After endless timewasting I decided I should use ikiwiki for my blog. It pretty much has everything I want, and requires minimal effort to use. I think there's a few configuration things left to do on the site (making comments/login for it work) but once they're done it should be good to go. There aren't many premade themes available. I quite like this simple styling using a CSS I found. Maybe tweak it and templates overtime but it's fine for now.
It's also a wiki, although probably keep most of my wiki content on tiddlywiki over at fondoftea.com ☕.
As much as I love my Leica M2, I do miss a built in light meter. I’d been using my phone and an app but it’s a bit of a hassle to bring it out and meter. My ability of sunny 16 is mostly limited to it’s sunny so it’s 16. Although I find myself doubting it…”is it really f/11? Seems too big” etc.
So my options were (a) buy a handheld meter (b) buy a shoe mount meter or (c) buy a new camera. As much as I’d love to get a M6 or MP, spending £1-2k on top of the M2 seemed a little…excessive. Whilst a handheld meter would be a nice to have accessory useful for lots of situations, I didn’t want another thing to carry, and so I settled on the shoe mount. 35mmc have a great comparison article looking at several ones and based upon that and availability and being local to Europe I chose the Hedeco Lime One.
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I was randomly lucky in that it was just about to ship when I ordered and so hardly had to wait. I choose silver to match the M2 and waited for it to arrive. After a week of nothing, no tracking updates, I was beginning to worry. So I emailed Johannes, and he offered his apologies that it hadn’t arrived but should hopefully do so soon. After emailing him, as like all support calls, the tracking updated a few hours later and it turned out mine had gone for a little trip to Northern Ireland! Kindly Royal Mail put it on Special delivery for the next day, so I eventually got it and had time to open it up and have a look.
WOW! This thing is tiny!
It’s very easy to use - the quick start guide is very helpful to get going and it has a nice manual too. You can choose modes and then the wheel and wheel + button allows you to adjust two parameters very quickly. It continually meters and you can press the button to hold the reading. Or you can swap it around so it only meters when you press the button and retains that info.
I’ve got it mounted, and whilst it’s obviously an accessory, I think it fits well enough with the camera. Plus it adds a great deal of functionality for me. The real test will be in using it. So I’ll be back with my impressions of it in use after shooting a few rolls with it.
It’s full name is Fujifilm XC 50-230mm F4.5-6.7 OIS II, and I picked it up last year as I wanted a zoom but I’d heard a new 70-300mm was coming, so didn’t want to spend more on the 55-200. I’d looked at the 55-200 but with a zoom you always want more reach, so it seemed sensible to wait and get this cheap lens. It also has a bit more reach. The f/6.7 is pretty slow. Outdoors in good sunshine, you don’t mind much but if it starts to get overcast then the ISO starts jumping. This lens is so light though - only 375g! Compared to the 580g of the 55-200. It’s all plastic so that’s how it does it but it feels really easy to carry. I think it would be good on the smaller X-T10/20/30s.
Was messing about in the garden with the kids on a nice sunny day, and thought I’d try it on a some insect life. I think they’re reasonable:
This was one of the early film cameras I bought. It was pretty cheap, maybe £20, and came with the manual, and the original leather case. Although the case was somewhat broken and not quite my cup of tea.
It’s a rangefinder camera with a fixed lens, 45mm f/1.8, and a leaf-shutter camera with a top speed of 1/1000 sec. It also has a selenium meter which seemed to work on my model. Never really tested if it was accurate but I used it in my shots, so was good enough.
The camera didn’t advance film, I’d opened it up and watched it so many times. Occasionally it did advance but not often, so it was hard to tell exactly what was wrong. Some googling led me to the Yashica Guy and CJs classic cameras, they had lots of info but nothing quite explaining what was wrong for me. So I just emailed them! Cees-Jan (of CJs) replied and asked me some questions and gave me some suggestions to try first. CJ and others would repair it for me but at a much greater expense than the camera, and as it has no sentimental value didn’t seem like a worthwhile thing to do. So I decided to try my hand at classic camera repair…
Turns out it just needed a good clean. This little metal slug in the wheel should move freely and goes up and down as the film advance mechanism turns to move the sprocket on the advance but not on the return. Some isopropanol and cotton wool and it was moving freely.
Now we’re cooking! Ready to load this up with my first roll of film…some Ilford XP2: I came for the C41 processing but stayed for the contrast.
I was pretty pleased with the results:
My second roll through it and I was too enthusiastic with the film advance and ripped the film…ugh 36 awarding winning photos gone forever…
For some reason I put the camera to one side and started using the Minolta X-700 and SRT101X, and I end up giving the Yashica to my sister for christmas, together with some XP2. I’m not sure if she uses it and hasn’t offered up any photos, and so I don’t like to ask. It’s always annoying when people ask about presents, so I don’t want to do that.
I do regret giving it away now. I did try and buy another but it didn’t work, the rangefinder was broken, so I sold it on again, and then didn’t bother looking. For £20 it took great photos and when I look at the Leica I ask myself what was I thinking. The form factor isn’t nearly as nice as the Leica and the rangefinder patch was much fainter, but for a occasional film shooter I’d definetly recommend it. No doubt the year that’s past since I bought it the prices have gone up 10 fold.
Like all favourites the real favourite always depends. It depends on the intent, at least for me. I suppose you could do a "of all time" or "best overall" style favourite. I think a common distinction is form over function. There are a lot of things that look great but are practically useless, even if - like a teapot - they should be used, they still may remain annoying.
So having said all that...I present the Sabichi classic stainless steel teapot.
It comes in a variety of sizes 720ml, 1300ml, and 1900ml, so big enough for even the largest tea drinking family. It's also very reasonably priced at £16 for the medium sized one.
So why do I like it so much? It does the job very well: It has good capacity, it has a classic, timeless look and most importantly, it pours well. So many teapots have terrible spouts that drip or splash tea everywhere. I enjoy filling it up with 1.3 litres and then having several good sized mugs of tea. A teapot for one is fine but when visitors are around you don't want to have to decide between a teabag per mug or tiny cups to use the tea pot.
It has been perfect for working at home when the children are also home. I could make a good amount of tea and hide away in the office working, and not be worried about coming out and upsetting whatever is going on because I'm parched.
I just worry that I should maybe buy a spare in case this one breaks...