A day at the Fort with the Pentax Spotmatic.

An interesting trip out a while ago with my favourite retro camera of the moment, the Asahi Pentax Spotmatic SPII. We drove up into Suffolk to the end of the promontory where Felixstowe Docks are located. There is an old Fort called Landguard Fort built in the 1500s originally but the present construction dates much later. Being an overcast day and the Fort a very grey concrete construction I thought it would make an ideal subject for black and white film. So, I loaded up with a 36 exp roll of Ilford HP5+ and put a spare in my bag. I took my 55mm f1.8 and my 105mm f2.8 Takumar lenses fitted with a yellow filter for an added bit of contrast.

I love this old camera. It seems to fit my hand so well and I like the weight of it which has a feel of quality. The shutter sound too sounds really great and makes you feel you have an instrument of quality in your hands. The Takumar lenses are brilliant as is the Zeiss 29mm one.

It was a rather grey and overcast day so it was a little difficult in places accommodating the low light levels but all in all I was very pleased with the results.

Henry Moore Sculptures on film

Whilst we have had restricted travel I’ve been lucky enough to be able to visit the Henry Moore Gardens and Studios. It’s just a few minutes drive from where I live and just a few weeks ago I took the opportunity of a stroll around the grounds with a film camera loaded with a 36 exposure roll of Ilford HP5+ loaded into my Olympus OM2n.

The visitor centre building is quite an interesting shape in itself.

It had been raining which always adds an interesting perspective to the sculptures. Three Piece Sculpture: Vertebrae

I think it’s a good idea to get the interaction of people to the sculptures.

Using one sculpture to frame another is a useful compositional tool.

I was rather glad that this lady had decided to take a seat for a while. Reclining Figure: Angles

This one of the best shots I’ve ever got of the Large Upright Internal/External Form. It usually has a bright sky behind it which makes the exposure very difficult. I got in close this time to exclude exposure those influencing highlights.

I’m very pleased with the quality of the photos and I think the HP5+ film is certainly ideal for capturing the sculptures on a very dull day. The tonal range of the images is very good and I haven’t noticed too much grain. The film was developed in Ilford ID11 diluted 1+3 for 22 minutes. I would normally develop for 20 minutes but this was the second use of the developer so I added 10% to the time.

It’s good to see Sheep Piece back in the field after being away on tour for a while.

Living in Utopia

On a recent rip into London I took a group of photographers round the Barbican. Not wanting to use the tube in these times of restrictions we limited ourselves to using the over ground train into Liverpool Street and walk from there.

From the Barbican we walked down to the Thames at St Paul’s Cathedral. My main area of interest for the day though was the Barbican area. I was intending taking just a film camera with me on this trip as I thought the Barbican with it’s grey drab concrete construction would prove ideal for black and white film.

As early as the late 1940s architects and town planners were looking at how people could live in high rise blocks and moved around the city on high level walkways. The idea wasn’t that they were so much concerned about pedestrians but more to do with keeping traffic flowing uninterrupted through the cities of tomorrow. As is often the case though that didn’t accord with human nature as people were more fond of following roads rather than being remote above where everything is happening,

The outcome of this is that London has some areas of remote and unlinked walkways. One area of extensive walkways though is the Barbican estate.

The gear used for this day was my trusty Olympus OM2n and 50mm f1.4 lens. I used a couple of rolls of Ilford HP5+ and developed it in Ilford ID11 diluted 1+3 for 20 minutes @20 degC.

Scanning of film was done using Plustek Opticfilm 8100 scanner and Silverfast software.

Ilford HP5+ @ 3200asa

Back in January of this year I had started a project to photograph my local town at night using film and hand held. It was a good opportunity to see how I could push the speed of Ilford HP5+ to 3200asa. During the lockdown period I had chance to process the film along with another one shot at the same speed.

Fortunately, I started on this project before the restaurants started closing so managed to get some lit windows with customers sitting inside.

Searching some online sites and the Massive Dev Chart I decided on trying to get max asa out of Ilford HP5+ which is normally rated at 400asa. I wasn’t sure exactly how far you can push this film but I’d pushed it in my earlier days of film work when it was still HP5 with out the +and then I’d taken it to 1600asa.

The problem is that with extended development times the grain of the film can be excessive. I decided though that I’d take some night time shots around the town and hopefully the grain will just add to the atmosphere so I pushed it to 3200asa.

The cameras I used was a Voigtlander Vito C and I used a Weston Master V light meter to determine exposures.

I had some stock solution of Ilford ID11 developer so used that. I couldn’t find a timing for this on the Massive Dev Chart so compared the figures stated for 800 and 1600asa and added on some more time to allow for the 1 stop increased in speed. The final figure that I settled on was 18 minutes using stock solution.

I was pleased with the contrast look and the grain I thought looked almost like a murky mist overhanging the scenes. The contrast was aided by the fact that with some of the shots it had been raining.

I’ll be trying this again with one of my 35mm SLR and a better lens.