Capturing snow and fog

Yet again, the persistent winter of 2021 struck back at us with all its wreath. After a few weeks of impeccable weather and a really pleasant spring mood, we were once again confronted with the face of King Winter. When I went out yesterday, it was blowing a gale and the snow flew thick in the air. Thicker than horse-flies at a swamp in the summer. The weather was bland and uninspiring and being out there was nasty and uncomfortable. Yet, I had something in mind.

I wanted to capture the foggy and snowy day with a gritty and grainy mood. I chose to go for a BW film. The Rollei Retro 400s, which is a film I have used a bit before and that I find to suit my way of shooting very well. My thinking was that the 400 ISO film would give me just the right amount of grain and contrast, as well as giving me the opportunity to shoot hand-held, which is very handy in windy conditions, where camera-shake due to wind is a real danger, even with a sturdy tripod.

A fallen branch – Olympus OM-1 w 50mm Zuiko f1,8 – Rollei Retro 400s – Rodinal 1+100

I shot about half a roll of film, focussing on making quick compositions around branches that, over the winter with heavy snow, has broken off bigger trees. The foggy and snowy conditions makes these branches stand out as interesting shapes, and shows them for the beauty they are. WIth the added grain from the film and the additional grain and contrast from the use of Rodinal 1+100 Semi-Stand gave that somewhat “raw” look I was going for.

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The camera I chose to use, was my brilliant Olympus OM-1. This is a camera I trust at all shutter-speeds and that I know will work regardless of conditions. However, I noticed two issues on this particular outing. first and foremost, there was a little piece of dust that obstructed my view through the viewfinder. I used it as it was when out shooting, because I did not want to take the lens off in the middle of the show-storm. When I took the lens off, there was a little piece of dust on the focussing glass. How this ended up there is unknown to me, I have not taken the lens off this camera for months, and it has not been there before.

It also seems to give uneven exposures at the highest shutter-speed 1/1000th, I even got a blank frame that I know was shot with this shutter-speed. This has also never happened to me before, and I will keep an eye on this in better conditions.

All in all, I got the images I wanted, and all in the matter of around 15 minutes in the snowy gale. Thank you for following and reading, I hope you enjoy my images.

*Olympus OM-1 w 50mm Zuiko f1,8 – Rollei Retro 400s – Rodinal 1+100*

The scent of spring

Nothing fills me with such joy and happiness as the day when I for the first time see grass being liberated from the firm fist of the winter-snow. Today was that day, and I immediately decided to go shooting. I loaded the Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex with a roll of Ilford FP4 plus, and went down to Kråkvika by Hov. A location where spring is often present early. And sure enough, there were a lot of spots and spaces where the snow was melted away, leaving the lifeless brownish colour of grass that has been buried for a while under the snowy carpet. The colours weren’t really spectacular, hence the choice of black and white-film.

To me, the Ikoflex is maybe one of the cameras that inspires me the most. There is something about the sensation of using something so brilliantly engineered and with a lens that sharp in a very light and beautiful box that appeals to me. I haven’t used it for a while because the winter was exceptionally cold this year, and I don’t think the Ikoflex would be too fond of the cold weather. Also, my Ikoflex has developed misfiring on lower shutter speeds, so I tend to keep it at 1/100th or 1/300th, which could be too short shutter speeds for winter-time. Whether I will have it repaired remains to be decided, but for my current use, the Ikoflex works well.

Spring landscape with melting snow – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex – Ilford FP4plus – Adox Atomal 49

I find that filling the roll and finding the right compositions, is a very easy task with the Ikoflex. The inspiration comes naturally when using it, unlike the Zeiss Ikon Nettar, which I find that I can get bored when using. I have heard a lot said in negative ways about the Ikoflex and it being like an «over protective mother» or «insanely difficult and complicated to load», but I cannot understand how any of these can be true. If you read the manual, which I know is a very uncommon thing for people to do today, you will very easily understand that the advance wheel will turn freely when it reaches frame nr 12, and that you have to manually reset it for frame 1. Not at all difficult. I have a video on Youtube showing how it is done.

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*I am a rock – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex – Ilford FP4plus – Adox Atomal 49*

Walking around on a day where the snow is melting and the landscape comes back into sight, makes you notice objects or shapes that would normally either be removed or invisible in the greens and lush landscapes. There is something «rough and contrasty» about these snow-melting days that really appeals to my way of composing.

*An object – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex – Ilford FP4plus – Adox Atomal 49*

All in all, I had a very joyful little day out in the sun and I enjoyed every minute of shooting with the Ikoflex again. It is such an amazing little camera and the images really speak for themselves.

*Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex – Ilford FP4plus – Adox Atomal 49*

Going Panoramic in the fog

I have never worked with any kind of panoramic equipment before. I have held a Hasselblad X-pan in my hand at one point, but I never tried shooting it. Even so, panorama photography is interesting, and I have wanted to give it a proper try. Not that I will really try it properly in this entry, but I recently bought some very cheap 3D-printed (I guess) plastic parts off eBay. Specifically, the small plastic parts that you use for using 35mm film in your medium format cameras. To be honest, I didn’t really expect much results from this. My anticipation was the following:

The film will not be kept dark enough after exposure and will be fogged.
The film might not be kept flat enough in the camera.
Composing the image will be difficult not having a proper viewfinder for it.
Unknown amount of images pr film and difficult to know how far to wind.

The plastic-stuff and a canister of film. Not the one I used for this test.

I decided to give it a try in my Zeiss Ikon Nettar. This because it is the only MF camera I have where the film is inserted in the horisontal direction, allowing me to easily shoot landscape without turning my camera into portrait. I decided to go for a roll of Ilford Delta 400 and go for a little walk while the fog was lifting over the lake. I was looking for wide compositions, which was a new experience for me, and I felt that I often reverted back to looking for squares or normal rectangles rather than the super wide compositions that this line-up would allow for.

Didn’t quite nail it with this one. See the light leaks that I got for most of the shots on the roll. Luckily not too bad in this shot.

First of all, I can confirm the first part of my assumption. Using this system, with the 3D-printed parts, will give you severe light leaks between the shots. I know for a fact that it is not the light seals acting up, because I used black tape to ensure no light-leaks would come from that area.

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For the most part, I think that the film stayed flat in the camera, and that the adapter kept it reasonably well aligned throughout the roll. I did; however, notice that the film was not as «in the middle» of the viewfinder as I had thought, and I shot a few of the frames «too high» losing parts of my intended compositions.

Over the rocks – Zeiss Ikon Nettar, Ilford Delta 400 Adox Atomal 49 Stock

Even though I like some of these images and the way they look and how they turned out, I am not certain I would use this adaptor system a lot. I will very likely do some more experiments with it and try it out at different occasions, and maybe I am luckier with my next rounds and avoid some light leaks. I find the system to be functional for shooting only one frame at a time. This would mean a lot of «cutting the film out of the camera» and «developing fragments of a roll». Not that I mind doing that, but it is a hassle.

*Lifting fog – Zeiss Ikon Nettar, Ilford Delta 400 Adox Atomal 49 Stock*

Shooting Boots film?

A short while ago, I shot a roll of expired medium format film and got «interesting» results with a lot of mottling and so on. I am not a very frequent user of expired films, but once in a while, I get hold of some expired film, and I do not mind trying it out either. Normally, the expired films you get hold of are your big manufacturers such as; Kodak, Ilford, Fuji and their friends. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were a huge number of rebranded films and budget options that are not present today.

In this entry, I am writing about my tryout of one of these films. A film sold in the pharmacies back in the day. The Boots Universal 400. Which film this actually is, is not easy to read out of the packaging or negatives. The negatives are fairly anonymous without much writing on them, and on the box, it only says that it is made in the EU for Boots Pharmacies in England. The EU-part leads my suspicion to either Agfa or Ferrania as the real producer of this film, but I will not make any claims. Please let me know in the comments if you know.

My equipment and film for this entry. Olympus OM-1 and the Boots Universal 400. Sadly, I did not get the extra 100 advantage card points from Boots, because I developed the film myself at home.

I chose to go with the Olympus OM-1 as it was a very cold morning. The temperature was -20 degrees when I arrived at the location, and the Olympus has an impeccable record of always functioning in cold weather conditions like the ones today.

Because the film expired in 2006, I chose to abide with the rule of thumbs, one stop pr decade, and I metered my shots at ISO 160, and did some slight bracketing just in case. My expectation from this film was slight colour casts and an increase in grain, which I indeed got. The colours were severely off in many of the shots, rendering the misty lake in everything from strong oranges to fiery reds. Instead of making heavy colour corrections in post-processing, I chose to go with the colours the film gave me, and I did not do any grain reduction either.

Boots photographic aquarelle – Olympus OM-1 w Zuiko 50mm f1,8 lens. Boots Universal 400@160

Some of the images got a nearly «Aquarelle like» mood to them, and I find them quite interesting and beautiful in their own way, even though they are clearly not the most spotless, nor grain free images I have taken by any means.

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Another interesting thing from this morning, was the the lighting conditions changed so much over the 45-60 minutes I was out shooting. The previous image was taken at the beginning of the session, and the following was image nr 36 on the roll.

Shooting films with huge amounts of grain is not normally my thing, but sometimes grain gives you images a little extra punch in the mood and makes them more interesting. In this case, I think that is what the grain did. It gave the images a level of abstraction that I find very pleasing. But I appreciate that this might not be everybody’s cup of tea.

Capturing the winter colours

Shooting in winter time can sometimes be very uninspiring and difficult. There are no vibrant colours in the nature, and the weather is sometimes really and truly nasty. Therefore, I have made myself a project this winter. To capture the mood of the Norwegian winter with analog photography. I have not limited myself in terms of films, developers or styles. The goal with the project is to convey the Norwegian winter mood through my photography.

This is the second entry in the project, and in this one, I am working with one of the days where the weather is nice and where there are colours to work with.

To capture the colours, I chose to go with a very under-rated film that I find to work very well with the Norwegian winter tones. The Kodak Pro Image 100. I have used some rolls of this film previously, ordered on eBay as it was not sold in Europe. From what I have gathered online, this film was originally introduced in South America and Asia as an entry-level professional colour negative film. Based on the Kodak Gold, it was then altered, tweaked and improved to produce better skin tones, but keep the warm Kodak colour palette that the Kodak Gold is renown for.

Olympus OM-1 Zuiko Olympus 50mm f,18 w 1,6 stop Circular Polarizer. Kodak ProImage 100

When you google this film, you get a lot of «so-called experts in the field» who has written some kind of a review of this film based on their experience after shooting one roll of film. All of these conclude with something like «This film is so cheap, why would Kodak brand such a cheap film professional, Ektar is far better». I find this to be unfair to the Pro Image. KODAK Ektar is a brilliant film, and a film I use a lot myself, but I find it to be too vibrant for my winter shooting. I also mean, that you can never judge a film just by shooting one roll of it, and choice of film is a personal choice and relies heavily on personal preference. after fifteen rolls (three five-packs) of Pro-Image, I have found this film to work brilliantly for my preferences.

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One of the lovely things about working in Norway in the winter, is that morning light happens at more comfortable times than in the summer. My «early morning shoot» started at 09.30 with a cup of coffee and ended around 11.00 with me rewinding the film back into the cassette and traveled home for development. Even so, I did not meet as many people as I expected on my little outing into the lovely lights and colours. And I find that I was able to capture the mood of this morning.

A sunny, cold winters day after many grey dull days, with some lovely almost purple colours in the skies and a yellowish tone on the ground near the lake.

I then ended my day with doing a C41 process. I had fresh chemicals which were mixed right before, and the cycle went like a dream. I see a slight cyan-cast in the scans. This could be because I had to pause the development between the Developer and the Blix due to a temperature fall in the Blix. I then left the films in the tank with some 38 degrees clean water for some minutes, while the Blix heated up again.

Capturing the mood

Some days ago, I was tidying up my darkroom, and I found what I assume to be a previous test-roll. I assumed that the roll was around half, but it turned out to be around 24 exposures of HP5 plus. I then got the Idea of trying to capture the miserable weather we have had in the area lately. I figured HP5 plus would be brilliant at that, it has grain, but not too much and coarse. I also chose to go with Ilford’s Perceptol developer, to reduce the grain in the whites a bit, but not eradicate it.

My aim was not to get razor sharp images, but rather to capture the feeling and mood of this time of year. I am thinking more in the direction of a charcoal drawing than a crystal clear image of the mood. I know some photographers would have gone with a Holga or something similar to that on an outing like this, but I have never really befriended my Holga camera, and I prefer the effect the Petri Racer gives.

Snowy and wet December day – Petri Racer w Ilford HP5 plus@250. F8 1/60s – Ilford Perceptol stock

For that reason, I chose to bring along the Petri Racer. For long term readers of this blog, you know the Petri Racer camera very well. It was the first camera I bought for this blog, and the camera that inspired me to make a blog about cheap cameras, hence CCadventures – Cheap Camera Adventures. Not that all cameras featured on this blog is «Cheap», but they are reasonable and affordable alternatives that in some way sparks my interest.

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The day was very snowy and it was unpleasant walking around in the snowy weather. I also had to wipe and dry the Petri a few times during the outing, to make sure it was not soaking or that the lens got fogged up. The camera had been in the car for a few hours before the shoot to «climatize» somewhat, but the wet snow and humidity made it fog up slightly anyway. I therefore let the film reach room-temperature before developing it. I often do this when the weather is cold to avoid swift temperature changes during the process. Not that the weather this day was very cold, only around -2 degrees, but it never hurts to be on the safe side.

Even capturing the snow falling – Petri Racer w Ilford HP5 plus@250 f8, 1/4 sec – Ilford Perceptol stock

The whole outing took me around half an hour, and I was soaked afterwards after wading in deep snow to reach a dam with view over the little lake Skumsjøen close to Gjøvik.

For the images, I am quite satisfied with the images as I find that they convey the mood and feeling I was aiming at conveying. These are not my strongest photographic moment by any means, but in terms of conveying the unpleasant Norwegian December-wet snow, I think I did a decent job.

Petri Racer. -Ilford HP5 plus@250 f8 – 1/60 sec. Ilford Perceptol stock.

Playing with a Point and Shoot

The market for film cameras has changed substantially over the last two-three decades. In the 90s there were a range of very simple easy cameras that you could use to get some pictures without knowing anything about photography nor wanting to learn about it. They were simple, fully automatic and would give you acceptable images with minimum effort. These were the fully automatic point and shoot cameras. They’d set the film speed through DX coding on the cassette, they would set the aperture and shutter speed accordingly. The small catch, you had to press the shutter release button yourself. The bigger catch, you had no idea what the images would look like.

This morning, I played around with one of these cameras. I haven’t used one of them for a long time, and I was curious about what it would «bring to the table» of images and quality. The camera was bought cheaply online and arrived by Norwegian snail mail two weeks after it was posted from a town reasonably nearby. Well done Snail Mail. After this wait, I was the confused owner of a Chinon Pocket Zoom AF.

The Chinon Pocket-Zoom AF – 38-60mm lens (probably f8 or something like that as widest aperture)

I was eager to test it out, and I gave it a roll of Rollei Retro 400s. The electronic and automatic wind-on mechanism did its job and rolled on a few frames that could have been used, and the display on the back showed «1». The Chinon was ready. I went out in very dull weather and the Chinon did not seem to be too fond of dull and «boring» light. It constantly set off the flash, and I had to manually reset it to «flash off» every time I changed compositions, as it would have reverted to flash mode automatically. It is a bit like an overbearing parent, the security net is always there.

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Shooting the Chinon was like shooting with your phone. You aim vaguely in the direction of what you want to photograph, you press the shutter button and wait for a while while the small elves inside the camera gets to work setting up your exposure. This takes a while, and you would probably not use this camera to photograph running animals or people in action. If you used it to photograph someone playing football, they would be done with their game and home for dinner before the camera takes a shot. After a while, when you hear the reassuring sound of the shutter and the winding mechanism, you are ready for your next shot.

Chinon Pocket Zoom AF – Rollei Retro 400s – Xtol Stock

When looking at the final images, they are not that sharp and crisp as you would hope. But since I have not had any control in the making of there images other than pressing the shutter release button, I don’t really feel it is my fault.

Some issues I see. The lens is probably not that bright and certainly not very sharp, and the images seem all slightly under exposed. They have a strange vignetting, much like the one you get while shooting a Holga camera, and the lens perfomance isn’t that much better on this Chinon. Also, you get these imprinted numbers on all your frames, and I was not aware that it would be printing numbers on my frames. I have left them here in all their atrociousness.

My conclusion. I will sell this camera to someone who will use it. I will certainly not use this camera again and if anyone wants it, please contact me.

I like this image because of the mood, and that it is evenly blurry all the way over.
*Chinon Pocket Zoom AF – Rollei Retro 400s – Xtol Stock*

Emptying the roll of RPX25

In my last entry, and video, I tried out the very slow Rollei RPX25 film. I shot it with my Olympus OM-1 and I used a yellow filter because of the lightning conditions that I found to be ideal for yellow filter. Also, I must say that I got images that I am very pleased with. I only shot half a roll of the film, and cut it out of the camera, much because I was not sure what to expect in terms of contrast and metering.

Today, I rolled up the rest of the RPX25 in the OM-1, and went for a little outing to shoot the rest of the roll. The weather was absolutely horrendously nasty, with snow/rain blend and temperatures around 0. A typical nasty early winter day in Norway, and I went to a location I know very well. A little lake close to where I live, Skumsjøen, and looked for something that would allow me to shoot wide-open, at f1,8 with the 50mm Zuiko lens.

Tree root abstraction – Olympus OM-1 w Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1,8. Shot wide open f1,8 with Rollei RPX25. Semi-stand development Rodinal 1+100 70 minutes, agitated beginning and midle of cycle.

I went for some very abstract close-ups of tree roots near the frozen water. I even took the risk of walking on the newly formed ice, as it felt safe, to get the best angles. Luckily I did not fall through.

From my last outing with this film, I remembered that I got very hard contrasts in the negatives, and I gave it a whole stop of over exposure to retain more grey-tones in the details. Another measure I chose to reduce some of the contrast while retaining the sharpness, was a cycle of stand-development with Rodnial 1+100. This is not a type of process I often use, but for slower films, I have found it to work well with my style. It also gives a certain «character» to the shots, that I find to suit my eye.

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I am not in anyway competent to comment on the performance of this film, nor its abilities. I have not used it enough to know how to handle it properly yet, and I am no film expert. However, I find it rather enjoyable to play with this filming trying to rethink my exposures to get the results I want. Also, I have only shot the film in dull, overcast weather, but I find that the Rollei RPX25 gives me a fun challenge to work with. In short, this film is fun to work with.

*Olympus OM-1 w Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1,8. Shot wide open f1,8 with Rollei RPX25. Semi-stand development Rodinal 1+100 70 minutes, agitated beginning and midle of cycle.*

A video will be available on Youtube soon. Search for Ccadventures.

Going minimalistic with Delta 100

Today as I was relaxing, enjoying a cup of coffee, I looked out the window. The first fall of snow has just blessed us with its arrival, and this always brings new objects to my attention. Things that I maybe haven’t noticed because it is hidden in the November-browns.

Today my attention was drawn towards some wilted plants. Their very dark brownish colors made a nice, almost minimalistic, tone towards the snowy background. I immediately ran to put a roll of Ilford Delta 100 into my Bronica ETR. I also fitted it with a lens I just bought. a Zenzanon 150mm f3,5. Equivalent to around 90mm at a 35mm camera, and used a yellow filter to get the minimalistic contrast that I was looking for.

Zenza Bronica ETR w 150mm Zenzanon f3,5 + Yellow filter. Ilford DD-X developer

I aimed to keep the snowy areas around zone 8-9, to not completely blow it out, and my dark areas around zone 3-4 to retain some shadow detail. I got fairly good negatives, but I would have loved to have retained some more detail, especially in the most contrasty images.

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Once again I chose to develop Delta 100 in DD-X developer, and this time as well, it gave me fabulous negatives. I am really looking forward to working with some of these images in the darkroom, and I expect to use lower grade filters, or maybe some split grading to get the most out of the negatives. A spot on my wall is already prepared for one of these images.

Zenza Bronica ETR w 150mm Zenzanon f3,5 lens. Ilford Delta 100 – Ilford DD-X developer.

Once again. Thanks to Bjørn for sending me these films and the developer to test. I do really love the results it gives.

Working with Delta 100

Some days ago, I was contacted by another Norwegian photographer who has a collaboration with Ilford Photo. He kindly sent med some rolls of Ilford Delta100, some DD-X developer, Fixer and Wetting agent to try out. Today I went out with my Bronica ETR to try it out. Before I go any further, visit his amazing gallery on Flickr and read his posts here.

WordPress: https://bjorn-joachimsen.com

When I heard that I would be sent Delta100, I was thrilled. When I took up analog photography again some years ago, Delta 100 was one of the films that really rekindled my interest in film-photography and I find it to be one of the best films I know about. The smooth and soft T-grain structure gives pleasant results. even when developed in Rodinal. In most cases I shoot Delta 100 at 50, but today I chose to go at box speed, because of the lighting conditions.

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My location for this outing was Tallodden. A beautiful little place not too far from where I live, and I brought my Bronica ETR, some square filters and a tripod. I always mount the Bronica on a tripod. It is too heavy to shoot steadily by hand, especially at shallow apertures or longer shutter speeds.

There is something about walking around with a proper MF SLR like this. It makes people interested, and I had a shot chat with a nice elderly man who was out for a little stroll along the lake. He told me that he had not seen anyone with such equipment around that area for years, and asked me all sorts of questions about the camera, my lens, film, plans and where I would post my images for him to see.

A lonely autumn leaf. Bronica ETR w 50mm Zenzanon f2,8. Shot at f2,8 1/30th with yellow filter. Developed in Ilford Ilfotec DD-X 1+4

I spent some time scouting around for interesting subjects that would give me a smooth and calm mood to my images. I wanted the fine grain the Delta100 gives to be one of the main focus on my shots. I chose to use a yellow filter for most of the images to boost some contrast, and get the most out of the range. But I swapped for an orange filter for shots where I wanted the «silky water» effect, and more depth in the range.

I then went home and developed.

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This is the first time I have ever used DD-X. Actually I have never used Ilford Developers before, so I was very excited to see what the grain structure and the range would be like. This is a shoot where I would normally have gone for Kodak Xtol, and I am comparing a bit to what I would have expected from Xtol.

I am very happy with my results, and I am happy to see the smooth and lovely grain in this shoot, and I think the DD-X brought it out beautifully. I still have more rolls to shoot and develop in this developer, so I will not come with any analysis of any kind based on my limited knowledge, but so far I am very happy.

Bronica ETR w 50mm Zenzanon lens. yellow and orange filter. Ilford Delta 100, DD-X 1+4

Once again, thank you for sending me films and chemistry to try out. More entries with this film and developer will come. Also a video of me making darkroom prints of some of these images.

Stay tuned