MorseBlog

I decided to expand my toning regime and dip my toe into gold toning. It seems to work well with lith development where the warmer tones get more of a blue cast to them. Iron blue toning can be garish, and I am looking for something more muted. Another option was to try cobalt with iron as it can get some lovely blue tones that takes away some of the harshness iron toning alone can have. Without a lot of research, I bought some Nelson Gold (MT6) toner for Wolfgang Moersch. I bought it and a refresh of his EasyLith directly from him as none as in stock in the UK. Even with shipping from Germany it was cheaper than if I had ordered it locally, something to keep in mind. He also sells a conventional gold toner called MT10 and used to sell one called MT9 that is no longer listed on his site. I confused the descriptions of the MT9 and MT6 toners which led me to buy the MT6 toner.  Gold toner can be disappointing if you have a neutral or cold tone paper and developer. It does not shift t...

This is a long rambling post. You have been warned... A New 75mm f4.5 Lens The Lens Nikon 75mm f4.5 SW I bought a 75mm lens for my Intrepid 4x5 fof eBay from Japan. My motivation was to replace my much heavier 90mm Fujinon SWD lens. It is a technically great lens but has much more movement than I need and weighs more than my other lenses.   Now I have purchased 3 similar lenses (90mm, 150m, and 210mm) along with my Fuji GW690III all from Japan through eBay with no trouble. Each was in excellent working order and excellent condition.  This time, however, my experience was different. I waited a week or so for shipping and to clear customs. (In the UK you pay about 20% VAT which FedEx invoiced me for.) The lens arrived well packed, and I opened it up and found it looked to be in immaculate condition. No scratches in the paint or signs of wear were evident on the lens body. The glass was in excellent condition. I fired the shutter at each speed, and they sounded correct. The ...

The next, and probably last of this series of Lith prints using images from Fen Drayton. Actually, these were taken on the same day though each is at either end of my commute. The first is on the Ouse River near St. Ives while the second is past the reserve out on some farmland.  Again, I mixed a batch of EasyLith developer (The last! Wolfgang is sending more as I type this.) as outlined before and microwaved it for three minutes before proceeding. The challenge here again was the uneven development in the darker reflection to gauge the snatch point.  For this print of three trees on the Ouse I settled on a 16x9 composition which is a movie screen format but also works for making a mild panorama. On 8x10 paper this works most closely to 9x5". scan009 f8.5 16 sec Ev 3.1 water This one had decent separation of the tree branches. The lighter upper and lower edges of the print may want some burning. scan010 f8.5 64 sec 32 sec burn above horizon 16 sec below tree reflection Ev 3.1...

My wife got me a Lomograflok film back for my birthday. It took a while to arrive but it got here today. My first impression is it is a quality product. Once you find the online manual (through a QOR code) getting it working is quick and simple. (Loading AA batteries for the ejection mechanism and a film pack.) I made a few test prints in my living room with my dog Mollie as the subject.  For those not familiar with this system it is a large format 4x5 film back that takes Instax Wide instant film that works much like old Polaroids but this film is from FujiFilm. Instax film and cameras are popular so fresh film is readily available. The Wide format gives roughly a 6x9cm image. The film is available in both color and black and white. The packs are 10 sheets per pack and sell for about £14 per pack. LomoGraflok Filmback Instax film (both types) is nominally ISO 800 film. The Lomograflok system comes in two parts. The first is a simple plastic frame for composing and focusing the im...

 To follow on from yesterday's work I had a quick session making another print from this series of images taken on the Fen Drayton RSPB.  This image illustrates the challenges of getting the snatch point correct. In many of the past images it was a matter of waiting for the infectious development to proceed up reed stalks or tree branches until the form was well developed and making sure the highlights did not catch up and begin infectious development.  This one has a mass of trees int he midground made indistinct by the fog. I also wanted to make sure the ripples in the reflection would remain identifiable. In this reflection the bonus would be to get the details of the tree branches.  Again, I made a series of three images with different exposure times. I set up a square crop and set the aperture to f8 to give me an Evof 3.1  (ISO 100) in the water on the left corner.  The best images I managed to snatch at a good time. As mentioned, the diffuse image m...

With my current lith printing jag I have learned how to get satisfactory results quicker than in the past and this has encouraged me to do it more. I also get results that lack the grainy gritty look I don't favor. So, time to dig into the back-catalog. Three of four storms have blown through the last week or so and this has kept me stuck at home.  I recalled several years ago photographing on a bicycle ride to work on a wonderfully foggy day. It was one of my first times photographing in fog and I believe I had just bought my Fuji 690 GSW camera.  So, with a couple of rolls of HP5+ I went to work but taking my time enough to capture 2 rolls worth along the way. The bike path follows an old railway bed and so travels through the countryside including some old gravel quarries turned into an RSPB reserve near the village of Fen Drayton.  I metered with my Sekonic 308 and overexposed the fog by one to two stops. The fog was extremely heavy (almost too much so) and being wedd...

I watch a fair few Vlog/YouTube videos of landscape photographers. I mostly stay with the film crowd as this is my interest, but I do watch the likes of Thomas Heaton and a few others who shoot digital. I can't (and probably shouldn't) watch too many of these. They become a bit repetitive, can become a substitute for actual photography, and negatively influence the ability to develop one's own style.  I am also aware how powerful they are as selling tools. You watch a series of videos, maybe comment, and form a kind of relationship with the artist. You then see them taking photos and now have some attachment or back-story (in the antique and art world provenance) for the image which gives the image more personal meaning.  Nothing wrong with all of this, in many ways this is a brilliant model for artists to promote and sell their work. It is not much different from galleries having artists in to talk to prospective clients. I also celebrate the lack of gatekeepers. There is ...