The last couple of rolls of Ektar seem to have missed the processor!
Here’s a few examples. Have to say I’m loving this film under blue skies, not so much under my favourite conditions of cloud cover with sun spots though, it always comes out flat and doesn’t pick out the sunspots at all. Not to worry, I have Velvia for that, and the newly acquired S3 of course 
Then I’ll leave the FR be for a while, I promise! (till next week perhaps!)
Had planned on hanging around and getting a few more, but work phoned and cut short my photography plans. C’est la vie.
A study of Merddin Emrys in monochrome on a sunny day at Penrhyn…
…vs a wet, gloomy day at Tanygrisiau, again with Merddin Emrys.
I love the Festiniog, it’s a very characterful line with plenty of opportunity to get close up. Expect to see more of it in the coming weeks as I fully test out what my new Fuji S3 can do!
Well not on it exactly, but around it! Starting off at Gysgfa, waiting for the 11.35 from Port, and here it is, arriving just in time to be met by a burst of morning sun. Not bad eh?
Then cue showers. Annoying showers of a few drops from nowhere, or a full on 10 second blast of torrential downpour, followed by disaster – batteries! They always die as a train approaches! Fortunately they held out long enough for this shot of Merddin Emrys passing on a down train, at the far end of Gysgfa.
Then the big decision, hang around for 2 hours for the next trains here, or head off? Well the warm and damp conditions decided that, Mozzies everywhere! So off for a walk up the Vale of Ffestiniog to Dduallt instead. This started well, after a longer shower and I got a little curious and headed fr the top of the Garnedd tunnel. Not an easy place to get to at all and I don’t recommend you try, but It’s a grand view from the top! Unfortunately it now rained non stop for an hour. Great. Still…
The rain cleared completely after Merddin Emrys’ train had made it not a hundred yards past the other side of the tunnel! Most annoying but I’m still very happy with the results achieved in the rain. It really is more of a location for morning trains anyway.
So I carried on up to Dduallt, noting several possible viewpoints along the way. By now the weather was glorious sun, good, I can finally dry out!
The plan had been that there would be shelter at Dduallt if it started raining again, but since it had now become so clear overhead I decided to head back to the Garnedd tunnel and catch Lyd on the up run, since on the down run it completely obscured itself in smoke and steam!
And that was that! The light had now become so harsh I decided not to bother waiting for the return train, and headed off home.
Adox CMS20 is an ultra fine grained document film, which boasts not only invisible grain but also an ultra high resolution of around 400lp/mm, that’s pretty damned imoressive! Why isn’t it popular then? Because it’s slow. Glacier slow.
However Caffenol can change that! Caffenol can up the useable speed to 160, Provided you like the look if gives which I have decided is T-max on steroids! You get the same dark and deep shadows with cris detailed highlights that you get with Kodak’s own wonder film, but you get none of the grain and a lot more detail!
To try it out I took t to Dinorwig on a forum meet up, and it didn’t disappoint. These are all straight from the scanner without any dust removal. (The dosnside of a film like this is the dust is bitingly obvious when there’s no grain to mask it!)
It works incredibly well in flat light, bringing out tons of detail that would otherwise be murky. The climbers were shot handheld at 1/125 on a 135mm lens at f2.8necessary I’m afraid, otherwise there would be a whole lot more detail available in the rock. The slate fence and the compressed air pipe both show amazing texture detail!
The film has a fantastic dynamic range, well beyond my scanner’s capability which is a shame, and means grads will be a necessity for landscape work.
The recipe for 300ml:
Coffee 5g; Decahydrate Soda Crystals 10g; Ascorbic Acid 0.7g.
Development time 21 minutes, constant agitation for 1 minute then every 5 minutes.
This stuff fixes nearly instantly – if you use rapid fixer at 1:4 strength then it probably would be instant i na fresh mix. I’m using a seasoned 1:6 mix and it still fixes in around 10 seconds flat! The fixer is turned bright pink, which goes after a while back in the bottle.
So there you go, a new film to play with, capable of remarkable enlargements when done optically, (not so if scanned, film scanners suck) and offering remarkable detail in a 35mm negative!
Something I try and do every day, but rarely is it as effective as this. This is the beac at Trefor. At first glance it’s a typical seascape – but delve deeper and you have 3 Granite quarris and an Iron mine present! Don’t belive me? Well in the background are Tyddyn Hyweland Tan y Graig quarries, in the mid distance is the jetty of the Eifl quarry and the area on the right was the stock yard. Immediately behind the camera is the Morfa Iron mine which is said to run out under the sea, and did at one time use the Eifl quarry tramway too.
So there you go, there’s industry everywhere!
Just some more views from Dinorwig taken on Thursday, all on BW400CN and developed in Caffenol. The first will soon be making it’s way into the gallery for your purchasing pleasure.
Seems my Signs feature became very occasional! Nearly a year since the first installment! Actually I do have some taken in between but haven’t posted. Maybe signs 3 will be a retrospective. Anyway, the 2nd installment. This is the former smithy on Pen Diphwys level of Dinorwig. Seems it’s played host to an impromptu camp!
Following on from my earlier post, here are some more photos from the trip…
Treforus is an unfinished and abandoned village in Cwm Ystradllyn. It was begin in the 1850s to accomodate the workforce of the Gorseddau Quarry – a pathetic excuse for slate but nonetheless investors stumped up a massive amount of cash which was promtly squandered on projects like the satellite mill at Ynys y Pandy and Treforus.
I didn’t get long up here, less than half an hour, but managed to squeeze off a few interesting shots in that time. Here are a couple from the LX5. Film shots to follow.
