When you shoot at f/2.8 with a medium format camera there’s not mushroom for mistakes when it comes to nailing the focus. Ho, ho, ho. 🙂
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Kodak Yri-X (expired 2013). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 3 November 2022.
I must apologise for the somewhat concise posts of late. I have a lot of things going on keeping me busy and not much mental capacity remaining to write much on the blog.
Todays I present a picture of Critchlow’s Farm Shop in Bakewell. It took quite some patience to find a moment when there wasn’t a vehicle of some sort driving in front of it!
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Kodak Yri-X (expired 2013). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 1 November 2022.
Today’s photo is of Holme Bridge in Bakewell, a gritstone packhorse bridge spanning the Rivey Wye whose construction dates to 1664.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Kodak Yri-X (expired 2013). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 1 November 2022.
The south transept of All Saints church in Bakewell.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Kodak Yri-X (expired 2013). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 1 November 2022.
There’s not much cricket being played in November (outdoors, at least) so there wasn’t much activity at the pavilion when I walked past. One guy was sat in front reading a newspaper when I approached, but he’d moved on by the time I made some pictures.
Bronica ETRSi, Zenzanon 75mm f/2.8 & Kodak Yri-X (expired 2013). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 8mins @ 20°
Taken on 1 November 2022.
I’m back with the third of my expired film adventures. When I started this series (and I use that term in a loose sense) I think I might have mentioned doing one every month and, for the first two at least, I was true to my word. But it’s now been almost five months since the last entry, so apologies to anyone who was waiting with baited breath. I do still intend to keep doing these though, and hopefully more frequently.
This roll is the youngest one featured to date, being a sprightly nineteen years over its expiry date of 2003. It’s another colour film, this time both in 135 format, and also, I think it’s fair to say, a consumer grade stock. I have actually shot another roll of this previously and you can see some posts containing the results here. I shot the previous roll at box speed and, while I got some nice results, they were somewhat grainy and more than a little vivid, so for this roll I decided to overexpose by a stop and shoot it at 100asa.
But first a little background on the film, and how I got it.
Truprint were a mail order photo processing outfit where you wuld post your rolls of film out in a special envelope and then, a couple of weeks later, you would receive a set of prints AND a free roll of film to shoot more. The Truprint brand was still in business as a photo printing outfit up until fairly recently until it was bought out by Snapfish. Truprint provided a variety of films in the usual 100, 200, and 400asa varieties but these were, I believe, re-branded stocks from other manufacturers. The Big Film Database shows Agfa and Ferrania as the most likely originators of the film stocks used by Truprint. The roll I shot here was Truprint FG+ – a 200asa film, and one which appears to have been manufactured by Ferrania. Although the Big Film Database doesen’t specify this, other sources seem to indicate this particular stock was Ferrania Solaris.
I got hold of my two rolls from a lady who had found them in their fridge in her garage and who had asked online if they would be of any use to anyone. She told me they had always been in the fridge since purchase, which was a good sign, and was the main reason I chanced shooting the first roll at box speed.
I decided to shoot this second roll partially for some multiple-exposure photography I was attempting, for which I didn’t want to risk wasting a more expensive roll of film, but as I had no intention of using the whole roll for this purpose, I also went out on a sunny autumn morning to shoot a bunch of other frames of whatever subject matter I could find. I ended up in the Attercliffe area of the city – a former industrial area home to Sheffield’s once vast steel industry, but which has now become home to service businesses, retail, and entertainment outlets (although there is still a lot of industry in abundance, including steel foundries). Most of the pictures feature Sheffield Forgemasters, a heavy engineering firm that has been in existence since 1805. In the 1980s the company attracted controversy for it’s part in the Iraqi Supergun Affair, and in 2021 was nationalised because of it’s importance to the nation’s defence industry.
So, on to the results.
This roll came out very nicely indeed, possibly due to the overexposure, or perhaps it had just fared better than its companion roll. Whatever the case I would not be disappointed with these if they had come from a fresh roll of film – the grain is minimal and the colours look natural with just a hint of warmth (and that might just be in the way I processed the pictures in Negative Lab Pro and Lightroom). I’m very happy with the photos and would happily shoot more Truprint FG+ (if I had any).
Overall outcome: Success!
Expiriment #4 coming soon (I hope…)…
Nikkon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D, Truprint FG+ (expired 2003). Shot at 100asa and lab developed for box speed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Taken on 22 October 2022
Other posts in the Expiriment series:
Regular readers may remember me posting on occasion about the photo competition I enter each month, It’s approaching the end of the 2022 contest now with just three images remaining to be entered. October’s theme is multiple exposure.
I rarely shoot multiple exposure images (although occasionally accidentally), but I’ve shot quite a few this month, including a full roll of 12 shots with the Holga and also several shots on a roll of expired Truprint FG+. Of all the shots, the one featured in the blog today is my favourite and the one I’ve entered in the competition. It’s a picture of three overlaid camera – an Olympus OM-1, an Olympus XA3, and a Kodak Retina IIa. The resulting image looks a little like an x-ray photo, the sort you see from airport scanners.
I’ll perhaps post some of the other shots in a future post.
Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Truprint FG+ (expired 2003). Lab developed and home scanned.
Taken on 22 October 2022
This is Blackburn Meadows power station which sits beside the the M1 motorway where it crosses Don Valley across a viaduct near the Meadowhall shopping mall. I’ve driven over the viaduct on numerous occasions and seen the power station bathed in gorgeous light many times. It’s been on a mental list of things to photograph for a while now. A road and a footpath run beside the place making for good vantage points.
The photos before were the first time I did so, although I had a second visit last weekend – but I have doubts about the second set as I had a problem when removing the film from the camera and suspect it might be riddled with light-leaks now as a result. I guess I’ll see when I get the negatives back from the lab.
Yashicamat 124G & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 6mins @ 20°
Taken on 20 September 2022
Timbuktu, according to the pointer on this signpost, is 2,811 miles from this location. A fair distance for sure, but not a patch on how far it is to Cairns, Australia – a much further 9,423 miles distant. Luckily, the signpost – near the Meadowhall shopping mall in Sheffield – is less than 10 miles from where I live.
Yashicamat 124G & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008). Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 6mins @ 20°
Taken on 20 September 2022
I didn’t go inside this cafe on this visit to Mablethorpe, although I have on previous trips. There’s something comforting about sitting in a cafe with views out over the sea, with a hot drink, and maybe a snack as you contemplate the world outside.
Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 D & Fukichrome Velvia 50 (expired 2011). Lab developed & home scanned.
Taken on 17 September 2022
Steel City Snapper photography 