Back in April, I purchased a Holga 120PC (pinhole camera) with the intention of using it for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. As it happened, I had to cancel my plans at the time due to health problems. So, I was looking forward to trying it out when things picked up again, and got the opportunity to do so recently in South Queensferry.
For those unfamiliar with this area, South Queensferry is a small coastal town to the north-west of Edinburgh, on the shore of the Firth of Forth (which is really more of an estuary than open sea, but still has a seaside feel to it). The famous Forth Rail Bridge, and two large road bridges, are built either side of this town, which are defining features of the local landscape, creating an interesting backdrop for any photos taken here looking out over the water.
I loaded a roll of Ilford FP4+ in my pinhole camera - a film I've not used much at all over the years, but it seemed a good candidate because of its low ISO (enabling longer shutter speeds in bright light) and because I'd read somewhere it had smoother highlights than Delta 100. My shutter speeds for the pinhole camera were around 1-2 seconds, so it was a good thing I didn't use ISO 400 film such as my usual Ilford HP5+, as it might have been tricky to time a fast shutter speed manually in bulb mode.
I also took along my favourite Holga 120N, but for something a bit different, loaded this with Lucky C200. I know very little about this film - I've never used it before - but saw some interesting results online and thought it might be worth a try.
I was joined by Laurens Willis, who also enjoys analogue and pinhole photography. Our first stop was the small historic harbour near the centre of the town.
The Lucky 200 film digitised quite nicely, though required a bit more tweaking of colour balance than my usual Kodak Gold 200. Once I'd done that, though, I managed to get the colours to a place I was quite happy with. It's a different look to Gold - maybe a bit less warm and nostalgic - a bit cooler with a noticeable favour for reds. It's 'neutral' enough to make a good everyday colour negative film, and a welcome alternative to Kodak Gold at a similar price point.
These two photos might be my favourites of the day. I often look for movement when using pinhole cameras. These small patches of thrift growing by the harbour were moving around just enough in the breeze to create some motion blur, and I think they make a nice foreground to the Forth Rail Bridge, and the town itself. It's not very noticeable, but there was a train crossing the bridge at the moment I made the photo above, which I think is a nice touch.
In case you're wondering why the pinhole photos are rectangular, it's because I left the 645 mask in the camera by mistake. If I'd realised, I could have got 4 extra photos on the roll, but with the 6x6 frame counter I just got 12 generously spaced 6x4.5 photos. I might not have tried this if it hadn't happened by accident - I really like the square format - but actually, 645 is quite nice, too, and you get a few more photos for your money, which pleases the Yorkshireman in me.
From the harbour we walked towards the rail bridge and lifeboat station, and I took a few photos with both cameras along the way. I quite like this image, above, with the outflow pipe leading into the blurry water, and the bridge behind. It's maybe not the most balanced of compositions - there's something strange about the angles and proportions - but I still quite like it anyway.
Then I thought I'd try photographing the bridge through some tree branches that were blowing around in the wind. The two cameras and films produced two very different images here.
I'm not keen on the square/colour/120N version of this photo, but am including it here for comparison with the B&W pinhole image, which I much prefer. Otherwise, it would go in the expansive category of photos I've taken that I don't deem worth sharing (there are LOTS). I might like the pinhole image slightly more if the tree branches above the bridge were in frame as well as those below, but you can't have everything.
I did get some light leaks with the Holga 120N on this day, which has never happened before with this camera. I'm not sure if it's something to do with the camera body itself, or maybe I let the sun fall on the frame counter too much when I was winding on the film. If I'm honest, I don't love it - I would rather have a clean image. I'll see how it goes with the next roll I put through this camera. There's always the black tape option...
The water was very choppy in the wind. It's not really clear from this photo, but there were landing boats coming in from a cruise ship anchored off-shore. They were struggling to moor up, and rocking around a lot on the waves. Watching them, I was glad to be on solid ground. This was the last photo on my 120PC roll, and I do like the way it captures the turbulence of the water.
I then had a few more photos to take with the Holga 120N, so we wandered back into town and had a look round some of the side streets. I liked the style of these houses and the colours - shades of grey with bits of yellow, green and rusty colours here and there. I'm not sure what happened with the greens with the Lucky 200 - I can't remember what colour the grass really was, but I'm not sure it was quite that colour. But that's part of the fun of using film, right?
Maybe it's evident this was a 'finishing the roll' photo, but I'd been eyeing up these yellow roadwork fences all morning, thinking there was a photo featuring them somewhere. I snapped this on the high street, and I suppose it's just something about the colours that drew my eye to it. The bright yellow and red fences standing out in a scene dominated by muted greys, browns and greens. And, I think these fences are usually orange/red, so maybe that's why the yellow caught my eye - like how road signs and paraphernalia look somehow more interesting when you travel abroad, because they're different (or is that just me?).
All in all, I like the Lucky 200 photos, but I think Kodak Gold would still be my 200 ISO film of choice. I'm very happy with the pinhole photos on Ilford FP4+ - I might try this camera with Kentmere 100 sometime to see if I can bring down the cost without losing the magic. I will probably shoot 6x6 next time with the 120PC, just because it's my favourite format for this kind of work, and it's consistent with all my other Holga photos. There are probably more photos I'm happy with from the 120N than the pinhole 120PC. I think this might just be because I usually prefer colour, I prefer square, and maybe it's easier to pre-visualise and compose images with the 120N than it is with an insanely wide pinhole camera. Either way, it was a fun morning.
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