Printing Your Photographs -

How many of you print your photographs, digital or film in a darkroom or with inkjet? We take great care in creating our images but perhaps the most neglected part of photography is the most important part of the process, the final print. We get excited by the anticipation of seeing our images that the wait is often too exciting for digital photographers to bear and they look at their screen to see the instant result. I have done it myself, I couldn't wait to see the image I had shot using my Lydith on my Nikon D700 for the first time. I'm not ashamed to admit it either. The anticipation was too much, I chimped and to be honest I did a hell of a lot of chimping that afternoon. You can't do that with film, but in my humble opinion that's one advantage film has that we don't always appreciate. The wait.

The big attraction of film photography for me personally is the anticipation of getting that film developed and seeing the images I spent my time on. I get my colour film developed by the good folks at my local Max Spielmann Photo Store, they also scan my negatives and put them on compact disc for me so I can print them at home. I develop my own B&W film at home and for convenience scan them with a small 5 megapixel scanner, but sometimes I will dig out my DSLR and scan them with that. For many of us this is where the process comes to an end. We put our images on our computers, never to see the light of day again. This is a shame as many fantastic images will never get the plaudits they deserve.  

I have spent this year learning to shoot and develop black and white film and had I left my images on a hard drive or the negatives tucked away safely in a binder, would I have been able to say I had completed my education? I had to move to the next step of my journey and see my black and white images on gloss photo paper I got from a local well known discount retailer for £1. I know the purists will be shrieking Blasphemy! and calling me a heretic, but I don't have access to a darkroom for wet printing so I have to use what I have available. At the moment I have a HP Envy 4520 inkjet printer and have taken advantage of their ink replacement program. For £2 per month I get to print 50 images and HP send me some new ink cartridges when I am close to running out. It has saved me a tidy sum over the last few years.

It pays to take your time when printing, be it in a darkroom or using an inkjet and I spent a bit of time making sure I had my images looking decent before printing. Just as in a darkroom I made test prints and fine tuned my images before printing, this saved me time and allowed me to print around 50 images with no problems. I also had an album ready to put them into once the ink had dried. I am quite happy with the results of my digital printing and hope to take the next step and print images in a darkroom at some point. I have to save up first as that equipment is a tad expensive, but hopefully I will be able to take the next step on my photography journey and learn the art of darkroom wizardry in the not too distant future.

Here are a few images of my prints and there are more on my Flickr album Prints They are not the full set though, they are in my album that I enjoy looking through and remembering the fun I had learning new skills during the Corona Virus Pandemic of 2020. It kept cabin fever at bay for a while.

 

Autumn

 Autumn is upon us here in the northern hemisphere and nature is showing her last colour before winter. Through the year we get a riot of colour from nature, but for me Autumn is her "Hold My Beer" moment. Across the forests of the north all the deciduous trees are shedding their leaves and sporting a myriad of red, yellow and orange hues before dropping their leaves to the ground. From certain angles it looks like the trees are sparkling with gold as a final salute to the year before their winter hibernation.

Sadly there are some places that will not see this annual riot of colour this year as wild fires have engulfed many deciduous forests around the world. One cannot help but feel sad for the loss of many millions of trees that provide our world with oxygen. Some of those fires were natural, caused by lightning strikes and fanned by the wind that accompanies the storms associated with it. Others have been man made, sometimes in a controlled manner as part of land management, but many others caused by carelessness or criminal intent.

Nature has seen wildfires many, many times down the milennia and has always found a way to return the forests to the land once more. We can help by being mindful of how we interact with our forests. Simple things we can all do to reduce fire hazards are really easy to follow. Don't light fires you can't put out. If you must have a camp fire keep it small and clear the ground around it of leaf litter which is the kindling that quickly escalates a small localised blaze into a massive disaster. The most important being never leave a fire unattended. 

Years of drought have seen the forests around the world become so dry that an ember from a fire can quickly burn a nation. Australia burned during their summer and caused so much damage to that most unique of ecosystems that it may never recover. Millions of animals that live only in Australia, Kangaroo's and Koala's in particular, were decimated by the fires that ravaged the nation. I have no doubt that Climate Change payed a part in that natural disaster and we still have time to do something about it.

Photographers have a unique capability to showcase the world to our fellow human beings and share the beauty of nature that is all around us. Sir David Attenborough has spent a lifetime studying nature and showcasing it in his books, his photographs and on TV. He has earned a world wide reputation as one of the finest educators our world has ever had and when he says we must act now, the world has to listen to what he is saying. We have a responsibility to take care of our favourite forests, our local woodlands and our National and Municipal Parks. These places are often the source of income that puts food on our tables and a roof over our heads as we share our images. Nature will find a way to recover, but it takes time.

Here are some images i shot this week with my Nikon D700. I love film, but I wanted to share some digital images with you this week. The local woodland is being transformed into a myriad of colours with natures last and surely it's greatest display of the year. The Nikon D700 truly showcases the beauty of natures colour. It has held a multitude of photographers in thrall of it's superb colour rendition since it's first apearance on the market in 2008 and shares many of its features and hardware with it's big brother the D3. Technology has moved on, but the Nikon D700 can still hold it's own against any of todays mirrorless giants. I have shot them as three shot brackets and merged them together in Affinity Photo. The detail you can achieve in your images this way is incredible. I did try it in camera, but as I didn't have my tripod with me on the day they were not as good as I had hoped. I did them in post instead. I hope you enjoy them and they inspire you to get out and document nature in your area in all it's glory. You can see more of my images on my Flickr account at Autumn Album

Lydith plus Ektar equals Love

Last week I spoke of my joy at finally getting a Meyer-Optik 30mm f/3.5 Lydith after a few years of pateince on ebay. I was, and still am, very happy with the results I got last week with B&W film and Digital at my frst try with my Lydith. This week I shot a roll of Ektar in Mesnes Park, Wigan and a roll of ColorPlus 200 around the town centre. I wanted to see how this legendary lens performed with the media it was designed for, 35mm colour film in my tried and trusted Pentax SP500.

I spoke a little on the history of the East German photographic industry in my previous blog post and, after using my Lydith this week, my thoughts are being reinforced about the post war camera industry in Soviet controlled East Germany. I'm no stranger to Soviet Bloc Lenses, my Helios 44m-4 is a great match for my Pentax SP500 and it is that combination with colour film that I am taking reference from. This is the advantage of shooting a heck of a lot of film, the ability to compare results with different lens and film combinations on the same camera. 

I had no problems with using the Lydith this week as I wasn't using any filters to modify exposures or bring highlights under control etc. I was definitely in street photography mode. I assessed the conditions and quickly found the day was a 1/250th - f/11 kind of day and got busy finding compositions. The Lydith is a joy to use when unencumbered. The aperture ring, once set to f/11 is easy to get on with, but I did find myself turning the aperture ring instead of the focus ring on a couple of occasions. I soon got acquainted with finding my focus with the aperture wide open then stopping down to the preset f/11. I even tried stopping down whilst using the rudimentary match needle TTL meter in my SP500. Some shots were somewhere around f/8 and f/5.6 depending on the cloud cover on the day.

With a little more practice my speed at using the Lydith was increasing, but I was still careful to take as much time as I needed to get my shots framed and exposed as best I could. It's closest focus at 33cm and a wide angle field of view at 72 degrees ensures you can get great shot's both close up and from a distance that remain sharp and the bokeh is just to my liking. The fall off from sharp focus to blur is very smooth indeed. I soon went through my roll of Ektar, loaded a roll of ColorPlus 200 and wandered out of the park and into the town centre.

My Pentax SP500 may be an old clunker by the standards of the top range camera's of it's day, but it is so easy to use it makes me smile every time I take a photo with it. If it wasn't for the reasuring clunk of the shutter nobody would notice me as I wander about Wigan indulging in street photography. There is so much to see, but I always seem to gravitate towards the same locations which is not a bad thing. Like I said earlier, it's the ability to compare results from other lens and film combinations that drew me to the statues of Owd Big Head and Billy Boston. Being able to compare my efforts with my Helios 44m-4 and my Lydith on my SP500 with ColorPlus 200 was my aim and I was not disappointed.

I have to say sorry to my Helios at this point as my favourite lens is now my Lydith. For street photography it is an outstanding accompaniment to my SP500 and certainly holds up to scrutiny against the Helios with ColorPlus 200. However, it is with Ektar that my Lydith shone. The superb fine grain and colour rendition together with centre sharpness and bokeh to die for makes it a formidable combination. It was well worth the wait and with Halloween and Christmas right around the corner, I know I will be able to get some great colour photographs with a camera and lens that cost me lens than £50.

People tend to rave about the latest camera's and lenses, but the excellent work of the post war camera industry in Europe and Japan laid the foundations for them to be at the pinnacle of Photography today. If you haven't used a Lydith, give it a try. The quality of these lenses are outstanding for their time, can certainly hold their own in a market dominated by autofocus lenses and are plentiful on the second hand market. My Meyer-Optik 30mm f/3.5 Lydith certainly made me slow down and get some great shots and I can't wait to try and get some more. Here's a few shots I took this week, the first six are Ektar and the last four are ColorPlus 200. I hope you enjoy them as much as i did taking them.