Nikon F80 and Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-D on Ilford Type-517. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 14.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 14 March 2026
Table for five
Tag: chairs
A tiring day
It’s been a good day today. Not only did I have the time to take an outing with my camera(s), the weather was also perfect too. This sort of alignment of the fates is a rarity!
I decided to take a day trip to Lincoln. Lincoln is a nice city to wander around with plenty to see and photograph, and it has the added bonus of only being about an hour’s drive away.
The weather forecast had given the impression of clear blue skies which, while better in many regards to flat grey skies, can also be a little uninteresting, but I was blessed with blue skies full of streaks of thin high-altitude cloud, meaning I got the benefit of the good light with the bonus of interesting textures.
I managed to shoot three-and-a-half rolls of film – two-and-a-half colour, and a roll of B&W.
Although it was a great day, there was one small hiccup – I forgot to change the ASA dial on my Olympus OM-10 and shot the entire roll of Agfa APX 100 at 400ASA. This normally wouldn’t be a problem as I’ve pushed film on many occasions before (even if this time it was accidental), but it seems there is very little data out there on pushing Agfa APX 100 beyond 200ASA.
It looks like I can develop it for 25 minutes(!) in Rodinal 1+50, but there are no times for Ilfotec DD-X. There are calculations that can be used to get a rough idea of how long to push films, but I prefer to use tried and tested methods – I think there will be some nice photos on the roll and I don’t want to ruin them with ham-fisted experimentation.
Other alternatives include stand or semi-stand development (but, again, it’s not something I’ve done before, and I’m a bit worried about maintaining the temperature to avoid bromide drag), and splashing out on a bottle of Ilford HC (or HC-110, or one of the other variants) – which also has a recipe for pushing the film two stops. Or rather for pushing Kentmere 100 by two stops (I believe they are the same film stock).
Anyway, I’ll be sure to let my reader know what I decide to do and how I fare. Wish me luck!
Olympus OM-10, E-Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 22 December 2024
Inside King’s Lynn Minster
A quartet of pictures that I took while inside King’ Lyn Minster. While I don’t think the photos themselves are particularly outstanding, I am extremely impressed by the vibration control on the Tamron lens.
It was pretty dim inside the minster, as such places often tend to be, and I was shooting Ilford Delta 100 film, hardly the best choice for handheld photography in such conditions. The available light meant that I was getting shutter speeds of 1/10 sec to 1/20 sec, even with the lens as wide open as I could get it (f/3.5 is the widest it will go, but that drops down if you start to use even a small amount of zoom). I did brace myself against walls and columns where I could but, even so, those are impressively slow shutter speeds for handheld pictures.
The fact that these pictures are sharp (although with a little drop-off in focus because of the aperture) is a big confidence boost for my trust in this lens’s capabilities.
Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Ilford Delta 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins 30 secs @ 20°
Taken on 19 September 2024
Seating indoors and out
I must apologise for what is likely to be a series of pretty sparsely wrtten posts this week. Something came up at work and has resulted in longer hours and less time to get everything else done.
Slightly less sparse posts will resume in due course. 🙂
Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Fujifilm Superia X-tra 400. Lab Developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken 5 February 2023.
Heatwave
Today is the second day of the heatwave that’s hit the UK. Record breaking temperatures have been recorded, with the heat reaching over 40 degrees Celcius for the first time since records began. As I sit here typing this, a fan blowing hot air across my sweaty face, it’s around 33 degrees inside the house. Thankfully the weather is due to change overnight with a cold front pushing in from the west. This will take us down to the frigid depths of the low-twenties if the forecast is to be believed. Thursday morning may see the mercury only reach the high teens! I can’t wait.
I had to visit Birmingham yesterday for a business meeting and was not looking forward to the trip. However, despite taking longer than expected and being beset by signall and point failures on both legs of the journey, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. The train was air conditioned to a reasonable level, as was the building where the meeting took place, so it was really only the bits on foot between air-conditioned venues and modes of transport that were uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I was still very happy to get back home – even if the house was hot as a sauna!
I’ve taken a bit of time back this afternoon as it was really uncomfortable in my office today and I wasn’t getting much productive work done, and spent the time flopped on the sofa watching TV shows with a fan blowing on me. Occasionally I would drench my head with water and then let it evaporate away for the pleasant cooling effect it produces.
I’ve literally only turned the PC on just not in order to write the blog, and will probably switch it back off again straight after I’m done – it just acts as a glorified heater otherwise, especially if I’m not actually using it, so I might as well reduce the heat and electricity use.
It’s been oddly quiet when I’ve looked out the windows today, it reminded me a little of when the pandemic lockdowns were taking place. Today’s photo feels illustrative of the way it has felt.
Olympus 35 RC & Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°.
Taken on 11 May 2022
Basement seating
These two vacant leather chairs were positioned in a couple of the basement rooms of the old warehouse building where the Photo North event took place last month. I liked something about them them enough to take photos.
Olympus 35 RC & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 7 May 2022
It’s too hot and my PC seemingly hates me.
As Lightroom and Photoshop have decided that this extremely hot and humid day would be the perfect time to test my patience by stealing all my PC resources thus making even the simplest copy-and-paste action into a chore, this will be a short post (it took nearly 40mins to back up the catalog! Why! Why do this to me today!!!). If you don’t see any more for a while it’s because my PC has met with an unfortunate accident and fallen out of the window!
Olympus OM-1, F-Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 14 June 2020
Golden balloon
Back in August I visited Renishaw Hall, a local stately home. The main reason for my visit was to take some photographs in the Italianate gardens for a photo comp I’m involved with. My photo did pretty badly, as it turned out, so from that point of view the visit (and £8 entrance fee) was a bit of a waste of time, but I still enjoyed the day and it might be nice to visit again when the autumn colours are in better evidence.
Anyway, I took some other photos during the visit, including shooting half a roll of Ektar. For some reason, several of the Ektar shots are very contrasty with little shadow detail – looking almost like underexposed slide film – but some came out ok, including this one.
Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Kodak Ektar.
Taken on 26 August 2019
Take a seat
Pre-owned chairs for sale at the Stroke Association charity shop.
Olympus OM-1, G.Zuiko Auto-W 28mm f/3.5 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 14 April 2018
Steel City Snapper photography 