click photo to enlargeI sometimes wonder if I should get a Holga. Given some of the images I'm starting to produce, where colour fidelity, sharpness, clarity and depth are of little consequence, the features offered by a DSLR sometimes seem like overkill. A small, cheap, black box, with a simple, fixed-focus lens, producing images that are all imbued with the same characteristics has its attractions. Of course a Holga uses film, and digital is much more convenient.
I've used an SLR since the early 1970s, but for most of that time I've also owned a smaller, fixed lens camera to carry when something larger is inconvenient or inappropriate. Of all such cameras that I've had the one I look back on with most affection is the Ricoh 500RF - a 35mm rangefinder with a fixed 40mm f2.8 lens that I used for about 15 years. This produced images far better than it had any right to, and served me well shooting slide film and black and white for architecture, and colour film for family snapshots. The discipline of the fixed lens was good - zooming involved walking - and the rangefinder focussing was very easy and convenient. It was a camera that forced me back to photography's basics, and helped me see images where previously I hadn't. I was sorry when it died. Today I have a Fuji E900 that I picked up a few years ago, fairly cheaply, after it had been superseded by other models. It has a 32-128mm (35mm equiv.) f2.8-f5.6 lens, offers RAW, and is capable of producing some pretty good images. I use it less than I might, but perhaps winter shots of the sort posted above are within its range. My self-imposed Olympus burden that accompanies each walk is probably due for some time off.
Today's semi-abstract photographs show more reflected reeds shot with deliberately slow shutter speeds to introduce blur. Not everyone's cup of tea I suppose, especially those die-hard DSLR users who seem to value sharpness in an image above most other qualities. But I like them!
photographs & text (c) T. Boughen
Top Image
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/25
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off
Bottom Image
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 110mm (220mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f14
Shutter Speed: 1/3
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
