Ilford FP4 - Olympus OM-2

When I was able to get out and about with my Nikon D200 recently, I split my walk between my DSLR and a roll of Ilford FP4 shot with my Olympus OM2 and Zuiko 28mm f/3.5. FP4 is great on sunny days and I made the most of the sunny weather whilst I could. I had been marvelling at my Nikon D200 and needed to slow down a bit. I tend to speed up when I get to use a new toy. I'm like a kid at christmas sometimes, shooting a roll of film helped me to calm myself down just a tad.

Long time readers will have noticed I enjoy using my Olympus 35mm film cameras and it had been a while since I used my OM-2. I have several cameras I use regularly in rotation and it's at the point where I actually enjoy using them even more, if that makes sense? Picking up my OM-2 again felt like meeting an old friend after not seeing them for a while and seamlessly restarting a conversation you were having back then.

I had loaded my OM-2 with Ilford FP4 and fitted my Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 wide angle lens before I headed into town and finally got to use it when I had captured all the photos I needed with my D200. I had also decided to shoot my film at it's box speed of 125 iso. Ilford FP4 is great for sunny days and I soon got back into the groove I have come to enjoy when using my Olympus OM-2 in aperture priority mode.

The Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 is my favourite lens to use when I am enjoying a photo walk around Wigan town centre. It's wide enough to capture the vistas without having to stand back too far and narrow enough to be able to get reasonably close up to a subject if needed, without being too obtrusive. It's also as bright as a button and as sharp as a pin.

I documented the ongoing changes as the demolition work continues, captured some general street shots and finished my walk at the Parish Church. It was November 11th, Armistice Day here in the UK as we remember those who marched off to war and never came home. I paid my respects at The Cenotaph with a quiet moment of reflection before heading home.

I developed my film a couple of days later in Zone Imaging 510 Pyro diluted at 1+100 for 10 minutes and soon had it hanging to dry in my bathroom. First impression was my film was nicely exposed, as I expected from using the great aperture priority mode on my OM-2, and I left it hanging to dry for a few hours. I digitised my film with my Nikon D700, Tamron 90mm f/2.5 macro lens, Pixl-Latr and A5 led light pad. I uploaded the RAW files to my PC and processed them with Affinity Photo 2.

I am really happy with how this roll of FP4 turned out, I haven't shot FP4 for a little while and the conditions of the day exuded contrast. Ilford FP4 is a high contrast film and very versatile in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. Then there's folk like me who just like to shoot film without filters and see what happens.

Ilford have been making black and white film for over a century and all those years of research and development shows in the ease at which their standard FP4+ 125 and HP5+ 400 films perform in the hands of film photographers of all skill levels. Here's a few of my favourite photos from my walk around Wigan and as always I have placed them and more in an album on my Flickr account you can visit using the link below. I hope you enjoy them.

Ilford FP4+ 125 - Olympus OM-2