Tom Burke’s Blog

I posted some while ago that I was becoming very tempted to buy a new digital camera (a Canon EOS of some variety or other) and I that I knew I had to fight this urge. Well, I weakened….

Just over a week ago Val & I visited our local photo shop, Harrisons Cameras in Sheffield. It’s a local family company, staffed by people who know photography. It’s generally not the cheapest shop, but it offers advantages in other ways. We went in there about 10:45 and Jonathan Harrison, one of the partners, proceeded to spend about 45 minutes with us, on a Saturday morning, demonstrating the featurs of the EOS 500D camera; and at the end of that effort he’d made sales of two cameras with standard zoom lenses (one for each of us) plus a single extra long zoom lens (since we’ve got compatible cameras we can share ancillary equipment). I don’t think Val has used hers yet, but I’ve been over the fields near home a few times and have taken a new ‘Two Trees’ picture: you can see my Two Trees portfolio here.

This was a purely selfish purchase – iI didn’t really need this camera at all, and I will probably spend quite a bit of money duplicating the lenses I’ve already got with the Nikon outfit. But the Canon feels right in my hand in a way that the Nikons never really did, so I’m happy. And I’m keeping the Leica, so I shall continue to use that on occasion.

I’ve added some more pictures, from Athens, Naples/Capri, Kusadasi, and some more of the ship itself. They’re at the same URL as before.

These pictures were slides to begin with, and were scanned differently (larger) than the other films. The scans needed a bit of post-processing, hence the delay in getting them up.

I’ve had my photos back, and I’ve posted some of them on-line.

In general I’m pleasd with them. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in the blog I took the Leica on the cruise, and this is a camera with little automation (that’s part of its attraction). Although it does possess basic metering, the user has to understand the results the meter is presenting, and I think I was a little off on some occasions – some under-exposure. However, against that I have to say that I am thrilled with the detail that the Leica lenses have recorded on the film – that’s the reason for user a Leica.

I’ve posted some scans on Picasaweb: here’s a link. Try comparing the Santorini 2007 pictures (taken with a Nikon DSLR) with the Santorini 2009 pictures (taken with the Leica).

A couple of weeks or so ago I posted here about (among other things) my indecision over which camera system to take on the cruise. In the end I did indeed take just the Leica and my three lenses, plus of course a selection of films. These included several rolls of Ektar 100 print film, a couple of rolls of a Fuji 800 print film (for inside Hagia Sophia) and a few older rolls of Kodak 100 slide film. I shot seven rolls altogether, and they’re currently with Harrisons Cameras in Sheffield for processing. I’m also getting low-res scans done, so next weekend I should have some results to show.

However my pre-cruise GAS attack (hint: GAS means ‘Gear Acquisition Syndrome’) came on with redoubled vigour while we were away; I kept seeing all these people with seriously good (and expensive) DSLR systems. Given an absolutely free choice, I have a strong feeling that an EOS 5DMkII + 24-105 f4 L lens would be mine – I saw several people shooting with just this combination. Tasty. (And heavy, too, I’ve no doubt.) Since returning I’ve been scouring the retailers’ websites researching prices. Message to self: “You do not need a new camera. You do not need a new camera. You do not need…” Will it work? We’ll see.

What made it worse was that Val, somewhat to my surprise, ditched her compact digicam and took a small EOS film SLR with her – an EOS 300N (I think) plus its 28-90 kit lens. She said she preferred using this to the digicam. Once or twice I got to play with it, and I have to say I found the EOS very familiar in my hands: everything was exactly where I expected it to be, and it just felt right. Oh dear….

It has been a very long time since I last posted anything here, which is not good! All I can say is that as our interminably long, wet, cold summer dragged on  – a ‘barbecue summer’* it was not – I found it increasingly difficult to turn my thought to anything other than just getting through it. But these last few weeks have been very pleasant – while it hasn’t been warm it has been dry and mostly sunny; today for instance the temperature is about 17 or 18 degrees (upper 60s for those still working in old money) but we have bright sunshine, and I spent a very pleasant hour on the bench at the bottom of the garden in the sun.

At last our cruise is just about here – we leave for Heathrow tomorrow lunchtime, and fly to Rome on Monday morning. Then we have 11 nights on Solstice! It can’t come soon enough, it seems to have been a very very long wait this time. This is odd because last year our Ventura cruise started on exactly the same day – 28 September – but I don’t remember the summer crawling along anything like so slowly.

There has also been some agonising about picture taking on the cruise. As the year as gone on I have hardly used the Nikon DSLR at all – I certainly haven’t bought anything new for that system. My plan (less than 24 hours before leaving…) is just to take the Leica, the the three lenses I’ve got (35mm, 50mm & 90mm) and some rolls of film, and see how it goes. But I still feel awfully tempted to go out and BUY SOMETHING!!! Surely that would make my photography better…. Of course I know it won’t, and the big advantage of the Leica outfit is that I can’t blame any shortcomings in the images on the equipment, they’ll be down to me. So that’s the plan. The one big drawback to using the Leica is that it’s back to film, so getting images onto the web takes a few more steps.

Finally, I hope to blog from the cruise, so bookmark this space.

* : Back in May the UK’s Meteorological Office promised us a ‘barbecue summer’, and mentioned temperatures of 30 degrees or above on occasions. I haven’t seen temperatures anything like that; it’s been cool and cloudy for most of the summer. Bah!

I’ve done a few blog posts about my interest in photography, and the Leica equipment that I bought during 2008. I’ve continued to use it, and continue to very much enjoy it all; in fact I’m probably using it more than I expected. Below are (I hope) a couple of examples of recent pictures taken with the Leica and one or other of the lenses I have.

These two images were taken on the same walk in the countryside one day in early March. They were taken on Ilford XP2 film and professionally developed, but I scanned the negatives myself. I believe the country lane was taken with the 50mm, while the other was taken with my 35mm.

I am now beginning to wish I had something longer; a Leica 90mm would be ideal. This will have to be a second-hand purchase, however; I certainly can’t afford a new Leica 90m f2 Summicron ASPH – I have cruises to pay for, and one of those lenses would cost almost as much as our forthcoming cruise on Solstice. But hopefully I’ll be able to get a s/h Elmarit before the summer.

Just a quick blog entry to say that I visited The Lowry today, in Salford Quays, to visit the exhibition “A Long Exposure – Pictures from 100 years of Guardian Photography in Manchester”. The Guardian newspaper (formerly The Manchester Guardian before it went national in 1959) has had just 7 in-house photographers in the 100 years since they appointed their first in 1908. This exhibition displays a selection of work by each of them. Each image is both news-worthy but also exhibits great artistry and technical expertise. I was familiar with the work of the more recent photographers (Denis Thorpe and Don McPhee especially) but not with the earlier ones, and it was good to see earlier examples of excellent press work. It also put those later photographers’ work in context, and you can see that they were continuing a tradition.

It’s an excellent exhibition, and I thoroughly recommend it. Here are some links:

First, The Lowry itself; next, a Guardian column about this exhibition; third, a similar page about Don McPhee; and finally, one for Denis Thorpe.

Denis Thorpe’s book ‘On Home Ground’ is very strongly recommended.

(Personal confession: if I could take *one picture* as good as some of Denis Thorpe’s or Don McPhee’s I’d be happy. The other thing I realise when looking at these images is that it isn’t about the equipment, it’s about the photographer. Any problems I encounter in my photography are to do with me, not the equipment I’ve got.)

Globes

There are a few pages in this blog about my photography. The most recent told the story of my move back towards film-based photography. In February (2008) I bought a second-hand Leica M6TTL camera together with one lens, a new 50mm f2.5 Summarit. Just before Christmas I took a further step by buying a second lens, a 35mm f2.5 Summarit. I like these Summarit lenses a lot: they’re very small, very solid and not too heavy (all that brass and other metal metal in their construction means that they are inevitably quite heavy), and reviews of their performance praise them greatly. I’d been wondering if I’d done the right thing in buying a 50mm lens for my first/only lens for this system: during the year I had felt that it was too long.

Cube Houses: close-in

Cube houses: from a distance

Obviously I needed something wider and as my Leica has .85 viewfinder magnification, and therefore doesn’t have frame lines for 28mm, the obvious choice was a 35mm lens. But which one? For a long time I was looking for a s/hand f2 Summicron v4, the pre-ASPH one, but my local dealers never had one (and I feel uncomfortable buying something as expensive as a Leica lens unseen via mail order of the net). I was also attracted to one of the Voigtlander lenses: they’re small and much cheaper – the f1.4 is around £400, and the f2.5 can be had for around £250 or less. But they weren’t Leica lenses. As this year went on so I began to hear more good reports about the 35mm Summarit, and so I decided to get one of them. Then I learned that Leica UK were running a ‘15% cashback’ promotion on their lenses; and next I learned from my favourite photographic retailer that there would be very large price rises in the new year from all the photo manufacturers, mainly as a result of the fall in the value of the pound against – well, against pretty much everything. So I bought the 35mm Summarit.

My impressions from the first film I’ve put through it are very favourable. The focal length feels right, I have a lot more options when taking pictures in confined spaces. I took a number on a dull Saturday afternoon in Sheffield just before Christmas, and I’ve put three of them up here. They were all taken around the Peace Gardens in the centre of the city. The globes are stainless-steel globes, of varying sizes, with water gently pouring down them; the water sculpture is inside the Winter Gardens, and is a water-powered mobile art work; and the third picture is from within the Winter Gardens, looking through the roof at the (unfinished) St Paul’s Tower apartment development (which may or may not get finished).

Water sculpture

Inside the Winter Gardens

Aurora off Ryde

We had the pleasure of spending a couple of days in Portsmouth this last weekend, a visit which exceeded our expectations. We spent almost all of Saturday in the Historic Dockyard, visiting HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, Mary Rose, the Mary Rose museum, doing a harbour tour – and there was still lots there we didn’t get around to. And on Sunday morning just before the drive home we walked along the old defences from Southsea into Portsmouth, past the Round Tower, the Square Tower and all the way to the Point. This was one of the best historical trails I’ve ever done – of course the setting helps greatly, with the Solent on one side, old Portsmouth on the other and history under our feet.

But on the Friday afternoon we went over to Ryde on the hovercraft (weren’t they going to be the ‘next big thing’, about 40 years ago? Having now been on one, it’s obviously a case of brute force over gravity.) We walked gently up and down Ryde sea front all the way to the Dell cafe (Dell teahouse?) and back, and then decided to wait for Aurora and Black Watch to come past us. In the event Black Watch was delayed (both were scheduled to depart at 5pm), but Aurora slipped gently past us at about 6:20. She looked very beautiful and sophisicated, and we both felt very envious of all those on board her, on their 16-night cruise to the Adriatic and back. I took lots of pictures, and that’s one of them above. (For this with the technical interest, the camera was a Nikon D80, quite possibly in P mode, and the lens was a 55-200 VR, at 200mm. The location was the end of Ryde Pier, in front of the railway station.)

Black Watch was about 30 minutes late, by which time I’d put the camera away – another time perhaps. I’d like to cruise in her one day – I know someone who, despite having cruised in many ships both large and small, old and new, still regards Black Watch as her favourite.

I’ve added a new page for Photography – it’s here.

The page itself mainly links to other sites where I’ve got some images displayed.