Yashica Mat 124G and Ilford Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 24 January 2026
Village houses all in a row
Tag: Country lane
Another country lane
Just around the corner from yesterday’s picture, I came across this opportunity to shoot towards the sun and highlight the wet road, which worked pretty well.
Yashica Mat 124G and Ilford Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 24 January 2026
Country lane curve
There was something about this scene that caught my eye. The curving lane is a big part of it, certainly, but the wall, the height and variety of the trees, and the way the light was falling on everything all came together. There was a breeze blowing so some signs of movement can be found in the smaller branches if you look hard enough, but I knew and accepted that would be the case when I took the shot.
I was pretty happy when it appeared off the scanner.
Yashica Mat 124G and Ilford Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 24 January 2026
A Rodinal problem
Today, I decided to roll up my sleeves and develop three rolls of black-and-white 120 film which I’ve recently shot. I had two rolls of Kodak Tri-X, and a single roll of expired Kodak Tmax 100 to process.
I have two developing tanks, a small one which will take two rolls of 135 film, or a single roll of 120, and a larger tank that will double the amount of film I can develop, so the Tmax went in the small tank, and the Tri-X in the larger one. My plan was to develop all three rolls using Ilfotec DD-X, but I realised when making up the solution for the two rolls of Tri-X that there would not be enough left for the other roll.
Not to worry, I thought, I’ll develop it in Rodinal instead. I’ve not developed Tmax 100 in Rodinal before, but expected it might look nice given it’s a fine grained 100asa film. So, after completing the Tri-X, I started to get myself prepared to develop the Tmax – the usual stuff: getting the water to the right temperature, making sure I had all the necessary bits and bobs required (including drying stuff I’d just used with the Tri-X). Then I encountered a problem…
I couldn’t get the top off my bottle of Rodinal. It has a safety cap which requires downward pressure while turning in order to remove it but, today, no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t come loose. It just rotated and clicked annoyingly. At one point I was using so much downward force that the bottle started to collapse in on itself! After five minutes of fruitless effort, I gave up on the enterprise, and decided that I would have to force open the bottle and store it in a different bottle. As I don’t have another suitable bottle (I’d assumed the bottle it came in would be fine) I ordered a brown glass medicine bottle from eBay, and I’ll re-home the developer when it arrives.
Later in the afternoon I searched online to see if anyone else had encountered similar problems and I found a recent Reddit thread describing the exact same issue. A few people had managed to remove the stuck cap with pliers or a wrench, so I’ll give that a try. The consensus seems to be that the developer crystalises in the safety mechanism of the cap, causing it to get stuck and no longer function properly.
Anyway, both rolls of Tri-X came out fine (although I did manage to drop one of them on the bathroom floor when taking it off the reel, coating it with bits of dust and a strand of hair, and necessitating me re-washing it).
No Rodinal was used in the development of the two pictures below. Perhaps that was for the best.
Nikon F80 & Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD. Ilford HP5+ (@800), Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°
Taken on 16 February 2025
One lane, three views
All three of today’s pictures were taken while walking along a narrow lane that led me out of Whitwell and towards the main road (the A619, or Clinthill Lane) and from there, back to where I’d parked my car in the layby in front of Whitwell Woods. The weather was fine and I had to remove my fleece long before I reached the road.
I like the middle shot the best. The power pole almost feels like it’s beckoning me closer, and then point the way I need to go.
Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Agfa APX 100. Rodinal 1+100 (+2ml) semi-stand 1 hour @ 20°
Taken on 8 March 2025
Taking the big camera down a country lane
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.
Chamonix 045n-1, Fujinon NW 135mm f/5.6 & Ilford Delta 100. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°
Taken on 7 July 2024
A bit further down a snowy country lane
A bit cheeky this picture (or the blog post, at least) in that it’s exactly the same snowy country lane that I posted a picture of yesterday, albeit taken from slightly further down the hill. The picture I posted yesterday was taken somewhere around the telephone post with all the ivy. I felt it was worth posting this one too as, well, I like it and, well, I forgot to add it to yesterday’s post because I was very tired at the time. 🙂
The farm at centre left is the one where I was chased off by the sheepdog.
Bronica ETRSi & Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins 30 secs @ 20°
Taken 11 March 2023.
Snowy country lane
Another very quick post as I’ve been out all day and only just gotten home. It was a great day, but I’m cream-crackered (as they sometimes say around these parts).
Bronica ETRSi & Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins 30 secs @ 20°
Taken 11 March 2023.
Copse
Sorry, no time to say anything much today – been spending time dealing with a problem and have no time to write. Normal service (such as it is) will be resumed shortly.
Yashicamat 124G with close-up lens #1 & Ilford Delta 400 . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 20 January 2023.
Too much fish
I’ve just eaten my tea not too long back. Tea in this case, for those unfamiliar with the term outside the drink, is vernacular for evening meal, or dinner, if you like. I think it’s a largely working class use of the word, but it’s what I grew up with and what I continue to use. I don’t think I’ve ever used the term dinner. To confuse matters further, dinner is what I call the midday meal – lunch to posher folks than I – again a standard working-class thing I think (although I do use lunch sometimes too).
Anyway, I had fish for tea today, and got a couple of pieces out from the freezer this morning. Normally I would only have a single fillet, but these felt somewhat small, so I got out two of them.
I should have just gotten one.
While not huge, there was definitely more fish there than I needed (although not too much to eat!). Anyway, I made some batter and shallow fried them and had them with some mushy peas. Very tasty they were too.
Anyway, on to today’s photo – another frame from the roll of Ortho Plus. This one took a bit of post-processing to get it looking how I wanted as it looked very dark and drab on the initial scan. I think the editing has introduced some noise, and it looks almost digital if you zoom right in. It looks better than it did though.
Yashica Mat 124G & Ilford Ortho Plus 80 . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10.5 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 6 November 2021
Steel City Snapper photography 