Local views

[Ralph Turner]

A small selection of local views, just down the lane from us, at the neighbouring farm. Cano EOS 500N, Canon 40mm f2.8 pancake, Kentmere 400, developed in caffenol c-h with around 20% more bromide than my usual brew. Very happy with the result. Although I’ve had very good results with the standard c-h recipe (as described in the Cookbook) the extra smidge of KBr has, to my eye at least, has helped to givea more even distribution of mid tones. With the barn door and the view down the lane towards the farm, other than setting the white/black points in the scan, very little else was needed other than a very slight ‘s’ curve to give a touch more pop. The shot looking over the wall had a little bit of localised adjustment on the wall and sky but only to suit my taste.

 

[Pete Askew]

These have come out great, Ralph. I love the lighten the wall in the first and the view down the lane is beautifully balanced I think.

 

[Ralph Turner]

I was quite with the level of fine detail in the images despite it being a faster film, right down to resolving the shape of the bulb’s base-cap inside the swan-neck lamp over the barn door (not visible in the web version). Does it make me an out ‘n’ out nerd for noticing these things? Probably

 

[Ralph Turner]

Thanks Pete. I was a bit uncertain about caffenol prior to trying it for the first time last December. Up to around that point I’d been happy to leave the wet bit to the lab. Sadly, though, my go-to lab in Sheffield went to the wall and the one I tried subsequently wasn’t quite to the same standard (to be fair it was only a relatively small set up at the time that I suspect was struggling with demand for their services). This gave me the impetus to dig my dev tanks and paraphernalia out after decades of them sitting idle. I’m glad I took this path, as I’m more than happy with what the home brew can do (when I get it right ). In my (decidedly humble) opinion based on very limited experience of the various proprietary developers on the market, caffenol can hold it’s own in regard to image quality (it stands up well against Xtol devved negs from the lab). It’s also very satisfying doing it ‘from scratch’ with (mostly) common ingredients that are relatively harmless ecologically.

 

[Ralph Turner]

A few more from the roll.

 

[Pete Askew]

A nice haul all round. I especially like the crumbling stone wall. The high contrast on the tree and the low contrast of the stream / bridge work perfectly I think.

 

[Ralph Turner]

Many thanks, Pete. There are some pics I took in the fog that descended upon our local fell a little while ago (one the same roll) that I’ve yet to look at. So far I’ve been quite pleased with what’s emerged from this roll.

 

[Ralph Turner]

Last few from this roll. Taken a couple of months back up on the lane on the fog-shrouded Fell.