Kodak seems to have mislaid one of my rolls of Kodachrome which I shot walking the North Downs Way in June. Ahhh good times, sun, the open track, hard graft, great views and a sense of achievement. Wonderful, much more meaningful than a lot of the crap in day to day life I guess.

Anyway, if anything it’s a blessing in disguise because I’ve been feeling a bit sad that my adventure for this year is over. I had a tremendous amount of fun as ever, I guess I just love being out there and free.

So, in lieu of me feeling a bit melancholy and missing that adventure, having lost a roll of film and indeed the weather on the day concerned being what we call in the trade, “thoroughly pap” (i.e. crap) I thought I’d walk it again one weekend in August.

That’s basically Ranmore Common to Westerham via Box Hill, Reigate Hill and Tandridge Hill. I have 5 rolls of Kodachrome still in the fridge so I can take two rolls, shoot it, do a good job on some good weather and hopefully not have Kodak mislay these rolls (in fairness, this is the first of however many rolls of KR64 I sent them that got lost, I’ve probably shot around 80-100 rolls of Kodachrome in my time…)

It’s a bit crazy as I know the day I walked from Ranmore Common to Godstone was a long old day but damn was it good fun. Hard going fun.

The kind of thing that makes life thoroughly amazing and worth living. The best things in life have to be worked at, and are often hard going. But there was never any sense of accomplishment of watching Jeremy Kyle. Though, on second thoughts, anyone who can make it through a whole episode of that without wanting to throw the telly out the window has my admiration.

So, back off to the North Downs then

All in between me enjoying the South Downs and finishing my B&W Photography Magazine, B&W Photographer of the Year entry… Eeeep!

I haven’t written much here lately. Not for bad reasons, just been busy making the most of summer and that is in some respects why I am updating my blog on Saturday afternoon – I have been out and about so much that my flat has turned into a dump! So I’m having a day of cleaning up, mopping, hoovering – everything. Later on today I’ll be off out to take a photo of a subject I need for my entry to Black and White Photography Magazine’s B&W Photographer Of The Year competition (something I don’t anticipate getting anywhere with but I’m giving it a go, and the end result is 4 prints I will like and hang on the wall even if the critics think they suck!

This time last year

Today a year ago I started walking the South Downs Way, and since then in June I walked the North Downs Way. A combined distance with all the to-ing and fro-ing of probably 380 miles. I’m quite a nostalgic person and I own a pair of rose tinted specs for every day of the year but it did get me thinking a little, of how awesome it is to be able to just get out there and walk, enjoy the countryside and take photos. I’m actually going to do a print tonight of Gander Down which is where I walked through a year ago today, pure coincidence but a happy one all the same. (My subject is the South Downs.)

About three-four years ago I had got myself into a rut, one that I progressively made deeper and deeper, it taught me a lot in hindsight but I got in with the wrong people (again) and it almost destroyed me. It’s only now I’m looking back thinking, “What the… why!” I got myself into something I didn’t need to, probably only because I felt lonely and was having a hard time adjusting to the difference of being in University and then going into work, hardly trauma central but enough to unseat you, especially when you get made redundant  and then progressively all your friends move away back to their parents and you’re holding the fort out of stubbornness, blind stupidity and mostly a love of where you now live. This was in 2005/6 (before this recession) so I do feel for people out of work who have strong work ethic, signing on at the DSS is the most humiliating thing I’ve ever done.

And then there’s the stupid things I did in that time too, at the time I felt I should be doing them, and I learnt a lot, saw a lot (and I already had beforehand, life really ain’t all roses and sweet-peas I’m afraid, not for everybody anyway, but you can make your own life pretty OK if you try hard) but even though at the time I felt I should be doing these things, I look back and think what I damn idiot I was. But c’est la vie; it got me to a good situation now of where I know exactly what I’m doing and most of all, I don’t really have much but I’m now happy and even feel that I’ve got to really cram as much in as possible because life is so short!

Next year I have plans to probably do some more chalk-hill walking, Cotswolds Way is likely. I did think of Offa’s Dyke but I also want to go to France for a week and 2 weeks of holiday one for walking, one for France eats half of my annual leave, let alone taking 2 weeks for Offa’s Dyke and 1 week for France, I’ll be left with nothing for the rest of the year virtually.

Nostalgia

Last night I sat down and went through 4 boxes of Kodachrome slides I got back from walking on the North Downs Way. (It equates to the first 4 1/2 days of walking) I swear that looking at projected slides is one of the biggest things people miss out on with digital photography. I don’t like engaging in any trivial spats like digital or film, Mac or PC etc. but the cost of a 1080p projector (which doesn’t have the resolution of projected slides) vs. a half decent slide projector and some well exposed chromes is an experience so many are now not enjoying. The richness of the colour, the detail almost dripping off the slides. Gorgeous stuff.

Anyway, it was lovely just to sit there and “re-walk” that part of the North Downs, really casts the mind back and it was most enjoyable. It’s much more enjoyable to look at a print or a slide projected than looking at something on a computer screen I think, much more detail and saturation (whatever you use, including digital) and this year alone I have had 4 or 5 people loose their PCs due to hard disk failure and you guessed it either no backups or very little, losing all of their photos!

They’re now backing them up thank goodness but it worries me people aren’t looking after their slides, negatives, JPEGs or RAW files as well as they should. Get prints, get photo books done (one of the amazing things we can now do easily due to digital), store those slides properly, just get hard copies and back up any scan files or pictures from your camera. It’s so so important, otherwise we all risk losing a great deal of photographic history of our time on this planet.

I haven’t written anything since I got back about my sojourn across the North Downs, a 132 mile hike from Farnham in Surrey to Dover in Kent via Rochester and Canterbury. The biggest reason as it stands has been my:

• Very busy couple of weeks since I got back
• The depressing fact that a year on I have still to pull my finger out and finish writing about the South Downs Way which I did almost a year ago now.

But there have been other reasons. When I started the South Downs Way I knew and still will produce a photo book on the South Downs Way but the flaw was trying to shoot it all in ‘one-sitting’ and whilst this is true to the journey, it has produced some of my favourite photos but also some that I am less than enamoured with. The upshot is that I’m going to need to re-visit the trail and photograph it again. Not exactly a bad thing in my book! So this project whilst very much swept aside for me to get on with impression:mk is alive and I am sticking with it. I just have to get these things right and there is no need to rush (unless of course I die tomorrow in which case i need to get a shift on!)

The other reason is a biggie, but that hasn’t stopped me getting on with it in the same way that say my birthday, barbeques, the pub (a few times admittedly!) and doing some extra work outside of the day job has done. But it has made me stop writing about it in yet another diary like fashion. Why?

I have long shrugged off or indeed acknowledged/struggled to find that any work of mine (photographically or written) has a philosophy, there is one but it’s not exactly obvious and probably still isn’t to me. But I do know what I am interested in and I’m now old enough to not give a damn about whether people think it’s odd, weird, deranged or obsessive. Which is a good start because there is nothing wrong than wanting to say photograph in black and white maybe the underside and underbelly of industrial Birmingham with its urban motorways and canals and decayed industry and social housing but not being able to do so because you’re worried a friend or all your friends are going to look dimly on it. Now, the latter is also something I will do (when I get time) but I’ve completely got over the whole keeping up appearances for friends, I am what I am and if you don’t like it do yourself and me a favour and kindly show yourself the door darling.

But behind this in the things I have attempted to write, and the things I do photograph of my own volition have been informed by something, or a series of somethings that are never entirely in isolation but do quite often float in the ether encapsulated all by themselves. Quite often these things are entirely subjective, subvocal, hidden and emotional and its hard to explain them except through a photo, or a sentence/paragraph that forms part of that overall patchwork of experience which describes where I am at this time, and what has gone before to bring me here in this frame of mind.

Without drifting needlessly into the obtuse, walking has always given me the freedom to think clearly. Whether that’s drifting around London or Brighton, or out in the wilds of the Downs or indeed the North Downs it hasn’t really mattered. The car, and to a lesser extent the train give you a sense of movement and an interesting perspective on how the landscape and your viewpoint shifts with that movement, but it’s nothing like the view you get when walking, which awakens and feeds that curious appetite. The bus for me does none of these, there’s no romance or emotion in that transport. It’s as utilitarian as a girdle (unless you have a girdle fetish, not that I am suggesting bus buffs are… Someone help me out of this hole!)

Walking this time seemed to sew up some kind of philosophy, it’s very quirky but it makes some sense. And so rather than write just a series of daily diaries of each day on the North Downs Way I’ve decided to work it into a wider remit on photography, subjectivity and philosophy of an art form and indeed maybe even a little of life. It’s hard to explain succinctly otherwise there would be no point in writing a book but it’s non-fiction and most definitely not a Kerouac-inspired journey dialogue. It is really a photography book, it might not be “Mastering Photoshop CS4’ or ‘The Dummies guide to Digital SLRs’ (I have no idea if those books exist but I bet they do, and I bet they are really really boring, bit like what I write then *chuckles*) but it’ll be interesting none the less.

The photo that summed this up for me is one I am still waiting back for, but maybe that’s it, a photo can make sense even with it not present if the thought behind it is sound. I was sat at Gatwick Airport station, on the final leg back home to Worthing, Day 14 of walking and I had done it, I had walked every inch from Farnham to Dover. And I was sat on the floor of the platform in the sun, it was nice to stretch out the legs but you get interesting perspectives on different levels. Ahead a lady, perhaps a flight attendant still dressed up glamorous strolled down the platform towards the incoming train and ahead a train was moving north to the far-side platform, the sun was bright. And it was hot (never start a sentence with a conjunction – except when it works for effect.) Long shadows carrying the cerebral and emotional baggage we all hide following in tow and the sky was pitch perfect blue. The departure board scrolling across for the Brighton 1842 or something like that fringed by its bright yellow metal armature which burst out uncontrollably against the navy skirt-suit of the what I have now decided is most certain an air-hostess. And in that pitch perfect blue sky a plane is coming into land taking people back from their escape, and the train is here to carry some away too on a hot Sunday noon. Why and what is all this for, each little step and snatched glance, with every uttered word what are we doing it for. Are we always In Search of Sunrise?

And photo sums it up for me what this book is about and that’s the book concept/title too, In Search of Sunrise. It’s a quirky idea but it makes sense. It’ll be a good antidote to ‘1001 Digital Photography and Adobe Lightroom Skills: The Ultimate Guide to everything.’

First things first: My Canon EOS 5 and then 3 never fell apart on any hike. But then I hadn’t walked 160 miles with either in one go, but they proved to be tough cameras. So the Leica’s first outing on a hike through Surrey and Kent in South East England for 2 weeks around my neck covering at least 130 miles up and down on the trail and 30 miles to and from pubs, accommodation and around towns would give it a gruelling challenge.

The result was the M2 holding up perfectly apart from one screw going walkabout somewhere in Rochester probably.

It had always been loose, the one on the right on the top plate, it was loose probably due to the camera shop not tightening it properly – I should get it sorted, and will, but not having my M2 for even so much as an hour is a daunting thought! Otherwise the camera kept soldiering on, come wind, rain and an awful lot of shine. The beauty of a manual camera is there is no electronics for water to foul although you wouldn’t necessarily want to drench the M2 in a downpour as I’m sure it wouldn’t do much good in the long run.

The lenses were a slightly different ball game. First the Voigtlander Ultron, held up magnificently until day 11 of 14 when I noticed the back screw thread plate was working itself free. I can forgive it as it had a lot of stress and that would work screws free to an extent, this had the effect of getting the focussing helical (?) off kilter so that at infinity it was focussing beyond infinity if that makes sense. Also the focussing was slipping with the rangefinder coupling becoming uncoupled as the lens shifted a few tenths of an inch from its usual position. I assumed this meant adjustment under warranty but was advised by Robert White it would be a 4 week turnaround time, so I have tried adjusting it myself and will run a test roll and see whether it is indeed now OK.

My ‘new’ 50mm Canon Serenar (a gem of 1950s optical design, 50mm f/1.8 and pretty flare resistant and excellent colour rendition) managed to end up in two bits The front part which contains all the optics unscrewed from the rear part which is the barrel and rear screw mount. Screwing it back together tightly solved the problem. (It hadn’t been done when I received it and I had no idea how to adjust it as it has no externally visible screws, so it took it to fall apart for me to realise how its held together!)

Overall, I shot 13 rolls of Kodachrome, 1 roll of EBX and the camera did a grand job. Leica sent a replacement screw to me for free (which was unexpected!) so the M2 is visually all 100% again. That said, I found the elastoplast I had taped over the hole made a comfortable thumb rest, might keep it on!

That said, the Leica just kept on going. Just what I expect from a camera. They have tough lives with me, but they’re like working dogs – they appreciate it that way.

As I have said before, there are few things in the world that get people’s backs up: religion, politics, the EU and Ken Rockwell

His website is an enjoyable read, it isn’t some statement of fact in all cases and apparently using Windows is like living in a Communist country. Well I better go get myself a Trabant and start talking about how good the ballet is in Prague this spring That aside, he’s just published his top ten peeves about amateur photographers.

Now I am an amateur in the sense I am not professional i.e. I don’t take photos for a living (or my main income) but I’m not an amateur with regard to knowing what I am doing, though…

Not quite sure why he gets a bee in his bonnet over it but that’s his own perrogative! A few points though did make me think, eh?!

• Backpacks:

  Number on his list is the backpack. That makes some sense to a degree but it’s a bit naive to assume that most people with cameras lumber around for a couple of miles and then pack it in. I’ve been known to walk 25+ miles in a day and there is no way you can shoot all day without a backpack carrying some supplies not just for the camera but also you. Backpacks may not be a fashion statement but photography isn’t about some fashion statement or looking the part, it’s about the journey and the photography. And if I can do more of the latter because I have water and food, and a stack of film in my backpack then I’m all for that. It’s also a good place to keep a purse and mobile phone as I don’t know of many women who carry their purse in their pockets all day long like a man does with his wallet.

• Camera worn directly over the neck:

  Again I’m not at all sorry if I look a nerd because my M2 is around my neck but for me it works, also walking long distances with a large backpack and the camera slung over one shoulder does not work, the backpack (which if you’re walking over a number of days like I’ll be doing in a week’s time, 135 miles worth) restricts access to the camera. Frankly if you’re worried too much by how you look to others carrying a camera over your neck, seriously take a step back and figure what you’re more bothered about: feeling comfortable taking pictures that work for you, or looking cool. It just so happens that being really ugly I don’t have to concern myself with looking cool

• Lens caps:

  Largely I don’t bother either, I have an 81B on most lenses and that’s the cap. However on my Summar, with its large unprotected easy to scratch front element that’s just been repolished, I’m not going to have my lens ruined by not protecting it with a simple lens cap. As I’m not a sports photographer I have no desire to throw lenses in my bag. Largely because I don’t have a large income, have items sent to me for review or get things sent to me for nothing, but because I have a day job like most and lenses take a large chunk of my salary — I work them hard, but I respect them. Press photographers don’t have this, it’s provided by their employer and if it breaks, they don’t usually pay. If I broke my CV Ultron, it’s me who pays.

That said he also talks some sense. Just like I do on the odd occassion.

The ones I do nod in agreement with though is the assessment that some people freak if they haven’t got every mm of range covered and the old logo on the strap thing is real sucky. In fact the logos on most cameras suck full stop which is why I love my M2 in that the front of it has no daubings at all to identify who made it and what model. All those names and model numbers do is serve as a free advert, it’s not like you wake up some days and think “Ooh now which did I buy again, a Nikon D300 or D700?”

Either way, Ken’s doing Ken’s thing, expressing his opinions — even though some of them are curious. The most amusing thing lately is how his glowing review of a “$15 Olympus 35RC” ended up pushing at least one such 35RC OVER £340 on eBay. In perspective, that’s £40 more than my M2! I’m sure Steve Jobs would be impressed at how Rockwell appears to have managed to get someone to pay way over the odds for something you could do with another camera for about £330 less.

Anyway, keep up the good work Ken, we love you really, although its back to my communist country seeing as my iBook has been stolen.

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?

The quick bottom line is that this camera will produce results that equal what I have seen with the likes of a Sony Alpha 900 (24 MP 35mm format.) Being 120 format based, even ISO 400 film remains very clean. But, I’d dare say you don’t shoot film to have the clean look of digital which even with the likes of Ektar 100 and Velvia, digital really does ‘win’ on its clean grain-less appearance. I don’t like that clean look, I like a little bit of grit although with slower films (Provia, Astia, Velvia, E100VS, FP4, TMax 100, Acros, PanF etc.) you’re going to get very clean looks with 120, so unless your working in Olan Mills (do they exist any more?) where you have to churn out good results quickly, 7 days a week, 120 format cameras (i.e. medium format) is a very viable medium. It’s going to take a lot of film and processing to get you close to the £8000 it costs for a 16MP Hasselblad digital system, and digital MF backs though coming down in price, are still expensive.

And this is the clincher with digital, in the long term you save yourself money on processing + printing, on film you can buy a cheaper camera but in the end given long enough digital will have worked out cheaper. But – cheaper doesn’t solve the issue of not really enjoying the digital aesthetic as much as I like film’s. This is not to say I hate photos taken with digital cameras, I have seen some stunning results and love many a digital photo/print, and I have seen a lot of rubbish pictures taken with film (my early ones for example!) But – for what I do, the film aesthetic knocks a home run. And even if it works out in about 5-6 years time that my Mamiya C330F has cost me more in film, processing and printing than a Sony Alpha 900 – it’ll still be worth it. Cost is not a consideration when it comes to getting the result I want.

I’ve read and heard too many digital versus film rants and they are all incredibly tedious, boring and pointless. And this is not a versus comparison, this is about using an older camera in 2009 and whether it is viable and whether it will continue to be. That implies some crystal ball gazing and I know like the next person I could be completely wrong!

Arguably the biggest casualty so far of the transition to towards digital being the mainstream of photography is slide film. Whereas black and white and colour print have been kept relatively stable with even additions here and there to ranges, slide film and associated ranges have suffered. There was a time where the legendary Velvia 50 was discontinued but demand showed Fuji was a silly mistake that was. However we have lot a lot of Kodak E6 films and Kodachrome is now on its last legs as the ISO 64 consumer variant. That said, what remains and that’s a pretty decent offering from Fuji and Kodak suffices – but it’s taken a battering. Why? Because for a long time magazine editors demanded slides, instant viewing and in the early days of computer desktop publishing, scanners were optimised for slides, not C41 (colour) negatives.

How long will slides (E6 in this case) last? I’d personally be surprised if in a decade’s time if you couldn’t buy slide film any more, though I would expect some further rationalisation to have occurred. But – clearly for the next decade 120 film is still going to be available and in good volumes and ranges too, especially when Kodak have announced their new Ektar 100 film will also now be launched in 120 format. This is of course in my view a pre-empt towards a time when Kodak can call it quits on their Ektachrome range of slide film, but we’re not there yet.

The bottom line is that those who are professional photographers for magazines, newspapers and publications that demand results yesterday have largely all switched to digital. Where film will remain strong is the casual shooter, the amateur and enthusiasts out there shooting family and friend portraits, and landscapes with all manner between. This kind of work doesn’t demand digital’s convenience like a newspaper editor today would expect. So before you think you could end up buying a paperweight, a medium format camera like the C330F will remain useful for a long time to come.

And then there is the processing. Well, any one can process black and white, it is easy, and with a little more precision C41 is achievable. E6 is a bit different agreeably and you’ll probably need a lab for C41 and certainly for E6. But as some high street/main street labs close, they’ve closed because they were either nothing special or they never catered for the amateur but the professional market which has largely gone digital. What remains however are quite a few very decent labs where many have freepost mailers and will turn around in 1 day. My favoutites are The Darkroom and Peak Imaging – the latter who are just excellent for everything whereas The Darkroom are slightly cheaper but good for general processing of 35mm, 120 and XPan negatives/slides.

But if you invest some time, developing and then printing in the darkroom is another skill you could learn and ultimately a very rewarding one in my view. It’s also not that difficult to get started with either (Although as you learn you will get more intricate with your art.)

The point I am trying to make is that film isn’t dead, it’s not really dying, it’s fading into the background, it’s here and here to stay but it’s not mainstream. This is why you can’t really expect to pick up 120 film from the high street drugstore, but many decent photography/camera shops will. Even in Worthing AllPhotos on Tarring Road stock 120 so you won’t be solely restricted to purchasing over the Internet or traditional mail order.

The point remains that the C330F and the Mamiya TLRs in general are proven picture taking machines, mechanical beasts and hefty ones at that. You don’t need to worry about charging batteries or batteries at all, you don’t need a vast array of accessories just a couple of lenses maybe and the body – you will then have a superb picture taking machine. I have the 55mm wide and 80mm standard and hope to finish my system with a 135 or 180mm soon, and so far all the prints I have had done (i.e beyond the 5×5 proofs I usually get) have astounded me and their recipients of just how wonderful the results are. It’s a joy to use such a simple camera by today’s standards and yet get results that are equally as good as a very expensive (i.e.: £2000 and up) camera. And part of that joy is printing my own black and white negatives of family. If you’ve only ever used 35mm, the definition of medium format is a whole new world and it can be cheap.

It really is no joke that I got a C330F (a bit beat) and an 80mm for £60, and a 55mm for another £60. Picture it, you could sell prints made using this system that would not look amiss in a gallery and it will have cost you a fraction of the leading edge digital 35mm and a pittance compared to digital medium format.

In conclusion, the Mamiya TLR still makes sense in this digital world because it still takes great photos and will continue to do so. It’s also tough and well made, my C330F’s handle came away the other week because the pin worked free from the crank and the handle itself. A bit of bent wire soon sorted that out. It’s not the most pretty of picture taking machines and it’s quite a raw TLR compared to the smaller Rollei’s, but the system glass is very good. The price is such that you could take a digital SLR for weddings say for the majority of shots, but those where a little closer intimacy or size is anticipated, wouldn’t it be nice to load up some TXP320 or 160NC in this and capture those moments?

There are alternatives such as the Bronica ETRS(i) but that’s 6×4.5 format, or the SQ (6×6 like this), also others like the Pentax’s and other Mamiya’s – but out of all those, the Mamiya TLR is probably the cheapest. The real clincher of this TLR is that unlike the Rollei’s, Minolta’s, Yashica’s and Seagull’s – these take interchangeable lenses and with those lenses, this will take photos that not only wow you, but will wow others when you can wryly smile and say: “See that ancient beat up looking camera over there, that film camera, I took that photo with it.”

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?

There are three things in life that are certain to cause a heated debate and snapped exchanges: Politics, Religion and Ken Rockwell.

However, he has posted a gallery of photos taken on his Leica (an M7 I think) on a Rt. 66 trip (something I’ll do one day) with some Fuji Velvia 50.

The results are just fabulous, seriously fabulous and wonderful work.

View Ken Rockwell’s Route 66 Gallery

Since owning a Leica M2 myself, I just cannot get away from the fact that it is one of the most wonderful enjoyable pieces of photo equipment I have ever owned. And apart from telephoto work, my EOS 3 is beginning to get very envious of the M2. Who can blame it, it’s a wonderful camera and shooting slide in it is a righteous liberating experience.