MorseBlog

The last few days have been poor photography-wise. A lot of wind and some rain have been blowing through England the last few days. It is disheartening to see the leaves stripped from many of the trees around my house. It seems the fall season of color will be short and strange this year.  I did get out this afternoon. I was feeling anxious (perhaps the upcoming American election) so thought a walk in the woods with a camera would help. I decided on Holme Fen as I had not been there for a week.  As I drove down the sky was bright and nearly cloudless near my home. However by the time I arrived clouds thickened over Holme Fen. This was a shame as the justification of bringing a camera on a windy day was the hope of some bright sunlight to keep shutter speeds up. I brought the Mamiya 645 Pro and had 2 frames of the Ilford 3200 Pro film I was shooting at ISO 1600 as an experiment in faster black and white. I plan to write up this experience when I finish the roll and get it devel...

I was looking forward to this morning for the last couple of days. The gale that has been blowing winds is finally done and a high pressure was due to park itself over the area. Finally we would have the first frost of the year (extremely late historically) and perhaps some fog. So I scraped the windshield (windscreen) and bundled myself into the care at 5:30am. The sky was deep blue with just a rim of orange on the eastern horizon. Venus was up as was the moon along with a couple of wisps of cloud. It was dead still.  It didn't feel that cold when I got out of the car. There was frost but the sense was it was barely freezing and hadn't been that cold for very long. I had been vacillating about where to go amongst my 3 local choices. I settled on Woodwalton Fen on the theory that with lots of water about the place perhaps that would improve chances of fog. On the way I didn't see any signs of fog patches so probably any choice was bound to disappoint on that front.  I pulle...

The clocks have changed. I got up too late and rushed to get out of the car before sunrise. A very clear sky and I don't need a headlamp this morning. I don't really have a plan except to take photos and explore some new areas along the south edge. The sun will be up very soon and I want to see if the light looks good going into the forest along there. A cormorant like a black arrow streaks across the azure sky.  I walk along the ditch and see again the open field before the sparse forest. The birch look good, very white. I have often contemplated photographing this scene. Since I have nothing special in mind I think perhaps a 6x12 with the SINAR Zoom 120 film back. I setup, compose, and focus, drag out the film back and begin to load some Velvia 50 into it. Alas I forgot I put a fresh roll two days before. It should have been apparent had I bothered to check but I just opened it up and saw the film leader in the take-up roll. I decide to unload this roll and put in fresh film....

Another technical topic and another camera hack.  This dive into landscape photography is a journey with a familiar pattern, learn, apply, repeat, master(?). I am by nature and background technical and photography (especially large format) is technical in the sense that one must understand and master a series of techniques to extract the most from the camera and film to perfect an image. This of course helps not the least in the artistic and aesthetic aspects of photography in general. I am of the conviction that a good creative outcome is not helped by a lack of good technique(s). Out of focus or poorly exposed images in my view do not a good image make. This is my own style. I don't really like expired film for this reason though there is a whole legitimate set of expressions involving expired film, cross processing, Lomography, etc. This goes way back to Man Ray and his solarization of black and white prints and perhaps even further. Nothing wrong with it; it just isn't my b...

I have been struggling recently with exposures from 2 seconds to say 6 or 8 seconds. I have taken like many people to using an app for reciprocity compensation calculations. The app works fine as most of my exposures turn out ok. However relying on the built-in timer has not worked out for me. Hitting the button on the phone screen is not always reliable. I tend to miss it or not touch it well enough to start the timer. Then of course I have also opened the shutter only to find the timer just sitting there waiting to be activated.  Now my panicked mind is trying to keep track of how many seconds have passed, deciding if I should close the shutter and start again and just generally running around in alarm. Longer exposures can be more forgiving.  I think there are some possible solutions. The app could offer a countdown time to the start of the interval. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, snap!, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, snap!. I also considered a small Arduino project to make a self-timed cable release. ...

I use a cheap Agfa loupe to focus on the ground glass of my Intrepid 4x5. For less than £10 it works pretty well. It doesn't give a very wide view of the ground glass as the lens distorts pretty quickly away from the center focus area. Since I am only spot checking focus this is sufficient. I have contemplated getting a much better loupe with better optics but they are comparatively very expensive. Agfa Loupe on Intrepid Ground Glass One difficulty I do face with this loupe is that it is impossible to check focus very near the edge of the ground glass. The is due to the wide clear plastic stand that keeps the lens the right distance from the ground glass. It is also due to the poor optics that, as I mentioned, means the best focus area is in the center of the image area. This is what lead me to consider a better aspheric version. It is also what lead me to this hack.  Since the loupe is cheap and plastic I reasoned that I could cut away a portion of the stand so it could overlap th...

 I have often used Kodak Portra 800. I find the grain is acceptable in medium format and have printed 6x17 images to 20 inches and they look very clear.  The speed is great for shooting handheld in challenging circumstances. I have used it with my Fuji G617 a beast of a camera which is surprisingly easy to shoot handheld though it looks pretty ridiculous. Portra 800 works nicely because the 105mm lens has a center filter to reduce the vignetting of the lens. The center filter takes a stop of exposure however. So ISO 800 film becomes effectively ISO 400. The problem with Portra 800 is it much more expensive than Portra 400. This got me to thinking about using pushed Portra 400 instead. The internet is full of examples that looked pretty good.  Below are some examples of Portra 800 images.  Portra 800 Photos Taken with Fuji G617 (all handheld) I set up my Mamiya 645 Pro with a roll of Portra 400 and set the film holder to ISO 800 so the meter would think it had ISO 800...