Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
Taken when we visited the Wakefield Rhubarb Festival back in February. I shot quite a few scenes of movement like this during the day, relying on the microprism (rather than the split-prim) to focus. While things looked sharp in the viewfinder, many of the shots are slightly front or rear-focused. More practice is needed, I think.
Minolta X-300 & Minolta 50mm f/1.7 MD on Fomapan 400 (@320asa). Ilfotec DD-X 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 22 February 2026
Minolta X-300 & Minolta 50mm f/1.7 MD on Fomapan 400 (@320asa). Ilfotec DD-X 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 21 February 2026
Various pictures of Chinese dragons from the Chinese New Year celebrations in Sheffield city centre.
It’s a shame about the scratched roll of film, and the X-300 wasn’t the easiest to use on fast moving mythological beasts, but it was still good to be there and get a few photographs.
Minolta X-300 & Minolta 50mm f/1.7 MD on Fomapan 400 (@320asa). Ilfotec DD-X 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 21 February 2026
Minolta X-300 & Minolta 50mm f/1.7 MD on Fomapan 400 (@320asa). Ilfotec DD-X 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 21 February 2026
Shot in Sheffield’s Millennium Galleries on the day I visited the Taylor Wessing Portrait Exhibition.
Minolta X-300 & Minolta 50mm f/1.7 MD on Fomapan 400 (@320asa). Ilfotec DD-X 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 21 February 2026
This was taken very quickly as I was in a bit of a hurry, so I didn’t take the time to read what each of these balls was about (although I would assume the slave trade in this case). I don’t think the woman in the background was a nun, but she very much looks like one given the shallow depth of field and the nature of her dress.
I like the photo a lot, but it’s marred (as was much of the roll) by bad scratches. I suspect these are my own fault as I think I might have used the bulk-loader incorrectly and forgotten to open the gate when winding it into the canister, dragging the emulsion across the light trap in the process. Hey, you live and learn, I guess…
Minolta X-300 & Minolta 50mm f/1.7 MD on Fomapan 400 (@320asa). Ilfotec DD-X 9mins @ 20°.
Taken on 21 February 2026
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 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 