Category: Digital

Digital · Photography

A digital interlude (and a new lens)

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I have another of my “Walk With a Camera” posts coming soon, but I haven’t put virtual pen to ink yet, and I don’t plan on rushing it today. I’ve been out mist of the day, firstly seeing The Fall Guy at the cinema with my wife, and then’ when I got home, on a shortish walk to Rother Valley Country Park to test a new lens I’ve bought.

I’ve bought a Tamron 28-300mm zoom lens that will fit my Nikon F80. I think it will be a good choice for when I go on future hikes as it should give me a lot of versatility. The F80 can make use of the image stabilisation on the lens (although I’ve found, slightly annoyingly, that only with a half-press of the shutter, and not with my preferred back-button focusing method). This should prove useful when using the longer focal lengths.

A zoom like this is never going to beat a prime, but as it’ll be used with 35mm film – probably 400asa – then I’m hoping any noticeable shortcomings will be minimal. I only took two shots with it today – all that remained on the roll already in the camera – but they’re at 200mm and 300mm, so should give me some idea of what I can expect when zoomed in. I’ll try the wide angle end on the next roll. I’ll give my thoughts and post some pictures once I’ve gotten them developed and scanned.

Anyway, in lieu of a film photograph today, here’s a digital shot from my trip to Malaga last summer. It’s been hot and humid here in the UK today, so it brought back memories of Spain.

Backstreet

Ricoh GRIII

Taken on 20 August 2023

Digital · Photography

Battling the storms of a new PC

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I got a new PC this week. It’s not brand new – it’s my son’s old PC – but it’s still vastly more powerful than my old machine. It has the luxury of a solid-state drive being installed meaning it boots up fast and the applications I use are similarly speedy to get going. I swapped out the secondary storage drive for a larger capacity model, so I now have a lot of room to add more pictures too.

It’s not all smooth sailing though. I have my files backed up via a cloud service and it’s taken days to download all the files back onto the new machine. I’ve also had headaches getting Lightroom to play nicely with the catalog I exported from the old machine and, while I have my scanning software installed, as well as Negative Lab Pro, I’m having problems getting Epson Scan to work. A lot of people don’t seem to like Epson Scan very much, but I’ve always found it very effective when scanning B&W medium and large format negatives, so I would like to get it working if possible. I can fall back on Vuescan (which I use for scanning colour negatives and slide film anyway) and do the inversions in Negative Lab Pro, which I’ve tried and had good results, but it means getting used to a different workflow. I’m not sure if I can scan multiple negatives in a batch with Vuescan either (although I haven’t looked into it properly yet).

Anyway, hopefully the storm-clouds of getting everything configured to my needs will soon thin and I can enjoy the benefits of a faster PC.

A rare foray into digital pictures for the blog today, with the shot below coming from my Ricoh GR III. These sorts of clouds are very rare hereabouts, so I had to grab a picture when I saw them. I thought we might be in for a huge storm, but they just drifted by without much fuss in the end.

Stormy weather

Ricoh GR III

Taken on 7 November 2023

Digital · Photography

Autumnal disappointment

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A massive failure this afternoon. 😦

I took a half day off work as I knew the weather was nice for once, and it was one of the only chances I had to try and photograph some autumn colour. So after lunch I headed out to Padley Gorge in the Peak District with the Chamonix large format camera and a bunch of film with the intent of shooting some of the Kodak Ektar that I have, and which I had four sheets loaded in film holders.

I found a nice scene with a backlit oak tree, so set everything up, carefully checked my focus and the camera settings and then took the shot. I then headed a little further down the gorge to try and find the next one. By this time, the light was low enough that a lot of the area was already in shadow, so I looked to photograph a clump of autumnal leaves on a sapling which were illuminated in a shaft of sunlight. It was a slightly tricky shot to focus, requiring some tilt to get everything sharp. After setting up the shot and feeling relatively confident about the sharpness, I went to meter the scene and then noticed with dismay that my meter was set to ISO400. This meant the first shot was two stops underexposed. This was very frustrating and, to be honest, set the ball rolling for the rest of the afternoon’s disappointment.

Burbage Brook in Padley Gorge

As I’d already wasted one expensive sheet of colour film I was now even more conscious of the need to not waste any of the remaining three sheets on sub-par images, especially given the fact I’d have to send them away for developing at notable cost, so I binned the shot of the leaves and decided to move elsewhere for something better. I was now in the wrong frame of mind though – everything I considered seemed like it wasn’t worth the effort (or cost) – and so I set up and then dismissed several shots while the sun sank lower in the sky. Eventually (and now in a pretty bad mood) I just said to myself “f**k it” and packed everything away and came home.

I was seething in the car all the way back because a) the weather and light was beautiful and I had been unable to take advantage of something I rarely get the chance to, and b) I wasted an afternoon’s off work for the privilege. I saw several beautifully lit scenes on the way home which, had I had a smaller format camera with me, I could have photographed, but I just had to drive past them all.

In the woods

The weather looks good again tomorrow, and I’m going to have another attempt at capturing autumn colour, but I’ll be taking some medium format gear this time to make sure I actually capture something on film. I expect the same locations will be much busier tomorrow, unfortunately.

Anyone else have “one of those days”?

The pictures shared today are a few older digital shots from previous visits to the same area. You can see why I’m disappointed to come away empty handed….

The pond at Longshaw-2
35mm · Digital · Film photography · Photography

Golden hour at the Port of Malaga

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It’s quite unusual for me to make photographs during golden hour. Most of the time I either need to get ready for work in the morning, or I’m too tired to bother with going out in the evening. So it’s only when I’m on a holiday or something that I tend to take advantage of the soft, warm light it presents.

My wife and I had been out for something to eat in one of the harbour-side restaurants, and the sun was setting when we finished our meal, so I managed to get a few pictures. I also took a digital shot of this same scene which, if I’m honest, I prefer to the film version (traitor!). You can see this at the bottom of the post.

Harbour scene

Nikon F80, Nikkor 28-80mm f.3.5-5.6 AF-D & Kodak Colorplus . Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro

Here’s the digital version, shot with my Ricoh GR III.

Port of Malaga at golden hour

Taken 19 August 2023.

Digital · Photography

From up on high

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I returned from a long weekend in Spain yesterday, an anniversary trip to Malaga with my wife.

The trip was nice, although the weather was very hot and, on the last couple of days, humid too! I guess this is what we get for having gotten married in August and then expecting to take an anniversary trip to a warm county to coincide with the same time of year…

We enjoyed ourselves though, ate a lot of nice food, and took plenty of (somewhat hot and sticky) walks. Malaga was very busy while we were there as it was the final two days of the Feira de Malaga – an annual festival where there is lots of live music, entertainment, and thousands of people walking around the streets drinking Cartojal, a sweet wine from the region.

There will be lots of pictures to come from the trip – I’ve just sent off four full rolls of 35mm to be developed today, so that will be a lot of images to choose from!

I also shot quite a lot of digital pictures while there and thought I’d post a few of those today.

This post is all aerial shots taken from the plane on the way to Malage, and on the journey home to the UK. They are not likely to win any prizes, but though they might be ineteresting to post and have a bit of a theme to them.

A bit of detective work on Google maps has allowed me to identify the locations of the pictures, although some were obvious anyway and I knew what they were as we flew past. There are not may pictures from the outbound journey as the weather was pretty cloudy, so just the first three shots are from that flight.

From up on high-18
Estacion de Cartama (about ten miles north of Malaga)
From up on high
Santa Rosalina. Just a little south of the previous picture.
From up on high-19
Real Guadalhorce Club de Golf. This is just north of Malaga airport and we were very close to touch down. I like that you can see tiny people playing golf.
From up on high-2
On the flight home now. Looking east towards the city of Malaga. Roughly in the centre of the image is a small-looking hill. This is where the Castillo de Gibralfaro sits. We climbed to the top of this one day. It’s much higher than you might imaging from this distant view!
From up on high-3
Climbing over the coast heading south over the Mediterranean before turning back north. Malaga to the east with the port visible.
From up on high-4
Now heading north and looking west towards Malaga. The port is still visible, as is (jus!) the hill where the castle sits.
From up on high-5
Heading inland now, Malaga no longer in sight. This agricultural valley lies to the east of Estacion de Carma, which can be seen in the middle of the frame.
From up on high-6
Much higher now, with the town of Loja in the cetre of the image with the River Genil flowing through.
From up on high-7
Another river, this time the River Guadalquivir, with the village of Villa del la Reina on its southern bank and the town of Andujar further distant.
From up on high-8
We’re now flying east of Madrid. Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport can be seen centre right, and both football stadiums are also visible – Atletico Madrid’s most prominently right in the centre of the frame, but Real Madrid’s ground can also be seen in the full resolution shot.
From up on high-9
Leaving Spain now and heading out over the Bay of Biscay and into France. The port of Bilbau is prominent at the bottom of the frame, and the city of Santander further to the west.
From up on high-10
Over France just north of Saint Nazaire with Quiberon Bay visible in the frame. The window had some external frost on it for a while, so exuse the image quality.
From up on high-11
The Sain Malo estuary is the prominent feature in this image.
From up on high-20
The Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey sit topped with clouds out in the English Channel.
From up on high-12
The northern tip of Normandy, with the port of Cherbourg in the distance. We would have been flying a few miles north of Utah Beach, one of the D-Day landing sites from WWII at this point.
From up on high-13
And now we’re back over the United Kingdom (or England if yoy want to be specific), with the full expanse of the Isle of White in view.
From up on high-14
A minute or two later, we’re over The Solent and about to fly over the British mainland.
From up on high-15
The A1, one of the countries main north-south routes, is clearly visible here near the village of Willoughby on the Wolds.
From up on high-16
Over East Leake. Not far to go now.
From up on high-17
The final aerieal shot of the trip, with the village of Sutton Bonnington below. We touched down shortly after.

So, something a little different today. I hope you’ve enjoyed the virtual travellogue. 🙂

Ricoh GR III

Taken on 18 August 2023 (first three images) and 22 August 2023

Digital

In the car park

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I’ve been out all day in London for a meeting today. I took my Ricoh with me and made a few pictures when I got opportunity. This one was taken in the car park this evening when I got back to my car. It’s just a support girder, but something about it appealed, as it sometimes does.

In the car park

Ricoh GR III
Taken 13 July 2023

35mm · Digital · Film photography · Photography

Another canal in Venice (on film and digital)

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Another photograph of a Venetian canal, but one where I took two photographs of the same scene – one with my Olympus Trip 35mm film camera, the other with my Ricoh GR III diigtal APS C compact.

I like both pictures. The the digital shot certainly has the edge in terms of resolution and the 28mm lens gives a different POV (as well as being in a different orientation), but I think I prefer the colours from the film shot. They’re less contrasty and rich, but feel more like what I saw on the day (although this is probably subjective).

Which do you prefer, and why?

Lush canal
Somewhere in Venice

Olympus Trip 35 & Kodak Colorplus. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.

Ricoh GR III (bottom picture)

Taken 6 May 2023.

Digital

Back from Italy

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I got back home yesterday after a few days away with my wife. We took a short trip to Lido di Jesolo, a beach resort in north-east Italy, that she had said she would like to visit. The resort is very much built for tourists – it’s mostly hotels and the restaurants, cafes, and shops that serve the visitors, but it’s clean, friendly, and a nice place to spend some time. It has a very long beach – over nine miles in length – which is equally clean (it has a Blue Flag rating) and with lots of public facilities such as cafes, bars, and showers. It also has thousands of sun-loungers and parasols, with many of the resort’s hotels having their own reserved section of the beach.

Before the flight
The plane we flew on to Italy – a Boeing 737-800 should you be interested.
Over the Alps
Flying over the Alps.
Venice descent
Making our descent into Venice Marco Polo Airport, with Venice visible in the centre of the Venetian lagoon.

The resort is also only a short distance from Venice, and it’s easy to catch a bus and a ferry to the historic city – a trip of approximately an hour from the bus station – meaning an abundance of culture and history is there should you wish to partake of it. We visited Venice on the second day of our trip, and here are a few pictures from the day out.

Piazza San Marco
Piazza San Marco, Venice
Rialto Bridge
Rialto Bridge, Venice
Somewhere in Venice
A canal scene, Venice

I’ll be posting a bunch of photos from the trip once I’ve got them processed and scanned, but in a break from tradition (given that this blog is advertised as being about film photography) I’ve dropped a few digital photos into today’s post. I don’t intend to start posting digital photographs on a regular basis, but I’ve decided that sometimes it might be apt. Because I often have a backlog of film pictures to develop, scan, and upload, it can often be many weeks before I get to post them. Using some digital pictures now and then will allow me to better illustrate the posts where I witter on about what I did that day with actual images from the events, rather than some random unrelated film photo I took weeks earlier.

Ricoh GR III.

Taken 5 and 6 May 2023.