Some days ago, while driving home I realized that there are a plethora of different types of lamp posts in my local area. Different both in design, placement and light source. I decided to spend a roll of Kodak Tri-X, a film I rarely use, to play with the lamp post and a red filter for contrast. I had never tried using a red filter in different conditions before, and I decided to just leave it on regardless if the lighting conditions changed from sunny to overcast. This turned out to be a mistake and some of the shots did not come out well. However, the well exposed turned out very nice.
To take these images, I had to look up into the sky, hence my idea to use a red filter for the backgrounds. I like how the sky and the contrast to the light post turned out. I see little bit of evidence of dust inside the camera house, which I will have to figure out at a later point.
This roll was also the first roll I developed using 510 Pyro, a developer I had heard so much about but never really tried. I bought a bottle that I will be trying out over the coming months. The concentrate is a bit gloopy, but not anything I haven’t seen from HC110 in earlier developments. All in all, I am very happy with the results. The grain is surprisingly fine on the well exposed negatives, and obviously more prominent on the underexposed negatives. This is my fault entirely.
A seagull started to dive towards me at one point. I like how the grain makes this image more active.
A while back, I made a post where I tested out a film I had never tried before. Agfa APX100. I was not 100% sold on this film at that point as I found it to very easily lose the shadows even when meters specifically for the shadows. After this outing, I have tried it on multiple occasions. I have tried pulling it both one and two stops. Shot at 50 with 20% reduction in development time seems to work the best of these. If shot at 25 and pulled, it comes out dull and grey and you have no shadows, nor highlights left to work with.
In this entry, I am covering my experience with shooting it at 50 and making no changes to the development time. A full stop over-exposure and develop for the full film speed. This test; however, became somewhat untrustworthy, as it seems that the film somehow must have been exposed to light. My guess, reading the negatives, is that the exposure to light must have happened after the images were taken, since the frame itself is visible through the light-leak area. I will include a raw-scan that shows the issue.
The interesting light leak situation. (Unedited scan)
Now, I have not had any problems with the bulk-roll nor with the cassettes or loader before, and my Canon T70 has never shown any signs of light leak. Not that this kind of light leak would happen in the camera anyway. It does not show on all the images, but on most of the,. I was able to salvage 4 images from this roll, maybe the best ones, who knows.
My trip this day, went through a forest-area and into a swampy area next to a very rarely visited forest-pond called Sevalstjernet. I chose this location because I knew it would give me a very varied range of objects to photograph as well as nature. I had never visited this pond before, and I strapped on my wellies, a choice that would be crucial for this outing, as I most of the time waded around in bog and fen. With my normal hiking-shoes, I would have been soaking after just a few minutes.
I was also accompanied by a cloud of black-flies. It is nice to have company when you are out walking, but I would have preferred people or a dog rather than flies. On the plus-side, the huge swarm of flies seems to have kept the mosquitoes and horseflies away, so I should maybe me grateful.
A forest watch-tower – Canon T70 w Canon FD 50mm f1,8 – Agfa APX100 @ 50
It also seems like my idea of exposure helped me greatly on retaining the shadows in this film. I do think, however that this film could be over-exposed another stop in normal development without any issue. I do still have some inky-blacks on some of my scans. Based on mob experience this far, I will not buy another roll of APX-100. FP4 plus isn’t that much more expensive, and it is a far better film. An in between, Fomapan 100 is a film I have found to work very well for me.
Some beard – Canon T70 w Canon FD 50mm f1,8 – Agfa APX100 @ 50
One of the things I love with the Canon T70, is its lens. The little, cheap 50mm FD lens performs consistently very well and is very sharp and flexible. I know there are better FD-lenses out there, but there is something to this lens that just appeals to me. I like the way it portrays the world to my images, especially when photographing the «smaller things» like this little beard-moss on a tree. I think this one was shot at f2,8 but it could also be f4. Since I lost all frames before and after this one, I am not sure.
Finally I made it into the swampy area around the lake. I think the correct term for this land would be either fen or mire, but I am not sure whether it is acidic or alkaline ground here. My guess would be acidic given its vegetation, but I might be wrong here. Sadly, what I would think is my best shot of this pond got lost in light-leaks, but I will add the one that survived.
Sevalstjernet with the farm – Canon T70 w Canon FD 50mm f1,8 – Agfa APX100 @ 50
The other day, I went out for a little walk by the lake Mjøsa, biggest lake in Norway. Along me I brought the Canon T70 and a roll of Ilford FP4 Plus. It was a rather windy day and the weather was dull and overcast and with some threatening skies promising some downfall in some form. Whether it would come as snow or as rain was anyone’s guess at this point. Since the weather was rather unpredictable, I chose to not bring any video-equipment, so this is a blog-only post. For readers only.
At this time of year the lake is still low and one can walk on what most of the year is submerged by the lake. Once the snow-melting in the mountains picks up some time in the middle of may the water level in the lake will rise and the are I photographed this time will noe be accessible.
Frozen water motion – Canon T70 + Canon 50mm f1,8 FD lens – Ilford FP4 Plus – Adox Atomal 49
I snapped some shots on my way along the lake towards a little woodland area not far from the main path along the lake. I noticed a lot of motion in the water, and I tried to freeze it in action with the higher shutter speeds on the Canon, and even though some of the ended up slightly under-exposed I also got a few decent exposures.
Once again I chose to develop this film with Adox Atomal 49, a developer I know gives me very fine grain and is very good at keeping shadow-details without blowing out the whites. Whether this is considered a compensating developer or not, I am uncertain, but I find it to give me relatively flat negatives that are easy to scan and work with in post-processing. After using 10 liters of this developer I have found that the dilution 1+1 is the right one for my taste. I also like the way you get Perceptol-grain without having to sacrifice film speed. In these times when Kodak Xtol seems to be in shot supply, I have used Atomal instead. However, for my next big-batch I am mixing Ilford ID-11 instead of Adox Atomal 49.
A bent tree – Canon T70 + Canon 50mm f1,8 FD lens – Ilford FP4 Plus – Adox Atomal 49
After a while I approached the trees and the little woodland-area which sadly has shrunk quite a bit over the last years due to construction of new residential areas closer to the lake, but some interesting trees are still left, and with the snow disappearing, it is once again accessible.
I find woodland-photography the most pleasant challenge for me as a photographer. Shooting a decent woodland composition can be very difficult, but at the same time, working in such an environment has a certain peace to it. The feeling you get from being in the woods is unlike anything else.
Better times ahead- Canon T70 + Canon 50mm f1,8 FD lens – Ilford FP4 Plus – Adox Atomal 49
In this second entry in the series “Frames of Norway” I am walking towards the viewing point “Amlisberget” to get the view over the little town Moelv and the lake Mjøsa in the east of Norway. This area of Norway has a very different landscape to it than what one often thinks of as Norwegian landscape. Rather than steep mountains and dramatic valleys and fjords, this area has a calmer, more rounded mood to it. The calm landscape forms were eroded during the last ice-age. There are a huge number of lakes and ponds, and the area has a lot of glacial till and in summer time, the area is one of the lushest farming areas of Norway.
The lake Mjøsa is the biggest lake in Norway and I will feature it in a number of entries in this series, focusing on different aspects or areas around it. Living and working in this area, it is a rather difficult to “forget” about it due to its size, and the landscape around the lake changes a lot from south to north, as well as its history.
A view over Mjøsa from Amlisberget – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1.8 – Ilford FP4 Plus Adox Atomal 49
The area around Moelv, has a long history for its industry and being one of the centers for trade and communication in its part of the lake. Being the “mid-point” between the bigger towns around the lake, Gjøvik, Lillehammer and Hamar, just about 20 minutes to each of the bigger towns, Moelv was an ideal loading-area for steamboats doing the so-called “across-trafic” indicating that they were crossing the lake, rather than doing longer trips along the lake. Boats doing this “across-trafic” were in general smaller boats owned by locals or smaller companies, and they would carry goods from smaller ports to the bigger port in Moelv where the bigger boats and ships would take over.
This is an interesting point, today, when we have the bridge over Mjøsa, we see the lake as an obstacle in our travels, but back then, the lake was the biggest and most efficient “highway” of the area with an incredible number of steam and motor boats sailing all over it. At some point, the church in Moelv served for a parish including farms and houses on both sides of the lake and having “church boats” to transport people across for sermons and so on. This connection between Moelv on the east-side of the lake and Redalen on the west side of the lake, is still strong today. This is also where the bridge is crossing the lake.
Woodland and farmland – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1.8 – Ilford FP4 Plus Adox Atomal 49
For this outing, I chose to go with a 35mm camera. I wanted to get a very “analog feel” to the images and I figured that being on a new location where I had never been before, I might get “shutter happy” and boom off a lot of shots. And I was right, I filled the whole roll in about half the trip.
A view towards Næroset – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1.8 – Ilford FP4 Plus Adox Atomal 49
I chose to go with the Canon T70, the revolutionizing first attempt from Canon on making a computerised camera. A camera loaded with different “safety features” such as sliders and buttons to make sure you don’t accidently open the camera mid-roll or accidentally rewind the film mid-roll. It also has a very good and accurate light-meter, and an apperture-priority setting that is working flawlessly. I also like the fact that this is a 100% Manual Focus camera and that you can focus manually without having to deal with the “sloppy” and “vague” feeling of an AF-lens. This is personal preference of course, but I prefer MF for this kind of use.
The Path – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1.8 – Ilford FP4 Plus Adox Atomal 49
I set out into a forest area where there are a lot of ski-tracks in the winter. I parked at Høgring, where the sports team Næroset IL has a little skiing cabin, and I walked from there. Forestry has meant a lot to this area, and previously Moelv had both a cellulose factory and a huge sawmill. The sawmill and its wood-workshop is still active and is one of Norways biggest providers of wood even today under the name of “MOELVEN”. The cellulose factory ceased operations in the late 1930’s due to the big depression in international trade.
A view over Mjøsa and Moelv – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1.8 – Ilford FP4 Plus Adox Atomal 49
Because the colours in the Norwegian nature is rather greyish and boring at this moment right after the snow melts, I decided to shoot black and white. I went for a traditional film, the Ilford FP4 plus, one of my absolute favourite films, and I used both yellow filter and a two-stop graduated orange filter. I was a but uncertain how the aperture-priority setting would deal with a soft-grad filter, but it seems to have correctly exposed the sky and overexposed the land-area, which was what I wanted it to do. Concidering the fact that the filter-thread on the lens is damaged, the images turned out rather well.
More forestry – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1.8 – Ilford FP4 Plus Adox Atomal 49
I chose to develop with Adox Atomal 49, a developer I have found myself to really like. Especially traditional films like FP4 and HP5 gives great results with this developer, and I find it to lift their abilities. It seems to be somewhat compensating and gives a rather flat negative and great shadow-detail even when the films are shot at box-speed. The down-side is its toxicity, and I find that even though I have loved my two first batches of it, I am hesitant to buy more of it because of this. I obviously collect the rest-developer and deliver it to a designated collection place where it is dealt with properly, but I still don’t like the thought of using something this toxic.
As you can see from many of the images, farming, as well as forestry is important for the area. Moelv was, and still is an important hub for the distribution and sale of grain and farming products in the area. Strand Brænneri was opened by the local farmers in the mid 1800s and was one of the first cooperative agricultural businesses in Norway, and became an important part of building Moelv and the surrounding area into the successful area it became in this time.
A lonely birch – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1.8 – Ilford FP4 Plus Adox Atomal 49
I am proud to live and have so easy access to an area with this amount of “cultural landscape”, and where you can really see how nature and man has lived together in peace over so many years.
A little while back, I bought some rolls of Fujifilm C200 colour negative film. A consumer film I remember very well to have used as a photo-interested teenager. Back then I had a Nikon F60, a camera that sadly has stopped working and that is too expensive to have repaired. I upgraded it with a Nikon F80 after it died. When I tried C200 again, I was excited to see how well this film actually performs, even today in 2021. On my first tryout I shot it at 160 just to be sure that I biased towards over-exposure and not under-exposure. I realized that I lost some shadows at 200, and I decided to go out once again the other day, but this time, I shot it at ISO 100. One stop over-exposure. I was a bit nervous about this tactic as I don’t know the films characteristics that well. I was afraid I would get the very «washed out» colours you get when you over-expose Fuji-films too much, but I needn’t worry.
My chosen camera for this outing, was the Canon T70. A camera that I find to have a very good light-meter and aperture-priority setting. Since I was out walking and scouting for possible locations, I shot it using aperture-priority. The camera is manual focus and you can set your aperture, so this program gives med decent control over my exposures even if I am not controlling the shutter-speeds myself.
An iPhone snap of the Canon T70. When this image was taken it was on frame 24.
Over-exposing colour negative film is normally not an issue. The dynamic range is made to deal well with over-exposure and you get more details in the shadows. Exactly what I wanted for this outing. My location this time is Steinsodden, a little islet that is accessible by foot in spring-time when the water in the lake is low. Once the snow-melt in the mountains pick up and reach the big lakes, this islet is inaccessible without either using a boat or getting wet. The name of the Islet is «Steinsholmen» or «Steinsborga» as the locals say. It is home to the ruins of a medieval castle that you can read more about if you google «Mjøskastellet». The ruins are protected, and when I was there id didn’t see any reasons to photograph it, as some moron has figured out that putting up barrier-tape around was a marvelous idea. It is just ugly and dis-respectful to the historic site and I guess the medieval king who got it built will haunt this moron forever! (At least I hope)
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But.. No-one reads this blog for my thoughts about barrier-tape in nature, you want to see my images:
The path – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1,8. f8 – Fujifilm C200@100 Tetenal C41
The first image I am going to show here, is this lovely image of the path leading towards the islet. I just love all the leading lines giving this image the depth it has, and I also love seeing that I have retained so much shadow-detail with my process of over-exposing. I was a bit concerned as the day was very sunny, but not even the sky in the background is completely «blown out». Also, with my Epson v600 scanner, this film is very easy to scan. I am having trouble getting good scans of 35mm Ektar, but the C200 really is a star.
Some nice rocks – Canon T70 w 50mm Canon f1,8 – Fujifilm C200@100 – Tetenal C41
I really love the way this image turned out. I cannot remember whether this image was taken at f4 or f5,6, but it gives a very nice focus area, and a very smooth and sift background. It is so nice that the snow is melting and that I once again can take these nature-detail images that I love looking for. I have not corrected this image for sharpness or haze, but I have tinted the colours slightly, as they were a tad too green for my liking.
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The last one that I will show in this post, is a shot at your famous f11. The main setting of the landscape photographer. It is an early afternoon view over the lake and the weather was indeed very sunny and harsh. Even so, I see that the film coped very well with the over-exposure and I am very pleased with how it turned out.
I am actually surprised how well this film works and considering its price, it is quite good value for money. I might very well be shooting it again soon.
On a foggy, snowy day a short while ago, I shot about half a roll of Rollei Retro 400s with my Olympus OM-1, aiming at capturing the hard contrasts of the really nasty weathered day. I cut the outing short because it got very difficult and nasty to work in the wet and snowy gale. I cut the film out of the camera, and saved the rest for another day. That day came, and I put it into my Canon T70 and went to a local church that I find very interesting to shoot.
Because of the conditions on this particular day, I chose to overexpose the film by one stop to 200, and shave off 20% of the development time. Basically a one stop pull. This would give me more shadow-detail and give me more to play on with the apertures on a bright afternoon in the snow. I never got to use that last point, as it turned out that the total number of frames left on the film was EIGHT.
Aas church on a bright afternoon – Canon T70 – Rollei Retro 400s – Foma Fomadon Excel 1+0 7m30s
My negatives were more contrasty than I thought they would be, so I am very happy that I pulled the film one stop for this shoot. I mainly shot at f11 and f8 for this outing, and I have to say that I think the little 50mm Canon Lens performs rather well. For a standard kit-lens it is decently sharp and helps me capture the moods I want. I have, however, seen some diffraction on f22, and I avoid that aperture when using this camera.
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The aperture-priority setting on the Canon seems to work very well. Even on these shots, where the sky was very bright, I managed to retain decent detail in the sky, showing the cloud-formations etc, without using any filters.
A naked graveyard tree – Canon T70 – Rollei Retro 400s – Foma Fomadon Excel 1+0 7m30s
I also have a hard time walking past an interesting looking trees, and I saw one at this grave yard by the fence by some graves. Because of the deep snow, I was not able to study the tree and identify what type of tree it was, but it made for a really lovely composition. I shot it from two different distances because I was uncertain which one that would be the most efficient. I will include both here.
The same tree further away – Canon T70 – Rollei Retro 400s – Foma Fomadon Excel 1+0 7m30s
I also attempted a cool shot of the entry area of the church, but I am not very pleased with how it turned out. I find that it is a rather «bland» composition and that it does not either emphasis the contrast nor the shapes of the church in the way I imagined it would. This would probably have worked better if shot at box-speed.
Not very pleased with this one – Canon T70 – Rollei Retro 400s – Foma Fomadon Excel 1+0 7m30s
A few days ago, the weather and conditions were perfect for a little afternoon outing, and really worked set itself up for some lovely muted colours. Since I had some C41 chemistry and a few rolls of different colour films, I decided to go for Kodak ProImage 100 and the Canon T70.
I wanted to shoot hand-held, and I wanted a film that is gentle with the colours, but not either over, nor under-saturated. As it later turned out, my C41 chemistry is probably shot. The scans I got had a severe cyan-green cast, and since the C41 mix is three months old, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a dying blix.
I chose to drive up to an old outdoor-museum, a museum with an old, lovely yellow farm-buildingand some old houses. The area is accessible for everyone at any time, and walking around there is very relaxing, since there rarely are too many people around.
The break point of a fallen branch – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1.8 FD – Kodak ProImage100 (somewhat colour corrected)
Outside the main farm building, there was evidence of a snowy winter with heavy and mild snow. Big branches had broken off the tree outside the main building and I took the chance of photographing them, as they are likely to soon be removed when the snow melts. The broken branches made for some nice compositions in themselves, but they also «framed» some other nice elements, such as wilted autumn leaves, that have been buried by the snow over a long winter.
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A wilted maple leaf – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1.8 FD – Kodak ProImage100 (somewhat colour corrected)
This time with the Canon, I went for images demanding wider apertures. The last time I used the camera was a very bright day, and I mainly shot f11 and occasionally f8. This time, my narrowest aperture was f4, and in most cases, the lens seems to perform very well: The images have a sharp and defined focus, and creates a soft bokeh that is very pleasant to the eye. There are no evidence of any vignetting or other issues with the lens at these apertures. But I have found it to have some diffraction when used at f22 (not in this outing obviously), and I will avoid that in the future.
One of my preferred subjects for winter photography is churches. I find them to be inspiring and they always spark some kind of interest in my photographic work. I will elaborate this somewhat in this entry.
On a recent outing, I visited two very beautiful and different churches along with my new acquisition, the Canon T70 and a roll of Fujifilm C200. This film is a consumer level colour film that I tended to prefer using back in the day, around 2004 when I was given my first SLR camera, an Nikon F60. This combination, the F60 and the Fujifilm C200 (or its equivalent at the time) was what sparked my interest in photography. Sadly, out of pure vanity and neglectance, I haven’t used this for a very long time, but when I saw a three-pack of C200 at a discontinuation sale at a “everything shop”, I bought it and suddenly remembered why I loved using this film. It really has some “zing” to it that I really like.
The most spectacular of the churches I visited on this outing, was Skute kirke, near Hov in Søndre Land. Finished in 1915, it sought to be a “modern” take on the Norwegian Stave churches, and the architect Ole Stein was clearly both inspired by Art Nouveau and Stave churches when drawing this church. It was named after one of the neighbouring farmers, Peder Skute, who gave land for the construction under two conditions. All locals should be given the right to a free burial, and the graves should never be removed. This promise has been kept alive until this day.
Side door at Skute church – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1,8 FD lens. Fujifilm C200@160
To me, Skute is one of the locations I always return to for church photography. It is such a beautiful and special building that I find to inspire my photography because of its beautiful lobster red colour and its colourful details in doors and ornaments. This is the first time I have been here in winter time, and if possible, the snow made it even more striking.
Their prominence and “standing out” of the environment is one of the reasons I like shooting churches. They are built to be proper landmarks and people tend to be very proud of their church and something they talk proudly of when asked. Often, when I am working around churches with my cameras, I get to speak to locals and employees and am often granted access to the inside as well. Sadly, I didn’t meet anyone at this trip to Skute, and was not able to photograph the incredible Neo-Baroque and Art Nouveau inspired interior, but I met a local lighting a candle on a grave, who welcomed me and was very happy to see someone photographing the church he was so proud of.
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Another reason why I tend to shoot churches in winter time is accessibility. In the Norwegian winter, the amount of snow makes your options for locations limited to where it is in some way prepared for people to move about. The area around a church is always plowed and there are always some paths around the graveyards to walk on while taking your photos. Churches also provide some contrast and colour in an otherwise quite uninspiring and monochromatic winter landscape. Making them ideal for photography.
Scenes from Skute church – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1,8 FD lens. Fujifilm C200@160
Earlier on the day I visited the much older and more traditional Fluberg Kirke. About 25 minutes away from Skute, this is another church that I tend to revisit. Working around Fluberg is great for detail shots and the lovely aerial view over the lake Randsfjorden with its closest settlements Fluberg and Odnes. This is also just a few minutes walk from Meierilandet, where I did my Expired roll of Mitsubishi MX-III 400, and to get to Skute, you cross the bridge you see in that entry,
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Fluberg Kirke was built consecrated in 1703, but its wind flag says 1699 indicating the year it the land was consecrated. At its time, Fluberg was built to be the main church of its are, and hence in the most exquisite way imaginably at the time including three galleries seating in total 450 people for a sermon.
Main gate from Fluberg church – Canon T70 w Canon 50mm f1,8 FD lens. Fujifilm C200@160
On this outing, I looked at shooting details around the church rather than aerial shots of a white church in white snow, and I must say that I am becoming very fond of the Canon T70 camera. This is definitely a camera I will be using more in the future. I will probably extend my collection of lenses suiting it to contain a wide-angle and a short tele-foto lens in addition to the 50mm.
Also, using the C200 again was a fun experience. This time I chose to set the camera light meter to ISO160, on third of a stop over exposure, to make sure the camera would bias that way if hesitating. I find that this works very well for what I wanted to achieve with this shoot. Even though there are better, sharper, finer grained and in general more flexible, but for its price, C200 is a very good choice and alternative.
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