MorseBlog

I recently bought a used Meopta Opemus 6 enlarger. I had purchased earlier an Opemus 6x6 a much earlier model however it arrived without a condenser lens and was unusable as such. The seller had a hunt around and could not find where his father who had passed away had put it and so refunded me my money (very nice guy). Rather ship it back to him, he asked me to send a few of the smaller valuable bits to him and I took the rest to the tip. My present one I got for a very good price and a day in Norwich to pick it up. It was fortunate as it is a much better enlarger with a filter tray and the ability to correct for perspective. The lens was a very nice Nikon however it was 50mm which is iffy for 6x6 medium format and had bad vignetting in the corners. Consequently I replaced it with a 75mm lens from an old folding camera. The only thing I am missing is the detents in the aperture setting. I have not done printing in over 35 years I would guess. An...

Introduction I had recently read how someone had placed their iPhone into an enlarger and printed photos from it. I don't have an enlarger so this got me thinking. Can I use an iPad as both the light source and negative? Well I had an old Deckel-Munchen shutter lens assembly I picked up on eBay. It is quite fast at f2.9 and comes from a medium format 6x9 cm camera. Now the iPad screen is quite a bit bigger than this but large format lenses are very expensive. I would be operating the lens near its limits. Since the lens has a diaphragm and shutter it is self-contained in terms of image brightness adjustment and ability to time the exposure. Since paper is slower than film the plan was to operate the shutter in B or bulb mode with a cable release. The lens also has a focus adjustment for fine focusing. Another impact on image quality is of course pixels on the iPad. The retina display however features 264 pixels per inch which is very close to the 300 dpi mi...

Vicki and I spent last weekend in London. I had a business meeting on Friday night and she was in London at school. We stayed near The Tower of London. We visited the Courthauld Gallery at Somerset House. Later we took in the new Manet exhibition at the Royal Academy on Picadilly. I took along my Yashica TLR and some B&W film. Vicki at Somerset House This is the staircase at the Courthauld. New building in front of an old church. This is typical of London. The old and new cheek to jowl. All Hallows Church near Tower Hill. Looking out a North Facing Window. Temple Bar the border between The City and Westminster. This used to be a toll gate between the commercial part of the city and rest of it. It is also where Fleet street becomes the Strand. Aldgate Tube station. St Paul's Cathedral, always impressive. St_Dunstan-in-the-West, another church along Fleet street. In the alcove on the right is a clock where the bell is struck by t...