Yet another from Nottingham (Mapperley actually). God we must be a sad lot in Nottingham if all we can do is sit in front of computers!
I started close-up plant photography in the 1960's as a way to record my cactus collection for slide shows. I first used an Exacta Varex IIa with a 50mm f2.8 Tessar lens, usually used on tubes, plus a Weston Master V hand held meter. I changed after about four years to a non-AI Nikon F Photomic with a 55mm f3.5 Micro Nikkor, which I used for 35 years until last year when I went digital with a Nikon D200 plus a couple of Micro Nikkor's etc.
The reason for going digital was I was a Kodachrome slide film user and I saw the writing was on the wall for film. Being a non-substantive process you cannot process Kodachrome at home as the colours are inserted in during the processing, unlike ordinary slide film where the colour couplers are embodied in the emulsion. This is why ordinary slide film usually fades after about 20 years whereas Kodachrome is archival quality. Most of my early slides on Agfa CT18 have now faded and most are unuseable.
The problem is Kodak has shut down most of it's European processing plants and I had to send my last Kodachrome to Switzerland, so postage was dearer. It went at letter rate, but that was before the new Post Office regulations came in. How much dearer it would now be since things must go through a 1/4" slit to qualify for letter rate I do not know!
My main interest is still close up photography and I still mainly photograph potted cacti for talks, though I do dabble in a few other types of shots.
DaveW
I started close-up plant photography in the 1960's as a way to record my cactus collection for slide shows. I first used an Exacta Varex IIa with a 50mm f2.8 Tessar lens, usually used on tubes, plus a Weston Master V hand held meter. I changed after about four years to a non-AI Nikon F Photomic with a 55mm f3.5 Micro Nikkor, which I used for 35 years until last year when I went digital with a Nikon D200 plus a couple of Micro Nikkor's etc.
The reason for going digital was I was a Kodachrome slide film user and I saw the writing was on the wall for film. Being a non-substantive process you cannot process Kodachrome at home as the colours are inserted in during the processing, unlike ordinary slide film where the colour couplers are embodied in the emulsion. This is why ordinary slide film usually fades after about 20 years whereas Kodachrome is archival quality. Most of my early slides on Agfa CT18 have now faded and most are unuseable.
The problem is Kodak has shut down most of it's European processing plants and I had to send my last Kodachrome to Switzerland, so postage was dearer. It went at letter rate, but that was before the new Post Office regulations came in. How much dearer it would now be since things must go through a 1/4" slit to qualify for letter rate I do not know!
My main interest is still close up photography and I still mainly photograph potted cacti for talks, though I do dabble in a few other types of shots.
DaveW
