First film - London B&W - Feedback

[Renaud]

Hello !

Here are some pictures from my first film. Feel free to give your opinions, as long as you use simple terms
The pictures were taken with a Nikon F401 and the film is Ilford HP5 400.

I'm particularly interested in anything you guys have to say about composition - although I didn't really think about it, I was just taking pictures of whatever I thought would look good.

While taking pictures I was playing with the aperture and shutter speed to have a "0" or "0 -".

I took a few notes of the settings I had for most pictures I took and it seems like I personally like the result of fast shutter speeds.

 

[Harlequin565]

I'll have a go!

Looking at the series, they seem to be bereft of a subject with the exception of possibly #1 & the last. The third has the strongest composition with the leading lines, and the angled trees, but as a set it really doesn't say much to me. Also, they look quite grainy to me and I don't recall HP5 being that bad. Are you cropping in PP? Or is your scanner low rez?

You've stated that you weren't really thinking about it, and if this is an exercise in physically using a film camera, that's fine. Although the apertures all look as though they were quite small. The fast shutter speed is only really noticeable where you have movement (in the last shot) unless you're like me and need a faster shutter speed to compensate for shaky hands!

Exposure looks OK with a good range of tones through all the images.

My advice would be to go out with a definite idea of what you're going to photograph. It prevents you wandering aimlessly, pulling the trigger on random stuff that ends up looking like what they are - snapshots. Once you've found something, you can then make decisions on aperture to create the depth of field you want, or shutter speed, to imply motion.

Good luck!