Steel City Snapper photography
35mm, medium format and large format film photography (with the odd bit of digital every now and then…)
A couple of shots of the northern branch of Ladybower reservoir in the Peak District. The structure crossing the water is an aqueduct which carries water from Derwent and Howden reservoirs, which are upstream to the north of Ladybower, taking it to a treatment works near Bamford and from there to the cities of Derby and Nottingham.
Yashicamat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 9 January 2024
A couple of duplicate photos today. Duplicates in terms of the subject matter, at least.
I shot both these same locations on my Yashicamat 124G on the same outing but, because I’d forgotten my tripod plate, had to shoot them handheld and wasn’t comfortable that they would be free from shake (or that the wide apertures I’d used might spoil the images). So I took the same shots with my Olympus Trip as well.
You can see the original medium format versions of the images here and here.
Olympus Trip 35 & Ilford HP5+ . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 24 December 2022.
Another photgraph taken at Ulley Reservoir on Christmas Eve. It was the first time I’d ever taken this road around the edge of the water and so I’ve never seen this viewpoint of the bridge where it crosses this part of the reservoir. I’m not sure if the water level was particularly high, or if those arches are designed to leave such little space beneath the roadway. No-one is going to be taking a boat under them, that’s for sure!
Again, due to my tripod-plate mishap, this was another picture shot at a lowere shutter speed and wider aperture than I’d have liked.
Yashicamat 124G & Ilford HP5+ . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 24 December 2022.
The only real photography I did in December (apart from the odd snap here and there) took place on Christmas Eve. The weather was bright and clear and I wanted to run a roll of film through my Yashicamat 124G which I had taken the lens off the week before in an attempt to remove some haze. The haze was between inside the rear lens element and I couldn’t remove it unfortunately, although I otherwise gave it all a good clean. This outing was to see if the camera was still working and hadn’t been destroyed by my meddling.
I went out with good intentions, taking a tripod and cable release with me in case I needed to shoot in lower light locations. What I forgot to do was to afix the quick-release plate on the bottom of the camera before I left the house, rendering the tripod useless. As a result I had to make quite a few shots on the roll at wider apertures or with slower shutter speeds than I would have liked. This was annoying as I wanted to make sure my attempted repair hadn’t affected the cameras focusing in some way, and any hint of softness due to camera shake or shallow depth of field would make this troublesome.
I think a few shots on the roll suffer in this way. Not terribly, but if I zoom right in I can see some softness. Other shots are plenty sharp however, so I guess the repair was successful (insofar as me not having broken the camera, at least – the haze is still present).
The shot shown here today is one from the roll and shows a view across Ulley Reservoir with a tower on the far shore – I presume this is used as part of the boating activities that make use of the lake.
Yashicamat 124G & Ilford HP5+ . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°
Taken on 24 December 2022.
This photo was taken shortly before the picture of the flying gulls that I posted yesterday. It’s one of several I took (this one and yesterday’s with the Zeiss Mess-Ikonta, and the others with the Holga 120N).
There were a significant number of birds present. Most of them were out on the water as I approached, but they’re obviously used to being fed by people as, as soon as I appeared, the whole lot of them swam or flew straight to the shoreline and right up to my feet. They then all flew away suddenly in a cacophany of flapping wings when a lady with a dog turned up. As soon as they saw she had a big container of food for them they soon came back though, completely ignoring the dog.
I nearly had a mishap while taking these. There was a “No Swimming signpost that I thought might make a nice image, but the muddy floor was extremely slick underfoot and I almost went down on my back when my feet slipped. In the photo, the floor looks like a gravel surface, but this is misleading – it’s actually a thin layer of slippery mud with leaves dotted through it. Thankfully, my ninja-like reflexes saved the day.* 🙂
Both this and yesterdays photo both managed to find their way into Flickr Explore this morning, although the one with the flying gulls dropped from the list later on.
Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 30 November 2019
* Ninja-like reflexes = lumbering middle-aged bloke who got lucky this time.
I thought that I would share a couple of photographs of the same location in today’s post as it could make for an interesting comparison. The place is a local reservoir about five miles from my home, and both pictures were taken in similar conditions at around the same time of day a week or two apart. The weather was comparable on both occasions (although there’s a little more hazy cloud in the second shot).
The first shot was taken with my Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 medium format folding camera on Fuji Provia 100F. This camera has a superbly sharp lens. The second shot was taken with my recently acquired Holga 120N on some expired Kodak Tri-X (from a badly manufactured batch that shows the backing paper details on the negatives). This camera has a plastic lens which is somewhat sharp in the centre, but not really anywhere else.
The first picture is looking roughly north-east across the water, the second north-west, but I was stood at the same spot on the bank for both pictures.
If I had to pick a favourite from the two than I think I’d have to go for the Holga shot. It lacks the sharpness and definition of the Zeiss photo, but makes up for it with heaps of atmosphere. My only dislike is the branches creeping into the upper left of the frame – caused either by the Holga’s viewfinder not showing the full image frame, or possibly because with my glasses on it’s a bit difficult to see the full frame in its entirety through the viewfinder. The fact that I have a definite preference for black and white images probably also swings things in its favour.
Which one is your favourite, and why?
Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Fujifilm Provia 100.
Taken on 25 August 2019
Holga 120N & Kodak Tri-X (expired).
Taken on 9 September 2019
This is another photo dating back to early 2017 and depicts Damflask reservoir to the north-east of Sheffield. It is one of a series of reservoirs in the Loxley Valley and tributaries, the others being Agden, Dale Dyke, and Strines.
Dale Dyke is notorious for having catastrophically burst in 1864, shortly after construction, flooding the valleys downstream and the city of Sheffield, resulting in 244 deaths.
Damflask reservoir is named after the village of the same name that was washed away by the Dale Dyke tragedy.
Olympus 35 RC & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 13 January 2017
Another photo taken during my walk around Linacre reservoirs a week or two back.
Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 135mm f/3.5 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 20 January 2017
This is one of those shots that turns out much better than you expected. I took a few shots of the reservoir and reflected trees, but the ones I thought would look best featured some ducks in the middle of the still water. I didn’t really think much about this one until the negatives came back, and it was the best of the bunch.
Olympus OM-1, Zuiko 135mm f/3.5 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 21 December 2017
I spotted this curious little box attached to the wall of a reservoir. I’m not sure what might be inside (someone suggested the key to the lock 🙂 ).
Olympus OM-1, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 20 January 2018
Steel City Snapper photography 