Film rules OK!

Pushing Kentmere 400

Kentmere 400 film is made under the auspices of Harman, the same company who own Ilford film, and is presented as a kind of low budget alternative to Ilford, with a roll of Kentmere 400 being not much more than half the price of a roll of Ilford HP5+

So while HP5+ is pretty much my favourite BW film, I thought I’d give Kentmere a try.

On the day, it was a bit overcast and grey, I was planning to use a lens with a maximum aperture of f4.5, and I was also thinking I’d be taking some pictures inside. So I also figured I’d push the film as far as they say it can be pushed, in this case 800 ISO.

I loaded the film into my Voigtlander Bessa R3A, which I’d fitted with the 15mm Aspherical Super Wide Heliar L39 screw mount lens (via an adapter). While the new M mount version of this lens is rangefinder-coupled, the screw mount version isn’t. But who needs focusing when you’ve got oodles of depth of field? Just use the hyperfocal to keep most everything in focus!

I set the light meter to 800, and off I went. The weather was a bit crap so I just went for a stroll along the south bank.

Then I went in the Tate Modern…

And finally to Borough Market.

The film was processed in a 1+15 solution of Ilfotec HC developer for 6 and a half minutes, followed by a stop bath, and five minutes in Ilford Rapid Fixer before rinsing, and a final minute in a weak solution of Ilfotol wetting agent, before being hung up over the bath to dry.

The negatives were then scanned.

All in all, I’m quite happy with this film, and I’m definitely planning to buy some more. 

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End of the Pier Show.

I have something of a collection of pictures of piers.

There’s Bournemouth Pier.

Deal Pier

Worthing Pier

Ryde Pier

Sandown Pier

Bognor Regis Pier

Eastbourne Pier

Brighton Pier

Well, that’s ONE Brighton pier. But of course Brighton also had the west pier, which these days looks like this:

A burnt out skeletal ruin, all that remains. There used to be more ruin, but everything in the foreground of the next shot has been taken away, leaving only what you see above.

Now for a while, I’ve been kicking myself for not having any pictures of the old West Pier while most of it still stood, before it fell to stormy weather and arsonists, before it went from something which people thought could be restored into a pile of rusting scrap metal.

Then the other day I found the only pictures, as far as I know, which I have.

and

And it’s sad really it was allowed to go from its original state, into this derelict state, into the skeletal mass of scrap it is today.

You can see my set of pier pictures here, not all of which are shot on film.

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The most unusual camera I own

The most unusual camera in my collection is something I got off a certain internet auction site a few years ago, having put a small bid on it almost for a laugh.

It’s a Zenit Photosniper, which comes in a sturdy metal box. Open the box, and you see the kit packed for transportation, like so…

Unscrew the bolt holding the lens in place, and put the parts together, and you get this…

The 300mm Tair lens is focused using the chromed knob at the front. The aperture is semi-automatic, in that if you turn the spring-loaded ring (with the red knob above the arrow) you open the aperture to full, and when the mechanism is activated it stops down with a tremendous CLACK!

The camera is a specially modified Zenit-E, called a Zenit-ES. The modification is that it has a shutter release in the bottom plate of the camera.

The lens bolts on to the pistol grip, and then you attach the shoulder stock to the pistol grip. Rest it against your shoulder, hold the pistol grip, and focus using your other hand to turn the knob.

When you pull the trigger, a mechanism first activates a lever on the lens which stops down the aperture as previously described. Then it pushes the bottom-mounted shutter release on the camera, the result is a CLACK-CLUNK as the aperture stops down and the mirror pops up…

Obviously, in this day and age, if you were to go into any urban area with such a monstrosity you’d be in big trouble, especially if there was a ‘shoot first and ask questions after’ mentality on the go. I would not dare sling this over my shoulder and wander around central London with it in fully rigged.

I did just take the camera and lens, though, and got some decent pics.

There are more if you click the images. These were all taken around St. Paul’s Cathedral.

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Kodak Brownie Reflex

I’ve got some more film for this baby, and really should take it out for another trip.

The problem with 127 film is that it’s hard to fit in my scanner, and because the film I’ve got just won’t lie flat the scanning introduces extra issues. But I still like the results I got.

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