MorseBlog

I just got back my second roll of film from my Fuji GSW 690III since I broke it last February. Right before lockdown I was on holiday near Machynlleth in North Wales and on some wet rocks I slipped and all 6'3" of me was laid out flat on the ground before I knew what happened. The camera whipped over my head and slammed on one of the rocks.  Fuji GSW 690III Fortunately, I was uninjured but the shutter was knackered. With lockdown shortly afterwards, I wasn't in a hurry to find out if it could be fixed or how much it cost. Finally a few months ago I got around to  it and sent it into Camera Repair Workshop in Milton Keynes (UK). After a few weeks Dave sent an estimate for about £150 which seemed more than fair. I did speak with him on the phone and he said it might take time due to restrictions around Covid. After a couple of weeks I got the camera back in great shape and ready to go. I would recommend his work and plan to use him again. He said over the phone that when Fu...

My recent work in the darkroom has had me focused on small prints including some 4x6” notecards. The small prints were 6x6” printed on 8x8” paper. I really like the look of this format and when a print comes out well it is a small jewel in one’s hand. I have been printing on Ilford’s MG Art 300 cotton rag paper. It has a very nice texture and feel to it as well as a nice visual quality. A break from smooth untextured FB prints.  I was cutting the 8x8” paper from 12x16” sheets. This meant I got a 4x8” scrap of every print or test print I made. I ended up with a decent pile of thee scraps. On the back of my pleasing notecard project I realized these scraps would make nice cards aqs well but 4x4” in size once folded. I experimented with two image sizes 3 1/2 x 3 1/2“ with 1/4” borders and 3 x 3” with 1/2” borders. I used the North Wales photos from my previous post on the 6x6” images.  I had to adjust the exposure by removing a stop of exposure to compensate for the smaller image...

Authors note: This post was started right at the beginning of April but only being completed now at the middle of June. Much happened with my plans and motivation photography-wise shortly after this and this resulted in a long hiatus.  Introduction What strange times. Here in the UK the government has finally implemented the lockdown and ordered people to stay in their homes. It kind of figures now that the weather has suddenly turned fantastic. The days are much longer and the challenge of getting up early enough (or staying up late enough) for the better light is upon us. The sky is bright by 5:30am now and not long until that moves to 4:30am. Photo for 'Front Page' Spring is rapidly bursting out and it seems I will struggle to get out to capture the last of the bare trees and the first flush of light green foliage before we descend into what I call the ‘tyranny of green’.  During the long summer the dominant color is green here. The foliage hides the landscape behind ...

My wife and I recently spent a week near Machynlleth in Wales. She found a good cottage up the end of a long single lane track in a steep valley. We had a very relaxing time and did quite.a bit of walking. I got a chance to take some photographs and came up with a few nice ones I think. This trip we took after having cancelled a trip to the US to see friends and relatives due to the Covid19 scare. Photo for 'Front Page' I decided to take a simple camera setup this time so I dusted off the Fuji GSW690iii which I haven’t used in a while. It is a rangefinder with a 6x9 negative and a 65 mm wide angle lens. I have found this camera a real challenge to use. (I have very often thought I should have bought the 90  mm version.) It has a very wide angle with the 65 mm lens and 9 cm wide film. Compared with my G617 very wide panorama camera it has half the film width but a much wider lens. The overlaid image below puts this in perspective. Despite being half the negative size the 6x...