Ilford HP5 Plus 400

I shot these images at Falmouth, Swanpool Beach and St. Ives. I was very happy when I first saw the in Lightroom, especially the last couple of frames. At this point I still couldn't rectify my mistakes however I did have a feeling that the light meter may be acting up and boy was I right when I look at some of my previous rolls with this camera. For a change I decided to download a new Light meter app. I've used an app in the past however I didn't think it was very accurate and so I tried out a different one. Looking back now, I am glad that I did because with these shots I didn't really get many frames that were under exposed except maybe three or four. Sure the shadows are under exposed and there isn't as much detail as I want but the highlights are exposed correctly. Still, with Black and White, I heard you should really expose for the shadows and I didn't really do that during some of these but I think the results I got worked nevertheless. I especially like the last image with the beach in shadow all apart from one area in which you see a figure.

I unfortunately did have light leaks again and this time throughout the roll. I’m going to chalk it up to user error again as I wasn’t in the best place to load the film. I find it hard enough loading 35mm film let alone medium format which requires multiple hands. During the very end of this roll I had a nice conversation with somebody. He asked me about my camera and he explained that he used to teach photography and we talked a bit about the darkroom and how I would like to darkroom print my photos. It seemed like he had quite a setup in his one darkroom.

One thing that I need to remember when using this camera is because you’re not actually looking though the lens framing can be a bit tricky to get right and I think I will need some more practice. It seems to get harder the closer you are to the subject here why the recycling bins haven’t go a perfect composition. This camera would also be great for portraits however you can’t really get very close to the subject. To combat this in the future I could potentially purchase a close up filter. They would allow you to get closer to the subject. I heard a “Rolleinar Plus 1 Closeup Filter” would be good so I may have to look into one of those.

All in all I am happy with these and I am happy I got the exposure more or less correct.