fujifilm Archives - Martin W Smith

Billingsgate Market

Martin Smith — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 11:03:40 +0000

Shot of Billingsgate Market taken with Polaroid 350 Land Camera on Fujifilm FP-100C colour pack film. This is pretty underexposed, but I like the sky and clouds.

Billingsgate Market, London, FP-100C

FP-100C Pack Fail

Martin Smith — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 18:17:05 +0000

Shot of more London Bikes taken with Polaroid 350 Land Camera on Fujifilm FP-100C colour pack film. While pulling it from the camera it got stuck and didn’t develop correctly, but I think it looks kind of cool anyway.

FP-100C Pack Fail, London

Brighton Street Photography Workshop with Paul Russell

Martin Smith — Fri, 20 May 2016 17:38:09 +0000

On 14th May I attended the Brighton Street Photography Workshop with Paul Russell, member of iN-PUBLiC, the street photography collective. Paul is probably best known for his street photography around Britain’s seaside towns that are often amusing. This is my second street photography workshop, my first was with Matt Stuart which I wrote about here. Despite Paul urging me to bring my X100S, I instead brought my Leica M6 TTL, Voigtlander 35mm f2.5 and 6 rolls of Fujifilm Superia 400 colour negative film.

This was a half day workshop starting at 12pm and going on until 5pm, myself and the other 4 participants met Paul outside the Brighton train station entrance, I didn’t know what Paul looked like but I found myself looking out for someone with a big yellow Zippy head (you’ll understand what I mean if you’ve seen his Twitter avatar).

The day started with Paul taking is to a part of Brighton that I hadn’t been to before that he thought would be quiet so we could get warmed up taking “non peopled” shots. The area was a square in front of St Bartholomew’s Church which actually turned out to be a lot busier than he expected. It was a great place to take shots both with and without people, you have the church, graffiti, a table tennis table and alley ways. After giving some us some pointers we were sent off to take some pictures without people and get warmed up.

Brighton Street Photography Workshop

After spending some time in the square we moved on to London Road, walking up and down it and into the market to take some people pictures this time, Brighton is full of interesting people and colourful backdrops, a great place for street photography. It was during this time I realised there was something wrong with my lens, the front barrel was all loose, I hadn’t brought another lens with me so I had no choice but to carry on and hope it didn’t affect the photos.

Following our time on London Road we walked back towards the Laines to take some photos in the more crowded area. We then picked up a late lunch from a local Tesco to eat in Pavilion Gardens and chat about street photography and more tips.

After lunch we walked to North Street for more photos before it was time for me to leave. I learnt some useful tips from Paul and found the workshop very useful, I’m glad I did it. I was a bit worried that none of the photos would come out because of my lens, but there seems to have been no ill effects. As is often the case when you go out with a group I didn’t take any photos that I think are particularly good, but I thought I’d share some anyway.

Brighton Street Photography Images

All images shot with my Leica M6 TTL and Fujifilm Superia 400 colour negative film shot at EI 800, developed by AG Photo Lab and scanned on my Epson V550 with Silverfast 8.

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Fujifilm Superia 400 X-Tra

Martin Smith — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 15:00:15 +0000

Fujifilm Superia 400 X-Tra is a relatively cheap colour negative film, that in the UK can be found fairly easily in places like Boots. Because it’s so cheap it was the first roll of film I shot and developed at home. I developed it in B&W chemicals as a test before attempting to develop more expensive film. I used Rodinal to develop the film and it actually produced quite good results with very fine grain. This is also the film I use for my colour street work in the summer. I have even pushed the film to EI 1600 and it still gives great results.

Superia Samples

All images shot with Leica M6 TTL. All except the B&W shots were developed by AG Photolab. The B&W shots were developed by me in Rodinal and scanned on the Epson V550 scanner, using Silverfast 8 scanning software.

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Instant Photography

Martin Smith — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 18:43:39 +0000

I love instant film! There I said it and it’s true, at the press of a shutter you have in your hands a physical print in seconds or minutes (depending on which instant film it is), that’s amazing isn’t it? As it is now #InstantApril which I believe to be the brain child of @KristenWithACamera over on Twitter, I thought I’d do a little blog post about my experiences with instant photography. My history with instant photography has been relatively short, I bought my first instant camera, the Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 back in May 2014, I really liked those little instax, but the camera didn’t offer much control and the flash was over powering. I then backed the Kickstarter campaign for the Lomography Lomo Instant and was one of the first people to get one in the UK, I was even featured as a Lomo Amigo.

It wasn’t long before I wanted to try a real Polaroid camera so early in 2015 I purchased a Polaroid 626. To be honest I didn’t like the 626 that much again, it didn’t seem to give you much control and you couldn’t turn off the flash. I wasn’t finished with Polaroid though as I bought a Polaroid Spectra SE, this was much better, it has autofocus and the flash can be turned off. Film for these Polaroid cameras is now only produced by The Impossible Project, I particularly like their Black & White Gen 2.0 film for the Spectra.

Impossible B&W, Polaroid Spectra SE

Impossible Colour, Polaroid Spectra SE

Having read quite a bit about Polaroid cameras I wanted to try out a Land Camera that uses the peel apart film. I found out that my step dad had one that he’d never used. I borrowed his Polaroid Land 100 and attempted to convert it to AAA batteries, but the wiring was too far gone and you needed a special tool to get the grip off and on again, so I gave up. Luckily James Fox Davies whom I had met last year at LNDNWLK had a Polaroid 250 that was already converted and fully working that he was willing to lend me. I tried both FB-3000B (B&W) and FP-100C (colour) and loved them both the quality of these films is amazing. After shooting a few packs of film I bought my own Polaroid 350, which I’ve successfully converted to use AAA batteries. Unfortunately recently not long after buying the camera Fujifilm announced they were discontinuing production of FP-100C, the only film that was still being produced for these cameras, FP-3000B had already been discontinued some time ago. Both types of film can still be found, but at a steep price and mostly expired. I still have a few packs of film in the fridge, but I’m going to have to ration its usage. There are people out there trying to save this film, I don’t know if it’s possible but if there’s any chance it’s worth going to savepackfilm.net and signing the petition anyway.

Fujifilm FP-100C, Polaroid Land 250

Fujifilm FP-3000B, Polaroid Land 250

Fujifilm FP-100C, Polaroid Land 250

Fujifilm Provia 100 Slide Film

Martin Smith — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 10:24:39 +0000

Last summer I shot my first roll of slide film, Fujifilm Provia 100 in 135 format in my Leica M6 TTL, below are a couple of my favourite shots. The film was shot at box speed and metering was done using the M6’s built in meter, exposure seems to me to be pretty spot on. I don’t think the scans do the actual slides justice, the colours are much more vibrant when backlit. Maybe if they were scanned using a pro lab scanner, they would look even better, but they still look pretty good. I definitely want to shoot more slide film in the future, unfortunately it’s not the cheapest film at around £10 a roll, but luckily I have 10 rolls of expired Kodak Ektachrome Elite 100 that I got for free in the freezer that I can shoot. I’d also like to try some slide film in 120 format in my Yashica 124g, medium format slides I imagine would be amazing.

Fujifilm Provia 100 Samples

All images shot with Leica M6 TTL, developed by AG Photo Lab and scanned at home with the Epson V550 scanner and Silverfast 8 scanning software.

Priory Park, Reigate. Provia 100

The Shard, Provia 100

A Day In My Life Through Pictures

Martin Smith — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 08:01:06 +0000

While my wife and children were away for a few days visiting my in-laws I wanted to do a short photo project to try something different.

The Project

The project I decided on was a day in my life through pictures, the brief I set myself for this project was to use my Olympus XA loaded with a fresh roll of Superia 400 and take photos through out my day from the time I got up until the time I went to bed. Once developed I would scan and upload all the images unedited.

The Results

Below are the results of the project. I’m not sure what I expected from the little project, but what I think I’ve ended up with is just a collection of random terrible, blurry and out of focus photos. I think a better photographer wouldn’t show them at all, but I want to show them anyway, not all projects are going to be winners.

Here are all 36 frames taken through out Friday 24th July 2015.

A Day In My Life

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