30 August 2013

I have finished the test films in both my new Pentax cameras and my Adox Golf S - Here is a sample picture from each:

Pentax ME Super

Pentax SP1000

Adox Golf

I am quite please with all three.  The ME Super is comparable in use to my new canon 650D digital camera. It is light and fairly gentle in its action. the SP1000 is older, heavier and larger. When you press the shutter release there is a definite Thunk as the mirror comes up. I was out on the Lincolnshire Wolds near Belchford and I was initially horrified by the strength of the thunk until I used my Praktica MTL 5B (I generally have at least two camera with me) which is so much more violent in its action. Actually, both the SP1000 and the MTL 5B produce good pictures so the Thunk is not a real issue. It could also be relieved by replacing the gooey foam from around the focusing screen which would provide a good deal of dampening to the motion of the mirror. I have mentally booked this in for this afternoon. It is a quick and easy job - cleaning the old foam away, cutting new foam and putting it in place takes around two minutes per camera. On the other hand, I might get diverted - self-discipline is not my strong suit. I have three cameras that need this treatment - Pentax ME Super, Pentax SP1000 and Praktica MTL 5B.

I also have a test film back from Snappy Snaps from my Adox Golf S. This is a cheap folding 120 camera from Germany, made in the mid-1`950s. It is a bottom-of-the-range camera with the absolute minimum of controls but the results are quite good (see the picture above of Skidbrooke church). It was taken on Ilford XP2 Super monochrome C41 film. The advantage of C41 black-and-white is that it is easy to get developed.  I develop my own 35mm mono film but I cannot get the hang of loading 120 film into the spirals.

I like 120 format photography in spite of the cost - this test film from my Golf cost me £1.00 each time I pressed the shutter release. I get regular 120 slide film from a Leeds company that costs me £10.00 for developing, printing, scanning to CD and a new film. These films last me about a month. That is, I use the film in one day and keep it for a month before I send it for developing. I have one of their films in my film cupboard at the moment which I intend to use in my Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex (made in 1936 and still as good as the day it was made). The Ikoflex is a TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) camera that has a large (60 x 60 mm) focusing screen on the top. to use this sort of camera, you have it dangling on a strap at waist level and look down to compose and focus. the image is reversed left to right - which makes moving the camera counter intuitive. move the camera to the right and the image moves to the left.

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I have a habit of getting involved in on-line discussion forums. A frequent topic is as to which lens a photographer should buy. I find these discussions rather annoying and I have been known to get hot under the collar.

A lot of advice is given that you should buy the most expensive lenses as they are 'best'. I try to get those offering this advice to define 'best' which they are rarely able to do. Reasons range from 'of course they are best' to 'they are tack sharp right to the corners'. To me, 'best' means 'most able to do what I am trying to do'. Best portrait lens is not best landscape lens is not best Street lens is not . . . 

If you are going to buy a new lens, you need to think why you are. What is wrong with your current lens? If you cannot answer that, you are not actually in the market for a lens. If your answer is not that your pictures are too soft in the corners, why worry about an expensive lens that offers tack sharpness in the corners?

There is also the fact that the high end lenses cost more to design and develop and sell in relatively small numbers. This means that the manufacturers will keep a given design on the market for as long as possible to give them a suitable return on investment. Mid range lenses cost less to develop and sell in much larger quantities in a competitive market. This means the makers have to (and can afford to) update the design on a regular basis. Mid range lenses are frequently more up-to-date in their design than the top-of-the-range lenses are.

Far more important are commercial results. I sell more photographs taken with a sixty year old Tessar than I do photographs taken with a modern expensive lens.  That is the most compelling argument!

25 August 2013

Today has been a day of trying out my 'new' Pentax ME Super.  Details of this camera can be seen at my Old Camera Blog.  When I was first interested in photography (in the early 1970s) I really wanted a Pentax Spotmatic but I could not afford one.  Actually, as I was a single man on a good wage, I think I could have afforded one if I had wanted to badly enough but I don't come from a family that squanders money. At that time I bought myself a Soviet Zenit E. That camera cost me £45.00 (indelibly engraved on my memory because of the vast cost!) which was about two weeks' wages.  the Spotmatic was perhaps three times that amount.  I was quite happy with the Zenit - I am told now that the Helios-44 lens that came with the camera was as good as anything Pentax made - but always kept that secret longing for a Spotmatic.

This Pentax ME Super is not a Spotmatic - it is much too new for that - but I can't help feeling a bit chuffed to finally have a Pentax.  The camera is a nice, light and compact camera to carry and to use.  the lens I am using at the moment is a 28mm pseudo-macro lens by Sirius.  I have been photographing hawkers (small dragonflies, not itinerant salesmen!) and other attractive insects I found at Kirkby Gravel Pits nature reserve near Woodhall Spa.  This is somewhere we go to fairly regularly as Bestbeloved is doing a long-term survey for the BTO.

Macros aside, there is not a lot iof interest in the reserve, photographically, and I frequently spend the time on the reserve reading.  The survey only takes Bestbeloved an hour or so and we then go on somewhere more generally interesting.  As this includes lunch and occasionally dinner, it makes for a good day out.

This evening, I am going to look into setting up a photographic web site.  I have had one before but it was one of those sites where you pick a template and end up with a site that does not quite work.  I want to have more control than that and I have no use for any bells and whistles.

What do I want from the site?  First and foremost I want to display my best pictures.  I am not looking to sell from the web site - that does not seem to work very well - but getting commissions on the strength of my displayed work is a possibility I would like  to take advantage of.

I would also like to be able to preserve the occasional exhibition I manage to have.  over the last few years I have had one solo exhibition each year and pictures in two or three joint exhibitions.  I am a member of the Lincolnshire Artists Society which exists to present exhibitions and has a summer and Christmas exhibition most years.