Greetings From Pembrokeshire!

JakeStockwell

JakeStockwell

Registered User
Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
4
Another member from picturesque Wales; hurrah! Hello to you all & thanks for allowing me into the forum, which looks healthily populated. I look forward to engaging with you all as I push on into the world of rises, swings, and tilts! I'm lucky to be based near Haverfordwest & have the coast on my doorstep so landscape has been a major driver for me since moving here nearly three years ago. I've followed the well-worn route from 35mm through 120 to LF (which I haven't shot yet) all in search of resolution & the highest quality I can capture. I have a Flickr page (https://www.flickr.com/photos/77488180@N05/) where lots of 35mm digital can be seen, & some 120 scans. I've just ordered a Toyo Monorail from Dale Photographic which came with a lens & some dark slides & looked like a good deal. I know that it will be heavy for field use but I don't intend to hike miles from the motor & thought that the precision offered by the monorail might be useful while I'm picking up & fooling around with the slack.

Current stable:
35mm
- Canon 5DS
- Canon 30
-- EF 100-400mm Mk2
-- EF 16-35mm f4
-- EF 50mm f1.8
-- Zeiss Distagon 35mm f2

120
- Mamiya 7 Mk1
-- 43mm
-- 80mm
- Mamiya C33 (CLAd)
-- 80mm

4x5
- Toyo something or other, in excellent condition!

The 35mm digital is the walkabout as it's so easy to just shoot & practice & fool about with & it takes pretty lovely pictures to boot! Also the big range of lenses helps. The Mamiyas are used for portraits largely, & I process all my own film & scan for contact images on an Epson V600, unless I'm feeling lazy (& rich!) in which case I send out to DSCL for developing; they also handle printing for me & are pretty good I think. I have an LPL C7700 which I haven't used yet as I haven't got around to setting up a darkroom; must try harder! Thankfully I have the support of the Mrs, & not only because the pictures of the kids come back looking great! I'm looking to exploit camera movements to capture the beauty around me, but also to identify, develop, and hopefully understand my priorities, and how I interact with the world around me. No pressure then! Photography has been a wonderful journey so far, with many revelations & heaps of fantastic memories, & I very much look forward to viewing the images not yet taken!

Thanks for reading & hope all's well with you & yours... ;-)
 
Welcome.
Don't worry yourself too much about technique. Wait until you have discovered how to make a mistake before you learn how to correct it. Best of luck.
 
Greetings from Northern Illinois in the US. I have many happy memories dragging a bag full of Hasselblad around the Lake District and Northern Wales. Among my most treasured pictures is one taken early morning in the inevitable Welsh rain of a castle ruin overlooking the sea.
 
Hi from the other end of South Wales.
By the way, there is a Flickr group for Wales-based film photographers
www.flickr.com

The Wales Film Group

Hi I've started this group for all film users with a Welsh connection. Many of us belong to other Welsh photography groups, but this group is to help film users pool their efforts and showcase their work. The Welsh connection can be either the shooter or the shot. Even if no more than 5% of...
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
Have fun with the journey into LF!
 
Hello Jake and welcome,
I think your choice of starting with a Monorail is inspired. You have started at the top so to speak. Intrepids etc. have their place but for long term value for money and precision Monorails take some beating - if you can cope with the bulk. Looking forward to hearing about your LF journey.
 
Thanks all for your replies! It's been most interesting already, with my first four shots in the bag & all successfully developed too; marvellous! I've got a 210mm & a 150mm, both Schneider Symmars with the 150mm being a bonus from Dale as the Compur shutter was a little sticky. Red rag to a bull, & after a mini CLA the shutter is firing beautifully at all speeds & worked perfectly for a three second bulb exposure, which was meant to be four seconds but I started counting at 1, rather than zero, but a happy mistake as the exposure was already a little over at three seconds. I used a light meter app on my handset; work to do there... The cheap loupe I bought popped its lens out after an accidental squeeze & I got poo on my boots while taking a shot of some cows eating their dinner; all part of the fun! I developed in a Stearman & it was very easy to use, & while the business of scanning on an Epson V600 & stitching in Photoshop was not particularly straightforward it did allow me to get a sense of what the camera can do. I sense a contact printing session in the near future...

Thanks again for your comments & I promise that I will become less effusive! ;-)
 
Hello and welcome Jake, are you an Englishman living in Wales, how do you get on with the locals? When all the restrictions are lifted I fancy going house hunting in Pembrokeshire. As you say Wales has some beautiful scenery well worth pointing a camera at.
 
Stitching? There’s more to this story than you say.
A note on advanced equipment: Wellies!
 
@cariadus Hi Roger! Thanks for the tip. Joined & posted... ;-)
@Leicamadman My thoughts exactly! It's a beast but very sturdy & the box it came in weighs the most. I've tested the strobes & the flash triggers perfectly from both shutters so it will be useful indoors too. I took a portrait of the Mrs with the 210mm & was surprised how much extension I needed to get focus. The extra length on the monorail has already earnt its keep!
@Camerashy Hello! Guilty as charged. Two & a half years & it's pretty wonderful. The locals are very friendly & a lot of them are English too. amazing deals to be had in the property market I suspect. I joined the Tenby camera club & they're a very active & friendly & talented group.
@David M There is more! But I already waffle too much. Wellies are a vital tool out here in the Western Sticks, though I amused our farming neighbour by wandering into his yard, in the middle of a Winter storm, wearing socks & sandals on my feet. Tourists! ;-)

Thank you all for your comments & hope all's well... ;-)
 
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