Exmoor, River Lyn

Took a walk along this beaufltiful river on a pretty dreary day. I was pushing the OIS on my lens to its limit shooting hand held. 

Fijifilm XT-2 with Fujinon 10-24mm f4

Saunton Sands

The lovely Devon Coast. Shot hand held with an APSC fixed lens compact.  

A portrait ... my son Seth

Random Image time - Rome, Vatican City

When you discover that special... lens.

Well I take back what sometimes I say about kit, that it's not all about your gear. Sometimes the odd item comes along which stands out, feels and works differently. Just feels special. 

I recently sold much of my equipment and went back to basics. Mostly out of necessity, not choice. But this move was an ephifiny, a cleansing if you like. I was forced to revert to adaptors and legacy lenses firm the 60s onwards and a couple old mirrorless bodies that were too tatty to sell on. 

So I entered A tough process of having to shop around for lenses of useful focal lengths but with a quality that can meet or even exceed that of what I am used to. 

After much research, I bought these. Now note, not one lens cost me more than £65, some were £25 or less. 

They are in order from left to right.  

Helios 28mm f2.8

Meyer-optic Gorlitz Lydith 30mm f3.5

Jupiter 8 50mm f2

Pentacon 50mm f1.8

Mamiya Sekor 50mm f2

Ziess Jenna 50mm f2.8

Now I won't keep all the fifties they were just so cheap I could buy and try. As things look I'm torn between the Jupiter and the Mamiya. But there is a star of the show. The Meyer-Optik 30mm. Wow this lens is stunning in build and performance. I wasn't ware of the history and quality of Meyer-optik lenses before I did my research. They are East German and to many experts come second only to Lieca and Voightlander in quality, even before Ziess. The lens feels like a £1000 lens that should be on an M6. In fact the company is making this lens again, I note there is a kickstarter and I'm told the price will be in excess of £1500! This original copy in near mint condition cost me £65. 

Meyer-Optik Gorlitz. Lydith. 30mm f3.5  

There are also a couple of 50mm lenses which boast incredible 'bubble' bokeh if that floats your boat.  There is also a telephoto worth looking at, a 135mm I think that has legendary status in the old lens expert world.  

My opinion however is if you find a Lydith, buy it as for the money you can't go wrong. If you are ok with manual focus and exposure you can benefit from superb colour rendition, sharpness and micro contrast with this 30mm lens.

A real discovery.  

Martin. 

Just a test shot but I was so very impressed with the IQ this lens renders. JPEG strait from the camera. Punchy, contrasty great colours and clean.  

Continued. So I took a quick stroll along the river here and made a few more test snaps. JPEG straight from camera. 

Mounted to my mirrorless APSC camera this was around 45mm which is actually a lovely focal length to use. Apologies for the mundane images.  

and not forgetting skin tones.  

A return to Analogue (Film)

A few samples from my recent revival of film.  I love shooting film but more so the journey of developing and scanning at home. 

A few family snaps for practice. I need a decent way to scan though.  

Suggestions welcome ... please.  

A few sample jpegs from Lanzarote.

I recently returned and here are a few quick JPEG edits. 

Dealing with a few Landscape Photography Myths - A must read.

Now, I do a lot of reading online of Photography related subjects. I also watch a lot of YouTube. Over the last year or so I have been somewhat agasp at some of the 'statements' I read in the comments sections.  So here are a few actual comments I have recently read, let's deal with 3 porkers right here that struck me this week. 

1) 'No real landscape potographer shoots hand held' 

Yes this was actually a statement. Let me assume the poster means one should always use a tripod if one is to be a 'real' landscaper. Well that's just plain wrong. The way I view the use of a tripod is like I view any other decision making process. I ask myself 'Will using [insert item here] improve this image or enable me to achieve what I hope to? If the answer is no, then I leave it out. In my case I would say that of 90%+ of published shots, the use of a tripod would not have added anything, in fact it's often a hinderence. By example, all of the shots in this post are hand held. 

I personally mostly shoot handheld, heck I don't even use a camera strap. Why? I do not like the restriction of a tripod. This is just my MO.  I use one when I need to drag the shutter at lower speeds than modern cameras and lenses allow but that isn't often. Moreover I like to move around, flow and merge with my surroundings. Get my feet into it, feel it. This brings me closer to the subject figuratively speaking, and I have more flexibility and speed with composing. It's not stiff and planted like tripod work is. Modern advancements like image stabilisation etc mean I can shoot as slow as 1/15th second hand held, and sharp! Maybe my past military trading in the use of a rifle helps, I can stand and shoot very steady but this can be learned by anyone. 

I am not alone in this either. In 2014 I managed to become a finalist in U.K. Landscape Photographer of the Year and that years winner, Mark Littlejohn, shares this view and practice of avoiding the tripod. My image from that competition is below and was shot hand held, ISO 1600, f8 @ 1/125 sec helped by image stabilisation. 

2) 'Good images need hours of post processing' 

 This is just silly. Of course one can spend as much time as you like editing but depending on the image five or ten minutes can be plenty. If the RAW image has potential the editing phase can be just about pulling out the beauty and making it pop. If you need much more time and assuming you aren't merging or blending then perhaps you are making changes that could have been considered during the making of the exposure? Remember editing should never replace good craft so try to perfect your camera craft maybe. Check out my YouTube channel for some examples of quick editing. 

3) APSC (crop sensor) digital cameras are not suitable for Landscape work.  

Hmmm. Of course they are. The sensor size has little effect on the image real terms. By real terms I mean the technical qualities of composition, moment and feel which are to me the 3 key elements of a great image. Crop sensors of today's quality can give us images which can be printed big enough and the greater depth of field that can be achieved with a crop sensor can in fact offer advantage. 

​As a reminder here are the sensor size relationships  

And by means of example, the image below was taken with my iphone. Thats the smallest sensor shown above. 

A few hand held made images taken on APSC cameras with just a few minutes post processing.  

North Devon morning. Fujifilm XT1

Exmoor River. Fujifilm XT2 -  1/15 sec hand held. 

Lanzarote, Fujifilm XT2

your say

Well, I have been meaning to find the time to write a little more here at the blog. Im thinking hard about content, what do people want? Do they want to learn? or just to look? Maybe as a start, please tell me in the comments below, I appreciate all suggestions. 

My journey in Photography started young, I begged Mum for a cheap film camera around the age of 12 i think. One of those old 110 types that looked like a TV remote and the canister type film inside. 

Those early attempts were awful of course. But i was already bitten by the bug, a cross between the technical which I find fascinating and a love of form and imagery. 

Ultimately I do this as a means of expression, I want you all to see how I see things, often differently, sometimes in sync. Why do you do it?

A day at the Zoo

We took a family trip to the Zoo today to celebrate my son Seth's 1st Birthday.  

My daughter Millie loved Flamingos so I was keen to get her a hero shot, my son is a little Monkey so that works out and Rebecca loves Rhinos. I used a telephoto zoom lens for these, probably a wise choice for the Zoo. Please leave a comment on which of these three you like best.

Wildlife photography is hard work, big respect to those who excel at it.  

Martin  

New Gallery section - Classic Landscapes

Many people prefer the familiar, so classic post card type images have a place. See the new section in 'work'

Welcome

Hello

We are currently building the site and so appreciate your patience. 

Meanwhile, feel free to browse the images and enjoy