Another year, another lockdown…..

Welcome to groundhog day, as the covid situation drags on like some sort of never ending nightmare, we were back for the third time, consigned to our homes for yet another lockdown.

January being January of course heightened the monotony and depressing situation of it all by getting dark at around four, and mainly raining throughout. This did however give me the opportunity to think about a few little camera upgrades however…

The first of these was upgrading my trusty Canon 7D. A camera that really started my journey into the realms of ‘proper’ photography way back in 2011 after convincing my dad it would be a great idea to get me one on finance (cheers dad).

I plumped in the end for its younger brother the 7D MK II, which will give me improved focussing, shutter speed, an increase in focussing points, and an increase in megapixels. Known to many as still being one of the best wildlife camera options on the market, I will be able to pair this with my 400mm F/5.6 lens, hopefully helping me to improve my wildlife shots in 2021 and beyond.

So while Donald Trump did his best to cause civil war in America, and we all sat indoors waiting for this COVID nightmare to all end, I managed to cobble together a blog post with some images taken over the month with the new camera, as well as my drone and also a look at some old 35mm film that I have finally processed from my Olympus OM1 camera taken way back in 2018.

Enjoy.

Using the drone was a big part of this month due to the limitations put upon me in regards to travel. I am able to fly the drone from my garden a lot of the time, which has meant I have been able to get some more interesting shots of the world around my home.

The main photo highlight of the month of course came towards its conclusion, with the UK’s obligatory ‘snow day’. As is tradition with the south of England with snow, it comes overnight and is usually melted by the following afternoon. 2021 was no exception, so it was a race against time to get some images of it before it inevitably melted away to a slushy mess.

Of course being on lockdown limited these options, so I again took to the skies to get a different perspective of this rare, but very welcome for the day (unless you have to go anywhere) event.

I would also like to discuss an ongoing project that I have been involved with over the past few months that has taken some time and patience to come to fruition. I have had the desire for a while to take part of my photography in a different direction, away from digital and over to film photography. I have finally been able to see the fruits of this ambition with the development of my first roll of film from home this month.

Starting with black and white 35mm film, using a chemical process that involves a dark bag, a paterson tank and various chemicals, I was able to develop and scan my own negatives that I can finally show everyone..

I was really nervous with what was going to come out of the first roll, especially with it being one I shot back in 2018, but when I finally was able to hold the negatives up-to the light in trepidation, I was amazed at what had came out, and that the process/magic that had occurred had produced visible, useable images!

from there I was then able to dry then take the negatives over to my also recently acquired V600 scanner. This scanner is specifically adapted to take slide film and film negatives for both 35mm and 120mm film to scan onto my computer for processing.

The results of this first roll below were far better than I have expected, and has really got me excited for what I will be able to do in the future with this process.

*All of these images were shot on the Olympus OM1 35mm camera with a 50mm lens in 2018.

I hope to continue with this adventure into 2021 with the acquisition of my second camera of the month in the form of the FujiGS646s medium format film camera.

I purchased this camera as an in-between everyday film option that will allow me to shoot 120mm (medium format) film on the go.

I realised early on after my purchase of the Mamiya RB67 SD camera back in the first lockdown, that this was a very heavy, bulky camera that will be better suited to studio work (more on that to come). So after my success with developing 35mm film at home, I wanted a more ‘walk around’ camera that could still shoot in medium format film. After researching the various options, the fujifilm camera fit the bill for me both in its size, price point and ability to shoot the film stock I am looking to use moving forward.

Hopefully with this I will be able to experience the additional resolution and detail that 120mm film will give me in my finished images.

FIN