A digital interlude (and a new lens)

I have another of my “Walk With a Camera” posts coming soon, but I haven’t put virtual pen to ink yet, and I don’t plan on rushing it today. I’ve been out mist of the day, firstly seeing The Fall Guy at the cinema with my wife, and then’ when I got home, on a shortish walk to Rother Valley Country Park to test a new lens I’ve bought.

I’ve bought a Tamron 28-300mm zoom lens that will fit my Nikon F80. I think it will be a good choice for when I go on future hikes as it should give me a lot of versatility. The F80 can make use of the image stabilisation on the lens (although I’ve found, slightly annoyingly, that only with a half-press of the shutter, and not with my preferred back-button focusing method). This should prove useful when using the longer focal lengths.

A zoom like this is never going to beat a prime, but as it’ll be used with 35mm film – probably 400asa – then I’m hoping any noticeable shortcomings will be minimal. I only took two shots with it today – all that remained on the roll already in the camera – but they’re at 200mm and 300mm, so should give me some idea of what I can expect when zoomed in. I’ll try the wide angle end on the next roll. I’ll give my thoughts and post some pictures once I’ve gotten them developed and scanned.

Anyway, in lieu of a film photograph today, here’s a digital shot from my trip to Malaga last summer. It’s been hot and humid here in the UK today, so it brought back memories of Spain.

Ricoh GRIII

Taken on 20 August 2023

The Grey Ladies

The pictures today show The Grey Ladies, a stone circle that stands on Harthill Moor in the Derbyshire Peak District between Youlgreave and Elton.

Also known as Nine Stones Close, the circle dated back to the Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age and is likely at least three thousand years old. It’s an odd thought to think that, over thirty centuries ago, people stood where I did and built this.

Although named Nine Stones Close, there are just four stones present in the arrangement today (although in the mid 19th century there were still seven – one of these now stands as a nearby gatepost while another lays in a field some distance to the north.). The site was excavated in the 19th century, and some consercation work took place in the 1930s to re-stand two of the stones which had fallen.

Folklore says that the stones will sometimes dance at midday and midnight, and the “Nine” in the name Nine Stones Close may be a corruption of “Noon”, when fairies were said to gather to dance at the site.

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 26 March 2024

Derelict cars

Finding old, abandoned cars isn’t that easy in the UK. Anything unroadworthy (which includes most old cars) is, well, off the road. In most cases this will mean scrappage of the vehicle. Even scrap yards seem to be a thing of the past. All the old yards, where you could wander between aisles of teetering wrecks piled atop one another, looking for a spare wing mirror or replacement windscreen wiper motor for your own, still functioning, ride, seem to have disappeared. They’ve been lost to tightening of laws and regulations and, to some extent probably, online sales of used parts.

While this isn’t a junkyard, finding these old cars (including a couple of Vauxhall’s – A Chevette, and a Nova) by the side of a footpath, was a pleasant surprise. These scenes may not be pretty but they’re certainly photogenic.

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 26 March 2024

Hilltop farm

Today’s photo is from a hike I took back in March. There will be a post or two about the full hike coming soon, but before then I’ll share some medium format pictures I made with my Yashica Mat 124G alongside the bulk that I shot with my Olympus XA3.

This farm sits in the hilly Peak District countryside between Elton to the south and Youlgreave to the north.

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 26 March 2024

Boats at West Stockwith

The first two boats in this scene – Willow and Trisantona – look best suited to the adjacent River Trent, although I suppose they can also traverse the River Idle. I’m not sure if boats like this venture onto the Chesterfield Canal, and I expect that their wakes would cause quite a commotion if they did. That journey is probably left to narrowboats, like the ones moored in the background.

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 24 March 2024

Pictures without words

Occasionally on this blog I will post a photograph without saying anything about it. I could try and bluff my way through this and claim that “the picture speaks for itself“, or something similar, but that would be – pardon my French – bullshit.

What it actually means is, usually, one of two things:

1. I have writer’s block and can’t think of anything to say.
2. I don’t have time to write anything.

Option 2 is the usual culprit. I’ve either been doing something that has kept me from the computer, or I’ve been doing something else on the computer (or PlayStation…) and the time has gotten away from me. Either way, the result is the same, a picture without words.

Today was going to be a similar thing, but then I wrote this.

So here’s a picture that has words, they’re just not connected to its contents whatsoever…

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 24 March 2024

Getting it wrong – push processing film shot at box speed

Over the last few weeks I’ve posted a whole bunch of photos taken with my Olympus XA3 on Ilford HP5+, which I pushed a stop to 800asa.

Or so I thought…

After receiving a comment about one of my posts using this setup, where I was asked if there was a reason I was shooting the film at 800ASA, I replied that it was to aid me during the low light conditions that are prevalent during the UK winter. Given that the camera has no manual control of shutter speed or aperture, this is a logical thing to do to get faster speeds and avoid camera shake.

But after replying, a small exclamation mark began to flash above my head. So I took a look at the camera manual and, lo and behold, it turns out I’ve not actually been shooting at 800ASA at all, but at 400ASA – HP5+’s box speed. Although the XA3 allows the ASA setting to be changed, it turns out that it will automatically override this if a DX code is present on the film being used. The manual control is just for non-DX coded films!

So in actual fact, I’ve been overdeveloping my film by push processing it!

Fortunately for me, the shots are all perfectly usable, and it’s a testament to Ilford’s HP5+’s resilience to these sort of damn fool mistakes that this is the case.

Anyway, here’s a random shot of one of the impacted frames, proving that if you ever accidentally push your HP5+ by a stop in DD-X, you will likely be forgiven your mistake…

Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 20 January 2024

A nice doer-upper

This is the same house that I shared a picture of yesterday. It definitely needs some TLC, but I imagine it will be worth a fortune when renovated.

Those two black specks at the top of the picture are birds. I ummed and aahed about painting them out, but decided they were there when the picture was shot, so there they can remain.

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 24 March 2024

Empty house

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°

Taken on 24 March 2024

A barge and a bicycle

The last picture I have to share for the day I walked between West Stockwith and Misterton, is this shot or a bicycle in front of a barge at the marina where the Chesterfield Canal joins the River Trent.

Olympus XA3 & Ilford HP5+ (@800asa). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 10mins @ 20°

Taken on 24 March 2024