Pig Sty Avenue

I put the camera onto manual focus, and aperture priority. No filters, so no need to tweak the ASA or EC. And away I went to the Necropolis on a sunny day. This one was my first proper find for the photography students' ABC - finding an image which looked like a letter of the alphabet. It's more difficult than it sounds, and actually I don't know if this qualifies, because actual letters (for example, the "P" indicating a car park) can't be used, you have to find something which accidentally looks like "P".  And is this "H" intentional? The first idea was set the camera to fully manual, metering with Sunny 16, but that was too much; I might try that in future... With Aperture priority, I would use only the aperture to get the exposure right, checking on the shutter speed in the viewfinder. Which sounds obvious, but I realised once I got started that hitherto I've been using the F4, frankly, like a point-and-shoot, not really thinking ab...

 I thought this would be interesting: the notice in the shop window is untrue, it's not open, but that's not really clear from the photograph. Anyway, there's the plate glass, the miscellaneous gear in the 'shop"; then there's the reflections: me, the tenements behind me. Overall, it's a messy photo. It is slightly sharper than the two I looked at this morning, but it would never make a decen't print, even setting aside compositional shortcomings. Next step: go out again tomorrow, take the time and do everything manual so that I can be sure what I'm focusing on. Very straightforward subjects. And no filters. Breathe... 

"Fullsizedrender.jpg" is the name given to this photo by the MacBook or perhaps by PhotoRaw. It's 900-something KB. The midtones are fine. But it's about as sharp as a blancmange. Something clearly wrong. I'ld love to be out taking photies, but obviously not if this happens to them. It could be when scanning from negs to the iPhone? Or this small copy has been created by PhotoRaw? And, honestly, post processing, even just opening up a file, is not my favourite thing.  The good news is that, assuming the fault here is scanning or in post, then I'm exceedingly happy with the developing in Beutler A+B yesterday: I want to be able to go out in the morning with the pooch, snap a roll of film, dev it as soon as I get back, scan and then post a couple of frames on Flickr before tea... But I'm falling at the final fence, here.  Here's another very low res one, (also saved under the fullsizerender.jpg name). The composition makes it inappropriate for printing, ...

  That swan was most definitely not sharp enough , and I've found out why: hands up. all my fault, but valuable lessons have been learned.  I had an R(25A) filter on the camera by default because I love what it does to the sky. So a couple of rolls of film were underexposed. I jumped to the problem being EC and spent some useful time tweaking the dial on the top right hand side of the F4, so that's a new skill. But a bit more YouTube research suggested shifting the ISO would be better. Well, using older, cheaper film cameras, lacking in bells and whistles, I've become accustomed to using the ISO on the box, and when I got the F4 I was delighted with DX making the process automatic.  This week I realised that my camera, just like a digital one, can get ISO adjusted frame-by-frame if wanted. Duh! And so now, waiting for the rain to abate so that I can get out, I've got a roll of Kentmere 400 in the camera, and I've set the ISO to 50. AND I've learned that the ISO...

  Attempted to make a small batch of PaRodinal on Friday (today's Sunday). As can be seen, it has still to settle: at the bottom a cloudy white layer, (likely from the paracetemol's chalky excipient) topped off by the teak-coloured actual rodinal (one assumes) .  It'll likely be a few days at least before I can use it, and, having a couple of weeks off before returning to the University to teach my final term and wanting to shoot a couple of rolls meanwhile, I was flicking through Anchell (1994) I re-encountered Beutler's A+B (p119). S sulphite and a wee bit of Metol in solution A, S carbonate alone in solution B. So I washed out two heavy 70cl spirit bottles (one had contained brandy, the other rum) I'd been keeping for a job like this, and made up enough Beutler A+B to do 20 rolls of 35mm.  I was encouraged to do this after looking through some old photos on Flickr: taken with an Agfa Isolette with a Solinar lens on HP5 and developed in Beutler. This one, for exam...

Developed in ID3, which I made-up over a month ago, (I read somewhere it wouldn't keep at all, but it was fine). Fixed in homemade Kodak F 24). I learned how to make negatives into positives in the iPhone, and scanned them in. They're ok, but a bit scrappy. This swan for example, if you zoom in on her neck, is not sharp. I think this might be down to poor scanning. The exposure was undercooked on several frames. Still entirely clueless with  Have only looked briefly, more later.   

 I watched some  of this video about the D800 . Not that long ago, it was £2000+. Now, you can get one on eBay for less than £300. Tempting. Very. Flogging the F4 and some other bits and pieces would cover the cost. And think what I'd save on the cost of film; and the time I'd save on scanning... But as I watched the video, the guy got onto the topic of menus, and my blood ran cold. This reminded me of work, which is precisely what my photography isn't.  Then I thought: it doesn't matter what gear one uses: the important thing is that wee negative or digital image. Once it's printed and framed and on the wall, the route it took to get there doesn't matter. What does matter is how many people look at it and think (or even say out loud) "Wow!"  Obviously, both film and digital photos are capable of producing that response. So what does it matter which medium the photographer employed. One reason that matters is, most good photographers (maybe everyone ) ...

 Kentmere's ok, but it's not go enough contrast for my liking. This is where Flickr comes in handy, I can look back at film I've used in the past. I like the heavy contrasts I got in the past with Fomapan. Someone on YouTube suggested using only a 50mm lens for TWO years. That's a bit restricting but one-and-a-bit years will be fine, so that's this Autumn and all of 2027 with my 50mm D. On the F4, of course, with Fomapan, although I don't know yet about ISO.  

God only knows how many times I've walked past this block of flats on Whitehill St, and only noticed how deco the entrance was few days ago. A sign, hopefully, that my eyes are opening. This was with the iPhone, but I plan to go back. There's the former Wills factory and offices just up the Parade from here, too, and I need to work out a way to capture its late-deco monolithic bulk.   

 According to Alex Kilbee on YouTube , his first practical exercise at Photography school was to go out and find photos of the entire alphabet from things that looked like letters. So, you couldn't use, say, the P sign that signifies a car park; instead, find a shadow made by a oddly shaped tree. I'm giving it a go. "M" from two hoops in the ground in the University for chaining up bikes; "K" from a gate with supporting struts; "A" from a piece of wood screwed into the wall at Whitehill swimming pool; "Y" from a tree; "Z" from tarmac overlaying services on the pavement... It's great fun, and I suspect it's doing its job of making one aware of shapes in the environment. Like learning scales on a piano. 

 I was thinking, perhaps an almost completely mechanical camera, able to shoot at least 1/1000s with a B setting, and needing a battery only to drive a needle-based meter, would help improve my photography. A Pentax K 1000, say, or, better still because I could use my Nikkor lenses, a Nikon FM. This train of thought was driven by a mind atrophied by Gear Acquisition Syndrome. I already have a purely mechanical camera with the F4 if I just switch it to manual. Duh. If it ever conks out entirely, then I might get an FM off of eBay, (and, as Don Corleone said, that day may never come). 

  This would be as good a place as any to start on this... 

 Same roll as I got the previous swan pic  from. So that was with the Nikkor 105mm f2.5, on Kentmere 400. I don't know where the vignetting came from, and the strangely antique look. I post processed it in the macbook's preview, keeping it simple... I just haven't got the hang of ON1 yet, bit I might have another go later. 

 Looking forward to cooler, earlier nights, I did a bit of research  on light trails. Here's the lowdown. Camera set on manual; small aperture; shutter release cable; 100 iso film; tripod. Exposures between 3 and 30 seconds, depending on amount and speed of traffic, which will take some experimentation - at least a roll's worth. The School of Photography suggests a very wide angle lens, 16mm, but I don't have one, and they're outrageously priced, even a pre-AI one. So I'll go with my little-used Nikkor AF, 28mm, f2.8. 

 One of those afternoons when I could walk the dog and finish off a roll of Kentmere. I took this with the pre-AI 105mm lens (the "Afghan Girl" lens), and then made up a batch of ID - 3 developer after loading the Paterson tank in the new dark bag. Post processing in ON1 Photo Raw, but I wish I could find something simpler. Fact is, I just need something to invert the negative, and then maybe tweak the brightness and contrast. Photo editors are fine, but there are so many buttons - I need to spend a weekend with ON1, when I get the time.  Whilst giving this roll a rinse, the doorbell went, and I got distracted because I was expecting nitrile gloves and safety goggles to keep me from being scalded or blinded when making up the PaRodinal, when I got back to the kitchen sink the water had started running very hot indeed. A wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued, but fortunately I was alone in the flat and when the negs were dry, they were fine. 

  Blimey! "We recommend this film for the experimental photographer."

  Marvellous idea, Flickr . Without it, I wouldn't have remembered that I'd used Rodinal back in 2012-ish. This photo ticks a number of "cool" boxes: taken with a Nikon F, (which was showing its age), on Ilford Delta 3200, pushed to 6400 and developed in a Shanghai kitchen-sink darkroom, in Rodinal. Those were the days.  It's set me to think about Rodinal again, and then in the last couple of days, I've learned about Parodinal . Sodium sulphite, paracetemol, and ffs, caustic soda. I am writing this whilst waiting for the safety glasses and nitrile gloves to arrive in the post so that I can make up a batch. What larks! 

  The iPhone chose to take this at 180 ASA, f1.78 1/202sec and an ev of -1.3. So, with the F4: 100 ASA film, 1/60s and f2(?) it'd be a good exposure without EV compensation? I'm not quite guessing, but I haven't yet got the ability to be more or less sure of an exposure without a meter. I had thought of getting a Pentax K1000 or Nikon FM, both good cameras with simple light meters and otherwise fully manual, but that's just daft when I've got a bloody good camera which can be fully manual if wanted. AND it avoids feeding my Gear Acquisition Syndrome. I've got a nice straightforward light meter app on the iPhone, rediscovered only yesterday. 

I like the way this has a sixties look. A low res jpeg here, but still nice and sharp around her face and the tatty arm of the chair. This was with Kentmere 400, the Nikkor 55mm f1.4 D, and it probably had the aperture fully open. Dev'd in Kodak 23, fixed in plain hypo.  Also, I bought a negative squeegee which greatly accelerated the drying process. I'm at the stage now where I can shoot a roll in the morning, develop by lunchtime, the negs by tea-time, post process and blog any keepers with a glass of wine in the early evening. 

Saturday 9.15 I had an appointment at Parkhead for my 2nd shingles vaccinations. You have to get 2 to make it stick. I got home and put a roll of Kentmere 400 into the F4, and realised the lower display in the viewfinder wasn't working. I did a bit of research and found out about A.J. Johnstone in Hope St. I decided to take the camera in on Monday. I had planned to go to the Men's 10k in the city centre on Sunday, and would still do so, the viewfinder display being non-essential for a couple of rolls. But the side-effects of the shingles vaccine began to kick-in on Saturday night (dizziness, mostly) and by Sunday morning it was clear I was photographing nothing that day.  Monday morning, I managed to get in to work, and whilst the class were doing online tasks, I had a shufty at what AI was saying about my defunct lower display, and I learned that it's likely related to the connections between the finder and the rest of the camera. And so it transpired: the finder can sit ...

 I'm pleased with the two rolls I scanned at the weekend, but they're not as sharp as I would like. The possible reason for that is: the stand that holds the iPhone is not rock solid, so when I press the button, it wobbles. I set a timer at 3s, and watching it carefully, the wobbling was done by the time the photo of the negative was taken. But was it? just a little shake would be enough to soften the image. So, next go-round, I'll make it 5s.

  That's all from Molly and Sparky for now...

 I might try, later, to lighten the front of Molly's clothes, cast into shadow as they are... I'm editing these quite quickly now. 

Sparky loves to run for her ball, but she doesn't realise that she has to give it up in order for it to be thrown again, so you have to prise it from her jaws. I got lucky with the light leaks on this one, could be intentional (though it wasn't). That clover was a bit of luck too.   

 This is why, in the 90s, the F4 was a professional camera. Love it. 

  The more of these photos that I edit, the more I dislike the Nikkor 70-210mm. The learning point is, for the dog, use a 50mm, be in. place she can be off the lead, and get up close. 

I really must find out this man's name next time I go. It was the steam I wanted, but it didn't quite come off with that bloody awful white sky. The lesson here: if the light's like it was this day last month, don't bother going out... You'd be better going to the pub, getting a few snaps there.   

No visit to the Necropolis would be the same without a visit to Charles Tennant, who, 190 years after he died looks as if he's had a few. This is spoilt by a funny light leak by his eyes. It's time to 'fess up about the light leaks. In the darkroom, (aka our kitchen) I dropped a roll of film. I should  have knelt down on the floor and conducted a fingertip search, but I panicked and put the bloody light on, picked up the film and put the light off again. This ruined the first half-dozen or so frames, and left light leaks throughout the first half of the film. Lesson learned: if you drop a roll in the pitch dark, don't panic.   

  This displays a miscalculation of DoF. Or something. It didn't work out, anyhow. 

 I don't know what happened here. Nothing in the frame is in focus? Lack of concentration? Over-reliance on auto-focus? I'm blogging it as a salutary lesson.  

Maybe it would have been better to have her hair silhouetted against that (boring) sky? Or at any rate have found a better background. That's the lesson here, there are plenty of good backgrounds at the necropolis so, find one! And the light-leak on the bottom, a scanning error I presume?    

I said yesterday that I like the look of Kentmere 400 , and I do, but it's not always giving the definite contrasts you'd get with Fomapan, which I'll try next time I get b&w.  I like this one, the way the blowing hair is framed in that gap on the left between the gravestones. No need for air-blowers at the Eastern Necropolis.   

 Would have been better if I'd move a little to my left, and got in more of the sculpted narrative in the top right hand corner, which really is the subject. The grain is much more noticeable on the white face and whiter tee-shirt. Ghostly. Still liking the KM400. 

Here, I was trying to get compression from the AF 70-210mm lens, and I think that worked with regard to the block of flats on the right hand background. Mostly I wanted to get the steam (it's from the brewery) closer into the background, but that hasn't really worked. To get that white steam to be more prominent I'd want a really dark sky to contrast with it, and this was a yucky-light day, so it's white steam over off-white sky. There's a bit of unexpected vignetting on both sides of the frame, which is perhaps why zooms are less than ideal.  I like ol' big-'ead as a subject. He'll be better in Winter with less foliage, and a heavy dark grey sky, and I must try harder with that steam. I love this Kentmere 400: surprisingly unobtrusive grain, contrast and tone just right for the necropolis. Overall, not a bad photo, though nowhere near good enough to print. 4/10.  I'll go back, with the 50mm f1.4 next time. 

 I got the negative scanned in, eventually. And then got it from the phone to the MacBook, and then opened in ON1, and then worked out how to invert the negative. I did a tiny bit of editing, just to say I had post-processed it, kind of. And here we are.  This was shot a few weeks ago on an awful light day, (overcast, around midday) at the Eastern Necropolis. I was using the F4 with Kentmere 400. Just nicely grainy, which was a surprise because I saw a YouTube video about the F4 coincidentally shooting with KM which showed really excessive grain - I wondered if the photographer had pushed it to 800 or something? He didn't mention it.  More of this at the weekend. I shot two rolls of 24 exposures. NB: I started this post yesterday, it's taken a lot of effort just getting the photo inserted. The problem was mostly Google: I had to download Chrome, and then painfully realise it doesn't work with TIFFs. I don't know: has tech taken a great leap forward, and left me behind? ...

 ...At last, we're getting someplace. The light box for camera-phone scanning arrived.  There was an early set-back: pressing the On/Off button made the light flash on for a second or so, then off again. I tried plugging the USB for the power source into a different socket, and hey-presto! it went on and stayed on. The trickiest part was setting up the "magic arm" to hold the iPhone - really fiddly to get the phone in the right place above the light box. But I got there, kind of, and managed to get a negative from the roll I shot with Molly at the Necropolis.  I opened this up in ON1 Photo Raw, remembering the olden days when I (and almost every photographer I knew) used PhotoShop, the "invert" button was easy to find. Not so in ON1, now... So I've had to resort to the 2026 equivalent of reading the manual: beginning a series of video tutorials. On the one hand, it's all very complicated and is going to take a lot of learning. On the other, wow, it can b...

This photo was taken years ago, with the Ilford Sporti, on Fomapan dev'd in Rodinal. I really like the contrast and tones. I've been looking at a few other examples of Fomapan w/Rodinal and, any shortcomings in composition aside, they're just what I want in black and white.  Fomapan has come back to my mind today because I've got 24 exposures back from Boots: an Orangemen parade on an unusual kind of Kodak color film, "Kodak Max 400", (NOT T-Max, just "Max") and I got it because I like the way it looked on Flickr , and, well, it was cheap (£12.47 for four rolls. Every single exposure is severely over exposed to a very uniform extent. Muddy. I had a quick play around with the levels in ON1, and it seems unlikely anything can be done. I was horrified that there might be something wrong with the F4. But, probably, something is wrong with the film, out-of-date, bought on eBay. I'm thinking, maybe it's been through an x-ray machine at an airport. ...

From a forum on Photrio: Newbie DIY C-41 Recipe/Formula/Process | Page 2 | Photrio.com Photography Forums My note of recipe from Jacobson et al, 1988 Developer Water to make                  1l  Calgon                                                                 2g Sodium sulphite anhydrous              2.2g   [already have] Potassium bromide              1.5g  [already have] Potassium carbonate (anhydrous?)      37.5g Hydroxylamine sulphate              2g  CD-4  (“add 6 hours before use”?)      4.75g [ Axel Color   £12.70 + £29.60 (!) P&P] ...

 It doesn't work on Bitmaps. Until this afternoon, I hadn't thought of BMPs for at least a decade. I took the photo below (I think) in People's Sq, Shanghai, and found it on a CD where the "Lomography" shop in the French Concession loaded it after dev'ing, (if I remember correctly). The light leak and overall impression suggest I was using a box camera, maybe the Gevabox? Anyway, I like the way it somehow invokes the mugginess of Shanghai.  Anyhoo: Da Vinci doesn't work with bitmaps. More importantly, it doesn't work with Nikon's own RAW files, NEFs and I've just bought an elderly d50 (£30) to use as a scanner. Heigh ho. Luminar Neo instead, maybe?

Yesterday, to the Necropolis with Molly and the dog. Snapped 2 rolls of Kentmere 400. I need to work on finding good compositions, but I did find one as we were leaving: a Victorian man's head on a pillar. He looked a lot like Karl Marx. But the best thing about him was the steam from the brewery just behind him. I need to go back alone and think more about how to frame him. AND do some research on photographing steam as a background.  I dev'd one roll just now, and I'm waiting for it to dry. Meanwhile, retrieved a box of Loersch sheets for 35mm from a dusty corner of the flat, and I'm starting a new folder. Next task: get a decent but affordable neg scanner.  I realised yesterday that my new camera bag really won't do. It has a single shoulder strap, and the F4 being heavy, it's really uncomfortable to carry around. So I need to rehabilitate a rucksack type bag currently on top of the wardrobe. This will also help to blend-in when photographing on the streets, ...

It's fairly easy to get colour film developed, not so black and white. So I've located all of my old chemistry (see table), Anchell's Darkroom Cookbook, and my faithful Paterson tank, and I'm ready to dev a roll or two of Kentmere in the next few days. Getting them scanned or properly printed is another matter. Sodium Thiosulphate Sodium Sulphite Anhydrous Kodak SB8 stop Citric acid Kodak D23 Sodium  Carbonate  2nd bath Hydroquinone Sodium  Metabisulphite Metol Sodium  Carbonate  Light anhydrous Borax Sodium  Tetraborate  Decahydrate  Potassium  Bromide Meanwhile, I managed to get a copy of Jacobson et al's Manual of Photography. It's the 8th edition, so published in 1988, the year the F4 hit the streets. It's very technical, but leavened with a diet of YouTube videos. 

  https://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF.html

  M8, looking west, by the Infirmary.