It’s been about 8 weeks since I took this trip but I actually lost one of the exposed rolls of Ilford FP4 so I delayed writing it up until that roll turned up. A few days ago I took a roll out of the fridge, wrapped in the foil (but opened) and kept in a black canister, which I thought was unexposed.
I started to load the roll into my RSS pinhole. At that point the paper tab on the outside of the film which said “EXPOSED” should have given me a clue; but I ploughed on trying to load it. Fortunately, the film stopped winding when the free end of the film caught on the camera. The untaped end, of course, is at the end of the film and the taped end is at the start of the roll; the untaped end can only be at the outside of the roll once it has been exposed.
Finally, I realised that this was my missing film so I loaded it into the developing tank instead of a camera.
As soon as I got off the train at Waverley Station I headed up to the Calton Hill area, which I hadn’t visited before, starting with the cemetery. Apart from my iphone, I had taken only one camera, the Yashicamat 124G twin lens reflex, which I had just had serviced.

The sun was already very bright which made photography quite challenging. Also, although I didn’t realise it at the time, the back of the camera was starting to come loose at the hinge, leading to some light leaks.


After the cemetery I went up Calton Hill which has a number of monuments and fine views of the Firth of Forth.


Going back down into the City Centre I stopped to take a picture of the Scott Monument ….

The next one is Wellington, I think, outside the National Records Office:



The roll of FP4 was finished now and I switched to HP5, rated at EI1600, for interior shots. I’m going to put the HP5 shots in a separate blog post, to follow.
I finished off the HP5, and loaded another roll of FP4+, in the National Museum of Scotland. I rated this roll at EI200, a modest push of 2/3rds of a stop from ISO125 box speed of FP4, just to give a slightly improved chance of getting interior images.


I owned two of these Mini cars in the past, now they’re museum pieces …



The film was developed in Kodak HC110 Dilution B.
Despite the light leaks I was fairly pleased with the results of the day. I’ve got some tape over the back of the Yashicamat and waiting to see if that restrains the light leaks, when I finish the roll of HP5 which is loaded now.
That Scott Monument is superb!
It’s just been serviced and it has light leaks? Tell me you can send it back for that!
This is just lovely.