Another picture taken in close proximity to those posted over the last couple of days.
This is a bit of a “tripod holes” scene, and you can probably fine a large number of alternative (and probably better) photographs of the same location. It sits beside one of the main paths leading through Padley Gorge so, unless you take the path on the other side of the gorge, you can’t really avoid it.
Still, I’m quite happy with how it turned out. I’ve cropped in a little to remove some additional brightness where the grey and overcast sky was visible through the branches at the top of the scene.
Chamonix 045n-1, Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 5.6/90 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Today’s picture was taken just a stone’s throw from the one I posted yesterday, but shot a year later. Thankfully the Kodak Ektar sheet fil, already expired by a few years when I loaded it into the holders, has stood the extended wait quite well, especially as it was just sat in my office and not refrigerated during this time. I wonder if we sometimes get overly concerned about the longevity of film if it’s not cold stored? I expect that, unless you’re in particularly adverse conditions, it will fare quite well at normal room temperature in a temperate environment.
Chamonix 045n-1, Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 5.6/90 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I remember thinking at the time that I might as well just pull the sheet of film from the holder and throw it in the bin, such was my certainty that I’s messed it up beyond salvation. In the end, I decided to leave the sheet in the holder until I shot the remaining three sheets I had loaded on some other outing. It took almost a year before that next outing with the 4×5 Ektar came around.
Tempting fate somewhat, I returned to the same location – Padley Gorge – although the weather wasn’t particularly inspiring, it being a typical UK dull and overcast autumnal day. Nonetheless I decided to shoot the remaining three sheets I had loaded into my film holders. This being the first time I’ve shot colour 4×5 film, and as I don’t have the chemicals or equipment I’d need to develop the film at home (as I do with black and white), I had to find somewhere to send the film to be processed. I also had to locate a spare film box that I could use to send the sheets (they need to be sent in a light-tight container, usually a double box with a lightproof bag inside). It ended up being a month before I managed to post them out to the lab I chose, then another week to get them back.
When I saw the negatives, the original badly exposed shot looked a little thin, so I was expecting a bad result. Imaging my surprise when the picture you see below appeared from the scanner! It’s the best of the four sheets by far, I think. Yes, I’ve done some post-processing to make it look its best, but nothing too dramatic, and I’m extremely happy with the result. If you click the photo you can see the full-size version on Flickr, with all the lovely detail that a large format photograph provides.
There’s a lesson here about not giving up on things, even when they seem a lost cause…
Chamonix 045n-1, Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 5.6/90 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
A few years ago I took an inventory of all the film I had and created an Excel spreadsheet so I would know how much film I had, of what type, and how old it was. Over time the data began to slip when I forgot to update the inventory upon shooting a rol or acquiring more. I’ve been meaning to update it for a while now, and today was the day.
It turns out I have a lot of film. One hundred and sixty eight rolls (or, in the case of 4×5, boxes) to be exact. And I have fifteen more rolls heading my way next week! This has been acquired since I started predominantly shooting film again around 2016. I bought a bit here, a bit there, but clearly at a greater rate than I manage to use it.
The breakdown is as follows:
45 rolls / boxes of black and white film
88 rolls / boxes of colour negative film
35 rolls of colour reversal film
The breakdown by format is:
35mm – 86 rolls
Medium format – 78 rolls
4×5 – 4 boxes – apart from one these are not full ( a couple of them only have 6 sheets remaining)
The majority of the film in the stash is also expired. a few rolls are several decades old, but most is quite recently expired and, as it’s been refrigerated or frozen, should be perfectly fine to use still, although I am conscious of the fact that it ain’t getting any fresher either!
The breakdown of expiry by decade is:
1970s – 2 rolls
1980s – 5 rolls
1990s – 9 rolls
2000s – 24 rolls
2010s – 19 rolls
2020s – 76 rolls
Unknown expiry – 7 rolls
In date – 26 rolls
What this exercise tells me, is that I ought to stop buying any more film and shoot what I have. To be fair on myself, this is what I’ve been doing but, unless I start using a motor drive, it’s a slow process and likely to be curtailed sometimes when I need to buy film that I use often (such as 400asa black and white like HP5+ or Tri-X) or, thankfully less frequently, when I see a deal on film that is worth taking advantage of (as is the case with the 15 rolls I have coming soon).
But the stuff I already have, well I need to start making a better effort to go and shoot it, particularly in the case of the much older stuff (some more Expiriment posts, perhaps?), but also with the stuff that I perhaps hold onto because I see it as precious, maybe because it is no longer in production, or perhaps because it is expensive. I have a tendency to hold onto this film while I wait for the perfect conditions to shoot it, conditions which rarely occur. While I don’t want to waste film on throwaway photography, I do need to be less prescriptive on where and when I will shoot film that is getting longer and longer in the tooth.
I’m fortunate to have acquired such a stash – I could shoot a roll a week for over three years and not run out – but I really want to see it reduce somewhat. Maybe I’ll gift a few rolls as Christmas presents, but what I really need to do is get out and shoot some of it!
This is just the stuff in the fridge. I also have an entire drawer in the freezer (which I suspect my wife would like to be able to store food in…)!
The third of the large-format church photographs I shot a week ago. This is probably the worst of the three for two reasons.
Firstly, it’s not in proper focus for some reason. It probably looks fine at lower resolutions but once you zoom in, it becomes a bit soft – especially around the doorway with the two watering cans.
Secondly. because I’m out of practice at large format photography, I spent so much time getting things in focus (Ha! Right!) that I forgot to pay attention to the verticals. If I were shooting a smaller format then there would be little I could do about this, but with the camera movements available on my Chamonix, these can be corrected quite easily. But I forgot, so this one looks a bit wonky.
I might try and make another large format outing this weekend if the weather is good. Let’s see if I’ve learnt any lessons…
Amusingly, when I arrived at the church there were a couple of men already there who turned out to be a vicar and an organist. When I said I was there to take photographs they asked if I was the wedding photographer! It turned out that a wedding was due to take place that afternoon. While a few more guests turned up while I was there, I left before the happy couple arrived. 🙂
Another of my recent large format church photos. The figure in the distance is not some sot of spooky monk’s ghost, but a scarecrow – one of many that were placed around this village on the day I visited as part of a scarecrow-trail.
Churches seem to be my most photographed subject when it comes to 4×5 large format. They don’t make up a majority, but no other subject type has featured as much (although bridges are not too far behind). As there are a lot of churches here in the UK, and as you don’t have to travel very far to find an interesting example, they make quite an obvious choice of subject matter.
This is my second photograph of this church, St. Peter’s in the small village of Letwell. The other shot was taken with the Fujica GW690 a couple of weeks earlier, but I haven’t uploaded that one yet. It will likely appear on the blog at some point though.
It’s been some time since I shot any large format photographs. This is mostly down to a lack of time rather than desire – each shot takes so much time to set up, that an outing with the Chamonix rarely returns more than four images. On the date I took the picture below, the number was one!
I had intended to take more but, due to the aforementioned complexity of setting up a shot, by the time I’d taken this one a large cloud had passed in front of the sun, blocking the light. It also brought a drifting veil of rain that I hoped might pass by without affecting the location I was at, but my luck was out and I was soon hurriedly packing everything away as the shower arrived.
The shot below is certainly not the best I’ve taken, and it’s not the first time I’ve photographed this particular scene (see here for a less leafy variant). That said, at least everything is in focus!
It is great to see the sheer level of detail that large format film can capture, though. Click through to the full-size version on Flickr.
A couple of pictures I made on Saturday with my Chamonix 4×5 camera. The closing date for the photo contest I enter each month is tomorrow and I needed something to fit October’s theme, which is Culinary.
In the end, I chose the second picture as my entry, although I was really torn between the two. The second shot fits the theme better, I think, but artistically I probably prefer the first. I’ve probably made the wrong choice.
As I wrote about yesterday, I visited North Leverton Windmill back at the start of the month. I shot five frames in total at the location, three of which are posted here today. The other two were both out of focus to some extent, which I put down to a combination of being in a meadow with slightly springy ground, and also because I was using a 90mm lens that I’ve got on loan at present. It’s a nice lens, but it’s huge compared to my 135mm, and the aperture locking switch is a little stiffer than my Fujinon, meaning there’s a risk of me moving the camera when operating it. I’m not sure if that was the cause here, but it’s something I need to take care with.
It was a hot day and there were few clouds in the sky most of the time I was at the site, although a few blobs of fluffy cumulus had started to appear when I took the two pictures of the windmill.
The people who look after the windmill were curious about my old-fashioned looking camera and asked lots of questions. The mill still produces flour, and is apparently the oldest windmill in the country to have seen continuous operation (it was built in 1813). They were even kind enough to set the sails in motion (even though that kinda made it more difficult to get pictures, it was great to see), and also to move the cars from the front of the mill (which you can see in the first shot), which was very nice of them.
Steel City Snapper photography 