Ilford Plus FP4 125 B&W Film and Minolta X700

 Damn, it's now April and I haven't posted a Blog entry since November!  A little slack of me but I have been tied up with other stuff and doing a bit of travelling here and there.

I loaded this film in November 2024 into a Minolta X700; a lovely camera to use!  These were mostly shot with a Minolta MD 28-70 Zoom f3.5-4.8 lens. I did note though, after shooting quite a few photos, that the  film counter had not moved off the 'S' (start) indicator.  A wave of 'oh no, how many shots do I actually have left?' went through my mind but only for a second. The next photo I wound on, I observed the rewind crank moving also.  That meant that the film was winding on for subsequent photos but the counter was not working for some reason.  That was ok!  I just had to remember to take it slow on the wind on so that when I hit the end of the film it didn't wind it off the reel inside. 

I was shooting with an expired Ilford Plus FP4 125 black & white film.  It had been a while since I'd shot this film and was looking forward to a nice contrasty, sharp, fine grain finish.  The trouble with expired film is, that you may not end up with what you're looking for!  I have used expired film extensively (I had a lot gifted to me) and it had been kept in a freezer for all of its life. I picked it up from the lab and scanned it on my Epson V850 Pro.  It was then, seeing the scan, I noticed that, although the contrast was nice, disappointingly, this film came out very grainy and not as sharp as I would have liked.  I had the GANE (Grain and Noise Elimination) preset at 'Light GANE'.  Perhaps I should have turned it up a notch?

Some of the inside shots came out ok, there seemed to be less grain on them, then on the shots taken outside with clear blue skies.  I did try to decrease some of that grainy look in Lightroom using their Noise Reduction but it just softened some of them up too much and I don't like the look of those ones.  I shot at Box Speed as I always do with my expired film considering it has been kept frozen.  

This was the last Ilford Plus FP4 125 in 35mm from the gifted lot I received a few years ago.  I still have a few rolls in 120 to go but I think they are fresher than the 35mm. It will be interesting to see how they turn out.

I can't believe we're up to April in 2025 already!

I'm on Instagram  - Life with Jordy Photography

Stay well!

These photos are Copyright ©Life with Jordy Photography

All Rights Reserved

Top - This is one where I probably overdid the Noise Reduction in an attempt to get rid of 

the grain.  It has softened it too much.

It was a full coverage light cloudy day with a lot of haze hanging around when taking these on the harbour.

The Noise Reduction has softened these 2 as well.