On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

Arguably this happened before digital came along as some of the 35mm compact cameras from the ‘80s and ‘90s were pretty boring things to look at. A lump of plastic with some cheap chrome effect trims and buttons. Nothing to write home about.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I tend to use things that get the job done above and beyond aesthetics and so forth so owning a Leica isn’t a fashion statement for me, it’s the tool that gets the job done. The fact that I still own, drive and run a pants car (a 1988 Ford Escort no less – and it looks a right heap) is a testament to the fact I couldn’t give a flying f*ck about keeping up with the Jones’ or indeed embark on a major binge of short term consumerist highs. I like nice things, I respect people who have nice things, but I’m no fashion victim myself.

In yet another conversation where I was told (no not asked, told) why I should dump my film gear I explained all the usual stuff – I like working with the aesthetic film gives, I like projecting my slides to family and friends, I enjoy developing and experimenting with processing my films and I adore working in the darkroom making prints. Then I thought of another reason.

It doesn’t apply across the board as this criticism applies to my EOS 3 and in fact most modern film SLRs too – but I increasingly don’t like the look, the feel and the actual usability of modern cameras. I like things to be simple. These days, EOS 3 included (so this isn’t an anti-digital rant, I don’t do those as they are futile) there are buttons and gizmos everywhere, it’s hard to use a camera sometimes without taking your eye off the ball. This applies less to SLRs as the viewfinder usually gives you all you need to know and a good one with good ergonomics will allow you to adjust the exposure, meter etc. all from your shooting grasp. Digital compacts less so.

 
Workmen (Leica M2, Summar f/2, Fuji Neopan 1600, Kodak Xtol 5mins 21C)

I hate all that clutter, it distracts you. A good camera can equally be one with all the buttons and menu options in the world, but also be one with a shutter speed dial, a shutter release and a rewind knob. Sure the latter is pretty basic (but also aptly describes the Leica M2!) but there’s little where you can go wrong or fumble.

The problem I have is that technologically you can’t fault the cameras. I might think that sounds a bit pap with regard to things like smile detection but if they help people who aren’t photographically adept take good photos then that’s a great thing. What I don’t like is the fact that there are heaps and heaps of options and buttons on many cameras now which really make the thing too complicated. It would be nice to also see a bit of older styling here and there. I prefer the way cameras were made to they way they are now made, although those barely 1” thick  digital compacts are pretty neat looking things.

Maybe Olympus’ Micro 4/3rds (Panasonic Lumix G1) for example will be a starting point for making cameras a bit smaller again and a little less cluttered?

There is of course the Epson (Cosina) RD1/s/x and Leica M8 but we’re not talking about a £150-200 compact camera there, we’re talking a lot of money, especially on the M8.2 at getting on for £4000 which is very questionable.

So that was my other reason, I like the feel and usability of older cameras more than the newer ones. Smile detection is great, but it isn’t necessary in the hands of someone who at least protests to know what they are doing!

Bodiam Castle, East Sussex

Taken shortly after sunrise on 21 Feb 2009
I really do love using the Leica M2

Leica M2, Kodak EBX 100, Hoya 81A and Voigtlander Ultron 35mm

Continued from Part 2

Part Three – Final thoughts on a TLR and Medium Format in a digital age

Anybody who knows anything about my photography knows that apart from a quick snap on my mobile phone, I only use film cameras. Despite holding down a job in IT working on the forefront of web technologies – I still don’t have any desire to go out and buy digital camera. But with all that considered, how does this weigh up in a digitally dominated photographic world, and even though I spent a mere £120 on this system so far (excluding film) – is it really such a good investment?

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Gary e-mailed me after I started the C330F Review (which I hope to finish tonight) with regard to this gem of a medium format camera. Well, he has a great blog himself looking at photography from the world of Mamiya.

As I have grown very fond of my C330F, there is a chance I’ll also invest in a 6×7 system such as the Mamiya RB/RZ67. Click the logo to follow on to his great blog:

He’s also the US distributor so why not check out www.mamiya.com whilst you’re at it?

Part Two – Twin Lens Quirks and Revelations

Continued from Part 1 | Skip to Part 3

So what is the Mamiya C330 or the C series in general? They are Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) cameras which means as the name suggests they have two lenses. One of the lens is the one you view through and the second lower lens is the one that is the taking lens (i.e. with the shutter that exposes the film behind it.)

This leads to a few interesting quirks. The first advantage of a TLR is that you can see virtually what you are taking a picture of as you take it. This has some distinct advantages for long exposures and portraiture where you want to be sure the person/people had their eyes open at the time of exposure. The second advantage is that compared to some medium format systems the Mamiya TLRs are cheaper than other interchangeable lens counterparts like the Bronica ETR, Mamiya 645, Pentax 645 (6×4.5 cameras) and the Bronica SQ and Mamiya 6/7 (6×6 cameras.)

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Kodak’s film business decreased year on year, Fuji’s also did something similar. Double digit drops but both seem to have made a profit…

Yaddy yaddy yaaa…

Seriously, *yawn*, It’s quite obvious this would happen. Most people rightly have decided digital is far more convenient from them and what’s more they get the results they want from it. Digital is also bloody excellent. But so is film. They both are.

But the amount of “film is dead” threads that have bounced back with this week’s news is at very best tedious and dull. So long as I can buy film I’ll use it but when they stop making it, whenever that might be, I’ll get equipped with digital. It’ll be a crying shame as I love my Delta 100, Pan F 50, Tri X and HP5, SFX 200, Velvia 50 etc. but just as I have had to say goodbye to Kodak HIE (2 rolls left in the freezer) I’ll say goodbye to the others when they get stopped.

When will that be? Do I look like a friggin’ oracle? In the meantime I’m going to enjoy this thing called photography for everything that it is and the fact I shoot film and like working in the darkroom is incidental to the grand scheme, the main thing is the results and I appreciate those however you took the photo.

See you next year when I’ll probably say the same thing.

This will be a short post as I am tired and need to get some kip.

I recently acquired a Mamiya C330F Twin-Lens Reflex medium format camera. That is a camera that takes an image on a frame larger than 35mm format in a very crude definition. In the case of the Mamiya TLRs that’s a square 6×6cm image, which is over double the size of a 35mm frame. The bottom line is purportedly better image resolution.

I acquired the C330f, a Cokin A adapter especially designed for the Mamiya, the 80mm f/2.8 and 55mm f/4.5 lenses for well, under £150. Seriously good bargain especially as it all has 12 months warranty.

First dabblings – Fulking Escarpment

First experiences with it properly were on Saturday where I went back to my favourite little local bit of Sussex (I have so many, but I’ll settle on one for now) – Fulking/Poynings/Summer Down and the South Downs Escarpment. (Note I didn’t mention Devil’s Dyke — too busy and the pub though a welcome sight when I walked the South Downs Way, is a bit of a blot on the landscape.) Give I haven’t found my spare camera strap I trudged up the steep escarpment slope with the C330f in one hand and it was not particularly easy going as I like my hands free when I am walking.

That said though, it was good working with it. I had it pretty much set to infinity focus and dabbled with metering according to the Sunny 16 rule. I also had my EOS 3 to confirm my estimates at shutter and aperture values — as it turns out I was pretty much bang on most of the time. A result!

After I went along the scarp slope for a while and the back again and down into Fulking for a pint of hoppy brew and read the paper (The Independent no less) in the latent summer sun. Great stuff.

Second Dabblings – Steyning Bowl

I have been looking after a friends house and cats whilst she was away in Cyprus so I was in East Worthing for over a week. That’s about 2.5 to 3miles away from where I am in West Worthing, which is a fair distance to add to a walk if you choose to explore the Downs towards Sompting Abbotts and to the east of Cissbury Ring.

So being as I was over the right side of Worthing that’s just what I did.

I have to say, it is just fantastic out that side of things, utterly beautiful and so peaceful. Largely this is because it’s quite cut off. You only have the Bostal Road from Steyning which touches down on the other side on the dual carriaged A27 bypassing Sompting. Otherwise there are no other roads and it just feels somewhat cut off. It’s a bit like a Devil’s Dyke Road without all the people and the nonsense

Anyway, it was a peaceful walk and again I was pretty much on the ball with getting right exposure off the top of my head (I think, by then I had moved onto Velvia 50 and I think I’ll have screwed up badly as that’s one tough cookie to expose.) At one point a couple of kids with their mum or something came up to where I was looking down the valley and the boy said, “Cool camera!” to which I just said “Yeah it’s an oldie but it does the job” – he said “That’s why it’s cool, it’s retro!”

I must remember the tat that I have is not tat nor is it old, it’s retro.

Once I had meandered slowly up the valley to Steyning Bowl (by now 5pm, I avoided the road you see which means some zig zagging) it was beautiful, warm but with a snap of September chill in the air. I also walked onto part of the South Downs Way that I had trudged along back on a very very hot day at the end of July on the Washington->Pyecombe leg. It felt so special to be back. And actually, I was really quite tearful. And no it’s not pathetic, it was a little bit of pride that this was part of the path I had accomplished something on, but also because I am so lucky to have such a beautiful part of the world within a stone’s throw of my home-town.

Alas the C330f was a joy to shoot with, even though something went very wrong with the Velvia I had loaded up. I managed to partially rescue it but I may only have 3 maybe 4 usuable frames as a consequence (I have no idea what happened, it just went wrong… it didn’t wind on properly etc.) Alas all was fine in the end and it was refreshing to slow down my shooting with such a camera.

I don’t expect masterpieces back this time, it’s more of a dummy run for exposure calculation.

Either way, walking back in the low golden September sun, I walked through the fields still abuzz with butterflies flitting through the cool blue air and it was just wonderful.

I have to say without a shadow of a doubt, that if the Lancing/Sompting/Worthing by-pass ever does resurface or happen, I’ll only support it through a tunnel or through its current path by bulldozing houses on the current route. Houses are temporary, but the landscape is too wonderful to savage with a road. It really is a special bit of Sussex in amongst the Brighton-Worthing-Littlehampton strip (supposedly the second most densely populated part of the country, population of almost half a million) that just feels like you could be miles from anywhere.

I’ll keep you posted of the results!

x x

This film ever since I first watched it in Media Studies in 1999 at the lovely endearing age of 16 means more to me day by day by day…

I have to clear something up right away before I start here. Firstly, I’m still shooting film (35mm and 120) if you don’t follow things here — but that’s a personal choice — this doesn’t mean I don’t like or agree with digital photography (as Mike Johnston on photo.net put it recently, it’s really just photography now) because I think it’s an amazing thing and brilliant too. Resolution wise 35mm digital to 35mm film at the top end digital has it wrapped up. So I just want you to get this fixed in your head: what I’m about to say isn’t a film-head’s Luddite knee jerking. So if you think I’m debating that pointless digital vs. film debate, I’m not. In any instance it’s possible to do HDR imaging with film and a computer scanner.

Anyway, High Dynamic Range photography, or HDR.

I’ll say this right away, a small portion of it is excellent. Sharp, in keeping with the composition, balanced and sometimes even subtly brilliant – this small proportion is absolutely excellent and I think it’s cracking.

Then there is the majority: I think it looks awful. It’s not sharp, it’s gaudy and unbalanced and takes on a surreal look. If a surreal look is intended then that’s fine but I have to say over-done HDR photographs are fast becoming a pet hate of mine. I wonder if sometimes the bad examples are the result of some people not spending time over metering for difficult scenes and instead shooting at ‘any old’ time of day and then putting the frames together on the computer.

In some senses the use of ND grad filters is how traditionally we would have played with light and it’s always been done to some degree so HDR isn’t bad per se, it’s the execution of it in some hands. And some hands are as subtle as a slap around the chops!

I can only assume that some are using HDR as a proxy to make up for the inability to understand exposure. Those who do understand it make good HDR images as they have bracketed appropriately to make the composition.

I sometimes use ND Grad filters which in a sense is HDR too as I am manipulating light and how it falls on the film’s suface, extending the dynamic range. But when one sees the masterwork of say Ansel Adams and his famous images, compared to a lot of HDR work — you can see the difference.

I just had to say this because I like HDR when it’s done right but by god is there a lot of pap out there.

There again, I’m slightly alergic to colour anyway (hence all the black and white!) so I’m probably not the best judge

Continuing from last night’s post, this is an early impression of the Olympus XA.

SLRs were in the early 90s about as fashionable as socks and sandals, only your granddad had one. Since then the SLR (and DSLR although I lump them altogether myself) has had something of a resurgence with many people who have shot point and shoots jumping on the SLR bandwagon with something like a Nikon D40 or Canon EOS 450D fitting their bill very well indeed.

The problem with SLRs only becomes apparent however when you venture into photography that needs to be a bit more discrete (street scene, gigs, museums, documentary, candid work) or where you may want something a bit lighter/smaller. Granted the D40 and EOS 450D/1000D is about as small as you could comfortably go with an SLR but they’re still a bit bulky particularly with a lens on.

I don’t own either of those SLRs but I have played with both and whilst I think they’re good cameras, I much prefer the bright and large viewfinder of my EOS 3, and for the most part its heft and size is a positive. However, it’s not discrete and when you’ve walked 120 miles with it (I recently walked the South Downs Way which is 100mi + 20mi to-from accommodation/food) you know all about its heft!

Enter the XA

When I returned from my recent trek, I was resigned to accepting that whilst I would never part with my EOS 3 and its undeniable construction quality was a very good thing, my neck was raw from carrying it. And it’s not the first time I’ve had that. I needed something smaller. I already have an Olympus Trip 35 but it’s a 40mm aspect which whilst seemingly not far off my favoured 35mm focal length, does make a difference. It’s also a bit of a guess when it comes to precise focussing.

The long-term goal is to purchase a Voigtlander Bessa R2a/R4a (made by Cosina but I’m not a label snob) with a nice 35mm f/1.4 lens but that may take a year or so to afford. So what to do?

Olympus have always made small neat and high performing cameras in many cases. There is the Trip 35 I’ve already mentioned, the Mju II (Epic) point and shoot, the OM range of SLRs, their four thirds DSLR system, not to mention their innovative half frame Pen cameras… And the XA.

The XA is not like a Bessa R or Leica which has a very distinct style, it’s a very modern looking camera (well, more modern looking than an M3!) that packs a 35mm f/2.8 F.Zuiko lens, a fully coupled rangefinder, a rugged clamshell design and sensitive shutter release to minimise camera shake.

Wide aperture and the rangefinder ‘way’ make for accurate focussing and
sharp images at slow shutter speeds in low light

Without recounting what you can find on the web: it’s an excellent rangefinder for the money and is AE ready with its built in meter, and is an aperture priority camera (Av) rather than say the Canonet QL17 GIII which is a shutter priority camera. The quality is sharp, it’s compact, quiet, easy to focus and well made. It won’t exactly run circles around a £3500 Leica system (e.g. an M7 + Summicron 35mm) but it’s far better than the price ravine would suggest. I paid £34 for a recently serviced XA with the A11 flash appendage.

In Use

Immediately I worked on focusing. A fully coupled rangefinder is so simple to focus. You have the viewfinder and in that is a bright rangefinder patch that is essentially a secondary overlay of a part of the image. All you have to do is move the focusing ring until the bright patch and underlying image are lined up with no apparent ghosting. Easy! This is a key way in which low light performance of a rangefinder can be much better than a SLR, in particular an AF SLR which can sometimes hunt around for its subject.

Having quickly mastered that (I am no manual focus stranger, with my much loved 35mm f/2 Super Takumar on my EOS 3) I loaded up some Ilford HP5 and set off to V Festival in Weston Park, Staffs.

The F.Zuiko 35mm lens takes very sharp pictures at f/8-11 much more
so than the XA’s dimensions may indicate!

Most people went with digital point and shoots. I would question seriously that apart from those buying disposable cameras, few people would have been using an esoteric 35mm film camera like me. (There again, I did see someone with an EOS 1d MkII or III with a cheapy Sigma 28-135mm lens on it…) Unlike most, I knew it was hopeless to photograph the stages so I focused on unsung things like the loo cleaners, bar staff, caterers, the decimation of the campsites etc. and it was a pure pleasure to use the XA. At mid-day I was shooting mostly at f/16 (1/500th second shutter speed — sunny f/16 rule on ISO 400 film) and focusing was easy enough though sometimes it was hard to see the markings and shutter speeds but mostly it worked great.

The camera is also dead quiet with its super sensitive shutter release which fires at the slightest of pressure. I’m used to sensitive shutter releases (a la EOS 3/1v/1D) so this is no problem to me but those with slightly spongier shutter releases (a la EOS 400D/30D etc.) or heavily mechanical shutter releases may take some time to adjust to this. What this should mean is that it should be possible to take a shot at 1/15th second shutter speed and not have much camera shake evident.

My friend reading. Sharp and accurate focussing even though the XA’s
rangefinder is not exactly of Leica, Voigtlander Bessa or Zeiss Ikon Standards!

The camera was also very light and compact. Ideal in a coat or pocket in my shorts. It also proved quite resilient to the English rain and drizzle so a big thumbs up there. This at least ticked the small and light boxes.

In terms of discreteness, the XA is probably as good as it gets. It looks to be little more than a basic point and shoot, so you can be sure to not get to much attention when you don’t want it. You could very easily sit waiting with it set to f/8-16 and at hyperfocal length waiting for the right decisive moment and fire without causing any disturbance.

To be continued….