Picture(s) of the day....

[Hell Razor5543]

Well I took my camera out with me today. I also went past the same bluebell woods (as well as a patch of (what I believe to be) forget-me-nots and something else).

[white exec]

While we have some posts about Sussex, try this one, which was on my doorstep when I lived and taught in Billingshurst . . .

Lower Woodhouse, in Slinfold, came up for sale a few years back. It has some interesting history...

https://media.onthemarket.com/propertie ... oc_0_1.pdf

Rover's Maurice & Spencer Wilks

Douglas Birkinshaw was the first BBC Television chief engineer at Alexandra Palace in 1936, and responsible for both studio engineering and early outside broadcasts.

Leslie Mitchell and Douglas Birkinshaw

Leslie Mitchell, something of an early on-screen adonis, was an early interviewer and announcer.

Douglas had the sad job of rapidly carrying out Broadcasting House's instruction to close down the service in 1939, in preparation for the war. There is some controversy around whether he did this quite as rapidly as B.H. had expected.



Running an examination course in media studies, as we did at the Weald in Billingshurst, we were lucky enough to discover Douglas living up the road in Slinfold, and had him down to our 3-camera b/w tv studio to talk with students. He brought with him not only fascinating memories of the BBC at Ally Pally, but a quantity of b/w 35mm slides which had miraculously survived a studio fire there.

To have both those custodians of that West Sussex house is an extraordinary heritage.

[mickthemaverick]

Well I took my camera out with me today. I also went past the same bluebell woods (as well as a patch of (what I believe to be) forget-me-nots and something else).

Risky territory here
I have to say James that I prefer the picture you captured with your phone over this image. To me the colours were more powerful and the image crisper, so it just goes to show how good the phone cameras are becoming!! I use a Sony Xperia and the camera is definitely better than my Canon DSLR. Which phone do you have?

[myglaren]

It is a kind of 'failing' with DSLRs and even with notebook digital cameras that there are far too many options.
Mine has an online manual that is staggering, there are so many options that it would be impossible to remember even a small portion of them.
I have to say that most of mine are on automatic, with only a minimum of tweaks stored in the memory.
About the only deviations are to use Macro mode or infinity mode. The rest is point and hope. At least the results are instantaneous and can be deleted and another attempt made if it is a reasonably static subject.
I am so lazy though, I often just stick the camera out of the window rather than going downstairs and out through the door.
I sometimes long for the OM1 & OM10 SLRs. Far simpler. And the Hasselblad, of course. Very basic indeed.

[mickthemaverick]

And the Hasselblad, of course. Very basic indeed.

Not a patch on my box brownie!!

[mickthemaverick]

That has reminded me of another prank we played that went wrong in the early 70's. It was the launch of Superglue, which was exactly that in its original format, which caused us to "try it out" in various ways like glueing a 50p piece (worth 10 bob in those days ) to the top of the low wall outside the telephone exchange and capture pictures of passers by trying to pick it up without being spotted. We were using our flash instamatics at the time but the images were a bit small so one of the lads "aquired" his Dad's SLR with zoom lens to use. Well he shouldn't have left the standard lens on the desk while spying on the passing victims should he? To this day I don't know if he ever got the lens cap off it again!!

[myglaren]

I wasn't joking. Superb camera, mainly the optics, but very simple. Shutter speed and aperture and that's it!
The nearest thing to fancy was the EV system and the synchro-compur shutter where the speed and aperture, once selected, were locked together so a change in one changed the other in step.
The Lunasix meter I used (handheld, not integrated) gave EV readings so it was a snap to dial it in on the lens (shutters were in the lenses).
They could be very quick, but very simple.

[mickthemaverick]

I remember owning a polaroid camera in their early days which looked like a tea caddy with a biscuit barrel glued on the front and thinking how great it was to be able to see the picture a few minutes after taking it. My Dad poopooed me constantly sticking to his folding box camera which required 620 film which proved almost impossible to find in local villages when we were on holiday! He used to get very uptight because I could get my modern polaroid film while he couldn't find his traditional stuff. How times have changed!!

[myglaren]

My grandson has just bought a Polaroid camera, of which he is exceedingly proud.

[mickthemaverick]

It has just come to me, my polaroid was a Land Camera. I remember them releasing the Land Camera II which was white and then came the one with the motorised film drive where you took your shot and the camera spewed the result out of the mouth of the camera. Is that what they do now?

[myglaren]

I think they are very different now.

Originally they were all Polaroid Land Cameras, the process invented by Edwin Land. Who also invented the polarising filter, hence the company name.

We used to have Polaroid backs for the view cameras, to check for silly mistakes before taking a complicated shot that had to be torn down before the standard film could be processed. All null and void with digital backs.

I vividly recall our first photographer going to take photo's of CNC machines at the TI Churchill factory.
Pictures were OK but in the background, unnoticed by the photographer, were loads of pipes for compressed air and steam.

The joke of course was "The music goes round and round and it comes out here"
He never lived it down, the retouching cost a fortune.

[Hell Razor5543]

I did take that shot from a slightly different angle, and at a very different time of day (yesterday was around 15:00, today was about 07:30). The phone is a Samsung Galaxy J5.

[myglaren]

It is surprising the results that phone cameras are capable of. That thing of Zel's can work in almost complete darkness.

[mickthemaverick]

At least its a proper phone James not one of those "we make it so you can only use our stuff" iphones!!
All the pictures I post up as own work are taken with my Xperia Z10 which I find to be not only good at imaging, but simple to transfer from or even post direct if I want to.

My digital camera is a Canon Powershot Pro90 Is (I think, pic below) and hasn't been out of its bag for 12+ years until just now to take the picture. It was the Canon flagship model in 1997ish when I accepted it as an insurance replacement for my camera equipment, two AE1 bodies, a motor drive, 5 assorted lenses and two flash guns, after a burglary in my mobile home in Luton (post divorce pad, you know the story!! ) and priced at £1235.00 in the photographers window. It was brilliant for its time with 10x optical zoom and 4x digital giving a great range. Sadly it now sits outclassed and out performed by my phone!!

Own work

Own work

[myglaren]

My phone is hopeless but for £25 I can't complain