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Oxford: glass dry plate portrait

Friday, March 1st, 2024

Here is my first portrait on dry glass plate. I found a box of old Ilford FP4 glass dry plates at home and have no idea when I bought them. The box doesn’t have an expiry date on it. As luck would have it they’re the correct size  (2.5 x 3.5 inches) to fit the Mamiya Press plate holders I’ve got but so far have been unable to make use of. This portrait of another fellow photographer during his visit to Oxford was made last weekend in Radcliffe Square. I don’t know him but I enjoyed chatting about photography with him as I set up the shot. I’m very pleased with this result (it has a vintage feel to it) and look forward to making more portraits with the remaining glass plates. The emulsion is very fragile when wet and you can see it lifted along the right hand side.

[Tech info:] Mamiya Press Super 23, 100/2.8 lens (at f4), FP4 glass dry plate exposed at ISO 10, developed in Rodinal 1+25. (Thanks to Nicholas Middleton for his inspiration and blog posts full of info about using old glass plates).

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Oxford: graduation day 2023

Tuesday, October 10th, 2023

Graduation day, end of September. I was channeling some Diane Arbus with my C330f and fill-flash on a sunny day – a combo I haven’t tried before. The flash was a small Rollei model without any power setting. I think it worked quite well overall. The low perspective is from using a waist level finder – not an obvious choice with a wide-angle lens when photographing people but it helped to include some architecture in the background.

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Oxford: portraits by the river

Wednesday, October 4th, 2023

A few portraits made by the river to test a lens I’ve had for a while. Aperture used for these was f8-f8.5.

[Tech info:] Chamonix 45F2, 10 inch f6.3 Kodak Commercial Ektar lens, yellow filter, Fomapan 200 film @ ISO 100, developed in Adox XT-3 stock for 6 mins.

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Gear: Rolleiflex SL66 & 125mm f2.5 Leitz lens

Monday, September 18th, 2023

Recently I came across an interesting lens I was curious to try out – a Leitz 125mm f2.5 modified for use on a Rolleiflex SL66. The lens was originally designed for use on a 35mm format system but amazingly it covers 6×6 without any issues. The previous owner carried out the modification and it’s very nicely done. Here are the first test shots from a photowalk with a photographer mate of mine.

[Tech info]: Rolleiflex SL66, 125mm f2.5 Leitz lens, shots 1-3 Ilford FP4, the rest are Ilford HP5, developed in Adox XT-3 stock.

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Oxford: 10×8 portraits

Sunday, September 17th, 2023

We’ve had some unusually warm weather for mid September recently so I decided to make the most of the evenings after work this week and took a 10×8 camera out along the tow path to make some portraits. It’s been quite a while since I’ve taken a 10×8 camera out, mainly because of the weight, but this time it was a lot easier because I used a trolley to transport my gear. It worked extremely well and I look forward to making more trips out when the weather is suitable. Thank you to everyone who stopped for a chat and a portrait.

[Tech info]: Shots 1-4 Kodak Commercial 10×8, 10inch Wide Field Ektar lens. Shots 5 & 6 Intrepid 10×8, 240mm Schneider lens. Shanghai GP3 100 (expired 2014), rated ISO 50, developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 8 mins.

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Endeavour 7: FILM 3 – part 8

Sunday, March 5th, 2023

Behind the scenes photography during filming of Endeavour 7 | FILM 3 in Oxford, October 2019. These pictures are long overdue and I apologise to the SA’s in these pictures who have been waiting patiently to see them, especially the man holding the newspaper who I frequently saw on subsequent series of Endeavour and every time I would promise the pictures would be posted. I got there in the end!

[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8F, TMAX 400 @ ISO 800, developed in TMAX developer 1+4.

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Endeavour 9: FILM 1 – part 3

Friday, March 3rd, 2023

Behind the scenes during filming of Endeavour 9 | FILM 1 in Oxford, May 2022. I used a few different rolls of film through my Rolleiflex at this location because there were quite a few different setups which gave me enough time without too much of a rush.

[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8F, Kodak Tri-X film developed in HC-110 dilution B.

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Oxford: Aero Ektar lens test

Wednesday, December 7th, 2022

Here are a couple of pictures made with my Graflex Speed Graphic 5×4 camera and Kodak Aero Ektar lens. It’s been a very long time since I last used this set-up so I decided to test it out in Jericho, Oxford. I always envisioned this camera/lens combo for making portraits and was very fortunate to have a friendly couple that were willing to stand very still for me. The camera movements are very limited but I used some front swing to try to bring both faces into focus without stopping the lens down too much (I think I was at f4). The maximum aperture is f2.5 which gives a razor thin depth of field on 5×4 film.

[Tech info:] Graflex Speed Graphic 5×4, Kodak Aero Ektar lens, Fomapan 100 film (expired), developed in HC110 1+63 for 10 mins.

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Oxford: Beard Festival 2022 – part 3

Saturday, September 17th, 2022

The last few portraits I made at the Oxford Beard Festival 2022. Thank you to everyone that stood very still for me. I’m pleased with how the portraits turned out.

[Tech info:] Sinar P 10×8, Dallmeyer 3A lens, f8 3D printed Waterhouse stop. Fomapan 100 (expired 2017) ISO 50, Kodak HC110 1+63 10mins.

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Oxford: Beard Festival 2022 – part 2

Monday, September 12th, 2022

More portraits from the Oxford Beard Festival 2022. Part 1 is here. I’ve noticed that the depth of field differs in some of my beard festival portraits and thinking about it now I’ve got a feeling it’s because I tilted the camera forward or back depending on the height of the person I was photographing. In hindsight I should have kept the back of the camera vertical and raised the lens or the centre column on the tripod. Something to remember next time.

[Tech info:] Sinar P 10×8, Dallmeyer 3A lens, f8 3D printed Waterhouse stop. Fomapan 100 (expired 2017) ISO 50, Kodak HC110 1+63 10mins.

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Oxford: Beard Festival 2022 – part 1

Sunday, September 11th, 2022

The first and only time I photographed the Oxford Beard Festival was in 2015 – you can see those pictures here. Ever since then I have been thinking about and this year I finally managed to make it there again. This time I wanted to use a 10×8 large format camera but the slight hiccup being the weight of my kit was far too much for me to carry on my back and the venue for the event was a pub on the river without any access by car. I decided the only way to do it was to transport my kit in a borrowed wheelbarrow and it worked like a charm albeit leaving my arms feeling 3 inches longer by the end of it.

[Tech info:] Sinar P 10×8, Dallmeyer 3A lens, f8 3D printed Waterhouse stop. Fomapan 100 (expired 2017) ISO 50, Kodak HC110 1+31 6mins.

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Oxford: Speed Graphic street portraits – part 1

Wednesday, August 24th, 2022

After being on a bit of a roll with my large format street portraits I decided to take my Speed Graphic out with a lens I’ve been meaning to use for a while – 165mm f2.7 Zeiss Tessar. I repurposed the lens from a folding camera which was well past its best with a perished shutter. Steve at Chroma Camera kindly designed and 3D printed a custom lens board for me. It’s a lot lighter than my Aero Ektar lens but gives a very different look. Depth of field is very shallow as you’d expect – most of these were shot around f4.5.

[Tech info:] Speed Graphic 5×4, 165mm f2.7 Tessar lens, Ilford HP5 (expired), developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6mins.

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