Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
Three shots of the same Studebaker pickup truck, each taken at different times and in changing light as I wandered around the vehicles on display at the steam rally. The first two on Kodak Portra 160, the last on Kodak Ektar.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Portra 160 / Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 29 June 2025
The Sheffield Steam Rally usually has a selection of vintage fairground rides and stalls present. It’s not a huge full size funfair and it’s usually the same attractions every year (presumably because it’s the same owners who attend each time) – the biggest of which is a carousel, but it’s mostly smaller rides and stalls.
I’ve photographed most of them before, but I’m usually drawn back to them each time I go. Here are three shots from this year’s visit.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 29 June 2025
Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken on 2 August 2024
Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken on 2 August 2024
Things seem to be picking up in my job this week. I’ve gone from being in the midst of a quiet patch to having several pieces of work fall at my feet. In part this is due to three members of our team leaving – one of whom I’ve known about for awhile, but the other two have come as a bit of a surprise – and I’ve been asked to pick up work they have been, or are currently involved with. This is a good thing – I’d much rather be busy than pushing papers around my desk (although I’ve mostly been using the quiet period to do training), but I’m a little uncertain as to what is required at this stage. I guess I’ll find out soon enough though.
Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken on 2 August 2024
Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken on 2 August 2024
Olympus OM-10 & G.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 on Ilford FP4+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 10mins.
Taken on 2 August 2024
Fujica GW690 & Fujifilm Pro 160NS. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 28 July 2024
Today’s pictures were taken as I wandered around the funfair at Mablethorpe. It was early in the day and, while the gates were open, none of the rides or other attractions were operating and it was only myself and the attraction owners and operators in the place. The guy in charge of the dodgems was giving instructions to the young men who were helping him prepare the cars, telling them to make sure there was no sand on them before polishing the paintwork as they would leave scratches.
I had a full free hour this lunchtime, so I decided to deevelop a roll of film I shot at the weekend. I did a couple of things for the first time as part of the process. The first was to use Fomadon R09 developer, which I’ve not used before. It’s apparently just Rodinal (in fact, the only reason I bought it is because Rodinal was out of stock), albeit the original recipe and not the one currently produced by Adox, which I believe has a longer shelf life. When I poured out the used developer from the tank I was quite surprised to see that it was a vivid purple colour – like blackcurrant juice! I’m not sure if this was caused by the R09, or the expired Tmax 100 I was developing, although I suspect the former.
The second new thing I did as part of the process was to use a salad spinner to remove the excess liquid from the negatives before hanging them to dry. I’ve always had a problem with water marks on my negatives (I live in a hard water area), even if I use distilled water for washing, plus a wetting agent. I tried a squeegee for a while which worked well, but then it scratched a strip of negatives so I’ve not used it since. I tend to use the inside of my fingers to squeegee the strips instead, but I still end up with water and then drying marks most of the time. I’ve seen salad spinners mentioned before as a good way to remove excess water and the negs certailnly came out with much less liquid on them – just a few small, pin-prick sized droplets. I’ve yet to scan them, so the proof will be in the pudding, but I’m hopeful that this might be the way forward.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed, home scanned, & converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 17 September 2022
Three horses on a carousel. I’m very happy with the colours I got when scanning this roll of Ektar. It’s the first time I’ve shot this film in a while and, based on the images I got, I hope to shoot more.
I’m less happy with the Fuji Velvia 100 that I’m attempting to scan this eveneing however. Despite having satisfactory results with this film scanned on my Plustek in the past, tonight the scans are a disappointment. Compared with the actual transparencies, the scans look dull and underexposed in comparison. I normally have a good success rate scanning 35mm E6 transparencies using this method, but something is off-kilter.
I usually use Vuescan when scanning slide film, but am resorting to Silverfast this time to see if I can get something I prefer using that method instead. Fingers crossed…
Yashicamat 124 G & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 25 June 2022
Steel City Snapper photography 