Perfect Combination for a Hazy Day: Lomo LC-A and a Pushed Ilford HP5+

In this article, I’ll show you how the Lomo LC-A loaded with the versatile Ilford HP5+ can make the most out of a hazy morning. To capture the whirlwind of a bicycle race, I pushed the film to ISO 800. The legendary Minitar 1 lens and this classic Ilford film are a perfect combination if you love black and white photos.

Every year, the non-profit group Comocuore organizes a bicycle event in Como, Italy. The group is committed to the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, and this is one way for them to raise funds. Last year, Comocuore collaborated with the cycling club ASD Veroca to organize a bicycle race. This was a tribute to a cyclist who passed away some months before.

I decided to document the event using black and white film. It was a hazy September morning, so I chose my trusty Lomo LC-A, loaded with an Ilford HP5+ film roll exposed at ISO 800. I wanted to avoid slow shutter speed. At ISO 400, it was below 1/30th of a second.

Even at ISO 800, the shutter speed ranged between 1/60 and 1/125 of a second. I didn’t want the cyclists to appear motionless or posed. If you observe the photos in this article you’ll notice a slight motion, say, a small wheel rotation. This makes the photos more dynamic.

The 32mm focal length of the legendary Minitar 1 lens is great to work with. There is depth of field even with a diaphragm that is almost always open at F2.8. I tested the camera without film inside before I began to shoot and I can confirm that the aperture was never greater than F4 or F5.6. The manual opening control of the original Russian LC-A allows this test; in fact with the right lever you can choose the aperture while shutter speed is fixed at 1/60th of a second.

My preferred film developer is the classic 100-year-old Rodinal, now sold under the new name R09 One Shot. At the dilution of 1:25 you’ll obtain a sharp grain with a great acutance, while at milder dilution (1:50 or even 1:100) it has to compensate. It is able to limit the contrast and push the film while still maintaining details. For the Comocuore event, I choose a 1:50 dilution with a developing time of 16 minutes.

If you need to push the film up to ISO 1600, you can try an extreme dilution of 1:100 or even 1:200. The developing time will be from one and four hours!

Ilford HP5+ is a very versatile film. I use it very often in my Lomo LC-A or LC-A+RL cameras. In bright sunlight conditions you can overexpose the film at ISO 200. Underdeveloping allows you to get a nice greyscale full of details, even in challenging situations when both bright zones and deep shadows are present in the scene.

Please note that the developing time written on the R09 One Shot bottle is slightly different from the Ilford HP5+ data sheet. For ISO 400 Ilford suggests 6 minutes at the dilution of 1:25, while the bottle indicates 8 minutes. After some tests, I can confirm that the Ilford data sheet suggestions are more accurate.

written by sirio174 on 2015-05-06 #gear #review #clouds #spring #lc-a #race #bicycle #800-iso #cloudy-day #italy #pushing #lomo-lc-a #ilford-hp5 #como #bicycle-race #comocuore