Photography Update

Photography Update...

Having been very ill for the first few months of this year, and thus spent almost no money, I've splurged on a camera - a very nice auto-focus Minolta SLR. It was sold as second-hand, with "slight signs of use", but as far as I can see, it's absolutely mint - there's no sign it's ever been used (this model was available new until relatively recently). It came with a 37-70mm short zoom, and I've added a 70-210mm zoom, which should cover most eventualities. The latter is a Tokina lens, rather than Minolta, but I expect the quality to be at least as good (in my manual outfit, the optics are from a variety of manufacturers, and all are excellent). Update: The Tokina lens didn't work! No idea why, but I suspect it's been stored badly and damp has affected the electronics. So, back to Ffordes, where I got the camera, and they have a mint Minolta 70-210 in stock. It's rather more expensive than I'm happy with, and it'll be a bit of a pinch, but what the hell, I'm having it.

Two important things here - my eyes are giving me trouble (detached retinas in both), so auto-focus matters, as, increasingly, does the sheer weight of my manual outfit. For example, my manual SLR, with motor-drive and medium zoom - apart from the absence of built-in flash this is everything the new one has - weighs in at 3.5lb. The new one is 1.5lb - in the context of ME, for a couple of hours birding in the woods, that's going to make a huge difference.

The 500si super (or SUPER in UK), is a step up from the basic 500si, in that it has a socket for an electronic remote release, film speed over-ride, multiple-exposure facility and, most important of all, the lens mounts is machined metal, not moulded plastic which is just foolish on an SLR. (Note: If you previously read the drivel I wrote here about function cards, that was wrong - I'd looked at so many cameras before settling on this one, I got my wires crossed!). On the standard 35-70 lens that came with the camera, the mount is plastic and it doesn't look too robust, but as the 70-210 (with its metal mount), will be getting the most use, it doesn't matter a lot.

February 23 update: I've invested in a second-hand set of Cokin filters, something I've wanted for years, but the cost has been off-putting - the filters are upwards of £11 each new, but at £2 secondhand, they're affordable.

Reviews of the 500si SUPER are generally favourable, though some are plain weird. One guy complains that when he turned pro, the camera couldn't keep up, and was blown away by his Nikon (costing at least 5 or 6 times more, incidentally). Well of course it couldn't keep up - it was never intended as a pro camera at all. The same guy complains that the viewfinder is a little darker than he'd expected (well here's a tip - look through it before buying!). OK, it is, but it's also crystal clear and, with auto-focus, all it's used for is composing the image, so it simply doesn't matter. Whinges like this are just complaints for the sake of complaining, he didn't come up with a single quantitative fault.

Just a thought - lenshoods are useful bits of kit for keeping stray light out of the lens - but that's all they're for. Increasingly, I've noticed, they are being sold as lens protection devices - trust me, folks, if your camera's reached the point where it's relying on a rubber cup for protection, it's doomed. There's only one way to protect your camera - don't drop the bugger in the first place! Always use a neck strap, whether you're taking photos, changing film or just cleaning the thing - that way you can never drop it. Which, incidentally, brings me to another review I read, where a guy complained that when he dropped his 500si on a conrete floor, it smashed. Yep, it'll do that every time, being plastic. Not a problem - don't drop it! For most cameras, dropping it on a hard surface is terminal, no matter what it's made of.

While I love 35mm SLRs for their versatility, there's no denying the attractions of a pocketable camera, and this has to have been my all-time favourite, if only in terms of the places it went and the sheer volume of photos I got from it - the Konica C35. It had rangefinder focusing (or zone focusing if you were particularly idle - the results were indistinguishable), auto-exposure and - er, that's it. It did, though, produce excellent images, wasn't much bigger than a packet of fags, and lived happily and unobtrusively in my pocket.

Loaded with a fast film, it came into its own in all those venues - British stately homes, Parisian museums, German schlosses - where flash photography is banned, or even all photography prohibited, lest you be tempted to sneak back and steal their goodies (which was how they got them in the first place, hence their paranoia!). One downside - unavoidably - was that in those days, fast film meant black & white. These days, colour film of 400 ISO is the norm, and 800 ISO easily available - what I had was slide film of 50 ASA (ASA was equivalent to the current ISO rating), or print film of 125 ASA, both of which demanded flash indoors. What I used was Ilford HP5 (I think - it was a long time ago!), which is rated at 400 ASA, but exposed and push-processed at 800 ASA, which gave very sharp, detailed images with great shadow detail, vital in b&w.

When my C5 finally expired, halfway up Harrison Stickle, in the Langdales, I reverted to an SLR, a Praktica LTL3

This came, as all SLRs tended to, then, with a 50mm standard lens (and frequently, as here, with a very useful maximum aperture of f1.8), to which I added the, for me, essential 70-210mm zoom - this combo, though the make varied every couple of years, was to form my standard backpacking photo outfit for over a decade - I seriously doubt anyone backpacks with an SLR outfit these days!

As you can see, little has changed - although SLRs, latterly, tended to come with short/medium zooms as standard, the first thing I added to my new one was a 70-210, as it's such a versatile lens. With a zoom lens, I work on the principal that a magnification of 3x is capable of maintaining an acceptable image quality. Zooms are always a compromise, though, no matter what the cost or notional quality, and a prime (i.e. fixed focal length), lens will almost always yield better results, all else being equal, but for the average hobby photographer, trading off a little image quality - that in real terms may not even be visible - for the enhanced portability of the zoom over a bag of prime lenses (which he'd spend half the day changing), is well worth it.

The principle behind the SLR is, of course, the interchangeability of its lenses, but this is mainly of interest to the pro - a full SLR outfit based on a camera body, or several, with a collection of prime lenses, and a few flashguns thrown in for good measure, is heavy, cumbersome and damned expensive, and to make proper use of it one other accessory is vital - someone to carry it all!

Something else to bear in mind, too. The more you switch lenses, the greater the risk of damaging grit and dust getting at the delicate innards of your camera. Using a zoom lens reduces the risk substantially.

For all practical purposes, a zoom is fine, but don't get too ambitious with the range. 70-210mm is in such widespread use because it works well across its entire range. Zooms with a range from 28-210mm are available, but you'd be pushing your luck - it would probably fail miserably once you got much under 50mm - it's usually the wide-angle end that goes to pot.

For Sunday rambling outings, I eventually replaced the Konica with something even dinkier, the Olympus XA2, with the A11 flash. I'd occasionally take my SLR along, but transport was by coach, and space was at a premium. Without the flash, this tiny camera would slip easily into a shirt pocket, being smaller than many digital compacts today. In the picture, by the way, the flash isn't correctly fitted - you shouldn't be able to see daylight between the two, as you can here, at the top. Shame I'm out of money - I'd really like this.

Focusing was by zone, and exposure was automatic. The lens was amazingly sharp and, though its wide angle may, at times, have included more foreground than you'd like, getting selective prints from just a small section of the negative was never a problem.

The tiny Olympus is still available second-hand; Ffordes where I got my new Minolta, have one at £49, complete with flash, but sadly the Konica has gone forever. I finally sold my Olympus to a guy who had lusted after it since the first time he saw it (why he didn't just go out and buy one, I never figured out).

When I recover - I've had the worst bout of flu I've had in decades - I think it's fair to say, without a hint of melodrama, that last weekend I didn't expect to see this weekend. This, I need to discuss rather firmly with my idiot GP, as I should have been in hospital, not left here fending for myself. In fact, next time, the only phone call I'm making is 999. If he doesn't like it, fuck him!

Bugger - got sidetracked - as I was saying, when I recover, I'll get out with my new camera and take some photos to post here, somewhere, or maybe on my new blog at www.ronsrealm.wordpress.com because I have more space available there (3GB), and it's free.