Really Want a Car

Missing going out to the countryside, so need to look for a car. These two photographs set me off, they were taken at the Outwoods near Loughborough in October 2014.

Both taken on a Pentax Super A – Pentax 28mm  2.8 – Eastman Double X – Rodinal

Minolta Hi-Matic – Silly Mistake

I bought this camera about 3 months ago from that auction site, cost me £6.51p, ($8.51 – €7.52) I was the only bidder. It’s the original 1962 model and came with a nice leather holdall, camera case, Actina lens hood, a lovely cable release and the Metz flash gun which had badly corroded batteries inside, but it’s also mains powered. After replacing the 1960’s 2 pin mains plug with a modern 3 pin the flash functioned as it should. The focusing is slightly stiff but got better with use, and the meter functions, good job as it’s an auto only camera. So I loaded it up with Eastman XX and went for a walk.

Serbian Orthodox Church #1

My silly mistake was during processing the film, after the developer I poured in the stop bath, got distracted and poured in what I thought was the fixer solution, after a minute I realised I’d poured the developer back in, not a good thing to do with this film as it blows highlights really easily.

Serbian Orthodox Church #2

19th-20th-21st century architecture

The rangefinder seems accurate

Sharp Lens

100% crop from above

Photina TLR (and Mimi !)

Creepy

The camera was good to use, I soon got used to the front shutter release. Will be taking this one out again soon, and will make sure to dev the film properly.

In the Outwoods

This was taken in September 2014 on a visit to the outwoods near Loughborough Leicestershire. It was my first roll of Eastman xx film.

Pentax Super A, Pentax 135mm f3.5 lens

Olympus XA Part 4

The last few shots from the Olympus XA

Memorial De Montfort Hall

Didn’t think this would come out so well as it’s made of a very shiny metal and it was a bright day.

Museum Frontage New Walk

They put on some great Art exhibitions at this museum.

Into the City

No Entry

Been really impressed with the Olympus XA and Eastman XX film. I have used the film before in a Pentax Super A, but developed it in Rodinal, I prefer the results in D76 though.

Olympus XA Part 3

A few more photographs from the Olympus XA and Eastman XX film.

Bit of a glass theme going on.

Winter flowering Jasmine in my garden. I wanted to see how the lens coped with almost direct sun, quite impressed.

Olympus XA Part 2

I can’t seem to get my blog images to appear as sharp as they are when opened in PhotoShop, I’ve tried different settings for these two and they do seem marginally better.

St James The GreaterThis church isn’t far from where I live, it’s difficult to get a full view of it, took this from across the road when there was a gap in the traffic.

The GuildhallThe old Guildhall is medieval the earliest part dating back to the 1390’s. It’s supposed to be haunted ! Nowadays it’s used as a venue for music performances and lectures. When I was a kid we used to visit to see the dungeons and look at the scary dummy prisoner in one of the cells. I also took some photographs there for my school Art exam in 1969 (giving my age away) I was using a Cosmic 35 without much of a clue about aperture and shutter speed, nothing changes :>)

Olympus XA

Well I was going to go for a walk into town this morning but the weather is awful, blowing a gale and heavy rain. Fortunately there is enough cat food in the pantry to last at least 2 days.

Here are a couple of shots from 2 weeks ago taken on my Olympus XA using Kodak Eastman XX and developed in Kodak D76.

Lonely Smoker

Time House Reflection

 

Panorama-ish Camper Van

I took these photo’s with my Olympus XA on Kodak Eastman XX in the middle of January, it was a dull day so didn’t expect much, very pleased with the results. I love old garage doors (doors in general) the camper van was a bonus. thought I would stitch the 2 images together. I’ll put a wideangle on my Olympus OM2sp and revisit.

Garage Doors & Campervan

Scanning Negs and listening to Future

Another very quick walk into town today to get my SIM card changed for the new phone. Managed a couple of photo’s on the way.

Red Squares

Keep Clear

I also wanted to get back home early to scan some negs from my Olympus XA, loaded it with Eastman XX film a couple of weeks ago and developed it in D76 Stock, well it was a bit contrasty, previously used Rodinal with XX and it was better. Scanning can be a time consuming job especially with my cats demanding attention (food and a fuss) so I found a live recording of Future (Bob Weir/Phil Lesh) and turned the volume up, the music helped. I decided to use the Epson scanner thinking it would be quicker than the Nikon, but no, about the same really. Scanned a couple of the negs with both, will post a comparison later this week.

Here’s one from the Olympus XA.

Keeping fit !