Arboretum

14-03-18

It almost felt like spring this morning so I thought I would take a walk to the Arboretum, it’s only just over a mile away but another place I haven’t visited for a long time. Took along a couple of film cameras with about 10 shots left on each, I’ll send the films off tomorrow and hopefully there will be some images worth sharing. Got talking to a nice old guy in his eighties who was a member of the local civic and historical societies. Managed to get a few camera phone images, my lovely little Sigma DP1 is on it’s way to Japan for repair.

I quite like the Black and White version too. 

There’s quite a long history to this place, which includes a mill, fishponds, and an old manor house, not to mention a POW camp.

Still Some Colour

28-11-17

Went for a quick walk to town this morning, needed some exercise and some treats, not to mention a box of cat food for the lovely cat family at my neighbours. The day was really bright and chilly, I was surprised how much colour some of the trees still had.

Love These Buildings

The one on the right was the last real department store in the city, sadly it closed earlier this year. I guess it will be turned into apartments.

Now With Snow !

The Christmas tree in the city centre has been given a coating snow, and nearby I saw a poster advertising that there would be an ice skating rink setup from early December in one of the squares, I’ve got to have a go !!!!!!!! 

I tried a different way of processing these images from the Sigma DP1, Sigma software first, then import into my old copy of Photoshop elements, then export for web.

Autumn and the Sigma

11-10-2017

It’s dull, grey, and blowing a gale in my part of the UK today. Was thinking about going out and taking some autumnal images, oh well. Plus side is that Mimi one of my lovely cats is curled up on my lap purring, keeping my blood pressure steady, and my legs warm, symbiotic. It’s also given me some time to have a good look at the Sigma X3F software for processing images from the Sigma DP1 camera. I’ve always just imported them into Lightroom and processed from there but never been totally happy with the results. Here are a few images put through the Sigma software, I still have a lot to learn, but the results are encouraging.

These were taken on October 3rd on a quick walk to the town.

Mimi

Taken on a Canon “Sureshot Classic 120” film camera

I needed some colour #2

07-10-17

Chinon CPX – 50mm f1.7

Hadn’t used this camera before so decided to take it along on my visit to the Botanic Gardens earlier in the week loaded with Fuji superia 400. Most of the images were taken with a Chinon 50mm f1.7 and a Chinon 28mm f2.8. The 28mm is beautifully made, the 50mm is a bit plasticy but very good optically, a 70 – 150 mm also came with it and I wish I had brought it along. The camera and lenses cost me £4.99/$6.99/5.56 euro about 2 years ago. The Chinon was good to use, bright viewfinder but the shutter button is quite sensitive. Overall I was quite pleased with the results, especially as it wasn’t a particularly bright day.

Time Of Year Colours
 

Hostas  On The Turn

Seed Heads

?

Photobombed By A Fly

Sculpture “Born to be Free” By Anat Golandski

Fallen Leaves

Muted Yellow

Sweet Chestnut

The Main House

Yashica Samurai X3.0 #3 and Pruning The Holly Tree

25-09-17

Thought it was about time the Holly Tree had a good pruning. With all the rain we have had this year it’s grown like mad and is blocking out a lot of light in my back room. So out came the ladder, and armed with a pruning saw, teetering at the top I managed to reduce it’s height without getting too horribly scratched up. Not quite a work of fine topiary but the room is now much brighter.

Before

After

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A few more film images from the Yashica Samurai.

Street Art With Waste Pipe

Last Orders

Behind The factory

I love the old Victorian factories in the city, lots of them are sadly being demolished to make way for bland apartment blocks, but some are being converted to living accommodation.

New Living

This was the central post office, I used to top up the franking machine here in the late 1970’s.

Impose Yourself

 

Olympus OM101/(OM88) #1

Another camera for the collection, well two actually ! I always fancied one of these even though they don’t seem to get mentioned very much. This one came with a 35-70mm zoom, manual adapter, and Olympus T18 flash all for £9.99p. The only thing missing was a 50mm standard lens, so when another camera came up with a 50mm I put in a bid for £9.00p and won it, a lens on it’s own was more expensive. The camera is pretty much auto everything with little information in the viewfinder, add the manual adapter though and you can set the aperture and or shutter speed. Focusing is by a wheel at the back of the camera which I found very intuitive.

I loaded the camera with Rollei Retro 400s, a film I hadn’t tried before, the camera is DX only but goes from 50 – 3200 asa, and the shutter runs from 2 – 1/2000 of a second. I took the camera with me on my walks and a couple of train trips.

Bark

35 – 70mm lens.

Blossom

35 – 70mm lens.

Twiglet

35 – 70mm lens.

Grippy

35 – 70mm lens.

Most of the shots were taken using an Orange filter, and I developed the film in Kodak D76.

Really Want a Car

Missing going out to the countryside, so need to look for a car. These two photographs set me off, they were taken at the Outwoods near Loughborough in October 2014.

Both taken on a Pentax Super A – Pentax 28mm  2.8 – Eastman Double X – Rodinal

Today’s Walk to Town

07/11/16

It was a lovely bright (chilly) autumn morning here in my part of the UK. I needed to get the usual cat food supplies and also some decorating materials for the loo, I foolishly decided it needed a make over. My house is quite old (1929), so any attempt at redecoration always brings unforeseen problems. I took my Sigma DP1 and a film camera with me, here are a few digital images from the walk in.

Soleful

Lovely Trees

Take the weight off

Kissing Couch Bench

As Far as The Eye Can See

Christmas Tree and The Clock Tower

 

Misty Autumn Walk

I needed to get into town yesterday, yes more cat food and a film to get processed that had torn in my old Zenith Lomo. It was quite misty and cool, had to put a sweater on.

Red Fruits

Tiger Stripes

My favourite tree in the mist

Fungi Update

They are coming on quite nicely, thought I ought to find out what they are, Inkcaps, not to be eaten after alcohol  !!!!

These are Sulphur Tuft, not sure if you can eat them, I won’t be trying them out.

Tuesdays Trip To Town

My cat Fleur (Mimi’s mum) is a bit under the weather so I thought I’d go into town and get her some treats. It was quite cool and not very bright as I set off but the sun came out and cheered me up. Took the Olympus EPL1 with me and managed to get a few images.

One of my favourite subjects (again !)

Morning Dew

Ready For Picking

Really Starting To Turn

Shopfront  Detail

Must find out what this lovely wildlife relief is about

Spent the afternoon scanning in a film from a Kodak Retinette that I have, my software started acting up so it made it very tedious, only lightened by blasting out Son Volts Rarities album. The Retinette as suspected had some issues, the camera was not solely to blame !!! I’ll put some images up on the blog if I feel brave enough.