Giants causeway waves

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Do you like waves? Good then this one is for you. Taken a while ago while in Northern Ireland. A quick trip over to the Giants Causeway where yes the stones are impressive however what really caught my eye was the amazing waves crashing and rolling in off the North Atlantic. So impressed was I that they are pretty much all I took pictures of. Taken on my trusty travel camera the Canon A1 on Ilford Delta 400. Try not to get seasick!

You can take a Horseman to water....

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I have a new toy! Now there's a surprise. Now the thing is I have been reading and looking into Large Format cameras for a while. This came from my interest in tilt and shift lenses. My brother has a Toyo 4x5 . Unfortunately I was put off by the expense and trouble of developing and scanning 4x5 film. Then I had an epiphany. While looking through said large format cameras I came across a special breed. I fell in love instantly with them. They were perfect. They folded up nice and small, had all the movements, well most and to top it all you can use 120 medium format film. I was sold and a nice gentleman in Japan sold me a rather nice Horseman VH with three lenses and a film back. The lenses are all the 'Super' range which are reputedly better than the 'Professional' range and are the 65mm f5.6, 90mm f5.6 and 150mm f5.6. All very nice and capable of being used with all the movements. I subsequently got a few more backs which are all 6x9. I like the back system as you can load up with colour and B&W and swap as you like as can be seen below with the same shot in both formats. I will do a full breakdown of the Horseman in the gear section when I get round to it so in the meantime here are a selection of shots taken in Glastonbury Abbey where I had a good old play with the movements etc. So be prepared for some extreme focal plane fun!

Oops this isn't the Abbey. It's Greylake Nature Reserve.

Taken 'straight'

Also taken 'straight'

Really like this one. If I had had a red filter for the sky the moon would have been more prominent

When movements don't work. Full tilt and full shift doesn't quite make it

Looks very different in colour and the Moon stands out better. This is also one that I did properly with the tilt deliberately done so that everything from the Tor to the weeds in the pond were in focus.

Mate Steve's fish tank........ don't ask.

So that was the playing around stuff. I'll crack on and try it for real next and use the movements as intended. As a final note I lovingly refer to this camera as the 'Speed Camera' this is not an ironic nod to the time it takes to actually press the shutter but as a consequence of when I set it up by the road between Glastonbury and Street to try and get the Starlings as they murmurated across on their way to Hamwall.......

Jodrell Bank

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It was a day of regression on another trip up north. When I was a kid I visited Jodrell Bank with either the school or scouts can't remember which. Anyway I was knee high to a grass hopper and still in short trousers. (Actually thats not true I don't think I ever wore short trousers after the age of three) and here I was back at the old place and still impressive. They were doing work on one of the legs so the dish was pointing straight up. This was actually a good thing as it enhanced the symmetry of the thing. I got to work with the Pentax and whipped out all four lenses at some stage or another. I could be nothing other than Delta 100 could it. Further regression will appear as you scroll down!

One of the baby dishes

The light was especially good this day.

An even smaller dish 

Ah now this was completely intentional I assure you. Ok no it wasn't. In all my giddy school boy regressive excitement I read '10' on the screen and promptly opened the back. A shriek was let out as I saw the film backing paper still spread across the insides. The back was quickly snapped shut but of course a human 'quickly' is actually a rather long exposure in the film universe. Schoolboy error at it's best. To my amazement the shot I had just taken which was across the film aperture only received a tiny amount of light and created a rather nice vignette. The previous frame was half lost.

The red filter really earned it's keep with these shots.