Not quite Jupiter. British Museum

British Museum 09/11/2008

The adventure with film and the site is now over one year old, so it was about time.

The photo above was one of the ones that started this project off – Leica IIf RD, Summitar 50 f/2, Delta 100, DD-X 12mins. Obviously in the days when I could afford Ilford DD-X and Ilford Delta! I also rapidly lost interest in both that particular developer and film. I was going for something bombproof at the time and the combo looked good. I now prefer the older emulsions and developers, particularly when using old lenses (The Summitar on the Leica is about 60 years old, the Leica itself a mere 53 years).

Graffers welcome!

Photographing graffiti is just a bit too easy since a straightforward representation of the graf usually becomes derivative art for which the photographer inevitably takes some credit. Just look at all the Banksy ‘art’ rips online. It is too easy and for some reason, grafs are often really enhanced when viewed photographically, especially on a monitor. They have a luminance sometimes lacking in the original. And just for the sake of a counter argument it can work the other way too… see street artist Shepard Fairey filing a lawsuit against AP

Actually I wanted some quick gratification using the Nokton in low light at f/1.2 and as I happened to be in Waterloo I shot a couple of rolls of Delta 400 in the tunnel.

Suicide jesus

Interesting 3D effect, JHC!

The place looks like a set from a first person shooter game and man, is it bright with colour! The place has been graffed and over-graffed so often there is very little of the original walls, floor or ceiling. So first points to me, I’m not shooting colour, so I have to find other interest. Shape & form, content, some difference.

The toolkit

There is some really good stuff down there. Shame Thomas Jefferson can’t give us his opinion now.

The so called war on terror spells the end of privacy. What a fucking irony, hey government?

Presumably Thos J and Mark Twain are turning in their graves at the travesties of justice currently being taken with our civil liberties. Just to help the search bots find this quote a little easier lets have it in plain text, not just an image:

“On the altar of God, I pledge undying hostility to any government restrictions on the free minds of the people.”

Thomas Jefferson – the favored quote at the highest point in the Rotunda at the Jefferson Memorial.

Anyway, moving on but keeping with the surveillance/civil liberties meme, the all seeing eye. If CCTV were like this I’d stop taking drugs.

Surveillance masonic graf style

Leake Street is surprisingly long, this is just one of the side roads off it

And this looks like the exit to a new level in the game

Level completed

So I’m hoping I haven’t just ripped-off some teeny graffer’s art by photographing Leake Street. The wonderful thing is that if I go back next week it will have changed dramatically again as more crews come along and spray over what is there.

Almost unbelievably a group of people were walking along tut-tutting at the ‘mess’. Get a life people. Or walk the long way round the station if it offends you.

I used Ilford Delta Pro 400 and Ilford DD-X because I wanted a fairly ‘crisp’ modern look to these photographs. No need for a retro Rodinal treatment, the subject matter is hardly appropriate. Most of the photos were taken at f/1.2 on the Nokton due to the (lack of) light, and lets face it, because I could hehe.� I’m fairly happy with the results for a first run.� Focusing seems spot on with the Bessa-T too which is a relief with that narrow a depth of field.

So, to put it another way, my Nokton lust been gratified for a day or so.

Finally, here is one I liked, and I think it works well in B&W.

So thanks to all you unknown (to me) graf people…

Used the Bessa with the Leitz Summitar 50/2. Could have done with a wider lens and the Summitar is prone to flares without the big bucket hood. I’m using up the Delta Pro 100 & Ilford DD-X. When it has gone I’ll stick to FP4+ for ISO 100 film and use the wonderful Rodinal for developing the negs, a combination I am more happy with. Cheaper too…

King of rubbish:

This ‘beach’ is seriously blighted by rubbish. It looks like a tip. I’m trying to remember what was on this site before, some kind of warehouse or a wharf for recycling? Lots of crap left over after the demolition anyway. Copious quantities of trainers too. All washed twice a day by the tide.

Lord of light:

Lots of evidence of flare here because the sun was low and the Summitar is not at its best pointing in the direction of the light source. However, the bench glows and there is a slight air of mystery.

Embedded:

More seating

These had sunk deep. The chair looks like it has fallen from a great height.

Sad Diner:

Another broken chair here. We had coffee at the ‘London Diner’ at the Dome. Another tea-hut with a grandiose name with a woman serving coffee who has strong opnions on americano and esspresso coffee a la anglaise. I agree with her and have a filter coffee instead. The crap they call esspresso from the machine they have there is unspeakably bad.

Boneyard toys:

Fisher-Price. Indestructible. Looks like a dinosaur pelvis to me.

More Fisher-price crap. It is having a laugh. You can see the rubbish behind…

Meta-trash:

A trash-can in a trash heap. Recursive or what. It wasn’t the only one. Where do you throw the trash cans?

And finally, da da da:

There is only one caption for this.

Fuck..

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That is what we like to see… throw down the brollies

First off, a mini user review

The CV Color Scopar 21/4 is a wide but slow lens. probably the least expensive way to go wide with this setup. The Leitz equivalent costs many more �����s and I’m not sure anything is available for screw mount anyway (ie the ‘crons for the M series).

It appears to be well constructed with that hard to define feeling of ‘quality’. CV describes it as ‘silver’ (a brushed anodized finish). It definitely isn’t chrome, so doesn’t make a brilliant match. Good enough though and I dislike the CV painted black copies anyway. The only niggle about the way it looks is that the bundled finder is black plastic. Horrors, WTF couldn’t CV bundle a silver finder with a silver lens… definitely looks out of place. However, the silver Leica SBKOO equivalent brightline finder costs ITRO �300 and the newer Leica black 21mm finders are even more expensive. Go figure… The Leica 21mm finders look bigger than the CV 21mm finder. So I’ll live with it

The lens is pleasingly small and fits well with the the diminutive If. I’m planning on using the combo for street photography. The widest I can go (autofocus) with the Nikon D300 is by using the 12-24 f/4, hardly a small and unobtrusive combo. The AFD Nikkor 21 prime has a fairly crap reputation too, so I don’t want that option. The FM2/n with a 28mm Nikkor AIS is the nearest to the If in my collection but my FM2/n camera has one of the loudest shutters I’ve ever heard (ie not discrete) and still feels huge compared to the Leica (the FM2/n is one of the smallest Nikon SLRs).

The aperture ring has well defined clicks, including half stops and the focus ring is very smooth and well damped. I am a fan of the focusing lever on Leica lenses & the CV has one too, which is nice… Zone focusing is a doddle since the focus index registers at the top of the camera so it is simple to glance down rather than having to hunt round the sides with the Summaron 35/3.5. Distances are in feet and meters for the metrically challenged (North Americans?).

One other niggle. It does not seem possible to use a lens cap if using the lens hood (LH-1). Possibly a consideration with aging shutter curtains. It is possible to burn pin-holes in the shutter curtain if the lens is left pointing at the sun. It is recommended that the lens hood is kept on anyway to avoid progressive light leaks through tiny holes. That assumes some sun of course…

On the subject of the lens hood, I hope this nugget may help somebody else. I thought the built in hood was jammed on the lens when I first came to remove it. This may be a case of RTFM but you don’t actually need the strength of a silver-back gorilla to remove it. Rather than try and unscrew it directly, slide the lens cap over it and use that for leverage. Doddle… the other way is hard. You have to remove the integral lens hood to attach filters and/or the larger and more effective LH-1 hood, so it is worth finding this out first rather than in the field

I shot two roll of films: Ilford Delta 100, developed in Ilfosol 3 1+9 for 5 mins and Fomapan 100, ditto development. The Ilfosol 3 has a disturbingly short (5 min at standard dilution) developing time and I think is classed as an all purpose developer for low speed rated film. I’m not dissatisfied with the results. I do seem to have a dust problem though. This is hardly a surprise TBH. There is so much building work around here that dust gets everywhere. And yeah, I really like housework too… as I sit and watch the tumbleweed dust/hair balls rolling across the room I like to think I’m in some iconic movie location. Not.

Images

All of these shots were taken with the LH-1 lens hood in place. There was bright low sun and I’m pretty sure that it has controlled flare very effectively. One disadvantage of the hood is that I can’t hide the camera under my coat so effectively while it is hanging from my neck – stealth consideration. I can, of course, but it looks like I have a serious deformity

Delta 100:

Fomapan 100:

I’m loving the ‘painterly’ rendition of the reflections in these windows. I’ve noticed this before and will return for a more dedicated exploration of the phenomenon. It must be something to do with the kind of glass (or perhaps its age) used in the Old Royal Naval College windows

The lens has a reputation for sharpness across the image and for being contrasty. I’d agree. In fact it is a pleasure to use! I can’t wait to use it in a more appropriate street setting.

Like all wides with this angle of view it becomes a ‘pointless and shoot’ (tm hehe) if you are expecting something that doesn’t require thought around the composition.� The huge depth of field and wide angle of view requires and understanding of foreground/background relationships, ie a foreground subject can be right in your face and it can remain contextualised and emphasised because the background is falling away behind it to a great depth and distance. Something renaissance painters knew about. I suspect many of them would have been using wide lenses if cameras had been around in 1500. This ‘distortion’ of reality can be used to great effect on the street.

And finally a bench to round it all off

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