A trip to Madrid with my Leica M6 TTL and Rollei Retro 80S Film

Back in the beginning of March I went to Madrid for a long weekend with my husband for his birthday.

I knew there would be some great historic streets to take some photos so thought it would be a great opportunity to use my Leica M6 TTL.

I also knew that I wanted to take black and white photos. I really love the results I’ve obtained from the Rollei Retro 80S film in the past with other cameras as I love the high contrast. I therefore took this film with me.

Here is a sample of some of the photos I took during my trip:

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I took two examples of this photo – one with people walking in it and one without. I still can’t make up my mind which one I prefer as I quite like the street photography style with the people in it:

I then headed to the gardens in Madrid and took some photos:

We came across a cute little ice cream parlour during our walk back from the gardens with a mirror in the shop front so I took a selfie using my camera:

The apartments in Madrid looked really beautiful and very grand:

On our walk back to our hotel, we came across a retro sushi restaurant called Le Club Sushita. It was decorated with original 1960s furniture and walls and I instantly fell in love with the place. It had a really cool late 60’s club feel.

What was even better was the fact that they served amazing sushi which I really loved and we spent a lovely couple of hours in there.

Here is a photo of my husband I took whilst inside the restaurant. I didn’t use a flash but we were sitting near a window with daylight shining through:

On our last day in Madrid I managed to visit the Leica shop which had recently opened there.

It was a lovely shop with a photo exhibition upstairs which I was invited by the staff to have a look at. The staff were really lovely and welcoming to the shop.

Whilst there, I bought a nice red leather camera strap for my Leica which I really love:

The staff in the Leica shop also gave me this really nice Leica Pin Badge:

I really enjoyed my trip to Madrid. I had never been before and it was such a beautiful city to wander round and take photos. I would definitely visit again.

Shooting a mystery roll of film with my Hasselblad 500 C/M camera

A couple of weeks ago I was sorting out one of my travel bags and I came across a roll of 120 film in one of the pockets that I would have taken with me on my holiday in June but must have missed this pocket when unpacking everything back on my return.

It was in a white plastic packet with no writing on it. I decided I wanted to use it up asap because I couldn’t remember what it was so I wouldn’t be able to add it to my film inventory for a particular plan of use.

It was a nice sunny morning the other Sunday and my dog, Daisy, needed a walk so I decided to take my Hasselblad with me over to the beach and use up this film.

I was hoping when I opened up the plastic packet that there may have been a label but all it said on the paper inside was a strange graphic of 100.

I decided to take this as being the ISO and took photos using that ISO for my exposure.

I also wasn’t sure if it was black and white or colour. When I took it to my local lab for processing, I decided to get it processed in black and white.

I figured if I was wrong and it was ruined, they were beach photos which I regularly take so it wouldn’t be much of a problem.

Thankfully it was a black and white film and the photos for the most part, came out fine.

It stated 100 pan on the processed negatives so I think it must have been a Rollei film I had taken with me on my trip to Turkey in June but never used.

Here are some photos of the beach:

Here are some photos I took of Daisy on the beach:

I can’t make up my mind whether I like this photo or not? I think I would have preferred it if I had put Daisy in focus and the people in the background had been out of focus:

This photo of Daisy has a sea mist feel about it as it seems slightly over exposed:

I had great fun that morning using my Hasselblad on the beach and I’m really pleased that I had guessed the film type for developing correctly.

Using the Red Filter with my Hasselblad 500 C/M

I had been keen to try out the Hasselblad Red Filter that I purchased for my Camera as I wanted to make more contrast in some of my black and white photography.

My first attempt at using the Red Filter the other month was a complete disaster. I had looked at the filter guideline, which I understood as altering the exposure on the light meter by 2.5 stops.

The results ended up with some very under exposed shots that were pointless scanning.

I spoke about my results to the London Camera Museum (where I originally purchased my Hasselblad from) and they said to just expose as normal and ignore the 2.5 stop alteration.

I therefore exposed as per the light meter reading without any adjustments, using the Rollei RPX 100 film and I decided to take some photos of the fishing boats at Brighton Marina and here are the results:

These photos came out just as I’d hoped so I’m really happy. They have the contrast and gritty feel that I was hoping to capture of the fishing area at Brighton Marina.

On the same day, I also took photos of some white fluffy clouds in the sky using the red filter:

Here is a photo I took of the clouds with the cliffs underneath:

I particularly like this photo I took of Roedean School on the Cliffs with the clouds:

I used the 80mm lens for all the photos and will definitely be using the Red Filter again when I want some dramatic contrast in my black and white photography.

My first time using the Rollei Ortho 25 Plus Black and White 120mm Film

During my recent trip to Turkey, I decided to try out this film in my Hasselblad 500 C/M camera.

Since I take most of my photos in England, I don’t really tend to use low ISO films. However, Turkey was extremely bright and sunny and this film had been in my film stash for a while, so I thought it would be good to try it out.

Here are some photos I took of the mountain areas in Dalyan, Turkey:

The next picture I took has some streaks on the negative but I actually quite like the old feel it seems to give the photo. It reminds me a bit of the Washi film and looks like the photo could have been taken a long time ago:

Whilst staying in Dalyan, I was keen to visit the Kaunos tombs which were on the other side of the Dalyan river. The easiest way for me to get to the tombs was to go across on a row boat that was rowed by a local lady which cost less than £1 for the ride. Once across, I then walked up the hill to the Tombs and the views were amazing:

Here are some photos of the ruins I visited in Kaunos:

Here is a photo I took at the ruin’s of my friend who visited Kaunos with me:

I was extremely impressed with the detail the Hasselblad lens gave me in these photos.

However, I don’t think I’ll be using this film again any time soon as there wasn’t as much contrast as I like in my black and white photos so there would be other films I would choose first over this one. Although I’m glad I tried out this film and I still feel that a bright, sunny day in Turkey was the best place for me to test it.

The negatives were scanned on my Epson V600 scanner so I will be interested to perhaps develop some of these photos into prints during one of my darkroom sessions to see how different they look. I will blog about this when I do it.

Rollei Fantastic 5!

Recently on Instagram, I came across a camera shop called @macodirect who are based in Germany.

They announced they had put together a pack of different types of Rollei black and white films which came complete with a Japan Camera Hunter film case.

I really love the Rollei films, ever since I started using them in 35mm photography.

The great news is that these packs are available in both 35mm and 120mm options.

The pack contains the following five Rollei black and white films:

• 1 x Rollei RPX 25
• 1 x Rollei RPX 100
• 1 x Rollei RPX 400
• 1 x Rollei Superpan 200
• 1 x Rollei Retro 400S

I also really liked the orange colour of the case they had chosen to pack the films in.

I have used the Rollei RPX 400 and Rollei Retro 400S in the past with great results, but I had never used the other three before so thought this would be a great way to try them out.

I’d also been considering buying a plastic case of this type for 120mm film. This is because I normally have a couple of rolls I need to put in for developing at a time and wanted something sturdy to store the used film in when travelling to my local lab for processing.

The 120mm pack retails at €34.50 (around £30.00) and the 35mm pack retails at €32.60 (around £28.00).

Since I’m based in the UK, I knew that the postage wouldn’t be cheap and I wasn’t wrong as that cost an additional £10.

However, even with the postage cost of £10, I worked out that I would still be making a saving of approximately £8 than if I had bought all the films and the case separately in the UK. I therefore decided to purchase one of the 120mm packs.

It arrived quite quickly and I’m really looking forward to using all the films in my Hasselblad 500 C/M camera.

If you’re interested in purchasing a pack or happen to live in Germany so will be lucky enough to pay less postage, their website is:

https://www.macodirect.de/en/film/black-white-films/

Silver Gelatin Prints make lovely gifts

I was thinking today about the satisfaction I’ve had recently in being able to produce silver gelatin prints in the darkroom for gifts.

Whilst I appreciate that it’s a very personal thing to decide what photos you would like on display in your home, I’ve only gifted a couple of photos so far, to people who I know would love them and would definitely have them on display.

The first silver gelatin print I gifted was to my friend Clive, who went away with me last year to Singapore when we watched the Formula 1 Grand Prix there.

It was an amazing trip away and I managed to take a nice photo of Singapore using the zoom lens on my Pentax K1000 camera and Kentmere 100 black and white film.

I really liked the photo when I got it developed and practiced printing it on silver gelatin paper at my second black and white photography course at Varndean college. Here is a scanned copy of the print I did using a 3.5 Contrast Filter:

Clive saw the photo and really liked it. He had recently moved houses and said how lovely that picture would look framed up in his home office.

I therefore mounted it using white card and framed it in a nice black frame and gave it to Clive and he was really happy with it. It also felt like a nice moving in gift to his new home.

The second photo I gifted was to my husband today as it’s his birthday.

He is actually quite a difficult person to buy gifts for since he never really wants anything and if he does, he just buys it himself.

In the past I’ve taken him away on holiday for his birthday but due to current work commitments, he cannot take any time off work in the near future so I knew I wouldn’t be able to do this for him at the moment.

In fact, I think I felt more sad for him than he did at going to work today.

A couple of weeks ago, I had been practicing portrait shots with him using my Hasselblad 500 C/M camera and some Rollei RPX 400 black and white film.

I particularly liked a picture I’d taken of him cuddling our dog so decided yesterday when I was in the darkroom to make an enlargement of it.

Early this morning before he got up for work, I placed the photo on the mantel piece in our living room for him to see.

I’m pleased to say he really loved it and left for work with a big smile on his face. That was a great feeling for me knowing how happy I’d made him and I knew that photo meant more to him than anything material I could have bought.

I attached a copy of the photo in the blog heading but here it is again: