Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
One evening on our holiday we walked to the nearby lighthouse (pictures coming tomorrow!). It had rained heavily earlier and the sky was still full of impressive clouds. On the edge of this road lay a large scimitar, or crescent shaped puddle, and I grabbed a quick photo of this couple reflected in its surface.
Olympus 35 RC & Fuji Superia 100 (expired 2008). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 29 September 2025
Last year my wife and I spent a week in Menorca at the resort of Cala n Bosch, right on the south-western tip of the island and I shot a couple of rolls of film (my, still reliable, expired Superia 100) during the holiday.
This first set were taken on the first day or two as we wandered around the place – while the biggest “resort” on the island (not counting the two main cities, and other inland towns) – Cala n Bosch is still a relatively small place and easy to wander around (it’s actually two areas, if you count the adjoining Cap d’Artrutx). There’s a marina area with a bunch of restaurants, bars, and shops, but the rest of the resort consists of hotels, apartment complexes, and villas. Oh, and a lighthouse.
There will be more pictures to come, both from the resort, and also shots I took when exploring other parts of Menorca.
Olympus 35 RC & Fuji Superia 100 (expired 2008). Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 27 & 28 September 2025
Musicians are getting younger and younger!
Yashica Mat 124G and Kentmere 400. Ilfotec DD-X 10.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 October 2025
The building in today’s post is the former home of British Telecom in Sheffield. It was known, imaginatively, as Telephone House until the company moved to other premises. It now provides apartments for university students.
Yashica Mat 124G and Kentmere 400. Ilfotec DD-X 10.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 October 2025
Yashica Mat 124G and Kentmere 400. Ilfotec DD-X 10.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 October 2025
Or should that be “waist-shooting”?
I was walking around town a while back and, largely out of nowhere, wondered how effective if might be to try using my Yashica Mat 124G with zone-focus. It was a bright day, and I was shooting 400asa film, so I could set the camera to a relatively narrow aperture of f/8 (although, on a 6×6 medium format camera, the depth of field at f/8 at short distances is still pretty shallow).
The Yashica has a handy scale guide on the focus knob, so I set it to around 8 feet and shot a few pictures of passersby, using the focus screen to compose, but not the magnifier. And it worked quite well. If I pixel peep the full size pictures then they’re not perfectly in focus on the main subjects, but they’re certainly within an acceptable level of sharpness.
It’s probably not going to be a technique I use often, but it might be worthwhile at events such as carnivals or similar where there are lots of interesting subjects, but not enough time to finesse the focus for each shot.
Yashica Mat 124G and Kentmere 400. Ilfotec DD-X 10.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 October 2025
Yashica Mat 124G and Kentmere 400. Ilfotec DD-X 10.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 11 October 2025
The first of these two pictures featured in my favourite shots of 2025 post, but the second hasn’t been shown before.
As mentioned yesterday, these shots are taken from a short roll loaded from my recently acquired bulk loader. I chose Fomapan 400, in a shorter 17m roll for this first time out, mostly because it’s pretty cheap compared with something like HP5+ and wouldn’t be a bankruptcy risk if I somehow messed things up but, also, partially because I’m curious about trying different development methods with Fomapan 400 – a film which I often find to be underexposed or very contrasty when I’ve shot it a box speed before but which gave me some good results when I tried semi-stand development with some 120 reel film.
I tried the semi-stand approach on two occasions with the 120 variant, the first time with great results, but with the second giving me some noticeable bromide drag. I’m unsure why the results were different as I used the same methodology on both occasions, but they were.
For this roll of 35mm Foma 400 I used 1-hour semi-stand again (in Rodinal 1+100), but instead of 30secs of inversions at the start, plus a single inversion at 30 minutes, this time I gave the tank a single, gentle inversion at the 15, 30, and 45 minute marks. For this roll, at least, there are no signs of bromide drag, so I’ll try the same method on my next attempt.
The results are very grainy, but I expected this and it’s not something I mind – it adds some grit to the images – but the tonality is good (though this might also be partly due to shooting it at 320asa instead of the 400asa box speed) without the heavy contrast I’ve seen in the past when using regular development in Ilfotec DD-X.
But, anyway, the first roll of self-loaded film was mostly a success (it did come off the spool at the end, requiring me to remove it from the camera in a changing bag) and I have another, longer roll waiting to be shot in my F80. I’m looking forward to the results from that too.
Minolta X-300 & Minolta 50mm f/1.7 MD on Fomapan 400 (@320asa). Semi-stand in Rodinal 1+100 for 1 hour @ 20°.
Taken on 20 December 2025
The last of this batch of pictures of the Botanical Gardens and, indeed, the last of the shots from the test of the Minolta X-300.
I’ve used it again since when testing a short roll of film (another test) that I loaded in the bulk loader that I was very kindly given by fellow blogger, Andy (see his site here). I’ll maybe post some of those soon, although one of them was used for my December picture in my 12 favourite photos of 2025 post.
I’ve since loaded another, full, roll (although I’m not quite sure how many usable frames it will have – I’m hoping for 36 though!)
Minolta X-300 & Minolta 50mm f/1.7 MD on Ilford Type-517. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 14.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 October 2025
Following up from yesterday’s pictures of the pavillions in Sheffield’s botanical gardens, here are a few pictures I took within. Warm and humid greenhouses are not the most condusive places to use metal and glass cameras that have been brought inside from the cold, but after a bit of acclimatisation all was good to make some photographs.
Minolta X-300 & Minolta 50mm f/1.7 MD on Ilford Type-517. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 14.5mins @ 20°.
Taken on 25 October 2025
Steel City Snapper photography 