Shooting Film

Now and again I like to shoot film because this makes me concentrate on exposure and composition, rather than filling up a memory card and throwing most of them out. This time, however, the 2 rolls of film were used for a different purpose.

The 1st roll was loaded into my Vivitar 35ES range finder. This was ideal for taking up on journeys when an SLR with a bagfull of lenses is not pleasant to carry around. It's a great camera to use and has a sharp, fast 40mm lens which is also useful for urban photography.

Weston Super Mare:


Duck at Bourton on the Water:

Brecon Beacons:

The 2nd roll I put into my newly aquired Chinon CE-3. I have a bit of a soft spot for M42 mount SLRs (I have 9 of them at present). I bought it after spotting it in a camera shop window display. It needed new light seals (something I'm now adept at replacing) but everything else was fine.

Cranes at Bristol Docks:

Flowers at Dyrham Park:

Bristol Harbour:

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Bristol Strobists' 3rd Meeting

These photos were taken at our 3rd meeting. I spent most of the evening snapping a new model called Rachael. Initially starting out with a single flash, sometimes working ambient light, sometimes not.



For the next shot a 1/2 CTO gel was added to the flash to allow me to make the white balance cooler to get the best out of the sunset.



Later in the evening a 2nd flash added for fill and on occasion a 3rd flash with a blue gel and a snoot to illuminate the background. The main flash still contained the CTO'd gel to continue to allow for a cooler white balance which made best use of the blue background.


For more photos of Rachael click here.



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Ignoring the Rules

How many times have you heard the experts saying, "Don't shoot in the midday sun"? Well, I never did do what I was told.

The heatwave had began to pass (I don't do hot!), so grabbed the camera and a couple of lenses and headed off to Portishead Marina to grab some snaps and then headed to Ashton Court to get a couple more. All shots were taken between 12 noon and 3pm, in bright sunshine. No polariser was used and most of the photos were taken using an old Asahi Pentax Takumar 135mm lens (apart from the 1st 2 which were taken with my 17-70 Sigma)

Click on the images for larger view:

Give it a try and see what you get!!

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