Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
I went out to a steak restaurant this lunchtime and ate my fill, and was then out for the rest of the afternoon. Now all I want to do is sleep.
So a quick post today. I guess these hotels would have plenty of places to snooze. 🙂
Bronica ETRSi & Zenzanon 50mm f/2.8 MC & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 5 February 2023.
This is the Methodist New Connexion Chapel in Sheffield. I’ve photographed the building before and the area – another part of sheffield where new construction is booming – is rapidly changing to something new. Many of the buildings that were present last time I walked past have now vanished to be replaced by blocks of apartments. But this chapel remains.
The building dates back to 1828, built three decades on from the founding of the church by Sheffield man Alexander Kilham after seceding from the Wesleyan Methodists. Early in the 20th century the church would become part of the United Methodist Church.
Bronica ETRSi & Zenzanon 50mm f/2.8 MC & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 5 February 2023.
I went out this evening after work with the intent of taking some long-exposure nighttime photos (for the photo comp I participate in that I’ve mentioned on here a few times). I took the Bronica loaded with some HP5+ with the intent on getting some light trails from traffic a busy road. I’d have preferred to shoot colour but I wouldn’t be able to get it developed in time to meet the end of the month closing date.
I drove out to the location, set up the Bronica, used my digital camera to work out a suitable exposure time and set up everything, including screwing in a cable release. It was too dark to focus with the waist level finder so I just set the focus to infinity and chanced it. Because the exposure was going to come in at a few seconds, I attempted to allow for reciprocity failure, deciding on an 8-second exposure. Feeling happy with all this I took three pictures. The first one I forgot to use mirror lock-up, so re-took it, just in case. Then the third shot I took was a different composition.
After this I packed everything up and set off back. It was only when I was almost home that I realised that I’d not removed the dark-slide when taking the pictures, meaning all three of them are going to be blank wasted frames! This was even more annoying because, normally, the camera won’t fire if the dark-slide is inserted, so I can only assume that using a cable release bypasses this somehow. Whatever the cause, I’m feeling somewhat pissed off about it. Partly because of the wasted film, but mostly for the fact that I now have to repeat the exercise again tomorrow.
Here’s a picture of some balloons I took earlier this month. I feel like the middle one right now.
Bronica ETRSi & Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 5 February 2023.
Today’s post features one of those picture which I find oddly appealing. Something about it catches my eye despite it maybe being something that no-one else will glance at twice. I think that, in this case, it’s the light and the way it’s casting shadows across and onto parts of the scene. It had a nice three-dimensionality to it, I think.
I am wondering if I should have cropped it a little at the top to remove that bit of the hotel logo though…
Bronica ETRSi & Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 5 February 2023.
The former home of HSBC in Sheffield, these buildings have since been refurbished following the bank’s move to new offices elsewhere in the city.
Bronica ETRSi & Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 PE & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 5 February 2023.
Another couple of shots taken this week and then developed today. The good news is that I’m now fully confident that the light leak issues I had before are now resolved. The bad news is that I think I somehow managed to load these two sheets incorrectly. Not in a significant way, but negatives from both sides of the film holder indicate the the sheet wasn’t aligned properly and the photos are wonky as a result. You can see what I mean in this photo of the negs on my lightbox – if you look at the film border you can see how it’s out of whack:
I’m not sure how I managed to do this and, to be honest, I didn’t even realise it was possible! None of the other sheets I’ve loaded have suffered from this problem so I will have to keep an eye on things in the future. Sadly it means that the side-on picture of the church is spoiled as the wonky frame has chopped the top off the church – this is made worse when scanned as the border isn’t included in the scan.
The other image was retrievable though as I’d not framed the subject so tightly. The good news is that these were really just a couple of final test shots to make sure everything was working ok. I think I’ll make sure not to tightly frame my subjects for the time being though, just to be safe.
Here’s the shot that worked ok. If you click through to Flickr you can see that there’s a lot of detail.
Chroma 4×5. Fujinon NW 135mm f/5.6 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 15 February 2023.
Following on from yesterday’s post about me testing my newly repaired 4×5 camera, here’s the second of the two photos I made while out. Again, this is nothing special, and mainly a test shot. It’s a little out of focus at the top of the frame, but otherwise ok. Had I spent more time I would have corrected the focusing.
I’ve photographed this willow tree on a number of occasions (see here, here, and here) and I think it would be a good subject for a more carefully considered large format shot if I pick the conditions right.
Chroma 4×5. Fujinon NW 135mm f/5.6 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 14 February 2023.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I’d been having problems with light leaks when using my 4×5 Chroma camera. When I posted on another forum about the difficulties I was encountering the guy who builds the Chroma range of cameras, Steve Lloyd, got in touch and offered to take a look at the camera. I gratefully accepted his offer and, about a week later, I received my camera back with the problem resolved. This was extremely kind of Steve as I bought the camera second-hand, so I didn’t have a warranty or anything. This is amazing service and the sort of good stuff that really should be praised.
Anyway, today was the first opportunity to give the camera a test. The weather looked bright but a fog began to appear just as I was setting out. Normally I really like foggy conditions, but some more brightness might have been preferable today. My intent was to walk to the local country park, shoot a couple of frames, and then get them developed at lunchtime, which I managed to achieve. The photos aren’t the best as I was rushing to get everything done before starting work, so the focus is slightly out against what I would have hoped for had I had the time to be more precise. This shot of the bench is in focus, but I would have liked the foreground gravel to be sharp too rather than the background grass, but getting the camera movements just right on large format takes time, and I had little today.
The good news is that there are no signs of any light leaks. Fair enough, it was a quite dimly lit morning, but I would still have expected to see efects on the negatives were the problem still occuring. I’ll try to get out in some brighter light and test it in those conditions too. Fingers crossed that it’s all ok now though. It’ll be nice to go out and use it properly and spend the time I need to do so.
Chroma 4×5. Fujinon NW 135mm f/5.6 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9 mins @ 20°
Taken 14 February 2023.
It’s one of those days today where I don’t know what to write on the blog (although here I am, writing stuff about not knowing what to write…). Today I think it’s because I’ve got something preying on my mind at work. Nothing terrible, just something I need to do this week that I’m not sure I’m fully prepared for. Usually, it comes to pass that I’m stressing out about nothing and everything will go just fine, but that doesn’t stop my brain flipping into anxiety mode. The fact that I’m focusing on this one thing also means I’m not spending time on a bunch of other things I need to be doing, leading to a cumulative worry about, well, more stuff.
It also doesn’t help that I tend to procrastinate. And while I always pull things together in the end, there’s always the worry that one day I might not be able to. I seem find myself increasingly easily distracted from things I ought to be concentrating on in recent years, to the extent that I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out I have ADD (but that’s another story). I guess that tomorrow I need to just pull myself together, give myself a virtual slap across the cheeks to wake myself up, and just get on with what I need to do. In a couple of days the thing will have passed and I can get back to normal (i.e. worrying about the next thing…).
So, look at that – I’ve written more than I do on many other days. Good ol’ productive stress, eh?
Here’s a picture of a foggy scene. This is probably not disimillar to what it looks like inside my head right now. 🙂
Fujica GW690 & Ilford HP5+ (@1600asa) . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 13mins @ 20°
Taken on 21 January 2023.
This is the first of two photographs of bridges crossing the River Moss That I’ll publish – the second will be here in a couple of days.
I managed to get out and shoot a few rolls of film today, 36 exposures on some Superia Xtra 400, and a couple of rolls of 120 through my Bronica ETRSi (one HP5+, one Fuji Pro 400H). It’s the first time in ages I’ve shot so prolifically, and should mean that the wolves can be kept from the door for a while in terms of me having new photos for the blog. I’ll get the two rolls of C41 sent off for developing tomorrow and will maybe dev the HP5+ one lunchtime this week if I get the chance. I’ve got about a half-dozen more pictures from the GW690 to keep things ticking over until then though.
Fujica GW690 & Ilford HP5+ (@1600asa) . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 13mins @ 20°
Taken on 21 January 2023.
Steel City Snapper photography 