I've just finished developing these negatives and I think this film is very nice. It's taken me a few attempts to learn to shoot with it and get good results.
Incredible sharpness and the tonality is great. Even a 35mm negative can be enlarged to a very big print with little perceivable loss in detail.
This negative was made using Pyrocat HD. I think it gives lovely tones for HP5.
Didn't expect much of this film. Never used a film like this before but thought I'd take it on holiday for a bit of fun. Am very impressed. Whether you go low light or over expose it's forgiving and also comes up with unexpected results. Fantastic. Highly recommended.
I really enjoyed the film!
The way the film captures the colors is simply beautiful.
I'm really satisfied with how the pictures turned out.
I’ll definitely use it again. 😄
A wonderful, if idiosyncratic film. It's incredibly sharp and has a very pleasing tonal range. Being orthochromatic is isn't sensitive to red light which has pros and cons. On the plus side it can be developed with a red safelight which can be helpful. It is also highly sensitive to green and gives wonderful separation of leafy, woodland scenes. On the downside it high sensitivity to blue light makes blue skies almost white - great if the like bland skies. I rarely do so tend to exclude the sky. It's my favourite film for shooting woodland scenes, particularly in spring.
Superb quality as always: development completed beautifully, scans are true to what I hope for when I took the shots, and as always service and communication where top notch. The amount of work that goes into making this happen is worth every penny.
High quality scans.
Just had a couple of films back from AW. Cracking service as always. Really pleased with the way some of my shots came out!
Used a roll when I was testing out a new camera, really loved the warmth this gave me. Good contrast and tones in bright conditions will definitely use this over the summer.
I've been using this service for a while now and it never disappoints! Customer service has been great, and I love that I can just log into my account and see all my photos
A little different than the usual suspects. The carrier has a blue(ish) tint rather than the usual orange/yellow which took a few attempts to get the scans to look right. The images have a vintage look and the film is very sensitive to exposure. Over exposed washes out colour and under exposed turns things a bit muddy. Interestingly they make for good B&W images when desaturated. Well worth playing with this interesting film.
I’ve been using AW’s developing service for a few months, and I’m very happy with the quality of the photos. While it does sometimes take a little while, the wait is worth the quality of the scans for me. Will keep sending in rolls!
I was really taken aback by the contrasty, orange/red hues on this film. It made everything look like sunset even though it was a cold, crisp morning. Portraits look stunning, I recommend using a fast lens and taking advantage of a deep DoF to get the most out of the grain in the film.
Downsides - when shooting into the sun, there's a strange but not unattractive yellow 'halation' effect around strong white light sources. The film's a bit too grainy for low light, and you can lose a fair bit of detail in the grain too.
It’s plastic and long and has a hole in the end to hang it up. It’s 32mm wide at the stirrer end. I’ve only tried it once but it’s much better than a breakable glass rod, it’s a good idea!
Great scans and nice customer service. Easy process for sending film and for receiving the photos. The turnaround times were delayed this time around (over a week), which is why I didn't give a full 5 stars but I'll certainly be using again!
My go-to B&W - decent sharpness and grain at 35mm - just testing a 120 roll through a 1920s Kodak 6x9 - should be interesting!
Great photos, great updates throughout the process, no complaints
lovely film, very nice colours straight from scanning (I accidentally stretched it a bit much leaving leaving stress marks but that's my own fault). recommend, worth the slightly higher price!
Really pleased with my photos and super informative for developing times- thank you!
I bought a little Kodak Retina camera with a Schneider-Kreuznach lens from a local antique shop and wanted to test it to see if the shutter was ok. HP5 is the film I used years ago and was the most logical film to use given low winter light levels. I liked the large grain, the way it handled high contrast subjects and the vintage feel it produced.
Scans look great. Shot with Wonderpan & Tri-X, using a mix of Program & Shutter Priority modes, the scans are clear, with plenty of imperfections and grain, which is OK with film.
This review will be a bit long. If it's TL;DR then the summary is that I love the Pentax 17 and would recommend it to anyone, perhaps not as their only film camera, but as a 'go anywhere' point and shoot that isn't 20+ years old it's brilliant and has rejuvenated my interest in photography.
Long version. I've had film cameras for, well, getting on for 50 years, 110, 126, 135 and 120. I shot a lot of Kodachrome before Kodak stopped processing it in 2009, but since then I've not really done a lot of analogue photography and I've missed it. I have a nearly mint Nikon FM2n which I bought new when my daughter was a baby, and a dozen old-ish rolls of HP5, FP4 and Foma in the freezer, so did I really need to spend £500 on a Pentax 17 to reawaken my interest in 'proper' photography? What if I decided to stick with digital after all?
Well, as it turns out, I did need to buy this. It reminds me of the first camera I actually owned, a Kodak Instamatic 177X which I got for Christmas 1977 or '78. I had forgotten how I felt about photography back then - as a child it was all to do with the excitement of being able to make an image, any image, of anything I wanted. I didn't reflect for a single second on the limitations of the technology, I just used it. Fixed focus with two choices of exposure setting, the 177X relied on the wide exposure latitude of colour negative film (and a bit of luck perhaps) to get decent photos out of it. And at the time I neither knew nor cared about any of that.
Compared with an Instamatic, the Pentax 17 offers a wide range of controls - 6 focus settings, a range of exposure modes, and an exposure compensation dial. The lens has decent HD glass in it and the focal length is perfect for a general purpose 'walking about' camera. I was particularly drawn by the advantages of half-frame, which not only doubles the number of images you get from a film, but it means that the grain on each individual photo is emphasised and gives an even more low-res 1970s feel to it. Could I replicate that with a modern digital camera and Lightroom? Of course, but who cares, that's missing the point.
There's a learning curve to any camera, and I'm just starting to get a feel for the 17 after putting just one film through it. There are some things to watch out for - it's easy to inadvertently move the exposure mode dial when winding the film on. Likewise the exposure compensation dial turns easily, and I need to remember to check that and the focus zone setting before every shot. I also need to remember to take the lens cap off, notwithstanding the warning light you get in the viewfinder.
But ultimately this thing is a lot of fun, not a huge amount of money, is actually very usable and it produces images that are a world away from modern digital 'perfection' (whatever that means) and remind me of what made me love photography in the first place. I'll include a few sample images - you'll note some imperfections (sharpness and focus are subjective after all), but I'm happy with them and the results will get better after a few more rolls.
@dananthony.uk for more examples
Really impressed with this film. I took two tests: one at 50ASA and the other at the 100ASA box speed. Both performed well, but I have to say the box speed worked best. Developed in Perceptol at 1+3 dilution.
I had scouted around for this in Bulk and most were significantly more expensive than Analogue Wonderland. And delivery was fast too!
