A bit of a change from landscapes or walking images this week. It is the last long Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, until Christmas, heralding the end of summer and the school holidays. Every year, the last Sunday in August brings a classic car show to my local park, Stanley Park in Blackpool (which celebrates its centenary this year).

It’s only around a 20 minute walk from home to the park, so I decided to head off, after an early lunch, and take a quick look. There was a weather warning, for the middle of the afternoon, for thunderstorms, so I figured that speed was of the essence.

I took only one camera and one lens, my Olympus OM1N and the single coated 50mm f1.8 silver nose Zuiko. I had just replaced the light seals around the rear door, so it was a good opportunity to check out my handiwork. I loaded a short roll of Ilford FP4 Plus and headed out.

Despite the forecast, there was a great turnout of classic vehicles, of which probably around 75% were British. Many marques that were distant memories, are long since gone or no longer what they were. They also included a few cars that I considered to be just old, rather than classics but these wouldn’t feature in my photographs! Despite an Austin Metro bringing back some memories for my brother, as it was his first car.

I made the most of a very brief period of brightness to make around a dozen images and my favourites from these are shown below. The weather forecast turned out to be correct and ominous clouds were appearing on the horizon. Knowing that I had a 20 minute walk home, I beat a hasty retreat. Within minutes of arriving home, we got torrential rain and thunder!

Not wanting to lose any time, I cut the exposed part of the film out of the camera in my dark bag and loaded my developing tank. The film was processed in Bellini Ornano Gradual ST-20 (1+9), which gives fine grain and great tonality with FP4. The film was processed and hung up drying within about an hour of being exposed! Later in the evening, I scanned the negatives on my Plustek 8200i.

Anyway, enough rambling, here are my favourites from the short trip:

Despite being an older variant of the Zuiko standard lens, I think that the sharpness and rendering are superb and pair well with the tonality that FP4 gives, I hope that you agree.

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Just over a month ago, I spent a week on holiday in the English Lake District. The national park has been a favourite of mine for many years, with its 16 major lakes and dramatic fells and mountains. I was staying in the northern town of Keswick and, unusually for the area, the weather was sunny and dry with temperatures just under 30°C. This was remarkable as, just a few miles down Derwentwater from Keswick, is the hamlet of Seathwaite whose claim to fame is as the wettest place in England, averaging around 140 inches of rain per year.

As the weather was a bit extreme (by UK standards) for very energetic hill walking, I opted to revisit a relatively short valley walk that is one of my all time favourites, the perimeter of Buttermere, which I have walked quite a number of times over the years. Buttermere village is just over 9 miles from Keswick, towards the north western edge of the national park, and is a great scenic drive. It starts along the eastern side of Derwentwater, into the Borrowdale valley, then climbing steeply over Honister Pass, before dropping down into the Buttermere valley. Because the valley is slightly remote, parking can be challenging, however the best option is in Buttermere village, alongside the Buttermere Court Hotel (formerly The Fish Inn), where there is a large field with pay and display parking. The journey can also be done using the local bus service, although, as a driver, I definately didn’t want to get stuck behind a bus on Honister pass; it has a maximum gradient of 1 in 4 (25%) in places!

My walk was a circuit from the village, around the edge of Buttermere (the lake), an easy to moderate stroll of around 4.5 miles, which is reasonably flat, and follows very close to the shoreline of the lake. I added an extra 0.6 mile to get the last two images, which are of neighbouring Crummock Water. The lake is in a stunning setting, surrounded on three sides by dramatic high fells with the small village at its northern end, and Crummock Water, closely adjacent to the north west in the same valley. It used to be described as a tranquil valley, but more and more tourists seem to have discovered it nowadays. Personally, I would definitely avoid much of The Lake District during school holidays. Fortunately, I was there two weeks before the end of the school term, but it was still relatively busy.

As a slight aside, if you ever visit the village, the small church is well worth a look as it has a memorial plaque to the late fell walker and guide book writer, Wainwright. This is by a window which looks out across the lake to Haystacks, the fell where his ashes are scattered by Innominate Tarn.

On the day, I didn’t want to carry a lot of heavy camera gear, or a tripod, so I opted to take just one camera and lens. Anyway, the hot weather and harsh lighting wasn’t ideal for making amazing portfolio shots. I opted to just take my Leica M3 fitted with a vintage 3.5cm f3.5 Summaron lens and an orange filter. For the first half of the walk, the camera was loaded with Ilford FP4 Plus, one of my all time favourites. When this film was finished, I opted to load a roll of Ilford Ortho Plus, swapping to a yellow filter. Both films were developed in Ilford DDX at 1+4 and here are the results:

Ilford FP4 Plus

Ilford Ortho Plus

Overall, I think that I am most pleased with the images made on the Ortho film, what do you think? Ilford Ortho is fast becoming a favourite film for landscapes due to its incredible smooth tonality and pleasing fine grain. There will be more of this film to come! I still need to try it with a green filter, as recommended to me by Alex Luyckx.

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This week’s article will be a bit shorter than normal, due to the summer holiday season, and also another project that I am starting to work on - more about that in a future post!

One of the great features of pinhole cameras is that they are not restricted, like lenses, to how close they can “focus”. In fact, you can get close enough to even touch your subject due to the extreme “depth of field” that’s available. Also, many commercial pinhole cameras tend to have extremely wide fields of view when compared with what is considered “normal” for the film format being used. The images in this post were taken with my Zero Image 2000, a wooden hand crafted camera made in Hong Kong. I’ve had this camera for around 20 years, but have been using it much more regularly over the past twelve months. Because it’s fairly small and light, it can be a good option for hikes, coupled with a small, lightweight tripod. The camera takes 120 roll film and makes images in the 6x6 format (12 on a roll) through a 0.18mm etched pinhole. The “focal length” is 25mm with an aperture of f138. On a 6x6 lensed camera, the standard lens would typically be 80mm, so 25mm gives around a 130° diagonal field of view - very wide!

The images below were made using this camera during a walk along the beach at Fleetwood and Cleveleys in Lancashire. I was particularly looking for anything that I could get very close to, such as pebbles, shells and breakwaters. In order to get very close, I used a small Manfrotto PIXI EVO desktop tripod. This only extends to a maximum height of around 8 inches and weighs just over half a pound. The film loaded on the day was Kentmere Pan 400, a little faster than I would normally use for pinhole images. However, I was quite pleased with the results other than a bit of flare, which pinhole cameras are prone to, and some movement in the wind, see what you think:

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Over the past couple of years, I have been shooting much more pinhole, with a variety of cameras. In fact, this is the second year when I’ve used my Holga 120 WPC wide pinhole camera for The Frugal Film Project. I love the simplicity of pinhole cameras, nothing between subject and film and “infinite” depth of field. The dreamy images from pinhole are so different than anything from a lensed camera, especially when today many photographers seem to be obsessed with ever more sharpness.

When walking, probably the best of my pinhole cameras to carry is my Zero Image 2000. This is a medium format wooden camera which creates square 6x6 images only, my favourite of all the 120 film formats. I pair this with a cheap (£44 from Amazon), small K&F Concept mini desktop tripod. This folds down to a mere 7 inches and extends to 20 inches, but is surprisingly sturdy.

Over the past two weeks, I have taken the Zero out on two walks, the first around Arnside in north Lancashire and the second, on a long walk along The Lancaster Canal, from Preston to three miles short of Garstang, a distance of just over 16 miles. I decided that, due to the continued sunny weather, I needed a slow film in the camera. I wanted to avoid trying to make exposures of less than one second, which are very difficult to time with any accuracy. I opted for some Ilford Ortho Plus, a fine grained 80 ISO film. For those unfamiliar with orthochromatic film, the emulsion is not sensitive to all colours of the visible spectrum, as Ilford’s data sheet shows:

The sensitivity drops off sharply at a wavelength of around 570nm, which is in the green to yellow boundary of the visible spectrum. This means that the film is not sensitive to orange and red light. In the early days of photography, orthochromatic emulsions were the norm, especially with glass plates. Because of this, orange and reds will render as very dark tones, or even black.

I’ve used Ortho Plus 80 quite a few times, in all the available formats from 35mm up to 4”x5”, and I’ve found it to be great for landscapes and other pictorial photography. Whilst using other monochrome films for landscapes, I often use orange and red filters to get some drama in the sky. However, these filters are not an option with ortho film as the filter would cut out almost all of the colours of light that the emulsion sees. Featureless skies can be ruin black and white images, and some associate ortho films with this. But, according to Ilford’s data sheet, a yellow filter remains an option. This was my approach on these walks; I didn’t want bland skies. Ilford recommend a slightly higher filter factor with a yellow filter than you would normally use, around 1.6 stops with Ortho. You may need to experiment a bit as I have several different makes of yellow filter, Hoya, Pentax, Cokin and SRB, and they vary quite a bit. I generally use Hoya filters as my benchmark. On these walks, I was helped out by blue skies and white clouds, so sky detail was slightly easier to get, but the lighting and contrast were quite harsh.

I developed the film in Kodak HC-110 dilution B (1+31) for 6 minutes at 20°C and scanned the negatives using my Epson V750 Pro. Ortho Plus has good contrast, in this combination, with good tonality and fine grain. Maybe a slightly higher dilution, with some compensating effect, could have tamed the contrast of the sunny conditions a bit better, but you never know! Anyway, here are some of the results:

If you like these images, and you’ve never tried out Ilford Ortho Plus, I recommend giving it a try. Just one word of warning, I find that it should be shot fresh, as I have found, like Pan F, it can go bad quickly when expired (especially in 120).

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It’s been just over a year since I bought my new Pentax 17, the 35mm half frame film camera. It’s a great, small, carry around camera, especially for holidays, as you’ll see in this post. Despite some of its idiosyncrasies, like the lack of manual controls and its use of zone focusing, it has a modern, sharp and contrasty lens. This pairs very well with slow to medium speed films. The half frame negative also makes it ideal for creating diptychs across the same area as a whole 35mm frame (as long as you shoot in the native portrait orientation). This isn’t something that I had really tried until recently, but I was determined to give it a proper try! Anyone wanting to see some excellent diptychs from a Pentax 17, which are darkroom printed, should check out Andrew Bartram’s IG page here. Andrew is the co-host of The Lensless & Lo-Fi Podcast and the Large Format Photography Podcast.

Just over 3 weeks ago, I went away for two weeks’ holiday where the first week was spent in an apartment in the historic Yorkshire city of Ripon. I had already decided that I wasn’t taking a digital camera with me, except for my iPhone. I had preloaded 35mm cassettes with 24 exposure lengths of bulk Ilford FP4 Plus, specifically with the Pentax in mind, so 48 images per film.

During the week, I visited several of the ruined abbeys around North Yorkshire. I went to two of these armed with my Pentax 17, hopefully to try making some diptychs. There are two featured in this post, the first being Byland Abbey, founded in 1135, which became a Cistercian monastery. The second is probably the best known, best preserved, and most visited, Fountains Abbey, also a Cistercian house, founded in 1132. Here I had to patiently time my shots to avoid the school day trip groups! The visit to Fountains was done by walking from Ripon, a pleasant 12 mile circuit. This walk can be found on The National Trust website as an 8 mile circular route, but it doesn’t factor in walking around the deer park, the water gardens and the abbey! I did also visit Rievaulx Abbey, which might feature in a future post.

Having looked at other people’s paired images, diptychs seem to work best when they are not two distant images together, such as a pair of landscapes. The best pairings are generally a wider shot with a closer, detail image; and this was what I aimed to achieve. However, there are a number of other approaches such as using contrasting pairs or using symmetrical patterns, shapes or colours. In all cases, though, there should ideally be some kind of link or narrative that gives the two images a synergy. With digital, you could orient the two images any way around, but I was constrained, using film, by two adjacent portrait orientation photos.

However, my experience wasn’t all “plain sailing”; here are some lessons that I learnt during the process:

• Try to remember what your previous shot was. Had I turned the camera to take a landscape orientation image somewhere?

• When you come back to the camera the following day, do you know what your last image was?

• It’s probably best to take your two images within minutes of one another so that you can be confident in them making a coherent pair. Were all my pairings deliberate and thought out at the time of shooting? Honestly, most were but some others turned out to be “happy accidents”!

• Once your film is developed, look very closely at the negatives before cutting them into strips. A cut in the wrong place can break a pairing which can only be reinstated by stitching two scans together - not something that I would relish doing!

• If you use a film lab, it’s probably best to request your negatives be returned uncut.

Anyway, enough of the rambling, here are some of my favourites from the two abbeys:

The film was developed in Adox Rodinal 1+50 for 15 minutes at 20°C and scanned using my Plustek 8200i.

I hope you like this first attempt at half frame diptychs. I would be interested to know which are your favourites.

I may well make some darkroom prints from some of these diptychs when I get chance.

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There are now a number of recognised “World . . .” days in the realm of analogue photography, some of which I have participated in, and others, which were new to me. It can be a challenge to keep up with them all, as they often each use different social media platforms. I became aware of the World Toy Camera Day 2026 through my involvement in The Photozine Collective as one of the Collective members, Astro Beck, is an admin for the group. The activity and posts centre around the World Toy Camera Day group, a private group, on Facebook. I am not really a user, or fan, of Facebook but I do participate in a few private photography groups e.g. The Frugal Film Project, The Lensless & Lo-Fi Podcast and UK Film Photography and Darkroom. So, why not give it a go this year. The group currently has 951 members.

I joined the group well in advance of the planned date, 21st June 2026. However, when it comes to “toy” cameras, I only really have two options, both of which are Holgas. I decided that I’d use my Holga 120N rather than the 120 WPC wide pinhole. When the time came around, the weather was good but I didn’t have a lot of free time. As I live just over 2 miles from the coast near Blackpool, Lancashire, that was my best option. I checked the tide times and I was fortunate that low tide was in the middle of the day. So I loaded my Holga with a film that I’d never used in that camera before, Ilford SFX. Knowing that this emulsion has extended red sensitivity, it responds best to sun and a red filter. I fitted my red filter to the camera and went for a walk along the beach. Even though the sun was quite bright, the red filter cuts out 3 stops of light. I took a meter reading with my ‘phone and decided that ISO 200 would end up underexposed; I would need to push the film to approximately EI 400 in development later. I generally don’t push film that often and I had never tried pushing SFX before. The Massive Dev Chart did have some options for SFX at 400, so it couldn’t be all bad! To cover myself, I also shot all the photos with the Holga on the cloudy setting. This also gives a more “dreamy” look around the edges of the images but can result in some weird curved horizons too. With a Holga, you just have to embrace the imperfections and try not to be too technical - it’s all about toy cameras after all!

My photos were taken between the North and Central Piers and I was particularly drawn to the ripples in the sand, some reflections and the contrast in the sky. Once I’d finished the roll, I developed it in HC110, the new Kodak version, dilution B (1+31) for 13 minutes at 20°C. This combination certainly gave the negatives some punch with detail in both the shadows and all but the brightest of the highlights. There is visible grain, but it’s not too intrusive on 120. Anyway, here are some of my results:

Overall, I was pleased with the results and I won’t hesitate to use SFX again in the Holga, and to push process it too! I posted these results a few days ago in the Facebook group, so I thought that I’d now share them here too. Whilst toy cameras are not everyone’s thing, they are all about letting go and having some fun with your photography, and I for one, recommend trying them!

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Over recent weeks, I have seen a number of photographers testing out the new ISO 200 colour negative film from Lucky in China. Despite not being a colour shooter, I was interested in trying some out, especially as I had some freshly mixed C41 chemicals that need to be used. So I ordered two rolls of 120 and two of 35mm.

When I do use colour negative films, it’s mainly in medium format, and my favourite emulsions tend to be Kodak Ektar 100 and Kodak Gold 200. Because my main genre is landscapes, I really do not like the Portra range, although this may be a somewhat unpopular opinion!

So with my first 120 roll, I didn’t want to just use a conventional camera; this is not going to be a standard technical film review (spoiler alert!). I opted to use my Zero Image 2000 pinhole camera and headed out on a walk early last week. My 11 mile route took me from the historic English city of Lancaster, along the canal to the seaside village of Hest Bank (as featured in my last post) and then down the coast to the resort town of Morecambe. The day started with intermittent sunny spells and became full sun as I reached the coast, ideal for colour negative film.

The following evening I developed the roll at home in the Bellini C41 kit. I have used the Bellini kit a few times before and have always been very pleased with the results. It does have separate bleach and fix, which makes for an extra bath, but gives the opportunity to try out bleach bypass, if that’s your thing. I never use commercial labs as I find them too expensive. Even if I only get 12 rolls from the kit, and don’t push it a bit farther, processing only costs me around £3.35 a roll. This is just under half the cost of a commercial film lab (with no scans).

Anyway, I scanned my negatives with my Epson V750 Pro and allowed VueScan to invert the images, as I’m no expert in colour grading colour negatives. I was really pleased with the initial results. The images below have had no colour or saturation adjustments in Lightroom, just a few small tweaks to the highlights and shadows. Here are my favourites, all from the one roll:

So what are my main first thoughts about Lucky 200:

• It’s a nicely saturated film which seems to respond very well to bright sunlight.

• The colours tend to err towards green when overcast and more yellow in full sunlight. I’m very wary of making bold claims about a colour film’s balance, as you can almost make one film look very similar to another if you’re prepared to play with colour sliders, tint and saturation.

• I was very impressed with the strong blue skies when the sun came out fully.

• The reds and oranges are excellent, without the stronger tendency to the particularly warm tones of Kodak Gold.

• Bearing in mind that this is 120 film, there is some noticeable grain when you zoom in to 100% in Lightroom, but, in my scans, it’s not much more than with Kodak Gold.

• One slight downside is that, under 100% magnification in Lightroom, there were a few small emulsion defects visible. Other reviewers have reported similar issues. On my film, they were only on a couple of frames and easily edited out. It would probably only be a serious issue if you were to make RA4 prints in the darkroom (which I don’t).

From this one roll, I have to say that I can highly recommend trying this film out. I still haven’t used my 35mm rolls, so I’ll see whether there’s any significant difference. I’d also love to see this become available in sheet film, but I can dream!!!

P.S. There’s an ISO 400 version coming from Lucky soon!

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A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I went out for a walk around the edge of Morecambe Bay in northern Lancashire. Our route was a circular one, from Carnforth railway station, south along the coast, to the village of Hest Bank, and then back north, along The Lancaster Canal, to Carnforth, a distance of 10 miles.

Morecambe Bay covers an area of around 120 square miles, the largest expanse of mudflats in the UK, stretching between Lancashire in the south and Cumbria to the north. It is well known with locals for the hazards it presents, treacherous sinking sands and very fast incoming tides. It’s also an area rich in shellfish, especially cockles.

It was the search for cockles that led to the tragic loss of 23 lives on the evening of 5th February 2004. A group of trafficked Chinese labourers had been employed to illegally harvest cockles from the sandflats near Hest Bank. They were inexperienced, spoke little to no English, and were unfamiliar with the dangers of the area. Five and a half hours after setting off into the bay, the group were cut off by the fast incoming tide. Most of the workers were either drowned, overcome by hypothermia or struck by the truck that they had been using. Only 15 of the original group survived. Following the ensuing investigation, a number of prosecutions took place and changes were made to regulation of labour practices in the industry.

I well remember hearing the news of this disaster at time, as may some of my UK readers. Close to the beach, we went past a limestone sculpture that was erected in 2013, often thought to be a memorial to mark this sad event, but was actually conceived before the tragedy occurred. It’s called ‘Praying Shell’ and is by the sculptor Anthony Padgett:

The sculptor says that his original idea was to inspire walkers, and its design symbolises humanity’s openness, in the same way that a cockle’s shell opens with the incoming tide. Despite this, it now also serves as a poignant reminder of the needless loss of those 23 lives.

Our walk took us along the coastal path, with expansive views across the bay towards the Lake District. Any trees along this stretch are bent over towards the east, due to the prevailing strong westerly winds from The Irish Sea. Once we reached Hest Bank, the railway runs along the coast for a short distance; here there is an old signal box and level crossing. Turning back inland, a few hundred yards away, is The Lancaster Canal where we followed the towpath northwards again. This canal makes for pleasant, easy walking as it stretches for 41 miles, with no locks, and is mostly rural. En-route to Carnforth, we passed through the large picturesque village of Bolton-le-Sands, taking in the parish church of Holy Trinity. Its tower and north arcade date from the 15th century but, like so many old Anglican churches, was added to and altered by the Victorians.

Unfortunately, the lighting was very harsh at times, not good for the best photography. As a result, my images turned out to be more what I would call “record shots”. The photos in this post were all taken with my trusty Nikon FM2N, an ever reliable workhorse of a camera, on Ilford FP4 Plus. Dependable as the camera is, there was some user error on the day! I didn’t realise at the time, but my exposure meter was incorrectly set for the whole film, at ISO 50, instead of 125, overexposing the roll. Fortunately, I did discover my mistake before developing the film, so I attempted to pull it in development using Ilford DDX. Despite the pull, the negatives are still quite dense and I don’t think that any are likely to be printed in the darkroom, but the scans are OK. Anyway, here’s a selection of my favourites:

I have previously posted some images that I took to end the day of Carnforth railway station, famously featuring in the 1945 David Lean film ‘Brief Encounter”, so I won’t repeat those.

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Those that have been following my ramblings so far will realise that all my posts, to date, have been in monochrome. These days, I rarely shoot colour. This isn’t due to cost particularly, but mostly because I prefer to exclude the “distraction” that colour introduces and to concentrate more on composition, light, texture and shadows. Colour, for me, takes the emphasis away from the main elements of an image, unless the subject demands it.

Many years ago, when I had been involved with various camera clubs, I did shoot quite a bit of colour, but mainly reversal film. Back in the late 1980’s and 1990’s, serious photographers tended to shun colour negative film, unless they were into portraiture or weddings. This is in stark contrast to today, where you’re bombarded by YouTubers telling you that you need to be shooting overexposed Kodak Portra 400 to get the “right” look; don’t get me started on that one! As a landscape photographer, I mainly used the sadly departed Kodachrome 25, Fuji Velvia 50 (possibly the best colour landscape film ever) and Provia 100. These days, as I process all my films at home (I haven’t used a lab for decades), the E6 process is a lot of hassle in comparison to the speed and ease of C41. Despite the relative simplicity of processing, I detest the colour adjustment of the scans. I use an Epson V750 Pro for 120 (and larger), let Vuescan do the conversion, and then tweak slightly in Lightroom afterwards. I don’t claim any expertise in colour grading my images! I’d much rather be out making images than sat editing in front of a computer screen, probably one of the main reasons that I’m doing very little digital now.

Occasional colour negative use was partly rekindled last year when, as a member of The Photozine Collective, I joined in with their first colour charity zine, ‘Vivid’. I was also fortunate to have one of my images selected for its front cover! There are still a few copies left, and they can be bought here, if you’re interested.

Anyway, my recent images started with a “happy accident”. I went out walking with a friend a couple of weeks ago, around Pleasington in Lancashire. I grabbed my Zero Image 2000 to take with me. According to my notes, it was already loaded with a new roll of Kentmere 200. I took several images, and then finished the roll on Blackpool beach the next day. To my shock, when I opened the camera, the film was in fact Kodak Gold 200! Fortunately, it’s the same film speed, so not great damage done then.

I had a new Bellini C41 kit, that I hadn't mixed up, so I decided that if I was going to process one film, I better shoot more colour rolls, and soon. I am always very wary about how long to keep working solutions of C41 chemicals, especially the colour developer, as it goes off quite quickly.

So first, here are some images from my 120 roll of Kodak Gold 200:

So what film should I load next? I’d had a couple of 120 rolls of Harman Phoenix II since last year and had never got around to using them. I did try the original Phoenix, which was grainy and had a pronounced orange/red bias. I’d seen that Phoenix II was more blue/green heavy. Despite these films being experimental, I applaud Harman for their goal to create new colour films from scratch, and wholeheartedly support them in this. I chose to load a roll into the Zero Image 2000 and went off for a walk close to home. These photos were shot along Skippool Creek, on the River Wyre, and on through to Fleetwood. The last image was taken on the River Ribble estuary, at Lytham, when I was finishing the film off, but could well be my personal favourite (although it’s a bit of an over photographed location!).

Overall, I am quite pleased with the results, I hope that you like them. Both films were exposed strictly at box speed and developed as per Bellini’s instructions.

It’s easy to see that there is a significant difference between these two emulsions. Kodak Gold has its trademark pleasing warmth, which I much prefer to Portra (controversial!). Many would-be influencers ignore the fact that Gold, in 120 format, is actually branded as a “professional” film too. Other than Ektar, Gold is probably my favourite colour negative film in 120. I just wish that Kodak would bring back Ektar 25 and 1000! The Phoenix II, unsurprisingly, has lots of character, cooler tones, more grain and a distinct emphasis on blues and greens. The grain is much better controlled than the original Phoenix, although I haven’t tried it in 35mm. I would definitely use it again in 120.

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Following a series of teasers on social media, Ilford announced two weeks ago that they were releasing their Pan F Plus emulsion as large format sheet film. According to Ilford, it has been a film and format widely requested by large format photographers. Some say that it’s a long overdue introduction (or reintroduction), For me, it’s great to see Ilford supporting large format users and I applaud them for this.

If you aren’t familiar with the film, Pan F was first introduced in the 1930’s but has undergone a number of improvements over the decades. It is Ilford’s slowest black and white film at ISO 50. It has been widely acclaimed for its very fine grain, contrast, rich tonality and sharpness. As I dabble in some large format shooting, I decided that I had to try it out. Unlike a number of YouTube photographers, I had to order mine from Ilford and pay for it myself!

This is a box of 25 sheets of 4x5” film and it cost £66 delivered or £2.64 per sheet, around £6 per pack higher than FP4 Plus and HP5 Plus. Interestingly though, there must have been a very high demand for this, as in 4x5”, it is currently out of stock on Ilford’s website!

My use of Pan F goes back to the mid to late 1980’s when I used it extensively in 35mm, and then later in 120. I have to admit not shooting it that often in recent years after Ilford had issues with the 120, where the backing paper was causing mottling on the negatives. Despite this, Pan F has been a favourite emulsion for many years.

Early last week, my box arrived and I was eager to get a few images taken. My initial impression was that the polyester base (different from the acetate of the 35mm and 120 versions) is a good thickness and is easy to handle. I loaded up two double dark slides (4 sheets) and was ready to go. However, the weather had other ideas! Living just over 2 miles from the coast, it has been very windy recently. High winds and large format cameras are never a good combination. But last Thursday morning there were lower winds and a few hours of brighter weather. I jumped at the chance, grabbed my film and headed out for a walk.

I have two 4x5” cameras, an Intrepid Mk 4 and the first version of the Chroma Snapshot. As there was still a breeze, I opted for the Chroma, it is much smaller, lighter and easier to carry on a walk. The Chroma is a 3D printed large format camera that I bought in late 2020, my first proper large format camera. My version has bellows which are fixed by four spacer bars, their length determined by the focal length of your chosen lens, the later ones have 3D printed lens cones. The lens is mounted onto a helicoid for focusing purposes. I have a 75mm f6.8 Sinaron W MC lens on this camera, which is equivalent to around 24mm in 35mm terms, so fairly wide angle for large format. I have marked the helicoid with several hyperfocal settings so I can get away without using the ground glass and a dark cloth. From the photograph below, you will see that I also had a yellow filter fitted, and a Voigtlander accessory finder for framing.

My walk took me from Fleetwood, on the Lancashire coast, around Rossall Point which is where these four images were made, and on to Cleveleys.

As I was testing the film, I didn’t want to mess around with the film speed, not that I do very often anyway. I metered with my Sekonic L-558 in incident mode and added around one stop for the filter factor.

With four sheets in the bag, I then had to decide how to develop it. I don’t often use Ilford developers, although I do have some DDX at the moment, which I may try some future sheets in. From past experience, I have always thought that Pan F and Rodinal are a “match made in heaven”. I know that many photographers don’t like Rodinal but, used correctly, it can give fine grain and sharp results, not to mention the Rodinal “glow”. Knowing that I had taken my images in sunlit conditions, and that Pan F is a fairly contrasty film, I decided to opt for the higher dilution of 1+50. This would help to tame the contrast slightly, increase the sharpness but could increase the grain. I went for the recommended 11 minutes at 20°C. With Rodinal, agitation is very, very important, gentle agitation is key. I did an initial 30 seconds of slow, gentle inversions and then 4 more every minute ( I use a Stearman Press SP-445 tank).

Anyway, onto the results! Firstly, the negatives looked amazing on a light panel, very flat, crisp, with low base fog, and very good detail in both the shadows and highlights. I also didn’t see any defects on either the base or the emulsion, unlike some other brands that I could mention.

Here are my scans of the four sheets and I was very impressed!

This film has a very rich tonality, punchy contrast and almost no grain (despite the Rodinal!). I haven’t tried yet, but I expect that focusing on the grain under an enlarger is going to be challenging. Two cautionary notes, Pan F is best developed straight away after shooting as the latent image can degrade quickly (this applies to 35mm and 120 also) and I would avoid expired Pan F at all costs, especially in 120.

In conclusion, will I be shooting this film regularly? A resounding YES! I love slower, sharper, fine-grained films. It will probably also give me the added impetus to shoot more Pan F in smaller formats too. In sheet form, I’ll probably try it in other developers: FX-55, 510 Pyro and Beutler are on my list. This film could also work very well for pinhole photography, that’s one to try out. With large format, the main downside of the slow film speed is not really an issue for me, as I’m always using a tripod. Also, if you get into long exposure territory, the reciprocity failure is much better than Foma films, albeit at a higher cost. Overall, an excellent film that I would highly recommend you try, if it’s not sold out!

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For many years now, I have loved the “out of this world” effect that can be achieved with “infrared” (IR) films. Despite having been shooting film for over four decades, I never took the opportunity to try out either Kodak Aerochrome or Ektachrome EIR slide films. Now, I have no desire to sell off any body parts to afford a well expired roll that’s had dubious storage! Also, I’m not really a colour shooter, and I largely stopped using colour slide film, other than an occasional roll of Velvia 50, after the Cibachrome printing process was discontinued. However, monochrome IR film is another story.

My first introduction to black and white IR was when Maco, in Germany, used to produce Aura and IR 820c. Sadly, both are now discontinued themselves. These films had an extended red sensitivity into the near-IR part of the spectrum, up to a wavelength of around 850 nm. Currently available options, which are not strictly full IR films, do not extend as far, but can still create a great IR effect. So what do you need to shoot IR film?

• A camera that has no internal IR sensors; these were often used in automatic loading and advance systems, and these may fog the film! I tend to stick with cameras with manual wind, manual exposure and no autofocus. I’d also be very wary of cameras with film windows too, although a piece of tape can avoid any issues, we’ll come back to that! Some also say to avoid plastic bodied cameras, but I don’t agree with that, as we shall see.

• A camera that can make long exposures, a B (bulb) setting is sufficient.

• Manual focus lenses can be an advantage, as they often have an IR focus mark (usually a red dot to the side of the infinity mark). This is because IR focuses at a different point than visible light. This is not absolutely essential, you can avoid issues by shooting at smaller apertures.

• A camera which filters can be attached to.

• A tripod, your exposures will be long with an R72 filter. Partial infrared effects can be shot handheld with a standard red filter (25A).

• A cable release, or a camera with a self timer, either will do.

• A very deep red, or better still, a 720 nm infrared filter. The Hoya R72 is probably the most common, but Cokin made square IR filters (89B) and Lee make an 87C. For current films, I don’t go beyond a 720 nm filter as you could exceed the film’s spectral sensitivity and get blank frames, or require very, very long exposures! A conventional red (25A) filter will give a partial effect, but use an R72, or equivalent, if you want the full IR look.

• With any type of SLR camera, it’s best to compose, and then fit the filter, as they are very difficult to see through.

• A light meter, either in-camera, external, or on your mobile ‘phone. Bear in mind that you can’t readily measure the IR levels. So you will meter normally for visible light and then manually adjust the exposure settings.

• An IR, or extended red sensitivity film. The most common modern films are Rollei Infrared 400 and Ilford SFX 200. The Rollei extends to 750 nm (according to Rollei’s data sheet, but some say that it goes beyond this) whilst Ilford is slightly shorter at 740 nm. Alternatively, you can try Rollei Retro 400S, Rollei Superpan 200, Rollei Retro 80S, Adox HR-50 and, possibly Fomapan 200, for their extended red responses. Also note that all these films can be shot normally, without red or IR filtration, to give conventional images. My personal preference is Rollei Infrared as it is available in 35mm, 120 and 4”x5” formats (be warned, it has a very thin base!). It can also be used as a reversal film due to its clear PET base (I’ve not tried this!).

• One additional tip - always load and unload your film in subdued light. If you should come across any old Maco films, IR films don’t age well and, with 35mm, you’ll need to keep the cassette in its case and load and unload the camera in a changing bag, or in complete darkness, as the light trap is not IR safe.

If you have all of the above, there are some other factors needed to get the best results:

• A bright, sunny day, they do happen, even in the UK. Results are usually best a few hours either side of midday with sun directly on your subject. Avoid overcast conditions.

• The effects work best with foliage in the scene, especially younger spring and early summer leaves. These will turn almost white in your images, as we’ll see.

• Blue skies, with some white clouds, work really well as the sky can be almost black, leaving the clouds white.

So to prove that just the basics can work, and you don’t need high-end gear for IR, I went out a couple of weeks ago with a roll of Rollei Infrared 400 loaded in my Holga 120N! I have a 3D printed cable release adapter for the camera and have “force fitted” a step up ring to attach a 52mm R72 filter. With IR film, I take even more care than normal with tape on this camera, around the back and over the red window. I set the switch underneath to B, attached the camera to a tripod and went for a walk in my local park, Stanley Park in Blackpool, Lancashire.

As far as metering was concerned, there is certain amount of guesswork with IR. I wouldn’t recommend trying to meter through an R72 filter. I generally take a meter reading of the scene with a camera, handheld meter or phone at the native ISO 400 and then increase the exposure by around 5 or 6 stops. Alternatively, take a reading at ISO 6 or 12 on your meter and use this exposure setting. It’s best to err on the side of overexposure, or you could bracket shots. With the Holga, I metered with my phone at ISO 6 and most of my exposures came out at around 1 second at the sunny aperture (allegedly f11). Because I was using a roll of 120, and a Holga, I didn’t bother with bracketing.

I developed the roll in Rodinal 1+50 for 15 minutes at 20°C. I felt that this was a good compromise as Rodinal’s tendency to show grain can be quite pleasing with IR and the higher dilution gives good acutance as well. A Holga lens needs all the help it can get with sharpness! Rollei gives times for a range of other developers including Rollei developers, ID11/D76, Kodak HC110 and XTOL and more. Anyway, on to some results:

I have shot IR images with a variety of cameras over the years. Here are a couple more taken last year, again in the same local park, but using my Holga 120 WPC wide pinhole camera:

And finally, as a bonus, here are a couple of shots taken with a much higher-end setup, my trusty Hasselblad 501 CM. These were made a couple of years ago in The English Lake District, again with Rollei Infrared 400 and an R72 filter:

If you feel like trying out some “infrared” film, now is the perfect time to give it a go in the northern hemisphere.

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Early last week I decided to make use of a sunny spring day to head a little further afield. It had been some time since I had done a day trip up to The Lake District, despite it being a relatively short drive from home. I wanted a short stroll to shoot something for April’s Frugal Film Project, knowing that I had a longer walk planned for the following day. Separately from my Frugal Film Project camera, my Holga wide pinhole camera, I also loaded up my Holga 120N with a roll of Kentmere 400. I decided to head to the tourist hotspot of Tarn Hows, between Hawkshead and Coniston. As the schools had mostly returned after their Easter holidays, I thought that it could be a bit quieter.

I have to admit to not being the biggest fan of Tarn Hows as it gets overrun during holiday periods and is partly man made. On many older Ordnance Survey maps it was marked as “The Tarns” because it was originally three separate small mountain pools known as Low Tarn, Middle Tarn and High Tarn. For those unfamiliar with the term ‘tarn’, it’s a mountain lake or pool, most commonly used in Cumbria.

In the early 19th century, William Wordsworth mentioned the area, but not the tarns, in his Guide Through the District of the Lakes. However, in 1862, the member of parliament for Leeds acquired the land and started a series of “landscape improvements”, typical of the Victorians, which involved building a dam, which formed the lake as it is seen today, and planting conifers. The land was later sold to the children’s novelist Beatrix Potter and her husband. The National Trust, which still owns the area today, raised some money to purchase it from her and she donated the shortfall anonymously.

For all its faults, its popularity is probably due to it being a small area (approximately 440 acres) which forms a microcosm of the wider Lake District, a picturesque lake surrounded by small hills and views to the higher Coniston fells and the Langdale Pikes. The main path around the perimeter of the lake is around 1.5 to 2 miles long and is now accessible to mobility scooters, although there are many other footpaths too. Tarn Hows is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to some of its rare flora.

I decided on an easy stroll around the lake with my two cameras and tripod (for the pinhole camera). In this post I am just sharing the results from my Holga 120N. I used an orange filter for all the images. The film was later home developed in Thornton HD 2 bath and scanned on my Epson V750 Pro. Anyway, here are all the images that I took, I am sharing every image on the roll:

As I hadn’t quite finished the whole roll at Tarn Hows, I drove down the eastern side of Coniston Water, stopped to eat my packed lunch, and shot these last two “bonus” photos looking towards The Old Man of Coniston:

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First of all, I must say that I’m really grateful to everyone who has subscribed to my Analogue Ramblings. I’m amazed that, after only 5 months, I’ve reached the milestone of 100 subscribers - my sincere thanks to each one of you!

Easter in the UK brings the first public holidays since the New Year and, true to fashion for the UK, the weather was awful. Here on the North West coast, we were treated to Storm Dave, with winds gusting over 70 mph, accompanied by some heavy spells of rain. But all was not lost, a couple of days later, a short spell of high pressure replaced the storm. The gales subsided and temperatures rose to an unseasonably high 20°C (68°F), perfect for a day’s walking. In fact t-shirts were the order of the day, but it only lasted two days!

With the forecast being for sunshine and light, high cloud, I packed some sandwiches and a camera, donned walking boots and decided to head into the Lancashire countryside.

Whilst looking at my camera gear before I left, my trusty Nikon FM2N was empty so I attached a Nikkor 28mm f2.8 AI lens and put my Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AIS lens into my rucksack. But what film should I load? I opted to trust the weather forecast and chose a roll of Rollei Superpan 200. For anyone not familiar with this emulsion, it has its roots in a technical aerial surveillance film (Agfa Aviphot). But this is not just any ISO 200 black and white film, it has other tricks up its sleeve! It is relatively grainy for its speed (depending on your choice of developer), high contrast, sharp but has extended red sensitivity, into the near infrared part of the spectrum, up to around 775nm. I had previously shot this film for The Frugal Film Project and really enjoyed using it. So, on a sunny morning, I decided to go with this film coupled with a standard Hoya 25A red filter.

One thing that I’ve found with near-infrared (and infrared) films is that you have no real indication of the IR levels in your scene. As a rule of thumb, full direct sunlight and fresh green foliage give the best results. Also, bear in mind that your lenses’ distance scales are calibrated for visible light so are not the same for infrared light. Many lenses have an additional red dot or line to indicate the IR focusing point. However, if you using a small enough aperture, you won’t need to worry too much about this. It’s more of an issue if you use a full infrared filter like a Hoya R72 which blocks almost all visible light. I wasn't, because I didn't want to carry a tripod!

I met a friend on the bus and we started our walk near Bay Horse, about 6 miles south of Lancaster. We headed up some narrow country lanes, navigating across the fields, including an airfield, with our goal being the costal path just north of Cockerham. On the headland are the ancient remains of Cockersand Abbey, which has its roots as far back as the Twelfth Century. The only significant building still intact is the small vaulted chapter house, which was built in 1230, and is Grade I listed. The site looks out towards the Irish Sea, the estuary of the River Lune and Plover Scar (or Abbey) Lighthouse, which was built in 1847. This remains an active, but unmanned, lighthouse to guide vessels towards Glasson Dock and Lancaster.

We continued north along the coast, past the abbey and lighthouse, cutting back inland to Glasson Dock and followed the branch of the Lancaster Canal back to Galgate, a total distance of 11.4 miles.

When I got home, I developed the film in 510 Pyro at 1+100 for 14 minutes at 20°C. The negatives were scanned with my Plustek 8200i.

Well, did my combination have the desired effect? Yes, partially. As there was light cloud at times, the best results were when the sun was unobstructed by any cloud; here are some of my images:

The results aren’t as dramatic as full IR where foliage goes white and skies black, but this combination was more of a “halfway house”, visible and IR light together. If you want to try near infrared film photography and can’t find this Rollei film, similar results can be achieved with Ilford SFX, also an ISO 200 film.

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I have been developing my own film for over 4 decades and really enjoy the chemical processes in photography. It also helps that I have a degree in Chemistry too! This has led to me experimenting extensively with different developers, often making up my own from raw chemicals. Mixing my own chemistry allows me to use developers that are not commercially available, or are difficult to obtain, as well as trying out some heritage recipes that many have forgotten.

I hear many people, especially on YouTube, saying that film photography is expensive these days. It may be when you are constantly being told that you need to shoot Portra 400, and are reliant on a lab developing and scanning it for you! However, 95% of what I shoot is black and white, and this can be very cheap as long as you develop and scan it at home. Making up your own developers can reduce this cost significantly. I can make developers that cost me less than £2 per roll to process a film, and some less than £1! I’ll leave the very cheapest one for the future!

The other positive for me, after having spent most of my working life in health, safety and environmental management, is that I can select developers that are safer and more environmentally friendly than some commercial offerings. In recent years I have been trying, although not exclusively, to avoid formulae that use Hydroquinone and Metol, two of the most hazardous ingredients in many developers. Although Pyrogallol is also an ingredient that I personally would not like to handle neat. I buy my 510 Pyro ready mixed where the hazard is diluted.

Over recent months, I have really been enjoying Kentmere 200, in my opinion, the best of the three Kentmere films. Whilst it has visible grain, its contrast is much better than its two stablemates. The only thing is, being a relatively new film, there is a very limited list of development times on the Massive Development Chart. So time to experiment!

I went out into my local park and town and shot a short roll of 35mm in my trusty Nikon FM2N, a camera whose metering rarely lets me down. But which developer to try? I opted to mix up one of the very easiest, Caffenol, a coffee-based developer. There are a number of variants of Caffenol, but I decided on Caffenol C-L, a general purpose formula that works well for stand development and enhances film speed. If you’re interested in a deeper dive into Caffenol, download the Caffenol Cookbook here.

The recipe is relatively simple with ingredients that can be bought easily and cheaply. Although the C-M recipe is the easiest, because it doesn’t contain any Potassium Bromide, I prefer the variants that include it to prevent streaks of “Bromide drag”, especially on 35mm films. Otherwise the components are washing soda (NOT baking soda!), vitamin C and instant coffee (the cheaper the better). Just bear in mind that Caffenol is best mixed fresh, in a batch size for your film, and used straight away because it doesn’t keep. I also recommend fully dissolving each component in turn, before adding the next one, and stirring well. The coffee can take a bit of time to fully dissolve, make sure it is fully dispersed before using. Also if you have any doubts about your mains water quality, deionised water can be used; I don’t bother here in the UK. The recipe that I used was:

Washing Soda 16g per litre

Vitamin C 10g per litre

Potassium Bromide 1g per litre

Instant Coffee 40g per litre

I prefer weighing the ingredients, but there options to use spoon measures.

I have calculated that for 500ml, enough to develop two 35mm rolls or a roll of 120, this developer costs me a mere £1.65! Be warned though, the final mix has a unique aroma!

I follow the recommendations in The Caffenol Cookbook of prewashing the film, five minutes at 20C is sufficient. I then added the developer, also at 20C, agitated gently 10 times, tapped the tank to dislodge any air bubbles, and then left it to stand for 70 minutes. I use a thorough water stop, I would recommend two changes of water with Caffenol, and fix as normal. I use an alkaline fixer but any fixer will do.

Anyway, what were the images like? I scanned these on my Plustek 8200i 35mm scanner and made a few minor tweaks in Lightroom:

Overall, I am really pleased with these results, although it will never be my main developer. The grain, whilst visible, is well controlled and the sharpness is good. Most of the images appear to have good shadow details and not excessively blown out highlights, other than in the extremes of sunlit waves. Caffenol is an easy, cheap and fun developer to play with and I highly recommend it.

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In my part of North West England, we are starting to see a few tentative signs of spring weather, especially over the past couple of weeks; at long last! So early last week I decided that it was time for a day out slightly farther afield. Not only did I need a change of scenery, my car was in need of a good run. Until finishing work full-time last October, I used to drive around 200 motorway miles a week, but this has now dropped dramatically. This is great for me, as I’m doing much more walking, but not so good for a diesel engined car.

The forecast for the day was pretty much unbroken sunshine and so I thought that a run into West Yorkshire would make a nice change of scenery, even for a Lancastrian! My default day trips have usually tended to be to The Lake District, the “easy option” from where I live.

I thought that I’d head out to the historic Bolton Abbey, close to Skipton, on the western edge of The Yorkshire Dales. The estate is the Yorkshire home of the Devonshire family and comprises the 12th century Priory Church and a ruined Augustinian abbey, famously painted by J M W Turner in 1809. The area has around 30,000 acres of moorland, woodland and farmland, with many walking routes available. At the heart of the estate, there is a seven mile stretch of the River Wharfe, including some stepping stones and a cascade, known as The Strid, where the river creates a narrow torrent as it passes between harder rocks on either side.

That morning, I made up my mind to go out with just my two Holgas, a 120N (with a plastic lens) and a 120 WPC (wide pinhole). The former was loaded with Ilford HP5 Plus, and the 6x6 mask, and the other with Kentmere 200, and then Ilford FP4 Plus, with the 6x9 mask. All films were home developed and scanned. For those who like technical details, the HP5 was developed in 510 Pyro, the Kentmere in Rodinal (1+100, one hour semi-stand) and the FP4 in Ornano Gradual ST 20.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite images from the day:

Holga 120N

Holga 120 WPC

I hope you like the images, please let me know which are your favourites.

I really enjoy the refreshing simplicity of using Holga cameras, the results are full of character, and sometimes unpredictably quirky, like the one with the sun flare. There will certainly be more Holga and pinhole images to come in the future!

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A favourite local walk of mine is along Lancashire’s River Wyre, from a few miles inland towards its estuary. It’s a path that I’ve walked many, many times, over the years, since I was in my teens. It starts close to Poulton-le-Fylde at Skippool Creek. The creek has many pleasure craft, some disused and decaying, and a host of homemade moorings, again in various states of repair. As such, it offers a wide array of interesting subjects for photography and I have many negatives made there.

The creek has a long history, thought to have been a port dating back to the Middle Ages, but falling into disuse after Fleetwood’s port opened in the 1840’s.

The images in this post were all from one roll of film, taken during a rare day of dry weather in the last week of February. My walk took me from the creek, following the river west, as far as the path goes, almost to Fleetwood. I then cut across the disused railway line and a couple of roads, ending up at the beach at Rossall, between Fleetwood and Cleveleys, a distance of around 8½ miles.

I took these images for my February submission to The Frugal Film Project. The camera was my Olympus OM1N with its 50mm f1.8 F Zuiko silver nose lens that I bought cheap last year in a local auction, and the film was the amazing Kentmere 200.

On this occasion, I tried to concentrate on closer compositions instead of the wider landscape. There are lots of quirky things to photograph along this path.

The film was developed in Kodak HC110 dilution B, but the negatives came out slightly denser than I would have liked. However they were fine for scanning with my Plustek 8200i 35mm scanner, not sure about printing in the darkroom though. Anyway, here’s a selection of the images that I took:

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The weather in North West England has been consistently dull, wet and cold since the start of the new year. This has made getting out for some photography very challenging. However, we had one day earlier this week when the wind dropped and a large, unfamiliar yellow ball appeared in the sky! So I had to grab the chance and make the most of the opportunity to go out for a walk and some photography.

Despite the weather being good, I had the problem of deciding where to go, because it is the schools’ half-term holiday week. I needed to go somewhere where the crowds don’t, somewhere a bit off the beaten track. After perusing my maps, I opted for a lesser known nature reserve in Lancashire, Gait Barrows, located between the villages of Beetham and Silverdale in North Lancashire.

This National Nature Reserve is one the UK’s most important limestone landscapes, also includes peatland and one of Lancashire’s very few truly natural lakes, Hawes Water, not to be confused with the one of the same name in The Lake District. Most of the other lakes around the county are reservoirs. This area is home to a wide variety of plants, birds and insects, depending on the season. However my main focus was the to photograph the limestone pavements.

If you’re not familiar with limestone pavements, they are areas of exposed, flat expanses of limestone eroded by glacial action and slowly dissolved over millions of years. The flat slabs of rock are scored with deep fissures (known as ‘grykes’). These can be up to 6 metres deep, although most are 1 to 2 metres. Shallow erosion pans and pock marks are also found on the intervening blocks (‘clints’). The rock surface supports little vegetation but ferns and other plants, typical of rocky habitats or woodlands, flourish in the damp grykes. In the case of this reserve, there are ferns and dwarf, stunted Yew bushes.

As a Lancastrian, I hate to admit that these limestone pavements don’t come close to being as spectacular as many of those in Yorkshire! Probably some of the best known, and most popular, are those above Malham Cove in the Yorkshire Dales. However, back to Lancashire and Gait Barrows.

I went out armed with just one camera, my Hasselblad 501CM and vintage 1970’s Zeiss 50mm f4 C T* Distagon, equivalent to about 28mm in full frame 35mm terms. It is amazingly sharp for a lens that’s over 50 years old (although it is a German made Zeiss). I have owned the camera for around 25 years, it’s a joy to use, bulletproof and has probably the best shutter sound ever (IMHO)! I loaded a magazine with Kentmere 200, a film that I am really enjoying shooting, especially in 120, and I highly recommend it. I exposed the film, as I most often do, at box speed. Because of the sun on the limestone, all my meter readings were taken as incident readings. I developed the film in Zone Imaging’s 510 Pyro at 1+100 for 7½ minutes at 20°C. The scans needed no ‘curves’ contrast adjustment, as this film is inherantly quite punchy. Anyway, enough of the technical details, here are my images:

I hope that you like the images.

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As a photographer, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of always wanting to seek out new places to take photographs, or to head off to “honeypot” locations. We think that this search will yield “better” images (or more likes!). The big problem with the popular, recognisable places is that many have been “photographed to death” and it can be very difficult to create something truly unique. You are working in the same footprints as thousands of other photographers. However, in this desire, we are often tempted to ignore what’s on our own doorstep in favour of these areas. In fact, for me it would be very easy, and is very tempting, to get in the car and drive for around an hour to The Lake District, where honeypot locations abound.

Over the past four months, I have taken to repeating a walk along the Lancashire coast between Fleetwood and Cleveleys every two weeks or so. It is a walk of just under 6 miles, and there’s plenty of options for food and a pint in Cleveleys at the end! This walk also has the advantage of being well away from the promenade of central Blackpool, a few miles to the south, which can get packed with tourists from spring until autumn. This route is also is very good because, whilst it follows the edge of the beach, the nearest roads are mostly a little distance away. This means that the path is mostly only used by walkers, dog walkers and cyclists, and therefore is a bit quieter.

But can I create sufficiently different images when I walk this route fairly regularly? This answer is yes, but it can be a challenge, however there are lots of things that I can do to vary my outcomes:

• Use different film stocks - even though 95% of my photography is with black and white film, each one has its own character, which of course can be varied significantly by the choice of developer, dilution, and also whether it is “pushed” or “pulled” in development.

• Walk at different times of the day, or in different weather conditions. The prevailing westerly winds here can give us rapidly changing lighting and dramatic clouds. Sunsets can be stunning too on this coast.

• Use filters with black and white film. I rarely shoot monochrome without at least a yellow filter. But you can ramp up the drama with orange or red filters. If you’re really brave, try a red filter and polariser together!

• Do the walk in different tidal conditions - high tides can give dramatic waves, or sometimes the sea can be calm as a mill pond. Incoming or outgoing tides lend themselves to long exposures. I have been known to fit a Lee Big Stopper filter (10 stop neutral density) to my Holga before now! Low tides reveal opportunities for beach details such as breakwaters, shells, pebbles, sand patterns and material deposited by the tides.

• Try different cameras, or different film formats, which can change the depth of field and aspect ratio. Medium format will generally give a shallower depth of field than 35mm. Note to self - try this walk with large format!

• Take just one camera and one lens, ideally a fixed focal length rather than a zoom, to narrow down your options. You’ll get very different compositions with a 28mm lens than with a 90mm or longer.

• Try some close up photography; beaches at low tide are ideal for this. You don’t need an expensive macro lens, extension tubes or close up lenses can be a cheap entry point. You could also just work at the closest focus distance of one of your existing lenses.

• Ignore the wider view and focus on just details, textures, shapes and shadows; these can work particularly well in monochrome.

• Use a lo-fi camera. Don’t get hung up with technology and automation. Many of my cameras don’t even have built in light meters. I regularly go out with just my Holga 120N or a pinhole camera using ‘phone apps to meter.

So if I vary my time, technique, materials and equipment as I’ve outlined, there could be thousands of different images yet to be had, all on this same short walk.

The images below were taken on this very walk last week when I did go out with just my Holga 120N. The camera was “force fitted” with a yellow filter and the film was Ilford HP5 Plus, developed in HC110 (B). Due to the weather conditions, I rated the film at EI 800 in development. All images were from the same one roll of film.

I hope that you have enjoyed my images and find the tips useful.

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Throughout 2025, I had been shooting my Holga 120 WPC (wide pinhole camera), mainly using the 6x9 mask, for The Frugal Film Project. This option gives me a negative that I can print in the darkroom, if needed. It also produces less vignetting than the 6x12 mask. I was really pleased with the results using Ilford FP4 Plus over the year.

This year I decided to continue with the same camera but using a different film. I had some expired Ilford Ortho Plus (expired in 2022) so I thought that I’d give that a go. I have generally found that expired black and white film is often fine; it just loses a bit of speed and contrast. Generally slow films are much less of a problem when expired than faster ones. In fact, I have successfully shot some Adox KB14 that expired in 1965 with surprisingly good results. What could go wrong when Ortho Plus is only 80 ISO? Well, it was a complete disaster! I got the “Ilford measles”. I have seen this once before, around 4 years ago, with Pan F in 120 and it is caused by the backing paper. Ilford stated a few years ago in a press release:

“The effect refers to a rare, mottled, or spotted,, appearance on developed 120 roll film, primarily affecting emulsions like Pan F+ and FP4+ between 2018-2020. The issue of spots / mottle on 120 film negatives is still rare and has primarily, but not exclusively, been seen in our slower speed films such as PAN F and FP4.”

My rolls of Ortho Plus were manufactured during this time and here is an example of the result (note that this was processed using a brand new, unopened bottle of developer):

Anyway, not to be deterred, I also had some fresh Ortho Plus and decided to give this a try in the same camera. These were taken during a walk along the beach in Blackpool, between the North and South piers. I also included Blackpool Tower as it is the town’s most iconic landmark. Here are the much improved results with fresh film (developed in 510 Pyro)

I have now checked my film stash and the only other roll that dated from the same era has been disposed of. Although a few Frugal Film Project members quite liked the effect! Many thanks for reading.

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Earlier in the week I had arranged to go walking with a friend. We had decided to walk a stretch of The Lancaster Canal. The canal has connected Preston, in Lancashire, and Kendal, now in Cumbria, since 1819, although it is now not all navigable since the M6 motorway severed it in three places on its northern section. It now has 42 miles that can be used by boats and is largely flat and devoid of locks. We planned to walk from Catterall, between Preston and the small market town of Garstang, northwards to just beyond the village of Scorton where lunch beckoned at a garden centre cafe!

The weather forecast was mixed, it was due to stay dry but with intermittent sunny spells, and clouding over later. There was also a brisk southerly wind. I was unsure whether it would be a good day for photography, so I decided to travel very light. I definitely didn’t want to carry a tripod on a walk that ended up being almost 11 miles long. But what camera and film combination should I take?

In the end, I decided that my Holga 120N had not seen much use in recent months. Its single shutter speed and two “apertures” can make it very limiting during winter in the UK. But I had a few 120 rolls of Ilford Delta 3200, a film that I rarely shoot, but which can be useful at this time of year. Also I’ve had some good results from this emulsion, but only in 120. I NEVER shoot it in 35mm - it’s way too grainy for me!

With black and white films, I rarely shoot without a coloured filter. I have “force fitted” a 46 to 52mm step up ring to my Holga so that I can use common sized filters. As well as improving detail in the skies, carrying yellow, orange and red filters with a Holga also be a good way of controlling exposure (I suppose that I could also use neutral density filters). Before leaving, I took a light meter reading and calculated that I should be OK exposing with an orange filter at either ISO 1600 or 3200, so this is what I used for the walk. So off I set, Holga taped up to stop the back falling off, inadvertent switching to B, and also covering the red window to prevent light leaks.

On returning home I decided to develop the film in Kodak New HC110 using dilution A to lessen the grain. As the light varied during the day, I chose a time between those recommended for 1600 and 3200 and went for 6 minutes 30 seconds at 20°C. The negatives looked promising, it turned out to be a good compromise. I scanned the film on my Epson V750 Pro. I don’t particularly go in for much editing with black and white film. I did a little spotting, contrast adjustment, sharpening and increased the vignetting in Lightroom. Anyway, here are the results, I hope that you enjoy them:

Overall, I am pleased with the results, yes there is pronounced grain but I don’t find it too unpleasant, they were taken with a Holga after all!

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