The Pictures of Mike Rotch (now with added development)

[Mike Rotch]

Ricoh 500 - Ilford Pan 400​

 

[Mike Rotch]

I found some time to look through the few pics I took a few weeks back with the Nex + Industar-61 which I got for $20 odd bucks off ebay. Not a fan atm of long lenses, which 55mm on ASPC is to me, but pleasantly surprised atwhat I regard as clarity and general rendering.

Industar-61D 55/2.8​

 

[Mike Rotch]

So I developed my first roll this morning; pretty smooth from a mechanics perspective. Didn't add enough wetting agent so had some dry spots, but on non-keepers anyway.

I scanned the negs this afternoon and wow, totally different look to what the LCS was giving me, and for the better 👍. What it has hammered home is that two things will be important from here on in:
1) Consistency - my agitation was not consistent and I think this has created some variability in image grain
2) Exposure, exposure, exposure! In this roll, some were correctly or over exposed and came out nicely contrasted, other look slightly underexposed and thus a bit flat overall.

I'm still picking apart why some images look like I want, whilst others don't. It's all down to 1 & 2. Anyway, I'll throw some up that I am responding to, even if they may be over/ under in some way.

Bessa R and Voigtlander 35mm SC - Ilford Pan 400​

 

[Shaun]

Looking at that pic on my monitor the guys shirt is super white, much more so than most of the previous pics.
Would be interesting to see how it looks in print.

 

[Azuremen]

Looks like you've got a super great example of how film kind of sucks for skin tones that aren't white. Don't forget you can overexposure film and save it in development/printing, which is kind of the opposite of digital where you can recover shadows heavily.

 

[Mike Rotch]

Don't forget you can overexposure film and save it in development/printing, which is kind of the opposite of digital where you can recover shadows heavily.

Old habit's die hard. Now that I can turnaround my film quickly and not rely on a store, I think I'll be staying away from digital for a while to get out of the habits it's ingrained.

Bessa R and Voigtlander 35mm SC - Ilford Pan 400​

 

[nobuffalo]

Congrats on developing! I only have one thing to add, are you scanning these in color? Your two most recent images appear to have some kind of moire or color fringing going on, most noticeable in the last photo on the wall on the left and the windows on the right. Simply converting the colorspace or mode or whatever to greyscale should solve the problem.

 

[Mike Rotch]

Congrats on developing! I only have one thing to add, are you scanning these in color?

Thanks

Hmm, interesting (may be down to my untrained eye, but I can't see what you are referring to ). The scanner setting is at B&W and 2400dpi /16 bit. I'll do some reading on it 👍

 

[nobuffalo]

It may be something to do with gtp and viewing from my phone because when I view the photo in flickr it's not there, so never mind! 👍

 

[35mm]

@Mike Rotch: Congratulations, mate. Not only for going this route, but also for the results. 👍

I'm definitely jealous.

 

[F1GTR]

Yeah, when you're in doubt it's best to just overexpose. I do that a lot when I'm working with flash off camera and on a cord. If a 'correct' exposure would be my flash at 1/128th power and aperture at 5.6, I'd bump up the flash to 1/32 and zoom it out a little so I get more coverage. You get a surprising amount of leeway with negative film.

 

[Mike Rotch]

Thanks @35mm 👍

@F1GTR 👍 Yea, that I what I am trying to do for sure. I am probably taking a bit of the hard road on this one, learning not only film, but also manual exposure and manual focusing all together - in a genre where things are unpredictable. My eye for light is improving, but the city is prone to extremes of open shade and bright sun all over the place so its taking some time to get out of old habits and to purposefully overexposure if in doubt.

If addition to treating sunny 16 as sunny 11 which I did for this roll and one before (which is still at the LCS after 2 weeks ), I'm probably going to rate my film a stop slower as a start too.

 

[Mike Rotch]

This is from the last roll from the LCS - no idea what they did, some if the frames look toned, some are thin. Wasn't a great roll anyway, but last I will be seeing of them for a while anyway.

Ricoh 500 - Ilford Pan 400​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Ricoh 500 - Ilford Pan 400 ​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Bessa R & 35mm CS - Ilford Pan 400​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Ricoh 500 - Ilford Pan 400 ​

 

[Mike Rotch]

I'm still trying to find my style and look with film, but I am getting there, slowly. This was Pan 400 pushed to 800.

Bessa R - Ilford Pan 400​

 

[Mike Rotch]

So, my somewhat rare '57 Taiyodo Koki Cantor Beauty arrived recently. Such a beautiful camera - dimensions are perfect. It shares the same shutter as my '59 Ricoh but is somehow even quieter.

It's in great nick, but, the focusing helicoid is pretty stiff an the rangefinder viewfinder is very dim. I did the old "black sharpie" trick to try brighten the patch. Before I take it apart, I'll put a roll through it and zone focus. I believe the viewfinder was one of, if not the first Japanese rangefinders to have brightlines 👍. It's no bigger than a Nex but weights 700g odd .

​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Bessa R - Ilford Pan 400​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Industar-69 28mm​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Fujian 35mm​

 

[Mike Rotch]

First attempt at pushing by a stop. Next roll I want to try stand developing and see what look it had.

Bessa R - Ilford Pan 400
​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Industar-69 28mm​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Yeah! I set myself a 2015 goal of completing the year with a self published book of my favourite images from the year and it's done .

I used blurb, with a discount coupon their price is acceptable and their editing package is pretty easy to use.

 

[Mike Rotch]

Ricoh 500 - Ilford Pan 400​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Jupiter-8 50mm - Fomapan 400​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Finally got around to developing the roll I put through the Beauty Cantor from the last page - not bad, some decent contrast but I messed up the fixing agitation a bit so some borderling underexposed negs were lost. Lessons!

Beauty Cantor 45mm​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Fujian 35mm f1.7​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Jupiter-8 50mm - Fomapan 400​

 

[Mike Rotch]

Jupiter-8 50mm - Ilford Pan 400​