St Leonards, Warwickshire.

St Leonards church in Warwickshire stands at the gate of Charlecote Park, home of the Lucy family. There is a tree lined avenue for the family to process along on a Sunday morning. The church that stands here today is a Victorian affair, it was commissioned by Mary Elizabeth Lucy as a memorial to her husband, George, and built between 1851-3.

I had decided to use another roll of Kentmere 200. I purchased a 5 pack deal when it first came out, and I’ve been using them here and there under different lighting conditions, in different cameras and developing with different developers. This roll was developed in D23. It seems to be a good combination. I got a good set of pretty even negs. By nature I’m concluding that the film is reasonably contrasty. D23 by nature helps hold the highlights, but also brings out detail in the shadow areas. To the left the side of the church is in full sun, and there is detail of the stone there. There is also detail in the dark shadow on the roof and in the shadow side of the fence in the foreground.

We all know it’s a budget film from Harman, and it’s faster than FP4, so there is a little bit more grain, but not that much and I’m happy with that. Again D23 with it’s high Sodium Sulphite level helps with keeping that at bay too. The final thing with that developer is that it’s very simple and cheap – there seems little point saving a couple of pounds on the film and then using an expensive developer on it! Wex Photo (in the UK) (My American friends – think BH Photo!) are now selling it at £5:05 a roll, the same price I used to order FP4 at about 4 years back! When developed the film is flat, very flat. That makes scanning easier, and the negs I got scanned very easily and I’ve had to apply little correction. It’s a film I’m warming to very much – lots to like!

Although my visit was at the end of January inside the Christmas tree was still up – something of which I approve! The church is a little unusual in that the whole length of the nave and chancel is stove vaulted. Inside it’s a tad dark, but the film/developer combination did a good job in bringing out what light there was. I have a bulk length of Kentmere 100 waiting in the wings, I want to compare that in Rodinal stand development, to the Foma 100 I used, after that – who knows!