Introduction
First cameras and lenses
Enlarger
Digital photography
Back to film
Leicas
Onwards
The look I'm after
Printing
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Introduction
I'm not going to propose that there is anything more important in photography than the image itself. By this I mean that whilst this page is about equipment and techniques they are secondary to the image, however it was produced. Neither am I going to extol film over digital or vice versa. Just today I've been looking through prints for examples to put in here that exhibit the difference between, say Zuiko and Leitz lenses, or between digital capture and film, or between FP4 and Tri-X, and, in spite of previously making much of trying to get a certain "look" to my images by using particular lenses, I came to the conclusion through writing this piece that it doesn't matter as much as I thought. There are differences, of course, but if I like an image it's not because I took it with a certain combination of equipment.
However, equipment plays a part in how successful one is in realising a photograph. One learns to trust how equipment will behave and what it will do. One also becomes attached to cameras in much the same way that one becomes attached to a car or a boat or a house; the hardware comes to have associations - places, times, people - and I enjoy using my film cameras for this reason as well as for reasons more to do with the resultant image.
Finally, the observations below are exclusively with reference to black and white work. I do take colour pictures, but not often. I take pictures of colours all the time; just in black and white!
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First cameras and lenses
I have been taking photographs since the late 70's. A Zenit SLR + 50mm standard lens at the beginning which miraculously, one day, turned into an Olympus OM1n - I still don't quite know how that happened but it did and my OM1 and I have been inseparable ever since. If you haven't taken photographs with an OM1 you won't be aware of the, as far as I'm aware, unique experience this affords; the viewfinder is so bright and open and wide and clear that the images simply help themselves onto the film. Whilst the body affects the experience of taking a photograph, the lens is, of course, the important factor and, whilst I'm aware that the Zuiko lenses are not necessarily the best there are, they are certainly good enough for me. Quite a lot of nonsense is talked about lenses in any case in my opinion; comparisons can be made, certainly, between lenses, but unless one is talking about the ability of a lens to be basically sharp, the remaining differences are more about one's preferences for the look of the images on many levels rather than about any more defined empirical standards.
My OM1 was bought with a Zuiko 50mm f1.8 standard lens (which is a really great lens) and, as funds allowed, I added a Zuiko 135mm f3.5 telephoto and a Vivitar 28mm f2.8 wide-angle lens, and this kept me going for about 25 years. Just recently, in this, my film renaissance, I bought a Zuiko f2.8 28mm lens because I now could, and sold the Vivitar, but I think the Vivitar gave a particularly likeable low-contrast open-to-all-comers look to the images... and I now regret having got rid of it. Many of the photos from times past that I like I realise were taken with the Vivitar.
I used Ilford films and developers (more or less exclusively FP4
with ID11, though with some HP5/Perceptol) and bought Ansel Adams'
book "The Negative" which saw me alright. What a book! Zones; there's the thing! I bought an OM2 Spot which allowed me to expose more accurately - almost guaranteeing the prints that I wanted at the time I made the exposure. My heart says OM1 with all its non-electronic simplicity, but my head says "Use the spot meter."
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EnlargerI printed using a wonderful Gamer enlarger.
Gamer are, or more probably, were an engineering company from somewhere in Somerset. Kay and I went over there one day to buy the enlarger, and it was a proper works! Smoke and steam and hot metal being cast and forged. My enlarger was really made. I believe they bought in the glass, but the rest of it was made on site, including all the threaded nuts and bolts and fiddly bits... I recently took it all apart to clean it and was impressed to the point of sadness to see all these skills manifested. Big engineering on a micro scale; little slidey bits and close-fitting knurled knobs - all made by a bloke with oily overalls and pickle sandwiches. There are even little oil-holes on the moving parts, just like on old bicycles. It's great. But I haven't used it for years...
I used a Nikkor f4 lens on the enlarger - there may be better ones but it worked fine for me. I stopped it down a bit and never doubted it.
I gave up on black and white when we moved from Weymouth up to Sussex. Space, children, proper job all sent me towards Kodak Gold and sending films away, and we've lots of good films. I must look some images up and put them in somewhere.
I don't use an enlarger at the moment as I scan negatives on a lowly Epson flatbed scanner and my darkroom is my computer running Photoshop. Does this feel like cheating? Yes. Does it matter much? I don't think so.
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Digital Photography
I
never really stopped taking film, but was an early adopter of
digital - for snaps to start with. An Olympus Camedia (producing a
whopping 640
x 480 pixel image); then a Canon G2 which died; a G6 which was stolen
and which wasn't as good as the G2; a Canon 350D which I didn't
like and which went back, a Fuji F10 which still works and does quite a
good
job, a Fuji F50fd which isn't as good as the F10; and finally a Nikon
D80 with a great Sigma lens which is currently my way of taking digital
photos. If I take them. What a lot of cameras... Is that significant? I
had one film system for almost 30 years, and 8 digital cameras in
10. Mmm...
Although I have now lost a bit of interest in digital I have to thank the D80/Sigma (right) for getting me back into more serious photography. I went for a Nikon in spite of going into the shop with lots of money asking for a Canon 30D and an L series lens. The D80 body was more solid than the Canon and had a much nicer viewfinder. Plus; it wasn't made by Canon who upset me when they wanted so much to even look at my G2. Also, whilst I was in the shop three people came in asking if their Canon's had "come back yet." I asked the salesman about this. He didn't say anything but handed me the D80 and said that they'd never had to send one of these away! The Sigma lens (DC Series 18-50mm f2.8 EX Macro) was more solid and had better resolution than the supplied Nikkor.
I went off to France and came back with lots of nice pictures on the memory card which I worked on in Photoshop and took to a reputable photography shop for printing through their mini-lab machine. The prints were awful - really bad. I took them all back and the person in the shop "couldn't see the problem". By the time I left they could see the shortcomings of their processor and I got another complete set of prints which were no better. So I had to get a printer and get this important stage back under my control. At the time HP and Epson were at last beginning to address off-the-peg black and white (as opposed to converting a colour printer to us after-market inksets for black and white output) so it was a good time for me to buy into quality printing. I bought an Epson Photo R2400 and have nothing bad to say about it.
But, whilst it was the convenience and developing excellence of digital photography and "affordable" quality inkjet printing that re-kindled my interest in photography, I became aware of something missing when I tried to produce satisfying black and white images.
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Back to Film
I am a great admirer of the photographs of both James Ravilious and Chris Chapman. Different, but both working in Devon, and both looking at lives and livelihoods on their way out. The subjects and the qualities of the photographs inspired me very much indeed. They still do.
I realised that years ago I had, almost inadvertently, bought a flat-bed scanner that worked as a film scanner, an Epson 2450, and before I knew it I was scanning old negatives, and then had to try some new negatives as well!
I began to sneak the OM2 back into the bag.
At first I was a bit disappointed with the results from film. I wanted the film-photographs to be good because I enjoyed using the film cameras and developing the films so much. I can now see that this initial disappointment was because I had become a bit fixated with issues such as resolution as seen on a computer-screen rather than actually looking at prints. I realised two things; firstly that I was enjoying using the OM's and developing film a lot more than I was when using the D80 so why not go with that? Secondly, that when I was looking at a print there were qualities other than absolute detail that were important. Stupid, really, that I didn't allow these kinds of thoughts to enter my head earlier, but I never said I wasn't stupid.
I looked at the tones, at the fact that the 35mm film-derived images I enjoyed so much in books were only blown up to the equivalent of A4 at the most, and just A5 more often than not, so what did ultimate pixel integrity matter? I thought about the overall feel of the prints rather than looking at them too closely and am happy with the film images I now take.
I'm still not printing with an enlarger; just scanning and ink-jetting. I use the D80 when appropriate, but have stopped bothering to take it out when I go for speculative wanderings.
I currently use Tri-X and HP5 rated at 200asa which I then under-develop in dilute HC-110 and Perceptol respectively. I also like FP4 which I rate at 80asa and develop in HC-110 dilution B for 5m20s with one inversion every 30s and which I leave alone from 4m30s onwards to allow a bit of compensation to occur. This FP4 regime works well for me, but the Tri-X and HP5 are still a bit of a work in progress. It all works, of course, and I'm only adjusting small parameters, but I would like to understand what's going on with these combinations more fully.
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Leicas
The... open... and soft-but-detailed... quality of James Ravilious' work appeals to me greatly and he gravitated towards early, uncoated, Leitz lenses in order to help to achieve this look. The old Leitz Elmars and Hektors were made before lens-coating became prevalent and they pass light in a particularly low-contrast way, whilst still retaining pretty high resolution. It's difficult to explain this, I find, as in many ways the resultant qualities sound less appealing than they should. Full of thoughts about Ravilious' work I one day realised that I had one of these lenses, a 50mm f3.5 Elmar, permanently attached to the front of a Leica 1 that was my Stepfather's.
A great old camera, pre-war, which was/is a bit of a fiddle to use, and which also had a captive lens so I was stuck with a 50mm perspective. But what a treat! For the first time I bought some non-Ilford black and white film in order to experiment along the lines of the process I thought Ravilious used; a film rated at 400asa, exposed at 200asa and under-developed in order to allow the shadow-tones to become a little more lifted in the image. I bought Kodak Tri-X and HC-110 (though have since found that Ravilious favoured Perceptol with his Tri-X); and, sure enough, the Leitz Elmar was different to the Zuikos, in much the same way that James Ravilious' and Chris Chapman's images also differed. I'm not for a moment comparing myself to these two, but the same qualities of image were apparent.
Bitten,
I wanted to get a wider-angle lens, and to do this I would have to get
a different body. If I wanted to get another uncoated Leitz lens and, if I
wanted wide-angle, it had to be an Elmar 35mm or Hektor 28mm, and the
Hektor was only f6.3 at its widest. So; I hunted down an Elmar 35mm
f3.5. I also needed a body and bought a Leica M2. I researched Ravilious' methods a bit more, and began to experiment, altering small elements of technique in order to home in on a process that gives me the look I like.
I was managing to produce images I liked, but the sharpness and vignetting of the Elmar was poor when used wider than about f6.3. This imposed obvious limitations and also, when using a hood on the lens to allow more control when shooting towards the light, I had to keep taking the hood on and off to alter the aperture, the lever for which is mounted on the front of the lens. I decided, therefore, to move up an era in Leitz terms, and bought an f2.8 Summaron (what weird names!) which was contemporary with my camera body and which is, I have to say, quite the best lens I have ever used and I can't imagine ever needing another.
With films rated at 200 asa I am able to work in the area of aperture at which the lens is at its best, and its best is, in my opinion, extraordinary. Despite the Summaron being coated the images it produces are not over-contrasty and modern-looking; there is still a vintage feel to photographs taken with the Summaron, and the negatives can be blown up to A3+ without catastrophic loss of defintion.
A final equipment note; I dropped my Weston IV meter in a puddle and even though, when dried, it operated, it was not accurate, so I splashed out on the above Gossen meter. I wish I'd done this years before as the consistency it gives is invaluable, particularly in low light. Also I managed to find a very light yellow filter which just allows leafy greens a little lift which brings vegetation up in an image to an appropriate and accurate level. And that's it. From here on it's up to me.
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Onwards
I'm learning about developing all over again, and about different film/developer combinations. I belong to a group on the net which is chock full of helpful people from all over the World. What a good resource.
I was, until very recently, still "only" using the Epson flat-bed scanner, with its lowly 2400dpi max resolution, but it worked for me for a long time and still allows me to work with negatives from a Yashica Mat 120 rollfilm camera.
The images from the Yashica are superb, and are, again, different in feel to those from either of the other two systems I use (OM/Zuiko and Leica/Elmar). I do take it out, but it's a big-pocket day when I do!
Very recently, however, I stumped up for a Nikon Coolscan 5000 35mm film scanner. A lot of money, but I have to say that it is wonderful. I'm still learning to get the best out of it, and find that, largely, it's a matter of leaving it alone to get on with things. I have just adopted a process that I like to think mimics the wet darkroom in that I only allow myself to work on exposure and contrast in the digital domain, and not to fiddle curves and other parameters that wouldn't have been so available to little old me in a darkroom. In this way the characterisitcs of the negs are revealed more tellingly and I hope it will allow me to continue to get better at the actual photography and not just better at manipulating negs of varying quality.
I do worry about scanning and using Photoshop as opposed to working in a wet darkroom. However, it works for me, and I can do things with Photoshop that I never could dream of doing under the beam from an enlarger; making use of being able to be a super dodger/burner. Dust-spotting and getting rid of the odd scratch are also perfectly achieved every time, although I never worried about dust when I couldn't get rid of it...
Yes, compared to getting as good as this with an enlarger, scanning is cheating, but it's a tool, the same as cameras and film are nothing more than a tool. I am aware that I would probably prefer the look of a print produced in a wet darkroom, but my scanners don't do a bad job and the walls are covered in photos that I like.
If asked about film v digital I don't have much to say any more, but I know what I enjoy and I know my sense of satisfaction and pride in the results are greater with film (and would be greater if the prints were made in a wet darkroom...). I have several film-camera options, and will use them all, but mainly I shall take out the M2 and Elmar 35mm in order to try and home in on the look I want.
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The look I'm after
This look thing is quite difficult to pin down.
I'll start with some examples;
This is, in my opinion, the classic Zuiko look. In this case epitomised by an overall crispness and contrast in the stones. This was taken with the 135mm f3.5, wide open and hand-held at 15th!
Incidentally the out-of-focus background is much harder to achieve using my D80; the area of the sensor is less than that of 35mm film and the depth of focus is generally shallower. Had the graveyard in the background had to be sharp I wouldn't have taken the picture.
More Zuiko rocks. A nice photo, but I have come to find this "bite" a bit relentless and not exactly what I see when I took the photo.
Enter the Elmar;
Still highly resolved, but less stark. Even backlit with a rare outbreak of sunlight the wall in shadow has a bit of warmth and life going on.
Whilst making comparasons like this is instructive, I think it is only when one produces a whole body of images, many rolls taken in many different situations, that the character of lenses, and the sympathy one feels with the image as one is taking it, emerges. It's about confidence of seeing the image as a print before one even makes the exposure, and I began to find that with the Zuikos what I photographed wasn't appearing in the print.
"Soft" isn't really the right word as it implies lack of resolution, but the impression is nonetheless one of softness. It is softness of tone that best describes it, and which is behind me feeling relaxed and all creative when "seeing" an image in the wild and ultimately getting it down on paper.
My Skye favourite I think. It goes black and it goes white, but not souped-up Zuiko-style. It flows about the paper when printed.
More examples of the look; This one of Lindsey and George in the churhyard; a pastel feel.
Gloucester Cathedral. Were I to have taken this with a more contraty lens this photo would have been primarily about the window, but I saw a roomfull of air.
In a print the tractor glows out of the gloom, but the gloom itself is full of stuff going on; the corrugations, bits of broken machinery dotted about. Higher contrast and it would not have brought out what I saw in this roadside barn in Devon.
So; the Elmar a success, but will the convenience of the Summaron have to be paid for by losing what I like about the Elmar? It's a bit early to say. I have printed one Sumaron image, below, up to A3+ and the signs look good.
I think it is a bit more resolved and works well wider open than does the Elmar, but the tone is still fine and I hold quite high hopes for it being my lens of choice.
But -I'm not forgetting the Yashica:
More of a studio feel to it. Lovely out of focus look behind the bike's features. And, gratuitously, a picture of my bike!
The Yashica doesn't get much use, but it seems to be particularly good at being sharp where I want and lovely and soft where I don't. The larger format tends to smooth out the whole thing. I've got a few more images from the Yashica, but they all show the same kind of character.
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Printing
As mentioned above I am fairly certain that a print produced in a wet darkroom will be more satisfying than one that is scanned and then inkjetted. I might feel happier about this if I called my prints giclees (I know I could find an accent here somewhere, but life's too short to bother with all of that).
However, currently, I have a process that I'm very happy with, but before I get on to that I must say how relatively dissapointing standard glossy inkjets can be. Very much like resin-coated prints in a wet darkroom, but with the added disadvantage of scratching easily. I have tried some high-priced glossy fibre-backed inkjet papers with some success, and would have settled with them for best - were it not for my recent discovery. Just in this last few weeks I have made a discovery that seems to keep me