Australia's little corner of Africa

The Missus wanted to go and have a look at the open Air Zoo at Monarto in South Australia- so all of us went.If you have the chance to visit , go. It certainly is a worthwile experience. So here is just a quick slide show of the day. Pentax K10D, Promaster28-200mm Zoom Lens

Adelaide Lights Up

Hi,one and all, i'm still alive,contrary to popular belief
so, to kick things off - a SLide show. These are all digital Snaps i took while i was waiting for my Mamiya 120 camera to finish the time exposure.(100 images being scanned as i write this)
Basically in the University Precinct of Adelaide, several of the classic buildings were lit up with industrial size slide projectors...enjoy
And here are is the suppliers that i use for quality Memory cards at a very good Price.They Ship World Wide and even take Paypal. Check'em Out
Memory Suppliers

All quiet...

Having had a bit of free time to myself over the last week or so, I've come to the realisation that I've done three fifths of stuff all photography. Even my "Pic of the Week" exercise has failed to keep me taking photos. Still, a change is as good as a holiday, apparently, so I'm looking forward to getting out now that the weather is more conducive to not getting wet/frozen/blown away...

Even with having such a long break, I haven't ignored photography completely. I've been working up to getting enough kit to start processing my own black and white film. It's only the lack of a suitable thermometer that's really holding me back. Hmm, maybe it's time I actually got off my butt, and did something about that then... Much like I need to do with actually taking some photos.

Russian Glass.....Bewdifulll

My Monthly SHot of the Week

Well what can i say..i thought it's about time we had a little technobabble so here it is. I have a new love affair and she is a Russian Beauty... actually i have several russian beauties that i regularly fiddle with....but this particular one i forgot i even had! Some time ago i bought a set of extension bellow and a M42 Lens to go with it; spend around $30.00AUS and never thought much about it until the other day I realised that it was a Helios 44-4 Lens. So i had another close look at it and it's simply a beautiful Lens(for the money i paid for it) So i coupled it with a set of Auto Extension rings and coupled it with my *ist and did some quick Test Shots...I just tidied them up a little in photoshop( i've a little bit of dust on the sensor ) but other than that that the lens is a superb performer. Images were taken in the shade at Auto Exposure and at f16. So this is my SOTW for this month. The white flower is a potato creeper , the flower is about 2cm across and the other shot is of a Aloe Vera Flower stalk. And to my constant surprise the manual lenses are continually outperforming my modern lenses....

PIn hole Mk3 AND my Pic'o'the'Week

Two for the price of one! I've done some tweaking on my recently build Loch-Lomo(aka Agfa Clack Pinhole conversion) I thought i had the pinhole a wee bit big at about .5ish mm.
Some quick Googling about Focal Lenghts vs Pinhole sizes came up with some interesting answers and programmes to calculate the correct size and another 10 minutes later i had reduced the aperture to around .36mm . In terms of cameras it's still way short of .376mm that is the ideal for the 72mm focal length of the agfa , but it will suffice(i know, i know , i'm german, and we are precise and fastidious and accurate blah blah blah......but if i wanted accurate and really good engineering I would buy a Leica. But then again, the pinhole is designed to be a little soft and gentle; so it would still fall into the above'i'm german etc' category as a precision instrument that does exactly what it is designed to do...quid pro quo, status quo is maintained...ergo: i'm happy!)
For this weeks edition of POTHW I have used one of my test shots from my tweaked pinhole camera 30 second exposure on TMX100, developed in d76(1:3, 15min) scanned and just slightly adjusted curves as the image was just a little too bright and sharpened to compensate for the scanner. all in all an acceptable result for me. next step is a few rolls of colour

Basic Techniques of Photography

Well, out of all of the books that i have collected the book with the above title is the probably the best that i have come across so far. Easy to understand. At around 380 pages in A4, it's not a lightweight but it was worth every cent. Written by John Schaefer, it is a guide to Ansel Adams(my hero and inspiration). it looks at Ansel's techniques and quotes Ansel's personal approach and thoughts. But it does not focus on Ansel alone, but looks at how others have taken pictures. A relatively easy read, it has explained some of the mysteries surrounding the dark art of Photography. While i'm starting to focus on Black & White , and the book goes into great detail, it does also cover the aspects of Colour.
In my opinion, for the Amateur, this is the book to have and learn from.

The Benefits of Being Prepared...

Well, I've just spent the last 4 days wandering around in the bush, lugging $Deity knows how much photographic equipment with me. My first day out gave me the ideal opportunity to reflect on how important it is to prepare properly for a photographice trip.

I'd arrived at the the start of the walk, and was waiting for my walking companions to arrive, so I took the opportunity to make sure that everything was in order. I probably should have done that before I left home, as I discovered that while I had printed out 2 extra log sheets, I'd neglected to pack the film to go with them.

One swift bout of kicking myself later, I checked how many photos I'd already taken, and discovered that I only had 11 photos for the four days of walking. So, lesson number one, don't leave packing your gear until 5:30 am the morning you head off walking...

I always try and get something positive out of every bad experience, so I thought long and hard about what this lack of film was going to force me to do. Simply, I'd have to restrict how many photos I took each day, and make sure that the photos I did take were going to be worth the effort. This turned out to be a handy piece of forced discipline, as I now declined to take what may well have been several less than spectacular shots.

Now all I need to do is continue that frame of mind to when I do have all the film that I intend to pack, and I'll be set...