Author: analogdave

Chasing Light in the Woods

A brilliant days workshop in the woods with Marc Robbins & Demi Ray Oral

Last weekend I attended a woodland workshop run by Marc Robbins & Demi Ray Oral, two photographers right on top of their game at present and each with a portfolio to die for with regards to woodland & landscape photography.

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A morning walk

Autumn is on the way and it’s a great time to head out into the woods and see the colours changing as the autumn season kicks in.

Travelling light with just the Fujifilm X100v and a tripod is a great way to record what’s going on. The weather resistance of the X100v certainly comes into its own on these damp, grey days!

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Thoughts on the K&F Magnetic Filter System

I‘ve been using a square filter kit made by NISI for a while now and although I’ve been very pleased with the performance of them it’s not the lightest or smallest package to carry around. Searching around on the internet I found the K&F Magnetic Filter System at a reasonable cost so I ordered one to see how a magnetic kit would work out for me.

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A Year of Black and White

Given it’s the end of the year, I always like to try and set objectives for the year ahead.

Quite often they don’t work out well – in truth, most objectives I try and set myself quite often come to little, but I like to try and keep myself thinking.

A year in black and white

For 2022, the aim is to shoot exclusively black and white.

Let’s forget about colour, let’s forget about fancy editing – let’s get those creative juices flowing through simple black & white and the glorious tones that monochrome gives you.

I enjoy the colours of the woodland, but quite often find it difficult to keep it consistent. It’s a constant dilemma I have – shooting in colour or black and white.

Maybe that’s to do with my colour blindness, maybe it’s the lack of subtlety in my editing. Whatever it is, I do find it is frustrating at times.

Shooting and editing in black and white should also provide a more consistent approach to my work as well.

Of course shooting in RAW means a colour RAW file, but I can set my camera bodies to show a black and white preview, with Lightroom I can set a black and white import and with careful simple editing maybe it’s just possible to alleviate some of those creative worries that colour gives me.

Keeping it simple

Once again, my feelings turn to gear. It’s a constant internal churn I have with myself, I have a couple of different cameras that I turn to and despite the enjoyment of using different makes and models I crave simplicity.

I’m happiest when I have a camera body and a single lens with me. Even the introduction of a second lens often causes me to consider which focal length would be better for any specific composition when I’m out.

I’d like to remove such feelings, so the plan is to use my M10-P as my main body and the 35mm Summicron for as much work as I can.

My Precious!

I love the ‘cron 35mm, the image quality and field of view suit me, it really is the reason why I bought a Leica body for that lens.

Looking at my LR catalogue I shoot at around 35mm focal length for approximately 90% of all of the images I take. Even when I use a zoom lens I tend to see a composition at that kind of focal length.

As I’ve written about previously, the Leica M bodies are a bit of a compromise for a lot of what I do, but it’s a camera I love to use – it makes me want to take photographs and when I use other systems I feel like I’m simply pressing the shutter button rather than making a concerted effort into finding out how to make the image.

So, the objectives remain pretty similar to those I made around the same time last year – only this time the resolve feels more solid.

Only time will tell I guess!

Film in Scotland

Having a few days away in Scotland I couldn’t resist taking my film gear and a couple of rolls of film along for the ride with my digital cameras I had on hand.

Here’s a few random images from a great few days – if you’ve never been put it on the bucket list, the Highlands of Scotland is an amazing area to visit!

Leica M6 & Summicron 40mm f2 | Fujifilm 400h & Kodak Portra 400

A plan Indeed

I love shooting film but hate waiting to finish the film/getting the film back from the lab.

The instant gratification I get from digital, spending time out pointing a camera at things and being able to see those results instantaneously is almost like a drug. I don’t want to wait, we live in a world of instant gratification for almost everything and photography is no different.

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NiSi Compact Filter System

When I first started eyeing up X100F’s again, one thing I was interested in was the ability to use a filter system with the camera.

With the built in 3 stop ND Filter, the X100 series offers a great starting point, but if you want to try out long exposure photography a filter kit of some kind is required.

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