May 2014 – Jonathan Gazeley

Canon EX EE

Released 1969 This isn’t your usual Canon SLR. The EX EE was a budget model and to keep the cost of the lenses down, the rear half of the lens is permanently attached to the camera. The front half of the lens unscrews and is interchangeable, so you only have to buy half a lensContinue reading “Canon EX EE”

Canon Canonet Junior

Released 1963 I’m not normally too interested in 35mm compacts but I picked up this Canonet Junior for a bargain price. I like the 40mm lens which is a little bit wider than normal. Unfortunately this camera is designed to work either in aperture priority or full auto, but the selenium light meter has diedContinue reading “Canon Canonet Junior”

Busy bank holiday

I had a busy bank holiday weekend. I travelled around and shot three rolls and two sheets of film. I’ll try and break these photos down into distinct events. First there were a couple of test shots using my new Canon FD 200mm f/2.8 lens. The cranes stand in Bristol’s floating harbour and the other viewContinue reading “Busy bank holiday”

Getting to know the Pellix at sunset

I finally laid my hands on a camera I’ve wanted for ages – a Canon Pellix from the mid-1960s. Mine is the QL edition from 1966. It’s like most other manual focus Canon SLRs except that it has a fixed pellicle mirror, rather than a moving mirror. It diverts 1/3 of the light to theContinue reading “Getting to know the Pellix at sunset”

Canon Pellix QL

Released 1966 The Canon Pellix looks like any other Canon SLR of the 1960s or 70s, but it has an important difference. The mirror in the Pellix is fixed and always directs light to the viewfinder and to the film simultaneously. You avoid mirror vibration, but lose some light. If you’re using the built-in TTLContinue reading “Canon Pellix QL”

Deep space

Over a week ago now I had an intense astronomy evening with my tame scientist. There weren’t many hours between sunset and moonrise so we worked fast to try and prove that we had a reliable autoguiding setup, having been plagued by various failures and obstacles the last few times we’d tried (see below) WeContinue reading “Deep space”

Compton Martin

At the weekend I was out enjoying the sun in Somerset, and collecting more churches for my Somerset Towers project. I wasn’t specifically looking for other photo opportunities but when I saw this scene in Compton Martin I thought it was worthy of a picture. Picture was taken with Horseman 45HD using a Schneider-Kreuznach Symmar-SContinue reading “Compton Martin”

Lucky waving cats

For ages, I’ve wanted to paint a pair of Chinese lucky waving cats the same colours as my cats. This weekend I finally got around to doing so – and these are the results 🙂 Lou Lou isn’t keen on her lucky waving cat. Mittens keeps trying to kill hers.

Converting a De Vere 54 condenser enlarger to diffusion

I recently picked up a De Vere 54 enlarger for a bargain price. It’s a 1950s machine, designed to take 5×4″ negatives. In order to use the light most efficiently when making large prints, the enlarger is fitted with a condenser to give parallel illumination to the negative. However, the flip side of a condenserContinue reading “Converting a De Vere 54 condenser enlarger to diffusion”

Cambridge revisited

It’s been a while since I last posted some pictures instead of writing a technical article. Fortunately, here are some pictures I took in Cambridge this weekend while visiting my brother, Edmund. Being a Cambridge undergrad, he’s quite busy and wasn’t able to meet us right away. When we arrived in the town, we satContinue reading “Cambridge revisited”