spikey

Ahem ... I think you'd find there are plenty of folks on what used to be the CTC forum who would disagree with that statement

If you like that sort of thing. We shot several weddings there and were not impressed with it. Memorable for two reasons, one of which was that having hired the very dark Great Hall at great expense, couples then faced a supplement if they wanted the place to be lit with the uplighters round the walls (there otherwise being no form of lighting in there). The other reason was Penshurst Nipples, this being named after the effect upon the ladies of the weird airflow around the inner courtyard while standing around with a glass of cheap fizz getting bored while waiting to be fed. Made no odds how warm it was anywhere else; that courtyard was always cold. I know nothing of the old trackbed to Three Bridges except for the stretch from Hartfield to Forest Row, that being the only cycle path we've ever sampled. It was dead boring and infested with happy families wandering all over and impeding our sedate progress. Neither of us has ever bothered with cycle paths since. The country lanes are far more fun

Post duplicated for some reason

The thing we really missed when we changed from fillum to digital for "reportage" (or as our lower-end customers were wont to call it, "reportidge") wedding photography was the exposure latitude. We spent far too long looking at histograms on the back of cameras - and, come to that, far too long shooting RAW when we could easily have got away with JPEG once we got our first Canon 1D each and learned to trust the metering ...

This mention of assistants has me scratching my head trying to remember who the fashion snapper was who was famous for chucking cameras to his assistants when he wanted the back changing, and chucking them at his assistants when they screwed up. Ref motorwinds, machine-gunning, point-and squirt, call it what you will: the thing to always remember was what you were missing between those exposures. That's one reason why in over 400 weddings all shot fly-on-the-wall, as-it-happens, fauxtojournalist style, neither of us ever used burst mode.

And even more expensive

Nowadays the very mention of the word "Leica" takes me back instantly to a wedding we once shot in central London at which, as was my habit, I accompanied bride and groom in the cab en route to their reception in order to get some snaps on the way. Having left the church, we got going with me sitting on one of the rear-facing jump seats opposite the groom, who suddenly sneezed. I produced a microfibre cloth to wipe my lens with, and the groom noticed that this cloth was branded Leitz. Seeing this, all the bloke wanted to do was talk about bloody Leicas! Never mind the fact that he'd only just got married to an absolutely stunning girl and was on the way to the reception. I know for a fact that the shot I got of his new bride giving him the mother of all looks subsequently clinched us at least three wedding bookings spikey (an ex-M3 owner at one time who ever since has felt that Leitz made nice cameras, but you paid twice for them: once for the camera and once for the name)

But I bet you can play the intro to "Smoke on the Water"

Anybody else admit to being somewhat dismayed upon realising that a note on any given line of the bass clef is not the same one as when it's on the same line of the treble clef e.g. a note on the bottom line of the bass clef is not an E like you thought it would be?

Same here though a few years older. My left hand problem's exacerbated by a wonky index finger which won't bend much at all, so I can't adopt the proper fingering. I just adapt best I can. I note your reaction to Lisa Witt. Having now got used to her voice and the typical American presentation of the videos, I reckon she's very good indeed - but as you say, not worth forking out for. I've found useful vids by other teachers on YouTube too, but still not one I can stick with as an adult learner and follow a planned course of learning with. I take MichaelE's point about scales, and I'm getting to grips with reading the treble clef, but I still feel the need for a "what we do next" plan ...

Or taught themselves? I'm having fun trying to disprove the old adage that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and wondering what approach works/worked best for others ...

Thank you sir. I rather fancy that the B1 needs a nut rather than a screw, but I shall take a look later ... ETA - Oh happy day. I have just now had an email from Margate saying that my request has been passed to the warehouse and if they've got the necessary, it will be sent to me in due course

When I took my new Hornby R3451 Thompson B1 "Stembok" out the box, nothing dropped off. After running it in, the bogie dropped off when I lifted it from the track, so the retaining nut (lf that's what it was) must have dropped off. A thorough search for it was in vain, and an email to Hornby asking if they'd be kind enough to send me a replacement didn't even get me the courtesy of an acknowledgement. Can anybody please tell me what thread the nut is or what part number I need to get in order to rectify matters?

Brilliant listing of two items for sale on a local group on Facebook this afternoon - "Chester draws also player for final records."

Or sinnet. Whatever, that's it! The very thing I'd seen. Thank you, sir. Give that man a cigar ...

Alas, they're extinct now. Like glass plates and pack film (by which I mean pack film, not the Polaroid* stuff). * Polaroids - what you get if you sit on an iceberg for too long.

Wasn't it printing-out paper? That's what I knew it as anyhow. I'd forgotten about using that. Same goes for the extinction meter that I acquired from an elderly uncle. There was a knack to using it, but it was better than always relying on the sunny 16 rule. DIN film speeds. Scheiner ditto. And all that stuff. Gevacolour. Agfacolour. Ilfacolour etc etc. Ref the Brownie 127 mentioned above, when I worked in my stepfather's shop in the days when day-trippers expected fillums to be put in their cameras for them, I was accurately timed taking a Brownie 127 out of its case, loading a film into it and winding it on to number 1 in under 30 seconds - with my eyes shut, apart from for the winding on. No particular skill needed: just a teenager's dexterity and constant practice from the number of 'em we used to do all day during the holidays ...

After we switched from 35mm to digital for weddings and needed to convert the darkroom into a lightroom, I ended up chucking our Durst enlarger, three Nikon enlarging lenses, loads of print paper and all the rest of a complete pro darkroom into the landfill skip at the local dump. We literally couldn't give the stuff away.

Aaaargh! Gnome. The first enlarger I had when still at school was a Gnome Beta 2 with a Wray lens. It was cheap and cheerful, but better than nothing. A few years later I found a Leitz Focomat 1C complete with the Leitz masking frame in a junk shop in Canterbury priced at £15. The proprietor obviously had no idea what it was, so gladly accepted my kind offer to take it off his hands if he threw in the 5cm f4.5 Focotar and the set of 20 x 16 trays in which it was sitting. Anybody else start with 120 in a box Brownie and see-saw developing in pie dishes before contact printing?

Ooooh! Now the 5 x 4 MPP was a proper camera. Still used by many press snappers well into the 1960s ...

Back in the days when some folk still used folding cameras for their holiday snaps (and were happy with contact prints - even from 127 film!) I worked in a darkroom after school and in the holidays, and based on that experience I would caution you to check it out for light leaks from two sources. Put a film in it, wind to #1, open the bellows and leave it in daylight, frequently changing its position relative to the sun. Then wind to #2 and repeat with a bit of gaffer tape over the slot on the back with the sliding shutter via which text could be written on autographic film. Then in due course you'll know for sure where any light leaks are coming from. Ref 'blads, don't forget that you need to wear a shirt with a breast pocket into which you can pop the dark slide, and on an old one, beware of light leakage from the body/mag joint. Some old-school wedding snappers who used a 'blad on sticks had no shame and solved the problem with a shower cap ...

Speaking as an ex-professional snapper who was still on film (both 35mm and 120) when I started shooting weddings 25 years ago, I can see the attraction for portraits. Can't comment re landscape as I was never into that either as amateur or pro, but for portraits I personally would stick to 35mm for colour neg on account of less cost, more choice of film and far more choice of processor. FWIW using Ilford HP4 in a Canon EOS 1V, 35mm negs shot handheld by available light would go to 30" x 40" no problem for exhibition at wedding fairs, and for that matter my portrait panel prints for both LMPA and LBIPP were all shot on 35mm.

With respect, that is not the problem. The problem is RBS expecting you to prove that which cannot be proved. Or proven, as you wish ...

Change your bank?

Well done that man! It's not exactly what I had in mind, but it should serve the same purpose. Thank you, sir.