Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
One thing that never seems to be far away in Venice is a view down a narrow canal bordered on each side by interesting and colourful buildings. Here are four such views.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold & Colorplus (last two pictures). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken 6 May 2023.
A couple of pictures of boats in Staithes harbour today. They were probably taken about thirty minutes apart and the tide has risen by a small, but noticeable amount in the interim.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 29 July 2022
I posted a very similar photograph to this one last week – the previous shot on Portra 800, this one on Superia 400. Both were shot on the same day and at practically the same location, but the weather had changed from dull and overcast, to sunny blue skies by the time I made this second picture. I much prefer this one.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 29 July 2022
A few days back I was bemoaning the results from Portra 800 shot under dull, overcast conditions and how I’d thought about converting them to black and white.
On the same day that I made those pictures, in the late afternoon as we were heading back to the car the skies began to clear, the day turned bright and summery, and I was able to shoot the final two frames of the roll under these brighter conditions. The results (as seen below) are, I think, far preferable.
Despite it’s professional quality (and exhorbitant price point), I really don’t think that Portra 800 suits dull conditions much. It’s 800asa rating might say otherwise, but I think the results are lacklustre (albeit with the caveat that I’ve not actually shot much of the film, so maybe it’s the operator at fault here). The day before I shot the Portra, I’d shot some Kodak Colorplus 200 under similar conditions with my Olympus Trip 35 and much preferred those results, despite it being a cheaper, consumer-grade film.
I’ve since shot another roll of Portra 800, this time on a bright day while rating it at 400asa, and found those to be much nicer. I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to buy more of the film – I’d probably just go for it’s slightly cheaper stablemates Portra 400 and 160 and avoid shooting on dull days. The other Portra 800 shots will be along in the next week or so.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Kodak Portra 800. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 29 July 2022
The main visitor car parks at Whitby lie beside the boat moorings in the upper habour area and the boats seen in today’s photos were all pretty close to where we parked – I saw them as we drove in and made a point of walking past them as we headed back into the town. The weather was somewhat gloomy and overcast for most of the day and I think the roll of Portra 800 I had in the camera was somewhat wasted on the conditions.
While the extra speed it gave was beneficial, I can’t say that it produces particularly flattering results under these conditions, at least not to my tastes. Unfortunately, the weather forecast had let me down with its predictions and we ended up with mostly overcast (and rainy) weather throughout the trip, with just a few periods of nicer weather, so I somewhat foolishly only packed colour film when black-and-white might have done a better job.
It did turn nicer at the end of this day though, by which time I’d switched to some Superia Extra 400, so there will probably be some more pictures of these same boats to come in a future, sunnier post.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Kodak Portra 800. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 29 July 2022.
I’ve been away on a short break with my wife for the past four days. The weather has been mostly dry and also mostly cloudy, but I still managed to shoot three rolls of film – well, two-and-a-half, as one was already partly shot before we left. All the rolls were colour stocks, so I was somewhat disappointed to not get some sunshine to show off the colours but there were glimpses of nice light here and there, and I still have my fingers crossed that even the shots made in overcast conditions will look ok (because if they do, it may break my rule to avoid shooting colour film on dull days). But I guess I’ll have to wait and see.
I’ll take them all to be developed tomorrow, but it will take me a while to scan them, and I also have a bit of a backlog of other stuff to publish first, so it might be a week or two before they begin to appear here.
In the meantime, here’s a colour shot made on a nice sunny day back in June.
Olympus 35 RC & Kodak Gold 200. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 20 June 2022
Yesterday I had a backlog of six rolls* of film from which I’ve not yet uploaded any shots to my Flickr account or to this blog. Today it’s eight rolls – nearly 200 frames of images.
I seem to be being quite prolific in how much I’m shooting recently. Some of this I put down to having taken a few day trips to places I’ve not visited before. This always tends to bring inspiration from seeing the unusual, unexpected, or just something different and, as a result, I tend to want to photograph as much of it as possible. Another reason is that I have quite a stash of film at present – much more than I actually thought I had – and I’ve decided to make an effort to shoot some of it rather than just sit on it waiting for some perfect occasion.
Today I shot two rolls. One, my final roll of Lomography Color Negative 100, from which I got twelve frames with my Yashicamat 124G. The other was a roll of Agfaphoto APX 100 which I had loaded in my recently acquired Olympus OM-1N. I replaced the light seals in the camera yesterday and wanted to give it a trial run to see if all is working as expected. I used to use Agfa Vista Plus for these tests, but that was when it was available for £1 a roll in Poundland (oh how I now wish I’d bought boxes of the stuff when I had the chance…), but I haven’t any of that left now and, given the current prices of colour film, I doubt I’d chance it on a test. So, the next best thing in terms of economy was the Agfa APX 100 which I have a few rolls of from a purchase a couple of years ago. As far as I know it’s exactly the same film stock as Kentmere 100 and Rollei RPX 100, just re-branded. I shot a full 36 exposures of that this morning and am scanning the negatives as I type this. The good news is that the camera seems to be operating just fine and there are no signs of light leaks.
I think one of the outcomes of this backlog might be some posts more laden with photographs than my normal output (which generally just publish a single image). I shot a roll of the new Kodak Gold 120 last week, so that might make for a single post, as will an expired roll of Truprint 200 shot a couple of weeks ago. I guess I’ll figure it out at some point before I end up with some sort of Vivian Meier-like hoard of never-seen pictures that is dicovered upon my death.
Today’s post has three pictures all themed around boats, and all shot at North Landing at Flamborough. It’s the last of my Bronica Flamborough shots from this outing, but I still have a bunch of 35mm pictures from the same trip that will see the light of day soon – although I might bump the Kodak Gold stuff up the schedules first.
* actually five-and-a-half as I have already uploaded a few frames from a roll of HP5+.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 50mm f/2.8 MC & Ilford Pan F Plus. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 7mins 20°.
Taken on 14 March 2022
I visited the Yorkshire coast a few weeks ago, visiting Flamborough – specifically North Landing and then a walk along the clifftop path to Flamborough Head, where the lighthouse resides.
The two pictures in today’s post are from North Landing. This used to be the launch point for the Flamborough lifeboat and the steep concrete launch slide is a major feature of the walk down to the sand (it is just to the right of the decaying boat in the first photo). The lifeboat has now moved to South Landing and the ramp and boathouse are no longer in use – for their original purposes at least – although the boathouse now serves as a cafe and grille.
The walk down to the beach is quite steep and the sand is very soft, making progress across it away from the firmer ground of the water line quite an energy intensive process. The walk back to the top is pretty good exercise for thigh and calf too!
I’ll be posting a series of shots from this trip over the coming week or so.
This was the first roll of film that I converted with Negative Lab Pro and I’m pretty happy with the results.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Lomography Color Negative 100 .
Taken on 14 March 2022
Two girls row their way up the River Nidd at Knaresborough in North Yorkshite. To the left of this scene, behind the large tree, is Mother Shiptons Caves, a local attraction. Mother Shipton herself was a prophet who supposedly foretold various events including the Great Fire of London and the defeat of the Spanish Armada amongst others. She was born in the cave to which the area is now known.
The attraction is well known for its “petrifying well” where visitors over the years have hung objects beneath a flow of mineral-enriched water where they gradually turn to stone. All manner of objects are there, including children’s toys, ice-skates and even Queen Mary’s shoe, each gradually becomeing encrusted in mineral deposits as the years go by.
For a while the attraction was owned by the magician, Paul Daniels, a staple of television entertainment when I was younger. Mr Daniel’s is no longer with us and I’m unsure as to who owns the attraction these days.
Mr Paul Daniels
A performer of magic
On television
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 26 May 2021
A couple more frames of the expired Fuji Sensia, these made during a trip to the Yorkshire market town of Knaresborough. It’s a lovely town to visit, but the weather was less than great on the day we visited, with scatterings of rain and dull overcast skies most of the time we were there, although – wouldn’t you know it – it brightened up as soon as it was time to leave!
Anyway, there wil be quite a few more photos from Knaresborough appearing over the coming days, but most of them are black and white (which better suited the conditions, to be honest).
Red and green ladies
Lined up on the riverside
Waiting for oarsmen
Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Fujichrome Sensia 100 (expired 2003).
Taken on 26 May 2021
Steel City Snapper photography 