Ray Cook Photography
A few weeks ago I thought I’d try a different black and white negative film. I’m slowly working my way through different ones trying to decide what works best for me. I bought four rolls of Fomapan 200, a film made in Czechia which has a good reputation in the analogue world. It also has […]
Well, almost: one’s a 55mm. I recently acquired a vintage lens I have long coveted – the Asahi Pentax Super-Takumar 55mm 1.8. This means I am now the proud owner of a collection of 1960s-1980s 50mm lenses from what I consider the five leading consumer SLR brands of the 1970s, namely : Minolta, Olympus, Canon, […]
So, my love affair with film continues. This time it took 9 months to go through a 23 frame roll of Ilford FP4 Plus and by the time I came to develop it, I was a bit out of practice. This led to me adding the stop bath before tipping out the developer and breaking […]
Just as the global pandemic was taking hold in China in February, we decided to take a mini-break in Stratford-Upon-Avon, birthplace and home of William Shakespeare. I had not been there for over 40 years and had never stayed there. As the shadow of the virus loomed. we visited sites owned by the Shakespeare Birthplace […]
So, I was in Tel Aviv. Been there loads of times. I was looking for something different. How about this. I just saw this unusual idea of metal and wooden benches at the edge of the kerb in a residential area and thought it was kind of arty? Not sure the manhole cover adds […]
So, in the last post we looked at the lead-up to the results of exposing 5 rolls of black and white film on 5 different SLRs.I had never developed film on my own before. I had briefly dabbled with printing when I was at school – that was 50 years ago! I decided to get […]
We used to call it just ‘film’ but now it’s ‘analogue’ as opposed to ‘digital’ just like music once came from vinyl or tape and then migrated to CD. And just like vinyl aficionados like the reassuring feel of a record and the way the light plays on its minute ridges, just as they like […]
Well, there’s a lot more to it: crisp winter air, a million bicycles, English spoken everywhere. So what about photography? If you like architecture and street photography, plenty of water, bright lights at night, safe streets then you are bound to find lots to see and record. Here is a gallery of some of the […]
I just sold my Canon 7D and my 18-85 lens on eBay. Having now purchased the Sony 24-105 for my A7 II I don’t need that lens. Since discovering that I can put my camera in APS-C mode, mount my Tamron 70-300 and get the equivalent of 105-450mm, I don’t need the Canon for wildlife. […]
Sony A7 II, fast prime, eye focus for portraits
So, I decided to use my wife as a model. I’ve been watching videos of professional photographers isolating their subjects with fast primes and using flash or other lighting to fill in. Probably my sharpest lens is my Canon nifty fifty EF 1.8 50mm IS STM. So I decided to use this and the Yongnuo […]