Mt Fuji at 285km per hour captured on Fujifilm 400 on a Pentax MX with a Tamron SP Super Performance 35-80 zoom in 1980. This film along with a dozen others was processed and arrived with some very very average prints. Recently I have begun to scan them all and have been pleasantly surprized by the results. I used Neg Lab pro for the conversion then denoised in DXO photo lab.

The last dragon kiln in Singapore

The story of pottery manufacture in SE Asia is long and interesting. Many of the potters came from Guandong, specifically the Chaoshan region in the eastern part of the province and most of them are Tew Chew speakers. This photo was taken in the mid seventies in Singapore within a dozen years the traditional potteries had closed down due to government initiated changes in land usage. I believe some of the people involved in the industry moved to Malaysia where there was more space and ready supplies of local clays. Originally in the 19 century these country potteries made utilitarian wares but towards the end of their operations were making mostly plant pots for the local and export markets.

For any photographers that view this image it was captured on a remarkable Fuji X-E5 at a shutter speed so low this ancient photographer can hardly believe it is possible. The detail and colour at ISO 3200 even ten years ago would only been possible with an hours work on that Adobe product. This was more or less straight out of camera and demosaiced in Affinity Photos two with a tweek in levels dodged a bit and finished with clarity five minutes if that!

In the last 48 hours Tasmana has received a lot of heavy rain. Both Esk rivers have risen dramatically showing at least a 500mm increase in the first basin literally over night. The family of Tasmanian hens that live on the small island were hopping around in an agitated frenzy as their home succumbed to the mass of water flowing in from the north Esk river. This image was taken at the little bridge as the water flowed into the main gorge. Fujifilm XE5 hand held 1sec @ ƒ11 on a Viltrox 25mm ƒ1.4. I have been using IBIS since it was first introduced on an Olympus twelve years or so years ago and this version on the Fuji is without doubt is the best manifestation of the technology I have ever used. Fifty years ago as an arts student I could have never imagined that this would have ever been possible…

There is a very good possibility that the first SLR that was placed in the hands of most photography students in the 1960’s was the venerable Pentax spotmatic or the Practica both of which had M42 threaded lens mounts. The Harris College now the University of Central Lancashire had a mix of Pentax and Practica SLR’s that were literally hammered by students learning the basics of the craft, they were both fine cameras some had built in light meters and some were completely manual. Once one learned how to read and set an exposure on the Pentax the process and method at that time became engraved on ones brain. It evolved as the standard for setting and judging every subsequent camera used. For the last twelve years I have used a mix of Olympus M4/3’s and Fuji’s, first XPro1 followed by an XT2 which is still operating perfectly. The XPro1 was/is a wonderful camera, perfection… Almost except for the fact that the processor was so slow it became painful. The XT2 resolved all of my minor Xpro hates up until a few months ago when I realised that I was losing many images due to shake and low light noise when the ISO is set much above ISO 2400. DXO fixed most of the noise issues but the shake, that’s due to age and like many others of my years the elixir of youth has yet to appear! I wanted an XPro4 but that is still some time away so I settled for an XE5 and in short I have to say this little camera is close to miracle territory. Which brings me to tonights post; a landscape, the race course at the top of the phot is exactly 8 Km away as the Raven flies hand held ƒ11 1/850th of second ISO 400 with a Canon 100-300 @ 300mm which is almost 50 years old. I’m impressed, I used this lens mostly for bird and landscape photos and not with any crass intentions I will add that it happens to be for sale on Gumtree for the princely sum of AUD270. Nothing wrong with it in its original rather worse for wear case.
And oh yes the XE5 has an align the pointers exposure system… everything old is becoming new again!

I like jonquils, daffodils and almost any member of the narcissus family they are quite toxic seriously so for some people in fact my whole garden is filled with toxic plants or those plants that have a mildly noxious fragrance. This may seem a bit anti social, but most folk have no idea that any of them are toxic. But there is a reason, wallabies, pade mellons and possums in fact all the fauna that pass through my garden won’t go near them let alone eat them. It has taken me twelve years to learn which plants all the animals avoid, they know from instinct which is certainly not the case with my fellow humans.
My evening constitutional takes me through an area of the Cataract gorge that has maybe a dozen different varieties of narcissus and at this time of year children pick them and adorn their clothes and bodies with the ‘pretty flowers’. A few years ago I mentioned this to a parent whose offspring was parading around with a couple of the long stemmed daffs in her mouth. The parent looked at me as if I was a total nutter and said “we did this when we were kids and I’m still here!”

With tail feathers longer than its whole tiny body this beautiful little bird is splendid indeed! Living mostly off insects these wrens flit in any direction faster than most photographers can press the shutter fortunately they do stop from time to time to scan the area looking for their next feed!