Eight frames of Retro 400s

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 Bladventure

For the sake of balance, and because I happen to have some nice images, I am going to deviate slightly from the line of «cheap cameras» in this entry, and show some images taken with my, not by any means cheap, Hasselblad. Or in my case, some times a hassle-blad. The first thing my Hasselblad did to me after I bought it, was jamming up. And not the cute little sweet jam that can easily be mended, but the proper jammedy-jam-jam that has to be sent off for a very expensive repair abroad.

I recently got it back from repair, and I have brought it along for a few outings lately, and I really find myself to love using it. Not that it really makes any big difference to anyone an image is taken with an expensive or a cheap camera, but to me it has to do with inspiration. Some cameras inspire me to go out shooting and some do not. That’s why i often feature the Olympus, the Konica, Ikoflex and the Bronica ETR. For different reasons, these cameras make me «get out there» and «get the shutter finger active».

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Here are some shots I did recently with my Hasselblad, that I find to inspire me a lot. The colour ones are taken with Kodak Ektar, and the BW ones are done with Ilford Pan F plus, that I pulled a stop. The Pan F is developed in Adox Atomal 49 stock for six minutes, which is 20% off the time for box speed. After having used Atomal 49 for a while, I have found this to be a developer I am very happy with, and it might replace Xtol as my number one developer.

A persistent winter fighting an inevitable spring at Kremmerodden – Hasselblad 500CM – Planar 80 – Kodak Ektar

Hasselblad 500 CM – Planar 80mm – Ilford Pan F plus @25 – Ados Atomal 49 Stock

Photographing a modern church

Not far from where I live, there is a modern, wooden church called Seegård. It was built in 1997, following the tragic fire in the old church during easter in 1994. The new church was raised in the same spot as the old one, and in an attempt to keep the cross structure of the old church and modernizing it, but at the same time make something that would suit its area. Not easy demands for an architect to meet, but I find that the architect Arne Thorsrud has pulled it off really well.

I have worked with this church on multiple occasions, mainly digital, but the other day, I decided to bring out my Bronica ETR, and make some black and white images of the church in winter time. I fitted the Bronica with the 50mm Zenzanon lens and a yellow filter to help balance the contrasts a bit.

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To get the smooth results I wanted for this shoot, I decided to go with Ilford FP4 plus and combining it with Ilfotec Perceptol extremely fine grain developer. This is a combination I have found to work very well with winter conditions where snow and whites are prominent. However, you lose some film speed. In this instance, I shot the FP4 plus at ISO 50, and went for f11 which I find to be the sweet-spot of this lens. With a still standing subject like this church, which does not tend to move a lot, slower shutter speed is no real issue, and my shutter speeds were around 1/4th and 1/8th of a second with the correction for the yellow filter.

Seegård Church under the winter carpet. Zenza Bronica ETR w Zenzanon 50mm f2,8 and yellow filter. Ilford FP4 plus at 50 ISO – Ilfotec Perceptol 1+1

I did a few different angles and compositions, and a little bit of bracketing on a few of the compositions. After all, I ended with two images that I am very happy with, and they are the two I will share.