Frugal Film Project 2023 - February

I'm trying not to leave my Frugal Film Project commitment to the last minute in 2023. I allowed it to go down to the wire a time or three in 2022 and rushing led me to make a few mistakes. This year is starting out well and I have been getting my roll of Kentmere 400 medium format shot, developed and digitally processed in a timely fashion. Go me!

February is never the best month weather wise and this year is no different. It's been a mix of horrible weather and the odd patch of sunshine on the few dry days we have enjoyed. Sadly lurgy got a hold of me and I missed a few decent days through being ill. I eventually managed to get out and about in the third week of February with my Agfa Isolette I loaded with Kentmere 400 medium format film to see how the demolition works is going at The Galleries.

The access to Makinson Arcade from the Bus Station has opened again after demolition work to free up space for works to continue at Market Gate was completed. It's odd seeing the shop we once bought our kids school shoes from has gone. Shoe Zone is now just half a shell as three sides have been removed. The last time I saw this particular area as open as it is now was when the old Market Hall was being demolished in the 1980's.

i wasn't alone in taking photos and had a quick chat with another Wiganer who was lamenting the short life The Galleries had whilst taking a few photos for posterity. The overwhelming feeling from people I have spoken to is "what a waste." I headed off to another vantage point to see how much has changed there and it isn't much. There's a couple of excavators sorting through the rubble to remove any steel from the concrete so both can be recycled separately.

A lot of the works at the moment is happening inside the building as the shops are gutted and materials get recycled so I had a wander around town to see what I could find. One thing I do enjoy taking a snapshot of is the statue of Billy Boston, a Wigan Warriors Rugby League Club Hall of Fame legend.

I can relate to Billy as he isn't a native Wiganer. He was was born and raised in Cardiff and spent 15 years playing for Wigan from 1953-1968. He earned everyones respect with his skills on the field and he never moved back to Cardiff. He is proud of his Cardiff roots, but calls Wigan his home. I was born in Liverpool and will always be a scouser, but Wigan has been home for 3 decades and I don't want to live anywhere else. I love the town.

Another Wigan legend is WM Santus, the home of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls. This year the much loved sweet maker is celebrating its 125th birthday. I had to get a picture of the famous sign painted on the gable end of the terraced houses that has been home to the company for over a century and it has had a refresh. The fresh paint and the Uncle Joe's logo modified to proudly display 125 years has ensured this legendary Wigan landmark will be in fine fettle for decades more to come.

With Uncle Joe's photographed for the project I headed home and got down to developing my film. I chose to use Kodak HC-110 dilution E 1+47 for 9 minutes and after completing the process soon had it hanging to dry in my bathroom. I digitised my film with my Nikon D700 and a new toy, a Tamron Adaptall 2 SP 90mm f/2.5 tele macro lens. I finally got one after spending the last few years hoping to find a decent one at the right price. Patience pays off eventually. I processed my photos with Affinity Photo 2 and have to say I'm pretty pleased with this months effort.

Here's a few of my photos for this month and as always I have placed them and al the rest in my Frugal Film project 2023 album on Flickr you can visit via the link below. There's also a couple of colour photos of the famous Uncle Joe's sign to show before and after it got a well earned refresh. I'm sure you'll agree it's the best in all the land. I hope you enjoy them.

Frugal Film Project 2023 - February

Autumn on Kodak ColorPlus 200

 Autumn is a special time for photographers of all genres. It doesn't matter if you shoot film or digital, large format or 35mm, a pro Mirrorless or the camera on your smartphone, Autumn is the time for colour photography. My favourite colour film is of course Kodak ColorPlus 200, a 35mm film with nicely saturated colours that shine in spring and autumn each year.

My cameras of choice were my Minolta X-700 with Vivitar 28mm f/2.8 wide angle, my Minolta Dynax 505si with Minolta AF 35-70mm, my Olympus 35RC and my Nikon F801s with AF Nikkor 24-120mm f3.5-5.6 D. I started with my Minolta X-700, I loaded it with Kodak ColorPlus and headed off around the farms to see the colourful display that was beginning to show.

After the long hot summer of 2022 here in the UK the trees had begun to shed very early. I was a bit puzzled by it until I looked up the effect a hot dry summer has on trees. I learned that trees shed leaves at the very end of their branches when water is scarce as a natural survival strategy.

It makes perfect sense of course, water rises up through a tree to get to the ends of the branches to grow the tree. Less water = less growth and a false autumn ensues. Shedding the outer layers is the same as we do in the hot weather, the trees just miss out the trip to the seaside.

The autumnal colours in my local woodland was beginning to make it's presence known a couple of days later as I loaded my next roll into my Olympus 35RC. The green foliage gradually turned to various shades of yellow, orange and brown. The Sycamore and Maple trees were yet to show their full colours, but it was looking quite promising for a colourful end to the year. I soon finished my roll of film and headed home.

I had to wait a day or two before I could shoot my next roll of ColorPlus in my Minolta Dynax 505si Super. A bright afternoon around Mesnes Park where the Maples were a riotous red hue amongst the yellow and orange Sycamores as autumn really started to glow with colour. I really enjoy watching the seasons change in the Park.

Finally I got to use my Nikon F801s. I hadn't used my Nikon F801s for quite a while as I had been spending a lot of time learning to use my Goodman Zone during 2022. The automation my F801s has and indeed what my other chosen cameras have, was a welcome way of taking a lot of thought out of my photography. I could look at a composition, use aperture or shutter priority and just think about framing the shot.

I shot 2 rolls of film with my Nikon F801s around the local farms. Sadly it was the last of the colour I saw in 2022 as a combination of crap weather and mourning my Dad saw me stay home a lot. I was happy to have these four rolls and planned on developing them when I had a few more to make mixing another Cinestill CS41 kit worthwhile.

That developing session came in the second week of February 2023 and my second batch of chemicals was as decent as my first. Consistency is always the key to having good chemistry to develop with. Cinestill's 2 bath system comes in powder form, just mix with water at the right temperature until the powder dissolves, it's easy peasy. Keeping the chemicals at the right temperature is just as easy by letting them stand in hot water and allowing the heat to exchange between the water and your bottles before you use them. Its magic!

After hanging to dry overnight I scanned my Kodak ColorPlus with my Ion Slides2PC 35mm scanner and processed the images with Affinity Photo 2 to remove any dust spots and scratches. On the whole I am quite pleased with how they turned out. Here's a few of my Autumn photos and as always I have placed them and more in an album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. I hope you enjoy them.

Autumn 2022

A visit to Manchester with Ilford FP4

 I recently had to go to Manchester to meet my granddaughter and I decided to go a bit early and take some photos whilst I was there. I loaded a roll of Ilford FP4+ into my Nikon F801s and had a wander around outside the railway station to see what I could find as I waited for her train to arrive. I don't need much of an excuse to take photos, but I was going to be there for sunset and hoped to see the tall buildings in Manchester city centre light up on this fine sunny evening. I wasn't disappointed.

It was just before sunset when I got to Manchester and I had an hour to wait so off I toddled. It didn't take me long to see my first composition as there is an onate building right next to the station with a beautiful clock tower that was basking in the sun. The Photography Gods must have been smiling on me on this outing. I nailed a couple of shots and then went to see what else I could find.

Most of the buildings are apartment blocks that have risen in the last decade or two and are quite brutal in their design. It's quite a contrast from the ornate older buildings in the city. This part of Manchester on the south side of the city centre borders the University Campus that specialises in science and technology. Some of the apartments are rented by students hoping to become the next generation of scientists that make another breakthrough in science and technology that Manchester is famous for. The majority are rented by people working in the city centre and they are not cheap! I saw a few prices on display in an estate agents window and it took me a moment to pick my jaw up off the floor.

There is also the sad sight of once busy industrial buildings that stand derelict, waiting for their turn to be pulled down and replaced by another apartment block. The local Grafitti artists do their best to make the place look colourful, but it's only a temporary thing until the inevitable redevelopment comes along. The signs of that redevelopment are the cranes that help to build the city ever higher. There's a finite amount of room in the city, when you can't spread out you have to go up.

Grey concrete sentinels are rising all around the city centre and the area I was in was no different. To most city dwellers around the world 30 floors might not seem very high, but when all around there are older buildings no greater than 5 to 10 floors, it makes quite a difference. The current boom in apartment buildings began with the Beetham Tower at 150m/490feet tall. By our way of measuring it was the first official skyscraper in the UK outside London, but it wouldn't hold the record as the Tallest Building in Manchester for long.

There are buildings rising higher in Deansgate and Castlefields, the Deansgate Square South Tower stands at 200m/660feet and there are plans for buildings to go higher still. The Lighthouse development will see that building rise to 213m/700 feet and put Manchester firmly on the Skyscraper map of the world.

I hadn't quite finished my roll of film by the time my granddaughter arrived and a few days went by before I could pop into town to see the progress being made on a redevelopment closer to home. The Galleries in Wigan is finally being demolished a shade over 30 years after it opened to much fanfare and awards.

Seeing a once vibrant shopping mall coming down is bittersweet to many of the folk in Wigan. It has also isolated Wigan Market Hall and stall holders there have seen a dramatic fall in customers visiting the Market since the works began. One stall that has been a mainstay of the Market for almost one hundred years is having to close due to lack of customers. Sometimes change has terrible consequences...

I developed my roll of Ilford FP4+ 125 in HC-110 dilution E 1+47 for 12 minutes at 20 celcius and soon had it hanging to dry in my bathroom. I scanned it with my trusty Ion Slides2PC 35mm scanner and processed the images with Affinity Photo 2.

Here's a few of my favourites and as always I have put them and more in an album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. If you like my photos I still have my e-zine "In The Zone" available in my Ko-Fi shop or you can buy me a coffee via the links on this page. I enjoyed taking these photos, it makes me keen to visit Manchester again soon to further explore the city. I hope you enjoy them.

Ilford FP4+ - Nikon F801s

Olympus OM101

 I have had steady stream of offers of film cameras thanks to my blog and occasionally my curiosity gets the better of me and I accept gifts that make me wonder why nobody else wanted the camera. One such gift was from a dear chum of many years who offered me not one, but two Olympus OM-101 "Power Focus" cameras that were gathering dust. Having never seen one out in the wild I asked him if I could have a look whilst we put the world to rights over a coffee. My friend delivered the cameras on a bright summer day and the deed was done. Curiosity won the day and he wasn't taking them home. 

The camera uses the OM mount and Olympus built lenses that weren't true autofocus lenses. They were called "Power Focus". There's a wheel on the back of the camera, much like the selector wheels on every DSLR and 90's film cameras and the focusing motor is built into the camera. You move the wheel left or right and it adjusts the focus on the lens. Sounds good, right? The big problem with the lenses is you cannot use them manually. Olympus also said we could use all our OM mount Zuiko lenses on the camera in aperture priority mode without any trouble. For the purposes of this first look I went into this with the viewpoint of a beginner and used full auto.

"How does it handle?"

I found the camera to be very easy to use.  Everything you need to operate the camera is on the camera body and operated with either an index finger or your thumbs. There is a selector wheel on the top where you choose between fully auto P mode, aperture priority and manual operation. It's literally a point and shoot with the "Power Focus" operated by the wheel on the back of the camera. Loading the film is easy too, just insert the film cassette, pull the leader to the red mark on the take up side and close the back. It winds the film on automatically to the right starting point. It also uses DX coding and sets the iso for you too.

If you want to try one it's not a bad camera and does allow you to use any OM mount lenses you may have in your collection, but does that defeat the object of the camera being one that a beginner could use as a point and shoot with little or no training? It certainly gives you more options as the Power Focus lens range is unsurprisingly not very well populated. Mine consists of a 50mm f2 PF and a 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 PF zoom and I'm told they were the only two lenses produced specifically for this camera. You can pick them up dirt cheap on the bay of evil or your favourite used camera retailer.

"What about the photo's?"

The camera honestly surprised me with the quality of the photo's from my first roll of Kentmere 400 film I shot with it. Being an Olympus OM-1 and OM-2 user I really should have known Olympus would have ensured this camera was capable of producing decent well exposed photographs, even on a horrid day such as the one I had. That's probably my inner skepticism coming to the fore with a camera I hadn't used before and the uncertain reputation of the camera. It got a bum rap when it first appeared and was only sold between 1988 and 1991. 

Have I given this camera a true test of our capabilities together? I went at this with a lot of questions and used the camera as a beginner would, on full auto. My next roll and indeed a future blog will be about how I get on with the camera in full manual mode, or at least as manual its native "Power Focus" lenses allow. I will use the 35-70mm zoom and see how that performs and then use my trusty Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 and see what happens.

Given the awful daylight I had shot my film in, I decided to develop my roll of Kentmere 400 in Kodak HC-110 dilution E 1+47 for 9 minutes at 20 celcius and hung them to dry overnight. I scanned the film with my trusty Ion Slides2PC 35mm scanner and removed any dust spots and scratches with Affinity Photo 2.

This wont be the last you see of this camera as my curiosity is far from satisfied. I want to know more about it and given my history of wanting an OM-1 from childhood, I reckon the OM101 deserves a thorough long term review. Here's a few photos I shot on Kentmere 400 with my Olympus OM101 and 50mm f/2 PF lens. As always I have put these photos and more in an album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. I have also included a link to the Camera Go Camera review of the Olympus OM101 camera that may interest you. I hope you enjoy them.

Olympus OM101
Camera Go Camera - Olympus OM-101/OM-88