More Fun In The Zone

I have been using my Goodman Zone Z1 a heck of a lot recently as I made the most of the good weather over the last couple of weeks. I have also managed to repair the dark slide light seal on the RB67 film back I was having bother with. I was a little disheartened when the light leaks made the film back unusable. I do have the 3D printed 6x6 film back, which works a treat, but I was missing the 6x7 format. I had to do something about it.

Getting my screwdrivers out and taking the RB67 film back apart to make the repair was a little unnerving at first, but I soon settled into it and carefully removed the old flock dark slide seal and replaced it with some nice new flock material I sourced off the bay of evil. Once I was happy that I had everything looking right I put it back together and put the dark slide back in. It felt much better than previously so I decided to film test it and I loaded a roll of Ilfords finest medium format HP5+ 400 and headed off into the local countryside.

I headed to a wheat field near my home that has power lines running the length of it. As photographers we simply have to take a photo of power lines and telegraph poles etc. It's the law! I lined up three compositions, the first one from the south end of the field looking along the lines and one either side of the lines from the footpath that crosses the field further up the lane. 

On the day the sky was very hazy and I used an orange filter from a Neewer Cokin P sized filter set my wife bought for me a couple of Christmases ago. I felt the filter would bring some of the cloud detail into the shot rather than having a blown out sky. I metered using my trusty Vivitar 45 light meter and allowed one stop for the filter. I also made damn sure I removed the dark slide too. Go me! Once I had those compositions done I moved on.

I revisited the trees I have been studying on the old mine workings and once again had another look at the burnt out car. Nothing really special, I was just trying to find different angles and compositions at a different time of day than previous visits to see where the shadows fell and make the most of the nice day. I also took a shot on one of the overgrown footpaths in the area that gave me a chance for a long exposure before heading home to develop my film.

I developed my roll of Ilford HP5 in HC-110 dilution B for 5 minutes at 20 celcius and it was soon hanging to dry in my bathroom. I was very happy to see ten exposures, no missed dark slide removal, no unintentional double exposures and above all none of the awful light leaks I had experienced previously with this film back. There are a couple of light streaks but that was because I was shooting into the sun and didn't shield my lens. Apart from that I will call that repair a success! Once it was dry I scanned the film quickly with my Nokia 5.3 and processed the images with Affinity Photo.

Here's a few of those photos and I placed them all in an album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. I'm rather pleased with the repair I made to the light seal on my RB67 film back and I really enjoyed shooting 6x7 again as I had missed it. I like 6x6, but there's something about 6x7 that just looks right to me. If you enjoy my blog and wish to support me please use the Ko-Fi buttons on this page as it helps me continue my journey. I hope you enjoy this weeks photos.

Ilford HP5 - Goodman Zone Z1