About the weblog
As a pretty conversant user of digital cameras, I felt as though I’d learned as much as possible about digital photography, and so began to learn film photography (processing etc). This move was assisted by my purchase of a 1938 Leica Standard and a basic darkroom setup. I felt it’d also be good to show people what I’d learned, what I was learning, and what I’d achieved.
Background witterings
The film cameras were originally loaded with Ilford film, mainly FP4+, although I’ve given SFX a try. That said, the 127 camera needs to use Efke film, nobody seems to use such cameras nowadays. Whilst FP4+ is good, it wasn’t delivering the results I was looking for. I’ve found Agfapan APX to produce superb negatives at least. The downside of getting used to APX? It’s not being made by Agfa anymore. However, Rollei make a similar film, “Rollei retro”, which I intend to give a try once the Agfapan sources dry up. As I know the results of FP4+ though, it’s a good grounding for any new camera I might buy. The Fuji Neopan seems to deliver contrasty results, something I like. Thankfully, there’s no signs of Fuji stopping the production of that film.
The films are currently being developed with ADOX APH09. Prior to this, I used Ilford LC29, chosen because of its long shelflife. LC29 seemed to produce results, but lacked “punch”. The ADOX APH09 is reputed to be based on a pre-war Agfa Rodinal recipe, the resulting negatives are definitely unique in appearance, and is said to last for years in its undiluted state. Once diluted however, it’ll last 2 hours. When (if) the bottle’s finished, it’s one I’ll be re-ordering again.
I started off printing using Jessops paper. This seemed to be delivering prints that were lacking good tonal rendition, so I swapped to Ilford resin-coated papers. I’ve since learned that developing prints in less than 2 minutes doesn’t guarantee good black and white tones. However, I can’t tell how old the pack of Jessops paper is, paper tends to age badly. Currently, I only have multigrade papers, and only 10×8 is the largest size. I also intend to use larger than 10×8 with negatives I’ve got good results off.
August 2008. Upheavals happened. I moved down south, and am currently without any form of darkroom or processing equipment. To get around this, I’ve used the Ilford XP2 Super film which can be developed at the local 1-hour minilab place, as it’s a chromogenic film (b+w photos from a film developed in colour film chemicals). Will I get processing equipment again? Time will tell.
Hybrid?
6 months passed by without me being able to use the darkroom, thanks to the bad injury to my left elbow. In which time, I became disenchanted with the printing side of photography. Sure, in that 6 months, I could use a camera, albeit cautiously and slowly at first. Developing films was tricky at first, but physio to the arm has returned it to nearly normal usage again. 6 months is a good while to stock up on developed films. With my sucess rate originally being marginal, with the printing side, I started to look at film scanners. No clambering around. No fumbling around. No trays of unpleasant chemicals. No more sealed up in an airtight room. No stench of rubber gloves. No spending 10 minutes working on one photo, only for it to not be what I’d originally envisaged. Christmastime, I landed a flatbed scanner, an Epson 4490 no less. It fitted the bill exactly. Film scanning capabilities, with only sheet film being out of the question, and it works fine in Linux. Film cameras, fluid devlopment, resulting in digital photos. Hence the word “hybrid”.
