Monday 30 August 2010

Rolleicord...................................................

I'd cleaned it, got rid of the dust, polished the lenses, loaded some Fuji Neopan 400CN and I didn't stop shooting till two rolls had wound through my old Rolleicord. It was great to be shooting with this vintage camera again, I don't think my light meter has had as much use in years as the sun was popping in and out like a fiddlers elbow. I was a little worried that the shutter might have given up the ghost, as the camera has really just been gathering dust on a shelf for about 18 years, but happy to say it seems to be working fine and was easily able to capture my two boys in their excitement to be out playing on their bike, while Dad ran around like an idiot with a strange looking box around his neck.

I got the film processed and scanned to 65MB files at C-41's, a lab that use to be situated in Chester but has moved out to bigger and far better premises in Ellesmere Port. Now I must get some prints done for the Grand Parents.....

More from the Rolleicord very soon I hope, as another two rolls of Neopan await exposure....

Angry Clouds.............................................



The other week we had a short sharp electric storm pass over the house, I grabbed my camera and opened a window and started shooting. The cloud was moving quickly and I had to move from a window at the back of the house to one at the front to get the area of cloud I was interested in. It was just alive with movement moving in on itself like something out of a sci-fi movie. I've really only just taken a look at the images today, but I think they're going to come in handy for a comp shot I have in mind.

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Bowens gear and radio slaves from e-bay.....



I've been using the Bowens Pro heads for a while now and have been very impressed with their performance as well as the new design. Have they made my life easier, oh yes, with the clear side panel information I always know what the settings are, the tenth of stop adjustment is great for tweaking light output.


My old radio slave system finally gave up the ghost recently, so I had a look on e-bay to see what's available, I thought I'd give a Chinese system a go, the cost was so cheap, I got 2 transmitters and 5 receivers for under £45, these have worked brilliantly for a few months now in a variety of situations, they've not let me down once.

Friday 6 August 2010

Quick page shuffle.......... New home page to.



So the home page has had a quick change and I've shuffled some of the other pages images to, this while working on the new iPhone/iPad friendly site, which is taking sometime to get sorted. I've been doing a lot of PR shots recently and security product shots too, so that's been keeping me off Dreamweaver, hence the delay. Bought Capture One 5 the other week, so I'm also learning a new raw conversion program, which is making my workflow a little slower, I like it though and am really pleased with the results I'm getting, still using Photoshop for some of the finishing work, especially correcting verticals etc. Hoping that all the rain we're getting at the moment is going to lay off soon, I've got a few skateboarding shoots to do, personal project, all this rain is really putting a hold on getting the shoots organised.