I’ve been wondering how to present the pictures I took in Madeira. There are quite a lot of them, but they’re mostly just of stuff that caught my eye (as is most of my photography, I think) and most of them perhaps don’t stand alone as subjects for individual posts.
So I think I’ll drop them in batches, with the odd few separated out where I have more to say about them, or because they’re distinctive enough to fly solo.
So here’s the first batch…
Nikon F70, Nikkor 28-80mm f.3.5-5.6 AF-D & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro
This is a shot of the Savoy Palace hotel in Funchal, a large and distinctive building. It’s not where we stayed, but it was on the route into the centre of Funchal from our hotel and, as a result, I took at least a couple of pictures of it. I’ve not gotten around to processing and uploading the others yet though, so they’ll maybe turn up here on another day.
Nikon F70, Nikkor 28-80mm f.3.5-5.6 AF-D & Kodak Portra 160. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro
Today marks the beginning of this year’s holiday pictures, this time from a trip to Madeira at the end of June, start of July (as usual, I’m gobsmacked that it’s already been over a month since we returned home!).
I shot five rolls of film while there, four colour, and one B&W using my Nikon F70 (the first time I’ve shot with this in aaages) plus my trusty travel companion, the Olympus Trip 35 and, while I doubt I’ll post them all, you might be seeing a lot of pictures from Madeira for a week or two…
For today though, just a single image of one of the tuk-tuks that provide city tours around the hilly city of Funchal.
Nikon F70, Nikkor 28-80mm f.3.5-5.6 AF-D & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro
The black and white pictures I’ve been sharing over the past week were from a walk I took near Carlton-in-Lindrick, a village in Nottinghamshire not too far from where I live. It’s a place I’ve visited for a walk and some photography three times now. The first was in 2025 on a day where the ground was waterlogged and muddy, which made for a less than pleasant walk (especially when it began to rain), but still produced some nice pictures. On that occasion I’d planned on a longer walk that took in the countryside to the west and east of the village, but I only managed the western side due to the conditions.
The third visit took place in mid-June, and was when I took the shots I’ve posted this past week. That walk took me to the east of the village, out past Hodsock Priory, and was a nice hike spoiled only by the fact that my film was underexposed, spoiling many of the pictures as a result.
So here today are the results from my second visit (I know, I’m posting these out of order, a fact that niggles me somewhat). This was almost a mirror of my first hike, with me walking much (but not all) of the same route, only in reverse and, thankfully, in far more pleasant conditions, passing through a mix of farmland and woodland, before finishing at the church close to where I’d parked my car.
I only shot with my Yashica Mat 124G, and here are the pictures that I saw fit to upload (the full roll except for a slightly boring picture of some crops – imaging the first picture but without the interest of the footpath). I shot a roll of Ektar, a film that normally gives me pleasing colours straight out of the scan, but on this occasion I really had to faff around with it to get the colours looking correct (and I’m still doubtful that they are). Further tweaking may resolve things, but I haven’t had the time or inclination to do so. Yet, at least.
But, apart from the slight concerns about the colours, I do like most of the pictures I got.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Portra 160 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
This is the view south where the River Trent flows through the town of Gainsborough, looking onto the Kerry food manufacturing plant and then, a few miles further upstream, West Burton power station.
While I wasn’t satisfied with the colours I achieved with the Lomography Color Negative 800, the film has quite a fine grain structure – at least in this 120 format – and it’s produced some quite nice B7W conversions.
This frame is not only converted to black and white, but also cropped.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC / Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC & Lomography Color Negative 800. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro. Converted to B&W in Lightroom.
Back to a run of photos I took in Gainsborough towards the end of last year. These were shot on a roll of Lomography Color Negative 800 – the first time I’ve shot this stock.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t all that pleased with the results. Part of this is down to me, or rather to my light meter, which I had inadvertently switched to it’s cine mode somehow, resulting in poorly exposed photographs. But I’m also not that happy with the colours I got.
Again, this might be down to the exposures in some cases,but I don’t think all frames were affected. It’s also hands down the worst film I’ve ever had to scan. The base is quite thin and it had a very pronounced curve to it that made it extremely frustrating to scan with my flatbed. This fact, more than any of the others, has put me off shooting it again (and I still have a couple of rolls in the freezer!).
The picture below is the only that I’ve left as a colour scan – I like the warm morning light on this closed up shop window. All the rest of usable frames I’ve converted to black and white, and I’ll post some of those in the next few days.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC / Zenzanon 150mm f/3.5 MC & Lomography Color Negative 800. Lab developed, home scanned & converted with Negative Lab Pro.
These are the final two colour pictures that I’m publishing from the steam rally this year (that I shot with my Yashica Mat 124G).
While the subjects differ considerably, I did notice that there is a nice Red / Yellow / Blue thing going on in both pictures, so I think they work together in that regard.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Portra 160 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Steel City Snapper photography 