLF on my Varex. Here is the Varex IIb viewing my Zeiss Ikonta:

I think the lighting needs further work! My 'studio' set up is a little basic!:

I need to by some more powerful lights to replace my ones with home made cardboard reflectors!

I think a lot of people who are into these TTV photos make a tube with black card or something to keep stray light off the viewfinder. Maybe I will try that one day.

Film or digital?

Just back form a holiday in Gran Canaria. Not as photogenic as I had hoped, too dry and hot! I took my Exakta Varex IIa loaded with FP4, my Olympus OM-2 with some expired Kodak Portra 160VC and my Lumix DMC-GF3 for digital snapshots. Having developed the films and looked through the shots I took at home I realized I took some of the same shots on colour film and digital. For me its not about which is the best, I enjoy the film process much more than the digital one, but I thought I would compare the shots to see how they differ.

Colourful cafe in Las Palmas, with the Olympus, Kodak 160VC film 

Same shot with the Lumix

Flowers in the garden where we stayed - with the Olympus film camera

Similar shot with the Lumix digital camera, but with the OM lens

Which one is best? I have no idea! Colours are a bit off on the film photo of the cafe, mostly because I was impatient to process them and used my old Tetenal chemicals which are 10 months old and I think need replacing now. Personally I think I prefer the film photos in both, but I am biased!