Duck

Duck

Sewerby Hall with a Mamiya Press Camera

Took the Mamiya Press Super 23 camera to Sewerby Hall today. It’s a bit of a pain to cart round, and I lost three frames due to a not using it properly (in case you were wondering, two to not taking the dark slide out and one to not extending the lens for the picture). However, I’m not unhappy with the remaining shots.

Planning the Computer Science 50th Anniversary

We had another planning meeting for our 50th anniversary celebrations today. It’s going to be fun. If you’ve been in the department as student or staff we’d love to see you. You can find out more here.

Contax G1 Lenses on a Sony Camera

I’ve been after one of these for ages but they’ve always been too expensive. But last week, thanks to a bit of eBay shenanigans I managed to pick one up for a really good price. What is it? I hear you ask. (actually I don’t. That’s not how web pages work). Anyhoo, its a Techart G-NEX TA-GA3. I’m surprised you didn’t recognise it.

It’s an interesting piece of kit. It lets you use lenses from a thirty year old film camera on your digital camera. The lenses in question were designed by Zeiss and made by Contax and they are really, really good. They are supposed to be used on the Contax G1 or G2. These cameras contain a little motor that turns the lens to focus it. The Techart contains a tiny motor along with a microcontroller that manages to convince the host camera that this is “just an ordinary lens guv”.

There are one or two issues. Not all auto-focussing modes are available, you have to set the aperture manually and the adapter makes amazing noises as it moves the lens mechanism back and forth. I popped a 28mm Contax lens onto it and we headed for the Humber Bridge to see what it can do. This time we went up onto the bridge deck to take some shots.

These pictures were taken with the lens wide open which is when the optics have to work the hardest. The images are super sharp in the middle of the frame and then that sharpness fades off a bit towards the edges. But the colour rendition is splendid and I’m very pleased with the results. I’m looking forward to taking more pictures with this setup. The only problem I’ve noticed is that the effort of moving a big metal lens seems to take its toll on the power source. The battery in the camera drained a lot faster than I’m used to.

Inside Out 2

Went to the movies today for the first time since lockdown. It was great fun. We saw Inside Out 2 and its a lovely story very well put together. I was a bit worried that after the perfection that was the first movie they’d mess things up with the sequel, but this wasn’t the case. Well worth the trip. This moviegoing thing looks quite fun. We should do it again .

IKP Little Mermaid

Had a splendid time at Burnby Hall Gardens tonight watching The Little Mermaid from IK Productions. All the kids there (along with the one we took with us) really enjoyed the tale and the way it was told. Great fun.

Rabbit Portrait Fun

Finally managed to get the Rabbit R1 magic camera to produce a picture of me which I think does me justice. And no, I’m not going to show you the original it was produced from.

Farewell Rodney

It was my father in-law Rodney’s funeral today. The best funerals are a celebration of a life lived well and to the full. I like to think that we did Rodney proud. Many thanks to everyone who came along and special thanks to celebrant Scott and Kelly from the Co-op who played their parts perfectly. It means a lot.

Zenith Flower

Last 1970s picture for a while. This one was taken using my brand new Zenith B which I bought for the princely sum of 15 pounds. It had an Industar F3.5 lens (which was described by one expert as “the closest thing to a bottle bottom ever attached to a camera”). However, the pictures weren’t that bad if you were prepared to fiddle a bit.

Time Travel Bridge

There’s a motorway bridge near us which is presently undergoing expensive repairs because bits of it are worn out. When I was going through my old pictures from the 1970’s I found this picture of the bridge before it was made.

They are pile driving foundations for the pillars that will hold the bridge up.

This picture is so last century

I took this picture at the start of my photographic career in 1971 balancing the family Boots Bieretta on a railing at Piccadilly Circus in London and attempted a timed exposure. I think it worked quite well, although the verticals are a wonky. I was using Kodachrome 64 film and I’ve just started scanning the slides. Some of them look quite good. All of them, look terribly dated.

Mamiya Press 23 Photo Fun

My new (actually around 55 years old) camera seems to work OK - although it is not terribly good at focussing on things that are very close to the camera. Apparently there are some rangefinder settings that I’ll have to pluck up the courage to fiddle with. But everything else about the camera works really well.

Mamiya Super 23

Is it wrong to buy a camera just because of the way it looks? In my opinion the answer is no. Above is my latest buy investment. It’s a Mamiya Press Super 23. These were made in the 1960’s for use by press photographers that didn’t want to carry around heavy 4x5 press cameras but couldn’t afford to buy a Nikon 35mm camera. Or something.

I like it because it comes completely to bits. The lens contains the shutter and fits in the hole on the front of the camera body. The film is in a holder which clips over another hole at the back. Push the handle on the side, connect the shutter trigger to the front of the lens and away you go. And if any one of these elements fails in some way I just have to replace that bit rather than junk the whole thing.

It’s not a light camera, but it is nicely weighted in the hands. It takes enormous 6x9cm negatives on 120 roll film. I’m looking forward to posing taking some pictures with it.

Meter Readings

I lost my lovely little Polaroid Meter. I managed to convince myself that I’d left it in my room when on holiday. So I bought another one. Fortunately it was not terribly expensive. Unfortunately it didn’t work. They must have been using a much more liberal definition of “tested and working” than I do. Anyhoo, the good news is that I then (of course) found the original one in a place I hadn’t thought of looking. Truly, the best way to find a missing item is to buy a replacement (whether the replacement works or not).

Awesome Meetup

We had an awesome meetup tonight. Loads of people, loads of stuff and so much technical chat that I forgot to take any pictures. Update: I managed to find the picture I took…

Thanks to everyone who turned out in spite of recent events.

This is a bonus pic that I took first thing this morning, when I noticed the way light was hitting a mobile.

Trip to York

Went to York today. The weather was lovely (for a change) and the loveliness lasted all day (for a bigger change). On a whim we booked a couple of tickets for The National Railway Museum. You don’t need to pay to get in, but you do need to book. The museum is one of my favourite places in the world, and fortunately I had a camera and a couple of lenses with me.

The place was busy, but it is also huge, so that the crowd was swallowed up. They have a kind of storeroom off to one side full of amazing stuff. One of the exhibition halls is closed at the moment, but we had plenty to look at. And I’m definitely going back there first chance I get.

Short Shorts

Number one son took a look at my newly arrived shorts. “You’re going to want to send these back” he said. He’s right. Instead of ordering XL I’d gone and bought XS. At least I didn’t get as far as trying them on. That would probably have killed me.

Canon Selphy 4000 for Cheap Colour Printing

Selphy Portrait (sorry)

After having watched a video of someone using a portable printer at an expo and producing large, high quality colour prints to order for the folks there I thought I’d investigate the possibility of obtaining a cheap printer to maybe put in a box. Instant camera pictures are all very well, but they are a bit variable in quality, expensive and hard to duplicate. I had a look on “the world’s favourite on-line auction site” and found that I could pick up a used Canon Selphy 4000 for well less than 20 quids. A bit of research convinced me that I could drive it from a Raspberry Pi Zero and even make it into an Apple Airprint device if required. So I bought one.

It arrived today. For giggles I checked to see if there was a Windows 10 driver for it. There wasn’t (boo) but it turns out that the Windows Vista 64 bit drivers you can find here worked fine with my copy of Windows 10 (yay!). The printer I got even had some ribbon and paper with it. The image above doesn’t really do the printer justice. The printed picture is vibrant and really nice to look at. You can get Canon branded film packs delivering 36 images for around 12 quid from Cartridge People. They even sent me a free deck of cards with my first order. Next step is to start designing a case to carry everything around in.

Lamp Room for Coffee

Went for a walk to the Lamp Room cafe today. If you are ever at Cottingham station I can strongly recommend it.

Whitby Steam Rally

Just a few of the engines on display

There are some things we do every year. And one of them is the Whitby Steam Rally. Last year the weather wasn’t great. This year the weather was awesome. Blue skys and bright sunshine.

The chap wouldn’t describe how the tap is suspended over the liquid…

They had all the usual things, including a bunch of static engines pumping water and lighting lamps.

The beach was super busy.

What with all this, and a great lunch at the Magpie a great day was had by all.