Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
The final set of pictures from the roll of Kodak Gold I put through my Kodak H35N half-frame camera.
Kodak H35N & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 25 January 2025
A further batch of pictures from the roll of Kodak Gold I put through my Kodak H35N half-frame camera. The remaining shots to come tomorrow.
Kodak H35N & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 25 January 2025
Another batch of pictures from the roll of Kodak Gold I put through my Kodak H35N half-frame camera.
Kodak H35N & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 25 January 2025
I received my invitation to take part in this year’s Emulsive Secret Santa last week. I was wondering if it would still be going ahead as Emulsive.org, the site from whence it originally sprang now seems to be defunct, having not been updated for quite some time.
So I was glad to get an email inviting me to this year’s gift exchange although, due to the current tariff situation in the US, the swap has been split into US and rest of the world sections this time around. Registration closes tomorrow, after which people will be provided with the details of their recipients and the task of finding a suitable gift begun (timescales are quite tight this time, so it’s likely that some folks will be receiving a late Christmas gift, but that’s not so bad – January can be quite glum, so a nice present arriving in the mail will cheer things up somewhat).
I was very fortunate last year to receive not only a bunch of 35mm film a lovely notebook, and other goodies, but also a Kodak H35N half-frame camera, and it was with this that I shot the pictures in today’s post (although I already posted a few others about six weeks ago).
The camera itself (branded Kodak, but actually made by RETO) is a relatively simple affair with a 2 element 22mm f/8 coated lens (part glass, part acrylic), a 1/100sec shutter speed, a built-in flash, and a built-in star filter. For it’s basic spec, the camera produces reasonable pictures if you don’t mind noticeable softness at the narrow ends of the frame. I didn’t feel any need to scan them at high resolution because the detail simply isn’t there, but at smaller size they look nice and, as is the case with any camera, it’s what you do with it that counts.
The camera design has a clear lineage to the old Kodak Instamatic models. It’s very lightweight and doesn’t feel like it will take much rough handling (but for the price, that is to be expected), but it works perfectly well in use and I didn’t have any sense that it would break – something my other RETO-made camera, an Ultrawide and Slim, does suffer from in regard to advancing the film. The film advance on the H35N was fine, as was the film rewind crank, which is located on the base of the camera along with a plastic tripod socket.
The top of the camera features the shutter button, frame counter and, because there is a bulb-mode, a cable release socket, which is nice to have and opens the camera up to additional creative possibilities. Apart from bulb, because of the otherwise fixed shutter speed and aperture settings, there is no ISO setting control, and certainly no DX-coding mechanism is required.
I didn’t have a need to use the flash at any point (and didn’t have a battery in the camera anyway – the battery is only needed for the flash), and the star filter feels somewhat gimmicky and not something I would want to use anyway. So I didn’t.
Although I like the pictures I got when using the H35N, I can’t help thinking that I would probably have liked them more if I’d taken them with a different camera – even if it would have meant using twice as much film. However, despite these reservations, I still had fun using the camera, got pictures I like, and it’s made me think about maybe getting a better specced half-frame camera somewhere down the line – maybe an older model like an Olympus PEN, or perhaps a Pentax 17 if I can find one for a decent price.
I’ll post some more pictures from the H35N tomorrow – half-frame gives you a LOT of photos!
Kodak H35N & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 25 January 2025
I thought I’d finished posting my pictures from the day-trip I took to Hull a few months back but then I remembered this lone medium-format picture I took.
I’d planned on shooting more pictures with this camera – my 1950s Zeiss folder – but when I retrieved it from my bag after I took this shot I noticed that the film advance knob had fallen off! Luckily the bits were in the bottom of the bag but, without a screwdriver, I was unable to make a repair. Later, when I got home I put it together again, but something wasn’t right – the dial was wobbly in a way it hadn’t been before, so I feared that I might have lost some of the mechanism after all.
Then, a few days later, I decided to take another look in the camera bag and there, squeezed right under the padding at its base. was the final missing piece of camera. After fixing it back together properly I then shot the rest of the film on a couple of further outings – although there were further problems to come… I’ll reveal those in a future post.
Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 on Fujifilm Pro 400H. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 9 August 2025
Olympus 35 RC on Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 24 August 2025
Photojournalism isn’t something I tend to do. It’s not that often that I’m at the scene of something interesting enough to be classified as such.
However, on this occasion, I was. I posted about the events of this day way back on the 16th August (the day I witnessed the events), and here’s a recap of the bit in question (it happened after I’d been shooting some medium format pictures around the old mills in Halifax)…
After shooting a couple of rolls of film I decided to go find a cafe and get a drink and, as I was walking through the town centre, I noticed a police car besides which an agitated looking man and woman were speaking to an officer and gesturing to the building behind them – a jewelry shop occupied the ground floor, and above were another three floors of unknown use. I heard to woman talk about a fire, and what sounded like there being a gas cylinder in the room. Within a minute smoke had begun to emerge from a first floor window. More police arrived and started to make people retreat from the scene, saying there was a danger of explosion. Some people were still approaching the scene and were told in no uncertain terms to “get back!”.
Soon a huge amount of smoke began to emerge from the windows, reeking of whatever was burning in there, for a short period reducing visibility down the entire street, and the orange glow of flickering flames could be seen behind the smoky glass. Shortly afterwards a fire-engine turned up and soon a fireman was spraying water through the first floor windows. After a few minutes of this, the smoke started to diminish and more fire-officers entered the jewelry shop on the ground floor, having to rip open a security shutter to gain access. After watching for a while longer (and having taken a few photographs) it seemed like everything was under control and I decided to move on and find the cafe I was looking for.
There’s a short video of the blaze here and a story on the fire here. Thankfully no one was hurt.
Olympus 35 RC on Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 16 August 2025
I’ve driven past this garage / petrol station loads of times and always think it will make a nice picture. I know that “gas stations” are a massive cliche in photography, but this one has a certain charm. It’s an old-fashioned looking place, with its window full of spares, and slightly dated-looking fuel pumps (although they could be the latest spec for all I know – I didn’t look at them closely, and my knowledge on such things is limited). And on this morning I got the chance to take a photograph.
I still think it deserves a better picture though, maybe on 6×9 medium format, or even on large format. It’s a case of choosing the right time when the light is nice and in the best position.
Olympus 35 RC on Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 8 August 2025
I’m getting quite a large backlog of photos again, so I’m going to post my remaining Hull photographs here in a single post. It’s a mixed bag of subjects, illustrative of the way I tend to photograph things, which is to pick a location, and then just explore, making pictures of the things I find interesting along the way.
These shots are posted in chronological order, so maybe with some filling in of the gaps, someone might be able to work out the approximate route taken.
The first shot is of the back of the Princes Quay shopping centre (in the background is the car park where we left the car for the day). I liked the light and the slightly futuristic architecture, like someones re-imagining of the old TV show and movie, Logan’s Run.
The next shot is of a house I walked past. Again, the sunlight falling on it made it look nice, but it has an interesting architecture, with balconies and verandahs. The green hedge, black metal fence, and splashes of colourful flowers also drew my eye.
Next, a couple of pictures taken around the marina. In the first, I think it’s was the boats name that made me smile, and I thought it worth a picture. The second it was the green boat that caught my attention. A working vessel that stood out among the sleek white pleasure craft.
Later in my wanders, I walked through Hepworth’s Arcade which dates back to the Victorian time, being opened in 1897. It retains it’s old-time charm and has a number of interesting shops (including an amazing jokes and novelties store).
Then we have a picture of the steps to the top of a curving bridge across the River Hull, and a view up the river from the top. If you follow the line of the river with your eye, you can just about make out the bridge that features further down this post next to the more prominent tall Gamebore building. We’ll see those again in a minute…
But before that, here’s an unusually large frog in front of the Streetlife Museum, and then some old but attractive brickwork in the garden at the rear of the Wilberforce Museum, with a looming wharf building behind.
And here’s the bridge and Gamebore building again. It’s the Drypool Bridge which I shared more pictures of a few days ago.
Bob Carver’s chippy is next. I’d hoped toget my lunch here, having visited before on past visits, but was disappointed to find it was closed down, so I couldn’t have a “pattie”. It’s not all bad news though as they now have new premises in a different part of the town centre, which I’ll bear in mind for any future trips.
And the final of my colour shots from Hull, here’s a picture of the beautiful 1936 art deco Burton’s building, which was recently restored. I’m not sure if it’s accommodating any new businesses yet, but it’s a gorgeous looking structure.
And that’s that. More shots from this roll of Ultramax still to come though, although maybe not just yet.
Olympus 35 RC on Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 9 August 2025
I’m not going to claim that this is a good photo from any compositional point of view, but it’s kinda interesting because of its subject. A relatively ordinary Ford Ka in a car-park, but I do wonder what the story is behind all those parking tickets?
By my count there are eleven of them. I’m not sure how frequently a ticket is added, or if there is some sort of escalation procedure that occurs when it becomes clear that no-one is seemingly coming to collect the car. What does the traffic warden / car park attendant think when they stick yet another notice to the growing set already there?
Is the car stolen perhaps? But if that’s the case, would it have been carefully parked in a public place upon abandonment? Maybe the owner is indisposed in some way and unable to reclaim their vehicle, or perhaps even alert someone to its location?
I wonder if it’s still there?
Olympus 35 RC on Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 9 August 2025
