This is a  local southern Fleurieu Peninsula view that  I see on those  days when  I drive up Willunga Hill  from Encounter Bay on my way to walk in the local Waitpinga bushland with one of the standard poodles.   We are looking across the grazing land of a local farm to rain falling on the southern ocean. 

I had scoped the view  a number of times with both  a digital camera and a 35m film camera --- an expired Velvia 50 version can be seen on this post . I chose an overcast wintry  day for the large format  photo session  using the 5x7 Cambo S3 monorail as  I wanted some  atmospherics.

 I have struggled with a poorly developed/underdeveloped  colour negative  from the professional lab. The colour was all washed out. The initial scan looked awful -- the post processing has  a substantial amount  increased saturation and contrast whereas I normally do the opposite. 

 It looks as if the C-41 chemicals were exhausted. I  did   convert the scan of the colour negative  to black and white in Lightroom to see if this  made much difference:

No really. 

I have come to realise that the technical skills from the film era that we had taken for granted are no longer there. I'd written about this deskilling  on this post at View Camera Australia.

The current situation is one in which the processing of large format sheet film by the labs has become  a hit and miss affair and it is unpredictable:  sometimes  the negatives are well developed and clean whilst at other times  the negatives are dirty, scratched and not fully developed. This is the new reality  for large format film photography and it  is disheartening one. 

It makes a very good case for making the transition to medium format digital.