MorseBlog

Introduction I flew back to the UK last month. I had taken a few nice photos (digital) in Idaho (see prior posts) and at the time I sought out a local shop to get larger prints made of some of them. I contacted an outfit in Spokane and after a little effort on their website got some photos uploaded to be printed as 8x10s for test prints. A week or so later they arrived in the post and I immediately thought yeech!. They all had this strange green tint. Now these were C-prints and I have never really had trouble with C-prints as it is a pretty mature technology. I hemmed and hawed about contacting them as some of this is quite subjective.  Finally, I decided to call and was put in touch with the owner who said she would check. She called later in the day and agreed they had a process problem. She said it would take a few days to sort out. I went away on a week-long camping trip and completely forgot she was supposed to send new prints. It took another ...

I am preparing a longer post on my journey to find another source for color prints after the collapse of Peak Imaging here in the UK. During that journey I discovered that my favorite photobook publisher Mixam also offers what they call art prints. I decided to see what they offered and ordered some A3 prints. One turned out not great, but I think this is due to a particularly challenging image and some of my poor post processing. The other image turned out really well. So let me answer what do you get, how does it work and why might this be my 'go to' place for prints.  First of all, I like the look of traditional C-prints. Chromogenic prints (not what people imagine is continuous tone prints) use silver halide color paper from either Fuji or Kodak (Kodak does not actually make the paper any longer.) and expose the paper using lasers or LEDs. They are not continuous tone because they use a digital image and the light from the LEDs or lasers...

One of the ways I justified to myself the expense of my Fuji GFX 50s ii medium format digital camera was I could get adapters and make use of the large number of medium format and 35mm lenses I already have. I have made a few posts about my experience, one of which is here ...  I ended up getting a Kipon shift adapter for my 645-lens adapter. It is more expensive, bulkier and heavier, but I have a lot of 4x5 experience and often use tilt and rise and thought it would be useful to play with. Tilt is less important I think as depth of field control on the smaller sensor is less of a problem.  Initially, however, I thought the best use would be taking very large, stitched photos by shifting the lens and then rotating it to create a lot of overlapping images. Alas I haven't tried this yet.  For those unfamiliar with shift lenses, I give the following simple example. These photos were taken from the same fixed position on a tripod pointing at the same point. The only changes m...

Introduction One image I took this last summer that I really like I ended up calling ' Together '. It was taken on a calm misty morning after a night of heavy rain. I was up at dawn and had the lake more or less to myself with the exception of one fisherman. The day was still and gray with a soft fog in the distance. I found these two Western Grebes swimming in the lightly rippled calm. I was out with my Fuji GFX 50s ii with a 55-110mm f4 zoom lens. A nice portrait composition came to mind with the grebes in the lower right corner and distant island in the upper left corner. This gave a nice tension as the island helps anchor the scene to give a reference to the incoherent surface of the water. There is faint hint of the water's edge at the horizon and a show of the mountains at the edge of vision. The ripples and subtle shades of blue give lots for the eye to contemplate.  I was walking the road that hugs the shore which places the perspective quite low on the water. I wan...

I spent the summer in Sandpoint Idaho with my Fuji GFX 50s ii medium format digital camera. My digital philosophy has been to retain and integrate the aspects of film that I enjoy so much. I tend to work with mostly manual lenses and not use a lot of the camera features and menus aside from shutter speed aperture and a new one for me, ISO. I made a series of earlier posts on some of my work which I list below. Old Glass  Lake Vibes Lake Morning June 5 2022 Trestle Creek August First Lake Pend Oreille I have travelled to this area over the years to visit my father and have always found the lake to be a challenge to photograph. It is predominantly blue in tone in the summer owing to many days of bright blue skies. The lake itself sits in a bowl of mountains that makes golden hour somewhat muted. This was an attempt to channel some of the mood of the lake and reflect that in my photographs. I found th...

Fall continues to be interesting here in Cambridgeshire this year. The field maples are out in force with a vibrant yellow I normally attribute to aspen; though perhaps I am merely starved for color. This year feels different with the distinct sense that the very hot summer has led to some stress in the trees and resulted in earlier and brighter color. The evidence for this is my observation that the first areas to turn are the parts most exposed to the sky and sun. The field maple in particular runs from yellow to orange the closer you get to the edge or crown of the foliage. This orange in fact is mostly dried and dead leaves.  The aspen are showing spottily color now though they tend to develop color much later. Perhaps the most prominent is the rare wild serviceberry tree. One of which I have observed trying to get red in the past but not quite getting there. Now I can identify seven of them just by the color of the leaves which at first seems a bright red but is revealed on cl...

This past June I took delivery of a 2022 Ford Ranger with a 6ft. bed. My next move was to add a camper shell to fit it out for camping. I have had a conventional camper shell before but became interested in the RSI SmartCap. It is made in South Africa and is fabricated from stainless steel. As a consequence, it is about $1000 more than a conventional shell.  What you get is better access with sidewing doors/windows much like a commercial shell. I also liked the strength and ability to support a roof top tent. I am choosing my outfit with flexibility in mind. This is part of the reason I chose the Ranger over other mid-sized trucks as it has the highest payload and tow capacity. (I also could not find a truck with as good of performance and gas mileage. I have driven the Ranger about 4k miles and have never found it wanting for power and acceleration and have averaged at least 25mpg (US Gallon) on the highway over all kinds of mountain terrain with the AC on.) Blog Post Cover Image ...