Steam rally 2019

July 1, 2019July 1, 2019 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

After a hiatus (on my part) last year, I visited the Sheffield Steam Rally again this weekend. The weather was warm and sunny – in fact very warm on the Saturday, hence my choice of visiting on Sunday instead. I like nice weather, but not too much ot it all at once. 🙂

I decided to shoot the roll of Ektachrome that I bought myself just after Christmas and which I’ve been saving for a suitable occasion. The steam rally, I decided, would be suitable enough, otherwise I’d risk the film never being matched with a good enough subject and sitting in the fridge forever.

I was quite excited to shoot with it, and it was only the third roll of positive film that I’ve bought, so I loaded it into my Nikon F80 (figuring that that would have the most reliable metering of my film cameras) and set off – with a roll of HP5+ as trusty back-up.

As soon as I entered the showgrounds, I started taking pictures, but it was only when I got to about frame ten that a sudden horrible thought dawned on me… I wasn’t focusing the camera!

You see, most of my photography over the past couple of months or so has been with compact cameras (where a half-press of the shutter triggers the auto-focus), or manual focus SLRs, where it’s very obvious when something is out of focus. However, I’d made a rookie mistake of forgetting that I’d set my F80 for back-button focusing, and was instead just half-pressing the shutter to focus and then taking the shot. The reason I didn’t notice my error more quickly is that I was shooting at f/8 and the viewfinder looked to be pretty much in focus anyway – I just wasn’t checking for it snapping to sharpness when pressing the button.

As soon as I realised my mistake, I resorted to doing things properly, but I had sour thoughts about the almost-third-of-a-roll of expensive Ektachrome that I’d probably wasted. I did think about re-taking some of my initial shots, but then decided I’d take the risk that they might be ok and photograph other things instead.

I got my slides back today and, thankfully, all bar a couple of those first shots have come out focused sharply enough to be used, so I was relieved about that. I haven’t scanned the full roll (or even started on my HP5+ shots) yet, but here is one of the pictures that I have. The Ektachrome has produced beautifully saturated colours in the sunshine ( the colours on some of the more shady frames need tweaking though – especially the reds) and, in fact, I’ve actually reduced the saturation a little on this photo.

Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Kodak Ektachrome.

Taken on 30 June 2019

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Some more from the steam rally…

August 11, 2017 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

As my slovenly updating of the blog continues, I thought I’d just drop in a bunch of photos to keep it alive!

These were taken back in June at the Sheffield Steam Rally ay North Anston. I’ve already posted the shots of the traction engines, but there were also some classic cars that I photographed, plus a few random shots. These were shot with my OM-1 with the F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 on Fomapan 100. I like the Fomapan, it’s a little grimy in my experience, sometimes having little back soot-like flecks on the negatives, but the results are pretty nice.

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Sheffield Steam Rally

July 18, 2017 fishyfisharcade1 Comment

On Sunday 25 June I attended Sheffield Steam Rally, which is held just outside Sheffield at North Anston. I visited last year too, but have only attended one other time before that, probably sometime in the late 1990s. Like trains, classic cars, or aircraft, steam engines are not something that I have any deep interest in, in and of themselves, but as a photographer, they make for excellent interesting subjects, both of themselves, and also in the vast array of detail that they hold. There’s also a wonderful nostalgia that surrounds them and, while I don’t think I’d like to have lived in an environment thick with it, the pungent whiff of coal smoke is lovely in these situations.

I managed to take over fifty photographs on the day, but this post contains just a selection of them. These shots were all taken with my Olympus OM-1. Some shots are on Ilford HP5+, and others are on Fomapan 100. I’ll mark each shot accordingly, but the HP5+ shots will be first.

#1 (HP5+) – This was a favourite of the day. I really like the out-of-focus engine to the rear of the shot, and it feels like it could have been taken a long time ago.

#2 (HP5+) – Another favourite. I like the composition and the trio of figures.

#3 (HP5+) – A lot of the traction engines appeared to be family endeavours, with fathers, sons, wives, daughters all mucking in. I like this shot because of the foreground interest granted by the man and his dog (although I nearly cut off its feet!).

#4 (HP5+)

#5 (HP5+) – I think the human element adds to a lot of the shots. Some of the interest would be lost if were just the machines.

#6 (HP5+)

#7 (HP5+)

#8 (HP5+)- This must be a show regular, as I photographed it last year too. To be fair, many, if not all of the engines might’ve been there last year too, it’s just that I recognised this one.

#9 (Fomapan) – Another favourite. If the van weren’t in shot, this would perhaps have the look of a much older photograph.

#10-19 (Fomapan) – The steam engines take part in a drive-past event in the central “show-ring” area and I took a number of photos of this. The next two are my favourites – the size of the machines, but also the poses of the drivers, gives them something od an epic feel I think.

#20 (Fomapan) – The smoke adds so much atmosphere (both literally as well as figuratively!).

#21 (Fomapan)

#22 (Fomapan)

#23 (Fomapan) – There were other things present, apart from steam rollers and traction engines, including this organ. There were also some nice food stalls and I had a delicious pork and pulled-pork burger from one of them.

There were also a large number of classic cars, bikes and trucks present, but I’ll save those photos for another day.