Bristol Strobists' 4th Shoot (at The Crown, St Nicholas Market

An August bank holiday weekend saw the increasingly popular `Bristol Stobists' on the streets of Bristol looking for locations to get some photos. After deciding against an outdoor shoot due to the weather and many people in party spirit (otherwise known as drunken idiots) we managed (through the negotiating skills of one of the group) to gain access to a basement bar of a local pub.

This 1st shot fetures Mario and is processed using one of my favourite methods to get a `gritty' look. The lighting was a single SB-28 positioned high and close to the model at camera left



A very simple pose was all that was needed for Tanith. This was lit using my Lastolite Triflash which held two Nikon SB-28s and a Canon 580exii. The light was softened with a shoot-thru umbrella. I have added a heavy vignette to draw the eye to the model.



The Triflash set up was used for this photo of Lucea, but this time set at camera left; I have a rule that my main light must aim at the model's chest with the addition of a (borrowed) Nikon SB-800 set behind me slightly at camera right one stop below the main light to act as a fill in. This was converted to black & white, a sepia tone added as well as a light vignette.





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Playing With Fire

A late summer's evening around a campfire when everyone else was relaxing and reflecting on the day that had almost finished, saw me (no surprise) looking for other opportunities to get some photos. I had shot a few candids using the glow of the bonfire, but I ended up concentrating of the flames.

For this shot, I set the drive to continuos (6.5fps) and selected this shot just as the hot ash was in mid-air.


All these shots were taken on my old Helios 58mm lens at an aperture of F4-F5.6. Iso was set to 400 to allow for a resonable shutter speed.

A simple adjustment of contrast was added to make the shadows darker to remove distractions.

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Portraits of Matthew John at Thornbury Castle

It's not often that I get to shoot portraits in such interesting locations, so this was a rarity that I couldn't pass up. Matthew had arranged with to use Thornbury Castle to kindly have the use of some of their rooms for us to use

It was early evening on an August day. The strong sunlight was coming in through the window so I used this as my backlight. My main light had an umbrella attached and this was set to closely match the ambient. A 2nd light was bounced onto the ceiling to act as fill.




The next shot used a slower shutter speed to capture the flames from the fire. The two lights from the 1st shot were set in the same way.



This was a tricky shot to get right. I had one light with an umbrella at camera right and a 2nd unmodified light at camera left at a ratio of about 1:1. A 3rd small light with an orange gell is used to illuminate the lamp behind Matt's head.


This last shot uses just one light. I added a simple black & white conversion add to the atmosphere.

For the full pictures, see : http://www.ms-imaging.co.uk/Portraits/Matthew-John/9374404_akwZc

For more details of Thornbury Castle, see: http://www.thornburycastle.co.uk/

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Photography With a Darkroom Enlarger Lens

I've seen a few of these on auction sites that often don't make the starting bids. This one was listed vaguely but I thought I would take a chance so I bidded £0.99 (gbp) and was successful.

The lens arrived and has a 39mm thread mount which I hoped for as I have an M39>M42 adapter and a set of bellows waiting. I tried it out on the bathroom window handle (one of my fav tests for new lenses) and was rather disappointed. There was a lot of haze inside the lens making the image look like this:

I'm not the most experienced at taking optics apart but for the cost and the risk I thought I'd give it a go. Both ends of the lens unscrew easily and no tools are needed. I cleaned both sides of each element with lighter fluid and a lens cloth and also the iris, which incidentally has 10 blades so it forms a fairly smooth circle at any aperture.

The next test shot looked like this (click on the images to see larger size):

Impressed with the progress I took it out across the fields with it mounted on a tripod. Unfortunately it was windy and getting dark so opportunities were limited. Anyway, here's a few examples:
1.

2.

Crop (I didn't notice the little bug until I was editing)

3. (just testing distance shots)

4.

5.

6.

7.

Finally a pic of the lens mounted on bellows, attached to my 40D:

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Quality on a budget

Good quality comes at a price right? Well I would argue that as I have a number of old lenses that I have picked up on the well-known auction site and at charity shops. These almost forgotten gems are making a comback, now that people have seen what they are capable of.

In this post I am featuring the popular Helios 58mm prime (M42 mount) that was standard issue on Zenit cameras. I have two of these lenses (there were many variations) The 44M which I paid £1 along with the Zenit EM that it was attached to and the 44-2 (preset) which cost me £4 is what the photos in this post were taken with.

This bee shot was taken at F8 with a 20mm extension tube added.



When used on my Canon 40D, the 1.6x crop factor makes the field of view of this lens just over 90mm making it a short telephoto lens; ideal for portraits, but I also find this focal length very useful for other uses.

This shot of the 1st Severn Crossing was taken hand held at F11 using 400 iso.

This shot of a display by the RNLI was taken at F8 using 200 iso to give me a shutter speed of 1/1250 which has frozen the movement of the boat, waves and the man `falling' out of the boat.

Again adding a 20mm extension tube has allowed me to focus very closely on the bolt. This shot was taken at maximum aperture of F2 which has given a shallow depth of field. This is what I would call a photographers shot as we seem to be the only ones that shoot this way. The average joe with a point and shoot just wouldn't take a photo of a rusty bolt on a fence and would not try and throw everything else out of focus. And it only appeals to other photogs.



Another shot using an extension tube and an aperture of F5.6



The next few shots were taken with the lens at F2, which really shows off how well it performs. The `bokeh' is its strong point (although it probably is an acquired taste).

Last but not least is the swirling bokeh that happens in certain circumstances (click the image for larger view to see this in its glory). This can be obtained when using an aperture of F2 with a busy background.

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