Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
Apologies for a lack of words in my recent posts. I’ve had a few very busy days and no real time to think what to write, so I’ve just been throwing images up and leaving it there. Today’s post isn’t much different, but hey, a few sentences at least! I may get chance to write something with a little more substance tomorrow.
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
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
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
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
A view of King’s Lyn Minster standing above the foreground buildings. It looks oddly shaped due to the two towers being different sizes.
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
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
I’ve photographed St Peter’s church at Elmton on a number of occasions before, and posted the results on the blog here, here, and here.
I decided to drive past again to finish off this roll of film, with a plan to shoot the church building with its low, squat tower, from a different angle. Ala, it wasn’t to be – the light wasn’t great and the fixed prime lens on the GW690 introduced limitations on how I could frame a shot, essentially meaning I’d have had excessive converging verticals, or the tips of gravestones poking into the bottom of the frame. In the end, I decided to take a picture of this small outhouse affixed to the rear of the building. The weathered door, and caretaker’s paraphernalia served to add a little interest.
Fujica GW690 on Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 9mins.
Taken on 17 August 2024
I thought I’d treat myself to one of those clickbait titles similar to the ones I see on YouTube from time to time. You know the ones, where the person titles their video “My final post” or “That’s it. I’m finished.” or something else that gives the impression that their video making days are at an end but, upon viewing, it turns out that it’s “My final post… of November!” or “That’s it. I’m finished… Putting together this year’s calendar which you can buy from my SquareSpace site.“.
So in the spirit of that annoying tradition, today’s post is just about what I found at the end of the road I drove down in Whitwell, Nottinghamshire one day. In this case it was Whitwell railway station. The station today is a pretty simple affair – a couple of platforms, a footbridge, and some shelters for passengers. There used to be a selection of buildings at the station, but these were removed when the line was closed to passenger traffic sixty years ago (although passenger services would resume in the 1990s). The buildings were not lost however and were rebuilt at Butterley on the Midland Railway – Butterley heritage line as they were almost identical to the buildings that had originally stood there.
As to why I drove to the end of the road, it was mostly to see if there was a good composition of the chimney at the nearby Steetley Dolomite works (you can see it just above the Whitwell railway sign to the right of the first picture). I think a longer lens might have led to a more dramatic photograph but, alas, a long lens the GW690 does not have. Instead it’s a shot of loads of things poking up into the sky. A bit mundane, but I kinda like it anyway.
The second picture was another reason I drove down here. The lamps on this footbridge are just about visible peeping over the bridge crossing the railway tracks that I’ve driven across on a number of occasions, and I’d wondered if there was a picture to be had of them. This was the picture I got, although I think there may be better ones to be found if I revisit the place, possibly (again) with a different focal length at my disposal.
Fujica GW690 on Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 9mins.
Taken on 17 August 2024
The chimney of this dolomite works is visible from a long way away. I’ve driven past on a couple of occasions and taken photographs of the buildings, which are impressive and crusted with white dolomite deposits, although I’ve not attempted to see if the actual quarry workings are visible from the roadside.
The road and verge is also covered in a faint white sugaring of dust from the works’ activity.
Fujica GW690 on Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 9mins.
Taken on 17 August 2024
This made for quite a quaint scene, I thought. I like how the house has a post box embedded in its wall (there’s a phone box right across the street too – although I’m not sure if it’s still operational, or been converted into a library or defibrillator or something).
Fujica GW690 on Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 20° 9mins.
Taken on 17 August 2024
Steel City Snapper photography 