| Landscape Photography Blog

Crosby Beach Sunset on Slide Film

James — Sat, 30 May 2020 12:38:39 +0000

For a good while I’ve wanted to visit Crosby Beach with my Hasselblad 501cm medium format film camera to shoot sunset on slide film. If you follow my blog and vlog on YouTube you may recall the Slide Film shoot I had on Ainsdale Beach in 2019. I tend to learn towards Negative Film for my film photography. Protra400 is my favourite colour negative film. I’m also partial to black and white film too and at the time of writing this I’m a few shots into a roll of HP5.

Anyway, this evening I headed down to the Beach with a view to catching some form of colourful end to the day at the exact spot where the River Alt meets the Irish Sea. I’ve scouted this location a few times in the past recently in search of new compositions on a familiar place. So, this evening I was determined to get out and see what I can achieve with slide film. My previous attempts at shooting slide film have, if I’m honest, been a failure. I don’t know if that’s because I’m conditioned to using my Hasselblad X1D medium format digital camera with a huge Dynamic Range or if I’m used to negative film that gives me a lot more latitude, but I have, in my own opinion consistently failed when it comes to creating a nice image on slide film.

This evening I wanted to conduct an experiment. Where I use this roll of Provia 100F as a test roll to see how the light falls and is captured in this kind of setting. Here are my results with comments below showing the setting I wrote down after each shot. All images were taken with my Hasselblad 501cm and a 150mm F4 lens. The first two images were the last two exposures of a roll of Portra 400 I had loaded up before I switched to Provia 100F.

Portra 400 with 80mm F2.8 lens as unknown F stop (prob F22)

My friend Sarah who I shot with tonight – Portra 400 with 80mm F2.8 lens as F2.8

Here are my notes from the shoot tonight that I wrote down during the shoot.

1/500th

1/250th

1/125th

The series of shots below included my Circular Polariser and 0.9 Graduated Filter.

I sometime take snaps of the camera setup so I can recall the exposure settings.

1/125th with Circular Polariser and 0.9 Graduated ND Filter.

1/125th

1/60th

1/30th

To say I’m disappointed with these photographs is an understatement. I see 2 problems with my efforts.

1. My process behind the camera is not methodical enough. Being with Sarah and chatting confused me and I can’t seem to focus on more than one thing at once, I lost my way as the sun set, I was flustered. Need more practice.

2. My expectations of what is possible with Slide Film and how I’m applying it needs refining. I know I can do better but my expectations need readjusting.

To round off the night as we left I made these photos on my iPhone. Who needs film hey….

Ainsdale Beach Provia 100 Film shoot

James — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 12:54:04 +0000

Tonight I headed back to Ainsdale Beach with my Film camera but this time a roll of slide Film. Provia 100. I hoped to shoot this roll in a considered way to help my learning at shooting film again. You can see a small selection of the images I created below in this post adn whole shoot in the video. I used my Hasselblad 501CM to make these images but also brought along my Hasselblad X1D for comparisons sake. In my previous visit here I saw the lifeguards station and thought this would make for an interesting focal point for a series of images. This is my first visit with a few more to follow.

All of the Landscape Photographs showcased on this blog and in this video from Ainsdale Beach are available as gallery quality framed prints. Contact me for details…

Black and White Film Shoot on the Dunes

James — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 09:59:59 +0000

Today I headed out to Ainsdale Beach with my newly acquired Hasselblad 501CM, a roll of Kodak Tri-X and a good amount hope that I’d see and capture the feel of these wonderful Sand Dunes that hold precious memories for myself. I made a vlog of this shoot which you can see below after the images. For now, here is a look at the images from a very enjoyable half hour of Landscape Photography on Ainsdale Beach.

All of the Landscape Photographs showcased on my blog are available as Gallery Quality framed prints. Please contact me for details…

Portra 800 // Film 03

James — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 21:56:41 +0000

I love Kodak Portra, Ive been using the emulation of this film in some recent images Ive taken around the house and it seems to have a really pleasing tone to me. Now that Im getting into 35mm film photography I decided to invest in a roll or two of the genuine thing. So here are a few shots taken on my Leica M4-P with Portra 800 film. I’m moving these images. I’ve also got some Portra 160 and 400 so keen to try them next…

Thomas and some genuine vintage scratches on the film.

Young Lewis

A misty day over towards the Langdale Pikes.

Lewis capturing me on the Sony Action Camera.

Into the woods.

Heading towards Skelwith Bridge.

The Brathay at Skelwith Force.

Skelwith Force

A rare shot of myself.

The footbridge through the trees

Down river to Skelwith Force

Oops

Ainsdale Beach

Final shot of the Kodak Portra 800 and again Im really pleased with how this film has come out. Im really fascinated by film photography and hope to capture more shots on film going forward. Here is a video showing more details on my film camera and seeing my prints for the first time.

ILFORD B&W // Film 01

James — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 21:58:48 +0000

It’s been a very long time since I last shot 35mm film. Probably getting on for 20 years. In the late nineties and early part of the millennium I used to spend a lot of my spare money on buying and developing film. How things have changed with the advent of digital cameras. So here I am in 2017 having bought a Film Camera and now, once again spending spare cash on film and developing that film. It feels exciting. The Anticipation is fantastic. For the first time in modern day life I have to wait to see the result. It’s like writing a letter and hoping for one back instead of immediate text messages bouncing back and forth. It feels good and here are the results from my first 35mm film. Ilford Black and White.

At the bottom of this post Ive included a video showing more details on my film camera a Leica M4-P and also the revealing of the prints.

Loughrigg Fell

Home Life

Meeting Thomas on his walk home from school

In the woods around Skelwith Fold. See this post for more details.

A misty view form the woods.

Thomas and his best smile….

A blurry Lewis in Low light.

About a 50% success rate for my first 35mm film. Im really pleased with the results and while these shots may not be the most inspiring images they open the door to an inspiring new medium. A new process and a new excitement to the anticipation of the results. I like it.