Austerby
Well-known
I needed to get out of the house today after a completely washed out Saturday so went out for a bike ride, taking my M3 with the 1.5/50 CZ c-Sonnar and 90/2.8 thin tele-elmarit. I was going to use HP5+ but at the last minute decided to be radical and loaded Adox CHS50 - a slow film for a grey London day but in practice I was getting combinations such as 1/30 at f4 easily and sometimes better so it worked out fine.
I went nowhere special, just along the Thames in Greenwich, shot my 38 exposures on whatever was there, came home and after a nice cup of tea developed the film. I have some made up Microphen knocking around so decided to continue the radical theme and see what happened - certainly not an obvious combination to match a slow, old-style film with a speed-enhancing developer. I've used Rodinal and Neofin Blue in the past with this film and liked the results a lot.
It wasn't a day or place to capture memorable images, but I am very pleased with the way some of them turned out, and the film and developer combination is much better than I was expecting: nicely controlled tones and smooth, fine grain. It was a very satisfying day, to use the camera and try out the film - a couple of the better ones attached.
Incidentally, amongst the other visitors to Greenwich today I saw at least one other Rangefinder user (could have been a Fed I think) and a couple with 35mm SLRs - who says film is dead!
It was good to use the M3 with the 50mm and 90mm lenses - as I use this camera more often (I have an M2 and others aswell) I appreciate it more and more and in many ways it is my favourite M.
I can now go to bed feeling I've had a good weekend and achieved something - that's the reason I value my photography: it enhances my life.
I went nowhere special, just along the Thames in Greenwich, shot my 38 exposures on whatever was there, came home and after a nice cup of tea developed the film. I have some made up Microphen knocking around so decided to continue the radical theme and see what happened - certainly not an obvious combination to match a slow, old-style film with a speed-enhancing developer. I've used Rodinal and Neofin Blue in the past with this film and liked the results a lot.
It wasn't a day or place to capture memorable images, but I am very pleased with the way some of them turned out, and the film and developer combination is much better than I was expecting: nicely controlled tones and smooth, fine grain. It was a very satisfying day, to use the camera and try out the film - a couple of the better ones attached.
Incidentally, amongst the other visitors to Greenwich today I saw at least one other Rangefinder user (could have been a Fed I think) and a couple with 35mm SLRs - who says film is dead!
It was good to use the M3 with the 50mm and 90mm lenses - as I use this camera more often (I have an M2 and others aswell) I appreciate it more and more and in many ways it is my favourite M.
I can now go to bed feeling I've had a good weekend and achieved something - that's the reason I value my photography: it enhances my life.
