Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
A further image from Capri (I think I’m posting these while I figure out how to post a batch of much more recent pictures).
I don’t know if this boy-and-elephant sculpture is a permanent fixture outside the Prada store in Capri, or if it was just a temporary exhibit, but it deserved a photo.
Olympus OM-1 and G-Zuiko Auto-W 28mm f/3.5 on Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 21 August 2018
Another picture from our Sorrento trip that I’ve recently re-scanned, but which I don’t believe has ever featured on the blog before (from my quick search, at least).
Again, this was taken on the island of Capri and this interesting sculpture of a woman formed from bike chains was an eye-catching sight.
Olympus OM-1 and G-Zuiko Auto-W 28mm f/3.5 on Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 21 August 2018
I’ve recently re-scanned some older negatives from when my wife and I visited Sorrento in Italy in 2018. While I was happy with my scans at the time, I can produce much better results now and I also realised that a lot of the pictures I’d taken were never uploaded, including the one posted here today.
This isn’t Sorrento, but the south-western point of the island of Capri, named Punta Carena, upon which stands this lighthouse. The photo was taken from the boat we were on which circled around the island before heading to port.
There’s a nice sense of scale to the picture, I think, with the foreground coast, the lighthouse, and then the dramatic cliffs beyond.
Olympus OM-1 and G-Zuiko Auto-W 28mm f/3.5 on Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 21 August 2018
Even pushing the film a stop, there was not enough light on the morning I took these photos to get fast shutter speeds, and so some camera movement has crept into some shots. Not something I intended, but they actually have a slightly fuzzy look that kinda works I think.
The previous day, when I had to attend a work meeting and had no time to take pictures, the weather was glorious. The day I had the opportunity to do some photography in London, the weather was not far off the worse it could be. Drab, dull, and grey. My usual luck.
Olympus OM-1N, G-Zuiko Auto-W 35mm f/2.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 29 November 2022.
I’m feeling a bit frustrated at present. Nothing to do with my photography, but all to do with my ears. Which are blocked.
I have a problem with blocked ears, and have done for years. Every so often they will get clogged up and I need to put in drops and visit the GP to get them cleared out. This is the case at present. I visited the nurse last week to have them syringed (after a couple of weeks of putting in olive oil drops), and had been really looking forward to getting my hearing back. Unfortunately, my ears were so clogged that the drops had only penetrated part way and the procedure left further wax deeper in my ear. On top of that, after I came out of the GP’s my hearing gradually became worse through the day – my right ear wasn’t too bad at first but in the evening I tried watching some TV programmes on the iPad with headphones – trying to listen to the TV in the living room as fruitless, with all the sound becoming a bit of a mush and any dialogue being very difficult to make out – and while the headphones on the iPad worked ok at first, after a while I felt my right ear gradually close up with whatever was still blocking much of it. So that was that.
I’m now putting drops in several times a day in preparation for round two with the nurse later in the week. Sigh.
That had nothing whatsoever to do with photography, but a photo you shall get nontheless. Not of the inside of my ears thankfully, but some dried grasses that I photographed a few weeks ago.
Olympus OM-2n, Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins 20° .
Taken on 12 March 2022
My Olympus OM-1 camera has suffered an annoying fault for a while now. After firing the shutter the mirror will sometimes lock up. Advancing the film drops it back down but the shutter remains locked and the only way to release it is to advance the film a second time (which shouldn’t be possible with the OM-1). When this second stroke of the advance lever takes place the camera also fires the shutter. After this it can be used normally again for the next shot. The problem means that every other shot is wasted – or mostly wasted as the problem tended to be intermittent.
Fot no real reason at all, I decided to look at the camera again today (without a film in it) and discovered that the issue now occurs on ever shot taken. I like the OM-1 – it was the first SLR I bough when I got back into shooting film cameras again – so I decided it would be worth trying to get it fixed. As the person who I’ve used for repairs and CLAs in the past has now retired, I tried a local repair shop that I’ve heard works on analogue cameras.
Upon phoning the shop, the guy there was quick to tell me that the repair would be costly and that I’d be better off using digital cameras. Rather than slam the phone down in disgust (:)) I explained that I enjoy the experience of using film cameras and that I’m not unaware of the issues that come with using vintage gear. He then mentioned that he’d had a box of stuff come into the workshop, including an OM-1 camera, which he would let me have for £40 sold-as-seen. £40 is a good price for an OM-1 these days so I headed over to the shop to take a look, figuring I could always turn it down if it looked like it might not be working properly. As it turned out, the camera appeared to be working as expected, including the meter, and was in great cosmetic condition so, after chatting with the guy for a while, I headed home with the camera – an OM-1N to replace the OM-1.
The camera probably needs new seals fitting, and it’s missing the hotshoe. I’d though that I could just swap over the hotshoe from my OM-1 (they just screw on and off with a thumbwheel), but it wouldn’t fit and it turns out that the design must have been slightly revised between models. Still, I’ve not once used the hotshoe on the OM-1, so I won’t miss it, and I’m more bothered by the empty screwhole on the top of the camera than any loss of functionality.
The other difference is that this replacement is expecting the original 1.3v mercury battery to power the meter accurately, whereas my OM-1 had been converted to meter properly using readily available 1.5v batteries. This means that I’ll either have to get it converted, or adapt zinc-air hearing aid batteries instead (I could use Wein cells, but these are much more expensive than the hearing aid cells). It’s a bit of a faff, but nothing insurmountable though.
I’ll get the seals replaces when I get the chance and then take it out for a test run.
Today’s picture is from back in 2018, when I took my original OM-1 with me on holiday to Sorrento, Italy.
Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 & Kodak Ektar.
Taken on 24 August 2018
I’ve been out all day today and haven’t had chance to upload a photo to Flickr, and I now don’t have much time to write today’s blog post either (mostly because I’m hungry and my belly is demanding precedence…). It’s been a very foggy day today though, so I’ve dug out an old foggy day photo that I don’t think I’ve posted here before (I hope).
It was shot on a roll of Rollei Retro 400s which, despite me shooting it at the advertised box speed of 400asa, came out very underexposed. Some of the shots were pretty much ruined, but a few – like this one – I liked. This is the original scan from my V550 flatbed, so it’s a bit mushier than usual.
Olympus OM-1, Rollei Retro 400s. Lab developed in Xtol.
Taken sometime in 2016/17
I’m jumping back in time by a year or so for today’s photo. I’m on the cusp of scanning and uploading some recent images that will likely form tomorrow’s post, but until I get that done I’ll dip into the archive. Hopefully it’s not a shot I’ve published before (I don’t think it is).
It depicts the Eagle Stone, a large boulder that stands alone above Baslow Edge in the Peak District. A footpath passes closely by and it no doubt gets lots of attention, but on this day at the start of the year, the temperature was cold and the wind was blowing gustily – especially along the nearby crags – and there were not many folks about.
As I approached the stone I saw a small group of people near its base. Then, as I got closer, a man appeared on its top. He first lay on his back and took a selfie, before calling his girlfriend to talk about where he was. Then, after taking a drink and standing to survey his surroundings, he clambered back down the edge of the rock, jumping down the last six feet or so (my less supple physique gave an internal groan as I watched this happen, imagining the damage it might have done were it attempted by me!). The other people with him were, I believe, his parents and a sibling, and I passed a few comments before they moved on and I made some more photos of the rock sans human presence.
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the main tolls the current lockdown is having on me personally is the loss of freedom to roam, and I look forward greatly to the day when I can visit places such as the Eagle Stone once again.
Above Baslow Edge
A stone stands stark on the land
A challenge is set
Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford Delta 400.
Taken on 4 January 2020
I’ve got a couple of days off work, making for a long weekend. I’d decided long in advance that I would use these two extra days to take a walk or, more specifically, a long walk. Due to the current lockdown restrictions, I’m still limited in where and how I can travel, but local exercise is permitted so I decided to go for a hike along the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT) on the stretch that heads south to Chesterfield. My plan was to walk to Renishaw, then head along the road towards Eckington, before cutting through Renishaw Golf Course and looping back to the trail for the return leg.
The weather forecast looked promising, with a hope of some sunshine, but the temperature was still forecast to be low, -1° as I left the house, so I wrapped up warm.
I took the Yashica Mat 124G with me along with three spare rolls of film. I also had a few frames left to shoot with the Canon Sure Shot Supreme that’s been in my coat pocket through the winter, and I took an extra roll of 135 in case I finished the existing one. My light meter and a bottle of water finished off the stuff I carried.
This section of the TPT runs along a disused railway line, crossing a number of bridges (and going beneath a few others), and there’s even the remnants of the disused Killamarsh Central station along the way, complete with the northbound platform and pedestrian footbridge. It also runs alongside the Cuckoo Way for part of it’s length – the Cuckoo Way being the towpath beside the Chesterfield canal. Much of this length of the canal is derelict and clogged with vegetation, but there are still stretches with water, which today was frozen over with a frosting of snow laid on the surface.
To the west of the trail lies the valley where the River Rother snakes it’s way northwards and recent heavy rain has left large swathes of the floodplain submerged in water, again now coated with a layer of ice. One of the footpath spurs down into the valley that I’ve walked before was completely blocked by this floodwater, but I ventured to its edge to make a few photographs.
I managed to shoot shoot two full rolls of 120 through the Yashica (as well as finishing the roll that was already inside when I set out) AND finish the roll of C200 in the Sure Shot. I now have a backlog of four rolls of B&W to develop, plus the roll of 135 colour to send to the lab. You’ll be seeing many of these pictures on the blog shortly (I hope!).
In total I was out of the house for around four hours and (if my phone is to be believed) walked for the best part of nine miles and my legs and feet are now letting me know just how hard they worked… It was a good walk and good to be out of the house in the fresh, bright air for so long. I saw plenty of robins along the TPT, plus a few squirrels re-stocking their winter supplies. I might also have quite a nice picture of a horse as well if I didn’t mess things up somehow.
The only downer was when a roll of film didn’t load properly, necessitating my re-spooling part of it while stood in the middle of a field. I hope I’ve not introduced any light leaks onto the film, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Thanks to the nature of film photography, I can’t show you any shots for the walk until I get them developed and scanned, but they’ll probably start landing in a week or so as I get through my backlog. So, to illustrate a little what the day was like, here’s an older photo from three years ago made during a walk around Linacre reservoirs.
Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 135mm f/3.5 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 20 January 2018
As Lightroom and Photoshop have decided that this extremely hot and humid day would be the perfect time to test my patience by stealing all my PC resources thus making even the simplest copy-and-paste action into a chore, this will be a short post (it took nearly 40mins to back up the catalog! Why! Why do this to me today!!!). If you don’t see any more for a while it’s because my PC has met with an unfortunate accident and fallen out of the window!
Olympus OM-1, F-Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10 mins @ 20°.
Taken on 14 June 2020
Steel City Snapper photography 