Just because I love film photography a non-digital workflow doesn’t mean I spurn all digital assistance. Here are my favourite smartphone apps which I use regularly to help with my traditional photographic work. I’ve focused on iPhone apps simply because I have an iPhone. I’m sure many of these (or close equivalents) are available for Android […]
Read more "Smartphone apps for film photographers"This week I picked up a kit to make your own camera out of cardboard. The box said it was OK for ages 12 and up so there was a vague possibility than even I might manage to build it! I’m not known for my patience, but I managed to construct the camera in the […]
Read more "Cardboard camera"For Christmas, I asked Mummy and Daddy Father Christmas for a light box, to help me review slides and negatives before printing and scanning. Today’s the first day I’ve had a chance to try it out, and here it is. It’s a box… with a light in. Who’d have thought! It works really well and […]
Read more "Light box"Recently the 16GB SSD in my EeePC 901 failed. I was surprised how little variety there was in compatible replacement SSDs, and so I bought practically the only option – a Kingspec 16GB SATA SSD. I paid just over £40 for it. I’ve no idea how it performs in comparison with the original Asus SSD, […]
Read more "Asus EeePC 901 and Kingspec SSDs"My iPhone automatically records geo-location information with each photo I take. I’ve never used the information, but today I happened to be prodding about in the menus and it drew me a map of where I’ve taken photos. It struck me that, by pure coincidence, all of the places are in a straight line. So, […]
Read more "Where I’ve been"I recently noticed when using my iPhone that Apple have some sort of a list of swear words in their spelling dictionary. For those unfamiliar with the way text input works on the iPhone, if you make a typo (or enter a word not in the dictionary) then one of these happens: If the word […]
Read more "Apple’s swear box"The background For ages I’ve wanted a decent fisheye lens. Back when I was shooting with my Fuji S9600, I bought a filter-thread screw-on fisheye adapter. It was only about £30 and the chromatic aberration was awful, even in the viewfinder. But it opened up a new world of photography to me, and I enjoyed […]
Read more "Review – Samyang 8mm f/3.5 aspherical Fisheye lens"No, not handbags and shoes. I’m talking about accessories for my collection of film cameras. My film cameras date from the late 1920s to the late 1990s, and between them they have a variety of different methods of controlling the focus and metering. Most of them don’t have any automation at all. This is fun, […]
Read more "Accessorize!"Recently, I would say that photography is my favourite hobby. But it wasn’t always that way. Throughout my childhood, I’ve taken pictures of important occasions on single-use cameras. My parents would always buy me a single-use camera before a family holiday, for example. I wasn’t interested in the camera, though. A few years ago (2005, […]
Read more "How things change"Whenever I buy old or hard-to-find things from the Internet I often like to look at the user manuals first. But it can often be hard to find them, and I’m grateful when other people take the time to scan or type out their product literature. I recently bought a Conway box camera, dating back […]
Read more "User manual for the Conway Synchronised box camera"