Tag: Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16

4x5 Large Format · Film photography · Photography

George Vancouver (and a dash of Rodinal)

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Back in September I decided to visit the town of King’s Lynn, in Norfolk. I did this for no other reason than I had never visited the place before and that I thought it might be an interesting place to take some photographs. It was, and I’ll be posting some of the results over the next week or so.

I didn’t get the best weather on the day – it being largely overcast through the morning – although it did brighten up in the afternoon, so the light was a little low for the first part of the day. This didn’t really harm the Tri-X I had loaded, although I was effectively shooting it at 200asa because I had a yellow filter fitted to the camera, but I did wonder how the roll of Delta 100 in the other camera I took would fare. More on that in another post though.

This roll of Tri-X was also the first I’ve ever developed using Rodinal. I’d previously shied away from using this developer with faster films, having heard tales of “golfball”-size grain but, having read some posts by Andy on his S.H.O.U.T photography blog about his experiences with Rodinal, I decided to see how I would get on.

I think the results are, on the whole, pretty good. There’s more grain that I would have seen had I developed it in my usual Ilfotec DDX, but nothing outrageous, and the tonality of the negatives is good.

I’m not sure I would rush to develop 135 Tri-X in Rodinal, but I’m not averse to using it for Tri-X (or perhaps HP5+) again in future. It’s certainly a more cost effective option.

Anyway, the photo today is of a statue of King’s Lynn born George Vancouver (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) a British Royal Navy officer best known for his exploration of the American north-west coast. The city of Vancouver, Vancouver Island, and Mount Vancouver are all named after the man, as is another Mount Vancouver in New Zealand! He also named a number of other locations after his friends, colleagus and fellow officers, including Mount St. Helens, Puget Sound, and Mount Rainier.

That’s the top of the custom’s house behind his head, and not some sort of fancy hat he’s wearing.

George Vancouver

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Kodak Tri-X. Adox Rodinal 1+50 13mins @ 20°

Taken on 19 September 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

University expansion and sports centres

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It seems that, whenever a new building is being built in Sheffield, that there’s a good chance that it it will belong to the university (or one of the universities, I should say, as there are two). This part of the formerly industrial district of Attercliffe has not escaped, and there are several new buildings in place, some new development underway, as well as a host of sports facilities (which is perhaps as it should be, as the area used to be the home of the now demolished Don Valley Stadium that was originally erected for the World Student Games that was held in the city in 1991.

Innovations that help people move

The building in the background in the above picture is the English Institute for Sport. Below is another view. I wasn’t sure if the masts are a structural feature, or there for show, but a quick online search reveals that they support the building’s roof.

Masts

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 7 April 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Urban landscape

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Last month I took my Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 folding camera for it’s first outing in quite some time – about two years, in fact!

Past six bollards

It’s quite a nice camera, if a little slow to operate due to its uncoupled rangefinder design which requires focus to be achieved by means of a dial on top of the camera that operates the rangefinder, and then manually transferring the distance on the dial to the lens itself. The lens is quite nice though and gives good results if you set it correctly. Plus, of course, the folding design means it can be slipped into a pocket (ok, a big-ish pocket).

Screensaver

Transferring the focus distance is straightforward enough but, if you’re not paying attention (or haven’t used the camera in a while!) it can be easy to make mistakes where some of the distances have half marks. This is what happened on this outing, and I only realised after I’d taken four or five pictures. I hoped that my use of small apertures might have reduced any focus issues, but on looking at the scans, a few frames are noticeably soft.

The two shots shared here are ok though, as are some others that I’ll share over the next few days. Hopefully I’ll pay closer attention next time I shoot with the camera.

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 7 April 2024

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Monsal Dale monochrome

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Another view of Monsal Dale (these will come to an end in a day or two, in case you’re fed up of seeing the place). It’s from almost the same vantage point as the colour version I posted a few days ago but this one was made after I’d walked down to the valley floor, across the bridge you can see middle-right in the picture, followed the river beneath Headstone Viaduct, past the weir, and then up a deceptively long and, in parts, steep footpath back up the other side to my starting point.

If you click the image and zoom in, you can make out a person stood in the courtyard between the two houses you can see at the bottom of the dale.

Monsal Dale B&W

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.

Taken on 19 April 2022

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Wye bridge

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Another bridge picture today, this one crosses the River Wye not far upstream from the Headstone Viaduct but is of a much smaller scale.

I shot another roll of my expired film this morning so I’ll hopefully (if the film gods smile down upon me) be able to post some results from that before too long.

Over the Wye

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.

Taken on 19 April 2022

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Packhorse bridge

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A couple more photographs of the packhorse bridge at Ashford-in-the-Water today. I shared another photo of the bridge a couple of days ago and mentioned that the sheep paddock at one side of the bridge contained only ducks on this occasion. You can see a couple of them (well just the back-end of one) in the second picture.

Packhorse bridge, Ashford-in-the-Water
Packhorse bridge, Ashford-in-the-Water

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford Delta 400. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°.

Taken on 19 April 2022

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Silver birch re-scan

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The photo in today’s post is a few years old – it was taken on a cold, but bright, February day back in 2018 on the edge of the moorland near Surprise View in the Peak District national park. I don’t think I’ve published this picture online anywhere before now.

I re-scanned it, and the rest of the photos on the roll, yesterday, using Vuescan to make a linear RAW DNG file and then Negative Lab Pro for the conversion in Lightroom.

Now I understand how to use NLP properly (or at least much better – there are still a bunch of controls and sliders that I stay away from!), I’m very pleased with the ease of getting colours that I’m happy with almost straight out of the box. I still tweak things a little, first using NLPs controls, and then maybe some minor tweaks in Lightroom itself (usually adding a little clarity and sharpness), but there has been none of the annoying mental gymnastics where I can’t decide if the colours are “off” in some hard to define way.

Obviously, colours are subjective, whether it be someone sat at home trying to get what they think Portra or whatever film stock they’ve used to look “right”, or a technician in a photo-lab making adjustments in the Noritsu software (or whatever it is they use) on the behalf of the photographer. So far, Negative Lab Pro has given me colours that feel correct with very little faff on my part, and for this I am thankful. I love black and white photography, but this new found ability to get results I’m happy with from C41 film is making me want to shoot more of the stuff (and re-scan some of the photos where I had less than satisfactory results in the past). It’s just a shame I need to sell a kidney to afford colour film these days!

Silver birch and quarry scree

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Kodak Portra 400. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Taken on 7 February 2018

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

The cheerful Fiat

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I think it’s the balloon that does it but there’s a definite cheerful look about this Fiat 600. The front of the car itself (something which resembles a face in pretty much all vehicles to a greater or lesser extent) also has a somwhat feline aspect, the chrome bars and logo resembling a nose and whiskers. Or is it just me?

A car has a face
Anthropomorphisation
Is what it’s called

Fiat 600 and happy balloon

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/16 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 14 August 2021