Recent Entries
FLM CP34 L4II Tripod Review
**I have been taking pictures for over 35 years and one of the best pieces of gear I ever bought was a Manfrotto 3021BN aluminum tripod. It served me well when I was younger and didn’t mind the weight. I had pared it with the Gittos MH3000 Ball head modified with a video QR system. […]
2020 Ilford ULF Special Order
**Ilford has announced their annual special order program for ULF and odd film sizes. Deadline to place orders is August 14,2020 at participating dealers. You can order from their FP4+, Delta 100, and HP5+ films. Not all sizes available in each film. I ordered my ULF film from The View Camera Store whose pricing was […]
Barefoot Falls
**After being Covid-19 quarantined for about 6 weeks I had finally had enough of home projects and sitting around bored. I convinced my wife that we should go on a Sunday Morning Adventure and take a short hike to some waterfalls a friend had told me about. The drive there was a short 40 minutes, […]
Pyrocat Variants and Discovery
**I have written several blog posts about the various cachetol based film developers I have been using the last few years. So I thought I would post my observations and personal experiences in more of a summary format for anyone who wants to explore a similar path. The only caveat is that these statements are […]
SMA Shot in the Dark Part II
**In my earlier article SMA Shot in the dark I described the difficulty of shooting a low light subject. The negative came out very thin due to the dark interior so I knew it might be a challenge. I played with it in Photoshop some to get the feeling of what was needed. Today I printed […]
New Site colors for Spring 2020
**Bored from being quarantined so sprucing things up with new colors from Pantone: Chive 4B5335 and Cinnamon stick 9C4722
Obsidian Aqua – Film test
**In my previous article, Obsidian Aqua first mix, I described how I mixed 200ml Part A at 1/2 strength and created what I now will refer to as OA/2-A. For my film test I needed a part B and I still have plenty of part B from Pyrocat HD mixes which are 750g/liter of Potassium […]
Obsidian Aqua first mix
**I had stumbled upon Jay DeFehr’s website a couple of years ago when searching for an alternative to Pyrocat HD which kept failing for me. Obsidian Aqua is a simple two chemical (part A) that is highly concentrated and easy to mix. Like most of the cachetol based developers the goal of this developer is […]
SMA Shot in the dark
**Last weekend I went to visit my sister in Tuscaloosa Alabama. On Sunday I had the chance to visit Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham Alabama. Unfortunately a storm was moving in so I had limited time. The exterior of the old plant had nice lighting but the interiors were very dark even close to windows for […]
Winter Blahs
**Due to a heavy 9-5 workload and temperatures bouncing around this winter I have not been feeling very artistic. Having a cold this weekend isn’t helping. To try and motivate myself to get out and shoot something different I picked up a Rodenstock Imagon 200mm soft focus lens. I set out to my trusty location […]