Holes

Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 lens.

Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 USM lens. The lens was set at 56mm. The aperture was f/8. You're always alright at f/8. Shutter speed was 1/180th (you'd have drunk a lot of coffee before 1/180th was too slow for a motionless pair of watering cans). ISO was 800; the 40D was quite good for high ISO considering it came out in 2007. But it had a Byzantine menu system. Big failure, really.

Canon EOS 30D + Helios-44 58mm f/2 lens.

Canon EOS 30D/M42-EOS adapter/Chinon 55mm f/1.4/Minolta Close-Up Lens No.1

Photographed with a Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens mounted on a Canon EOS 30D via an EOS-M42 adapter. The macro effect was achieved with the addition of a Minolta Close Up No. 1 supplementary lens screwed into the 55mm filter mount.

Nikon D300s + Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens.

Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 AI lens on Nikon D2Xs.

The secondhand Nikon D70s which I bought for £49 has performed well - sometimes. Some of its output has shown banding and image break-up of a calamitous order. The camera has frequently demanded a format of its memory card quite unnecessarily and at some inconvenience in escaping from the instruction. Sadly it must go back to the seller who described it as 'good'. Pah! Lens at 29mm. 200 ISO; f/6.3; 1/160th.

Nikon D700 + Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 series E zoom lens.

Nikon D2Xs + Tamron 70-210mm f/2.8 LD SP (67DN) lens.

Photographed using a Nikon D90 and Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor lens.

Nikon D50 with AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 G lens and Nikon No.4T Close-Up attachment.

Nikon D90 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens.

Changing, oh so slowly. Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 AI lens on a Nikon D700.

This is a close-up of a screw press on exhibition in the Fox Talbot museum at Lacock. It obviously had some function in early photography, presumably near the end of the process when the image was nearing completion, The museum ranges over two floors in an old barn. The lighting is varied and challenging and the point-and-shoot method with everything in automatic seldom produces a satisfactory outcome. Here I tried the exact opposite with a 28mm f/2 Nikkor AI lens on a Nikon D300s. The starting point was taking a white balance reading which would record the colours faithfully. You find all this stuff out as you go along, looking at the screen on the back and making adjustments. Gifted people can do it with film. I never could.

Today I am mostly using a cheap secondhand Canon camera to record pattern and texture before the Brumal weather deities send their white winter cloaks to conceal and silence my nooks and crannies.