MorseBlog

(Note: this was originally posted on the 18th of Jan 2020 but has been updated with the color photos just returned from the lab.) I continued my woodlands project this morning with a return to Holme Fen. The morning dawned cold (0 degrees C) and cloudless. My hopes were I might have some good fog and perhaps some heavy frost to work with. I watched the sunrise as I made my way to this patch of Birch forest on the fens. I loaded up my Intrepid 4x5 camera which I have been using a lot lately and am becoming increasingly comfortable and confident with. Mistakes have been few and my exposures spot-on generally. The subject matter and composition remain their inevitable challenges. I brought along 4 sheets of Ilford FP4+ black and white film. I also had 2 sheets of Velvia 50 and 3 sheets of Fuji Astia, these later two being color transparency film. I typically come prepared for both color and black and white. In addition to the aesthetics of black and white I like to shoot it because ...

A little whole back I posted about an experiment I tried using 35mm film in my SINAR Zoom 6x12 film back on my large format camera. The idea was a success however I really wanted to print and mount a photo from this to discern the real impact. I do like to photograph and scan my work but I get the most satisfaction from printing the work and making it presentable. In this case I got to combine a few different ideas I have had over the years. Printing I started out with one of my test images. The first one I chose did not have enough interest for me when I made a test print. First Choice I went to the other version which was taken with a wider angle lens and held more interest in the foreground. Apologies for these scans as they are not the best. In particular the shadows are blocked up. (The print is much better!) Final Selection The largest easel I have is 16x20 and I chose Adox MCC 110 paper. It is a variable contrast fiber-based paper. I have only recently begun ...

I started to printing again from my earlier Holme Fen images. I decided to pick up the ‘Down the Path 1’ image from earlier when I printed it on 12x16 RC paper and reprint it on fiber-based 16x20” paper. Because the photo was taken with my 6x12 SINAR Zoom film back on my Intrepid 4x5 camera so the print is 10x20”.  The paper is Adox MCC 110 variable contrast paper. I print this on ‘The Beast’ 4x5 enlarger as the negative is 12cm (5 in) wide. Original 12x16 Ilford MGIV RC Print I learned a little something about the 150mm enlarger lens on The Beast. My first test strip indicated 3 second exposure at f22 so I decided should close the aperture to f45 to stretch out the exposure! Since I started at f22 this was 2 stops difference. I made my next test print with the #00 filter at 4x (12 seconds) my best guess exposure from the test strip. It turned out very light, as if the aperture was even smaller. I readjusted to 16 seconds which I was still quite light but I decided I might li...

Another early morning. A very dull overcast day, at least it was dry and about 8 degrees C so comfortable. It seemed calm but when I got out of the car I felt a cold breeze. Not good as it was quite dark despite the sun being over the horizon and I would have some long exposures. The breeze died so I carried on having come all this way. I had loaded up some FP4+, HP5+ black and white and some Ektar color film. I was down here today to retake the fallen oak I had found before Christmas. I quickly found the old tree again just off the trail. I kicked myself at this point as I had wanted to review my old blog post on the original photo to remember the new crop I felt would more effective in retrospect. In any case I should be able to visualize it now. I used my viewfinder app set for my 210 mm lens from near the same position I was in last time with my 90mm. I could see problems on the right where some pine branches interrupted the flow of the dead oak branches. I adjusted my positio...

Last year I posted about a batch of Astia film I had found that was for sale from frozen stock. I took a chance and bought 100 sheets of Fujifilm Astia 4x5 film. Imagine my disappointment when I ran one test sheet and it looked like the following... Test of expired frozen Astia 100F (from box 1)  150  mm lens To my eye this looked like expired film. More likely than a light leak and the photolab I use has never failed me before in processing.( Update from original post: The above image is the result of light leaks. I finally diagnosed the problem as presented here .) I had spent enough money that I contemplated several options including selling the remaining film as expired for lomography fans as this is not my 'thing'. I had at the same time acquired 40 sheets of Fuji Velvia 50 from frozen stock so I decided that I would test the Velvia and give the Astia another try and also open the second box of Astia to see if there was a difference there. I ran out to Fen Dra...