" Whaddaya got that's new or unusual or cheap or expensive that I can write about? " That's my standard question for Camera Electronic staff in the three shops when I arrive with my portable product set and Fujifilm camera bag. I want new and lots...
Do smart devices make you nervous? Do you feel that they show up your shortcomings? Do you wonder if they are sitting there judging you? Welcome to the club. Ever since my first encounter with an automatic 45rpm record player I have viewed machinery moving by...
My friend Carlos was carefully putting fresh stock into the Sony display cabinet on the Camera Electronic sales wall this last week when I went in to find some interesting gear. So I carefully plucked a number of things away while he was busy -...
Because it's mine. It wasn't yesterday morning when I went into the Stirling Street shop to take illustration images for the weblog. I propped up my portable product set on an unused counter top and went round gathering whatever was new. I noted that the Sony...
Okay, photographer. Show us your scars. Back first...
Now put it back in the pack while I shuffle. And here it is - the Matte Fine Art Rag! Right? You can be forgiven for thinking that the Hahnemühle paper samples - and their Ilford and Canson equivalents - are a three-card monté trick. How...
And listen up! And this is why I am not a vlogger - the cold light of a mobile phone lens, glittering there like a spider's eye - the bright glare of an LED light, and the relentless ear of a small microphone would tempt me...
The Ruby Glass windowpane. The sooty red oil lamp. In short, the enchanted lantern of little light that has barely illuminated the photographer's cave since the earliest days. The dim signal that chemical magic was afoot. The safelight. Let me start out by saying safelights aren't. None...
If you have a camera with an internal stabiliser that lets you wave it about like a paper pinwheel - and still gets the picture - well you can stop reading. Go swat flies with it. The rest of us need more support than that. We...
And let us praise Sony for their design department. I often suggest simplicity to photo enthusiasts when they start to get complexes about complexity. Ditto when it comes to frugality. And the third part of the good-idea trilogy is lightness. Very often we are carrying enough...