This is the first roll of film I ever shot. I bought a (very cheap) old camera (a Konica C35) and threw in a roll of Ilford HP5+. I wandered about town in the early morning sun, took 24 odd exposures, and went home to develop.

In all honesty, I was expecting this to fail! There were so many points of failure:

  • The camera could have been faulty.
  • The light seals were old and crumbling.
  • The film barely wound back on to the roll.
  • At one point, the back popped open and terribly overexposed a frame or two.
  • I had never developed film before!!

And yet, by some miracle, these were the results:

The clouds here could have been a little more pronounced and contrast-y, but that’s an art I try to perfect MUCH later.
A little blurry here, but I think that’s from a poor choice of focal length rather than shutter speed.
Although, maybe it was the lack of light influencing the Konica’s automatic shutter speed! This is pretty blurry… the morning light was still pretty weak at this point.
Again, the darn clouds should have far more contrast, but not bad for a first attempt! I like the grain in this shot.
This is likely my favorite shot from this roll! I think the composition is okay, even if the exposure is off.
By now the sun is out a little more, and we’re getting faster shutter speeds, and less blur.
Compared to the above macro shot of leaves, this is much better! Maybe I was just doing a better job of holding still, though…
Ah, actually this might be my favorite shot of the roll. The foreground focus and background blur is excellent, especially for a pretty bare-bones camera.
So called the most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere: The Dunedin Railway Station! I end up using this shot as a good test for a variety of future experiments, such as filmstocks, cameras, and so on… This wasn’t a bad first attempt, although the lack of detail in the shadow is a little sad.
And now we’re seeing the limits of the camera, the filmstock, and the scanning technique. This was a beautiful shot, but the overexposure in the highlights is just upsetting.

Here is one of the frames that were hit by the Konica’s back popping open. There is a definite gradient over the exposure where light hit the film, but it’s still clearly resolvable.
And here is the other nearly ruined exposure. This frame looks much better than the previous, but that’s only because it was fully in the light rather than exposed at a gradient. Looking at the negative it’s clear this frame was very crispy, and in the positive we see a very soft image, with little contrast. Still, better than nothing!

I was pleasantly surprised this shot came out so well! It is impossible to tell on a black and white filmstock, but this entire wall (chain included!) was painted the same ghastly beige. The fact we got any contrast at all, let alone so much on the chain, is frankly a miracle!

A nice composition, but again the focus is all wrong (or perhaps the shutter is still too slow… but there was plenty of light?)
And now, the opposite problem! You can see the sun peeking over the horizon here, which totally blows out the light meter and gives insane under exposure everywhere else in the image. Look at the buildings and the bush — there is next to no detail!
Lovely contrast here, this is what I am after in my cloud shots! Now, if only I didn’t have to wait for exactly three minutes after sunrise…

Blurry blurry blurry…
Whoa, momma! Blurry, much? I think the shutter speed was a little low for handheld shooting here, but goodness knows I didn’t have a tripod at this stage!
Not bad! Better than the above exposure which was just a few moments earlier. I think the wide shot let in more light and took the shutter speed right down.