Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
A couple more shots of the canal today. Despite the slightly industrial quality of some of the bridges, it’s actually quite scenic down there.
Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 7 April 2024
I’ve been out for a visit to the seaside with my wife today, which has been nice, but tiring. I shot almost a full roll of HP5+ with my Olympus OM-1N while there, so once I finish the final few frames, I’ll get that developed and scanned. I’m currently at one of those points where I have a decent backlog of images to upload (and even scan), so it might be a while before they apear here on the blog.
Here’s another shot from Venice with a very busy canal.
Olympus Trip 35 & Colorplus. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken 6 May 2023.
Another photograph of a Venetian canal, but one where I took two photographs of the same scene – one with my Olympus Trip 35mm film camera, the other with my Ricoh GR III diigtal APS C compact.
I like both pictures. The the digital shot certainly has the edge in terms of resolution and the 28mm lens gives a different POV (as well as being in a different orientation), but I think I prefer the colours from the film shot. They’re less contrasty and rich, but feel more like what I saw on the day (although this is probably subjective).
Which do you prefer, and why?
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Colorplus. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Ricoh GR III (bottom picture)
Taken 6 May 2023.
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.
Bacino Orseolo is a gondola station in Venice, jus a minute away from St Mark’s Square. There were a steady stream of gondolas arriving and departing as we walked through, carrying tourists on rides propelled by the gondoliers in their distinctive striped shirts.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken 6 May 2023.
This was one of the first photographs I took after getting of the boat to Venice. The canal is the Rio del Greci and the tower is the campanile bell tower of San Giorgio dei Greci (or Saint George of the Greeks, in English).
The foundations of the tower collapsed due to subsidence during the building phase, resulting in the leaning tower. It’s stood intact since 1592 when construction was completed, so it’s doing pretty well despite the lean.
Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken 6 May 2023.
I’m not actually sure if this stretch of canal has a name. It’s a navigable route that runs beside the River Don at Mexborough, presumably because the river itself is not suitable passage in this area. The canal diverts from the Don just upstream of Mexborough and then re-joins it further along, just before the River Dearne also merges with the flow.
I’d visited Mexborough because I believed therewas a camera store in town, but when I got there the address appeared to be closed. Not wanting to waste the trip I had a wander around and took a few photos. The three here today are all taken close to one another from the canal towpath.
Although all three shots have been converted with the same settings, the first has a different tonality to the others. I’m not sure if this is a factor of the Negative Lab Pro processing in some way, or if it’s down to the camera’s metering of the scene perhaps.
I like all three of the photographs, but they probably would have been much better on non-expired film.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D & TruPrint FG+ (expired 2005). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 2 April 2022
A quick post today, but beefed up with three photographs rather than the usual one. All three were taken at Leeds Dock beside the Royal Armouries museum (after I left the museum).
Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins 20° .
Taken on 26 February 2022
Although I don’t think it would suit everything, the vignetting caused by using this crop-sensor lens on a 35mm film camera works very nicely on B&W inages I think. It adds a definite mood to the images.
This shot is one of my favourites from the roll. I think it would have worked ok with just the building, but the front of the canal boat really gives it a bit of oomph.
So this lens vignettes
Adding mood and grit to shots
Centering the eye
Nikon F80, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G DX & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 24 July 2021
This fella was pottering about on the edge of this canal boat and tinkering with the ropes. I have no idea about boats so don’t really know what he was doing – he could have been tidying for all I know.
I used my APS-C 35mm for most of the roll that this picture was taken from. Although designed for a crop-sensor, it has a large enough image circle to work on a full-frame / 35mm camera, albeit with vignetting. The vignetting becomes pronounced as the lens is stopped down, but at wide apertures it’s acceptable (well, to me anyway). The autofocus seemed exceptionally slow on the F80 with this lens though.
Fast lens, slow focus
It’s not meant for a camera
That shoots 135
Nikon F80, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G DX & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 24 July 2021
Steel City Snapper photography 