Photographic Assistance

Hi all I have enjoyed this issue, more so because of it being outside the realms of my expertise. My first lesson in photography came about when I started work at Courtaulds. The office had its own Practica SLR film camera (this is 1965) which was used for photographing engineers drawings. The office had an arrangement with Mr Denning who had a photo shop in Foleshill Rd, that he would at short notice process a roll of film, which would then be enlarged into several copies, so that we could then price the cost of the drawing up. Remember at this point in time reprographic technology was not what it is now. Before a huge construction job was started, the company employed model-makers who did just that. From the engineers drawings they would build a scale model. The model was then photographed, where the significance of small aperture along with long time exposure to produced a sharp picture was essential. That is where I learnt the significance of time exposure & depth of field focus. When I started our model railway, I had to learn that all over again, which was fun. No joke, prior to that our only camera that Pam & I had between us was an instamatic. Wha' wha' & wha!

"Remember at this point in time reprographic technology was not what it is now."

Not so, Philip. Some of the old cameras of yesteryear were fitted with staggeringly good lenses, and amongst them were one or two Carl Zeiss Jena items (the part of Carl Zeiss which ended up under East German control). Hasselblads employed West German Zeiss, and Leica's Leitz lenses were second to none. Likewise, enlarger lenses were absolute stunning. Combine both of these with very fine grain roll film or 35mm in later years, and the results will surpass a great deal of what we see today where much of it is manipulated beyond belief by computers. I will say that 'processing' is an awful lot easier, but the results, I am not quite as convinced.

Philip, I don't criticise any camera. My first was from Woolworth's and cost 1s 9d when I was around 9 years old. I still have some of the negatives, and they are treasured items. My next step up, when I was around 14, was a Kodak Brownie 127 and I have lots of negatives from that too. To me photography has never been about cameras, rather the images and memories you can capture with them. I was lucky to be trained as a photographer in the army. The course was actually done at the Royal Naval School of Photography at Lee-on-Solent. It was only a 6-month course but it was a full-time course and in the forces a full-time course means just that: you live photography and had to be in attendance withing the school complex for at least 12 hours a day. An exam every Friday morning on anything you had learned up until that point. The papers were marked at lunchtime with the results at 3pm. At 3pm we had a parade. We all dreaded those parades. If you failed the exam you were issued with a ticket back to your unit. There was no such thing as a retake. Our course started out with 12 potential photographers - but only 6 of us completed the course. Did we get to know everything there was to know about photography. No! I've been learning ever since.

Philip, here's a camera to set the pulses racing.

The Lubitel 2 was on sale for around £9 when I last saw one. You would be surprised, shocked even, at results from what looks and feels so old and that was sold at toy camera prices. Film format played a role (no pun intended) being as it used the same film stock type as the mighty Hasselblads and Rollei TLRs, but the lens was all glass and capable of high resolution photos.

Yep, could put a lot of more expensive 35mm cameras to shame. That being said a friend of mine sold his brace of Hasselblads when he saw that a Nikon digital SLR could do.

Hi all My reference to technology was not about cameras, more about the fact that electronic copying was not like it is today with copying machines & the like.

When I made my first visit to Accrington in 1988 I hadn't got a camera with me so popped into a camera shop and bought one of these. Think it cost a little under £25. It became my field survey camera while I looked at which house to buy. It did the job admirably.

Nikon F's were challenging the 6 x 6 lovers years ago, and for ease of use won hands down. Not my F70 though. That model only ever challenged the user (not just me) with its overly complex and not always easy to understand top mounted LCD panel. I was looking at a Df. "Would you like it wrapped, sir" to which I replied, "not unless you can offer a discount of $3298".

Hi all Some use comes of having a wet morning, Pixrobin. I am slowly getting my head around the settings of my Fuji & I am starting to smile. This picture taken on aperture priority, with centre area focusing, even facing forward in to light coming from a huge window, I hope that you like. Fuji have also replied to my email explaining the focal length characteristics of the camera lens, being geared to maximum light gathering, rather than minimum, which makes sense for a huge telephoto camera. I have a Nikon film camera (I have not used in ages) which gets around this at the cost of having two separate bayonet fitting lenses. Like you, they have confirmed that me learning to off centre the picture frame either a third in or a third back will provide a measure of focal depth to any picture. So, even in a difficult setting like here with the light source in front of the subject, I am well pleased with the sharpness of the smoke box end of the loco. The class 4 has just been service & cleaned by Bramble Lane shed fitters.

Last pic, honest, well I hope, Percy the pannier tank & Sally the saddle tank were so upset not to have been included in the picture of their home shed, that I have given them a hanky to dry their eyes & blow their noses. Moving the focal area selector has cracked this, just as you said Pixrobin. Again with the subject in front of the light source, the picture is very acceptable. If it can cope with this scenario, it will handle anything. I just need to practise. "Wait a minute, it's stopped raining! Girls are playing, guys are sailing" I am off out. See you soon.

Philip, you are always going to have some issues with detail being washed out in areas where there is very strong and uncontrollable backlighting. You might want to consider making up a background that can be slipped in and out which blocks the daylight through the window. It doesn't have to be too high. To get lighting back onto the track area, consider photographic lighting. Pix is the man to ask re what would be best type of lighting to try judging from his rather good photo of the model Merc.

Hi Mike H I do have flood lighting which I use sometimes, but I am enjoying getting to grips with the camera handling all situations. Learning to use the centre focal facility on the camera has moved me on.

Hi Philip Glad you are getting to grips with and growing to like your Fuji. It's not really viable to use flood lighting with daylight when taking colour images as the floodlights give a lot warmer colour than daylight. Personally, I don't mind the light flooding in from the back. But, in those cases I would tend to use a reflector to bounce light back into the shadows of the model. The reflector can be something as simple as a large sheet of white card. On the occasion where you want to get in really close, such as photographing an individual engine then a sheet of white paper will usually suffice.

Hi Pixrobin I am very appreciative of your help on this. I am a bit like granddad driving a Maserati racing car when it come to camera technology, but I enjoy it. I like the picture of your early camera. I might still have my concertina folding camera which might even have a roll of either 120 or 820 Ilford film in it. Again though, thank you for your help. Once I have got more to grips with indoor pics, I may have more confidence with outdoor settings, not just relying on auto all of the time. Best wishes to you.

Wasn't Philip's original query as to why he wasn't getting such good results with camera B as with camera A? Did anyone come up with a definitive answer, I wonder?