Good News, Bad News

Good news first: I now have film in my MTL3. Not Tri-X - Ilford HP5 Plus 400 - but film none the less. I was wandering past a branch of Jessops, popped in and that was all they had. I've been taking some happy snaps so watch this space for news of the result - I haven't actually established that the camera is working yet.

The bad news: my Sigma 50mm macro lens has developed a fault. The focusing ring has jammed such that I can't focus any closer than 0.6 m, which is pretty useless for a macro lens. A return to works job, I'm afraid and no more flower images in the meantime.

Oh well. The summer garden is almost over and I do have a fair few images backed up which will hopefully tide me over until my lens is fixed.

The Last of the Jasione

I'm still working on my old laptop, still using UFRaw. I have a couple more images from this batch to post and then I'll make the move. However, this is the last image of the jasione that I'll post - at least for now. They're still flowering, so its possible that I'll make some more images of them.

David's Jasione

Another image of a jasione flower - this one is from earlier in its lifecycle than the previous post.

I've finally bought myself a new laptop, which I'm in the process of setting up. Its a much more powerful beast than the eight year old machine that I'm writing this on and this will probably be one of the last posts written on it. 

I've installed RawTherapee on the new machine, so this will also be the swansong for UFRaw. It will be interesting to see what difference this new setup makes to the images.

PS: Thanks go to Ian Dart for the title of this post.

Jasione and the Argonauts

This is an image of a jasione flower. No, me neither. We have them growing in pots at the front of the house. I've no idea where they came from, I assume that my wife must have bought and planted them, quite possibly when I was present, but I have no memory of it.

They appear to have a fairly complex lifecycle - a blue flower morphs its shape a couple of times before developing into the green seed head which appears in this image. I have a few images of the earlier phases, which I may post over the coming week.

The Name of The Rose

"Peace" apparently.

I've been trying to make images of the roses all summer, and failing. This is the first that's been worth posting.

Praktica Update

The idea of resurrecting the Praktica has been niggling away at me. So, I tracked down a replacement for the PX625 battery, courtesy of Maplin. And the exposure meter still works, so the idea lives on - the next step is to get hold of a roll of film and make some exposures. There's a Kodak shop in Keynsham - no, really - so Tri-X may not be out of the question.

More of this soon, I expect. 

In Clover

We have an L-shaped lawn that runs across the front - East - side of the house and round the North side. The lawn at the front is relatively new, laid when we remodeled the garden after our son was born. The side lawn is older, essentially untouched since we moved in.

A couple of years ago, I decided I was going to improve the quality of the side lawn, which was full of clover, moss and weeds. So, I instituted a regime of regular cutting and feeding and I bought an electric lawn rake. And the lawn responded to all this TLC and I got rid of most of the moss and clover.

Last year of course, it all went backwards. Regular trips to Liverpool meant that the garden was neglected. But this year, I was going to recover the situation, until my lawn rake broke and I managed to electrocute myself trying to fix it.

Anyway, the clover is back, with a vengeance. Above is an example, the image made in a rush because I was just about to mow the lawn again. This meant that I broke my usual rule and made the image when the sun was out, which is how I achieved the high contrast that I like about it.