Ah yes, the dreaded inadvertent selfie, every street photographer's worst nightmare. I suppose I could have cloned myself out of this if I had the patience for it but hey, there I am, reflected with a disgraced pop star leaning over me. Ouch.
35mm film photography
Leica M2 rangefinder
Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0 (V5)
Ilford PanF Plus 50
Tags: B&W Ilford PanF Plus 50 Leica M2 Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0 (version 5) London analog analogue black and white film film is not dead rangefinder stay broke shoot film Michael Jackson Street photography Street Greek Street
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This is actually the Thames River, in Hampton (not far from Hampton Court Palace). There are a number of 'islands' in the river around this area which have houses built on them (trespassers NOT allowed btw) and this was one of the tributaries created by those islands. I was wandering around looking for a composition and found this little landing where small boats are launched. Looking to my right I saw this lovely scene with the row boat and the bridge in the distance.
Medium format photography
Rolleiflex 3.5E (version 1)
Carl Zeiss Planar 75mm f/3.5
Kodak Ektar 100 (colour film converted to B&W)
Tags: Rolleiflex 3.5E (type 1) Carl Zeiss Planar 75mm f/3.5 River Thames tributary film photography Film Is Not Dead Stay broke shoot film Kodak Ektar 100 converted to B&W Analogue Hampton west London
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This shot was taken with the same old Leica lens that I used for the shot of St Paul's Cathedral that I posted a few days back. It's a 90mm lens but when I adapt it to use on my Olympus Micro 4/3s camera, with it's crop sensor, it effectively becomes a 180mm lens. Using a telephoto lens that long will inevitably introduce a lot of compression into an image and you see that phenomenon very clearly here. The chimney tower on the right, which stands on top of the Tate Modern museum, is approximately 250 meters away. Meanwhile the slightly taller Shard building on the left is approximately 1100 meters away (distances measured in Google maps). The Shard is 306 meters high, the Tate chimney tower is 99 meters high.
Tags: Leica Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8 London southbank Olympus OMD-EM10 Mkii The Shard Tate Modern chimney stack Vintage Lens vintage lens on mirrorless camera compression distance between towers is 850 meters
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The front facade of the building now occupied by Mizuho Bank and Forvis Mazars (chartered accountants) situated on the London street curiously named "Old Bailey", just down and across the street from the criminal courts building, also referred to as the Old Bailey. Flickr is full of pictures of this colourful building (each of those 'books' is a different colour) so I decided to show it in a slightly different way, taking the colour out of it and letting the strong lines of the building dictate the feel of the shot.
Olympus OMD-EM10 Mkii
Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0
Tags: Olympus OMD-EM10 Mkii Architecture old bailey Forvis Mazars building Black and White B&W vintage lens on mirrorless camera Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0 (V2 rigid) London
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Some days I have to pinch myself as a photographer living in a city like London. It's ever changing skyline is a delight to explore but there are some iconic locations that whenever I see them, and trust me I've looked at this composition of the Millennium Bridge and St Pauls Cathedral literally hundreds of times over the years, that just keep pulling at my eye. I've taken a variation of this shot literally tens of times, probably more, but every day is different. Different skies, different light, different cameras, different lenses, different focal lengths - it's always worth shooting again.
This was taken back in October and I was shooting this old Leica lens on a mirrorless Olympus camera for the first time. It may sound like an expensive setup however it is anything but. The Olympus is a ten year old 16 megapixel camera, not very impressive by today's standards, and the 90mm lens, while it may have Leica written on it is at least 50 years old and can be had on eBay for around a hundred pounds (I paid £85 for my copy). I can't describe the pleasure I get from handling these old manual focus lenses, it's so different than using a modern auto-focus lens. They aren't particularly sharp in comparison but then I ask myself, how sharp does sharp have to be? I know many will disagree but for me this picture is sharp enough and the joy I get from using that old lens far outweighs any disappointment I may have of producing a picture that is not razor sharp. My joy of photography is as much to do with the taking of the pictures, the getting out there and walking with my camera, as it is to do with the pictures I produce, strange as that may sound. Perhaps that's why film photography has become such a staple in my life.
Olympus OMD-EM10 Mkii
Leica Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8
Tags: Leica Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8 London southbank Olympus OMD-EM10 Mkii millennium bridge St Pauls Cathedral B&W Black and White vintage lens on mirrorless camera
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