So, it’s Star Wars day today, so it seemed apt to publish a photo aligned with that theme. Not that I have many Star Wars related photographs – and even fewer shot on film (two or three at a stretch) – but this one certainly fits the bill.
These two Barcelona manequins must be clones given the headgear they’re wearing. And, yes, that is Darth Vader in a t-shirt lurking in the background…
Olympus OM-10, Cimko 28mm f/2.8 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 17 June 2019
I’ve been out all day helping my son move house, so don’t really have the energy to write too much today, so here’s a shot from my trip to Barcelona back in June that I’d not done anything with until now. Normal, slightly more wordy posts will resume tomorrow. 🙂
Olympus OM-10, Cimko 28mm f/2.8 & Arista Edu 200.
Taken on 18 June 2019
A multitude of small yachts moored in the marina at Barcelona, spindly masts poking skywards.
I took this while sitting on a bench ovelooking the marina – we’d walked from the hotel to the city plaza, and from there down Las Ramblas to the spot where this was taken. There’s a modern shopping mall over to the right of this composition and that was our destination (although there wasn’t all that much to see when we got there).
My knee was killing me throughout the trip as I had (and still have as I type this) some sort of injury, although it now thankfully seems to be on the wane. I’m not sure that walking in excess of 20,000 steps each day of the trip had helped it!
Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Kodak Portra 400.
Taken on 18 June 2019
Taken in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter while I waited for my wife who was browsing in shoe shops.
Canon Sure Shot Z135 & Kodak Portra 400.
Taken on 17 June 2019
A stallkeeper prepares produce on this stall in Mercado de la Boqueria in Barcelona.
I guess, following on from my picture a few days ago, that this is another shot that might have benefited from being in colour, but the black and white still works well because of the contrast, I feel. Plus I do have some other shots of similar stalls taken on Protra 400, but I’m waiting for those to be processed.
From looking at this photograph it would be easy to assume that the market had only just opened, or was not very busy, but it is in fact a very rare moment when there weren’t dozens of shoppers and tourists milling around in front of my lens (and I cropped it a bit too!).
Olympus OM-10, Cimko 28mm f/2.8 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 17 June 2019
I’m not sure of the precise location of this shot – it was taken as my wife and I wandered the narrow streets off Barcelona’s “La Rambla”, and was probably in the Gothic Quarter somewhere. It’s a shot that made me glad of the 28mm lens I had attached to the camera.
Olympus OM-10, Cimko 28mm f/2.8 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 17 June 2019
Here’s a photo of a couple of chilled fruit drinks that my wife and I enjoyed in a cafe / bar on the first day of our short break in Barcelona. The drinks were extremely pleasant on a hot day, and consisted of a fruit cocktail enlivened with ice-cubes and frozen fruit. It made for a colourful display.
My first choice was to take a shot on the Portra 400 that was in my Z135 as this would have picked up the colours in the liquid and, especially, the reds, purples and oranges of the berries and mango pieces. However, try as I might, I just couldn’t get a composition I was happy with using the camera – although it has a macro mode, it didn’t frame the scene well, and shooting wider at the camera’s minimum focus range led to far too much of the surroundings getting into the shot.
So, I took the shot with the OM-10 and 28mm lens I had attached (in the interests of travelling light and not annoying myself with the urge to switch lenses all the time, the 28mm was all I took for the SLR, and it turned out to be a pretty good choice of focal length for the streets of Barcelona). The 28mm lens in question is a Cimko model that allows close macro focussing, so I was able to get in nice and tight even with the wide-angle of view, and the f/2.8 maximum aperture meant I could get enough light in the slightly shaded position we were in. The only real issue with using the OM-10 was the fact that I’d loaded it with HP5+, so I had to forego the lovely colours on show and hope for the sense of cold refreshing beverages to still shine through in B&W.
I love black and white film, but colour film does have the advantage of being easily convertible to monochrome if required, whereas (short of fancy techniques to combine three images shot using red, green and blue filters) black and white film is pretty much what-you-see-is-what-you-get.
I’m not sure if it’s a better shot in B&W, but it still works pretty well, and was “interesting” enough to get into Flickr Explore yesterday. I’m happy with it though and, given I take photos for myself, that’s what matters I suppose. 🙂
Anyone else had a similar conundrum with colourful scenes and black and white film?
Olympus OM-10, Cimko 28mm f/2.8 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 16 June 2019
A chequerboard-faced figure looms from a shop doorway.
I couldn’t help but think of the scene in T2: Judgement Day where the T-1000 terminator, having disguised itself as some chequered linoleum, rises up and kills the security guard as he purchases his coffee from a vending machine in the secure hospital where Sarah Connor is being held…
Olympus OM-10, Cimko 28mm f/2.8 & Ilford HP5+.
Taken on 16 June 2019
A shop window has it’s window blocked out with old newspapers. I presume that someone was re-fitting the interior as the next time I passed by (this weekend just gone) the papers had been removed.
Olympus OM-10, Cimko 28mm f/2.8 & Agfa Vista Plus 200.
Taken on 18 April 2019
One of the cameras I picked up at a car-boot sale the other week was an Olympus OM-10. It came with a Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens (that was clean but faulty) and the manual adapter that plugs into the front of the camera to convert it, as you might expect, so that it can be used fully manually.
The light-seals looked like they’d seen better days – just a thin, plasticky coating remained in most cases – so I took the time to remove the old material and fit new seals. When that was done, there was nothing more than to take it out for a test.
Comparing it to my OM-1, the OM-10 feels somewhat flimsy. Not so much in its weight of the feel of the body, but the dials feel looser and far less well constructed than the other camera. Despite this slight misgiving, everything on the camera appears to work ok, and the roll came back from processing with no unexpected issues.
I’d used a Cimko 28mm f/2.8 lens that I bought from a chap on a forum a year or so back. The first results with the lens (on the OM-1) had been disappointing – most of the shots were soft compared to the Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 I also own – but having recently re-scanned some of the photos on the Plustek, it’s become apparent that it was my scanning that was to blame. The Plustek holders keep the negatives much flatter than my Epson V550 holders, and I think the original softness had been the result of slightly bowed negatives. As the Cimko has a nice “macro” mode, this is good to know as it gives me some additional flexibility in the shots I can take with my Olympus cameras.
The shot I’m sharing today is nice and sharp. I converted it to black and white in Lightroom as, although it was taken in some soft golden-hour light with a lovely warm glow, the mono image just has more punch to it, which I prefer.
Olympus OM-10, Cimko 28mm f/2.8 & Agfa Vista Plus 200 (converted to B&W in Lightroom).
Taken on 19 April 2019
Steel City Snapper photography 