Shocked to receive news that my Norwegian friend died last week. We worked together for six months in 1974-5 but lost contact, only for us recently to get back in touch and correspond about photography of which he was an ardent enthusiast especially for film. He used an impressive collection of cameras from a wooden large format rig to Hasselblad, Leica, Minox, Rollei as well as a digital Canon and Nikon. In fact the only camera he didn’t own, I think , was a Pentax! Like many I assumed I have years ahead but now I suddenly feel very vulnerable. Stay safe out there.

That was helpful, thanks Gareth. I really liked 1 and 3 because of the bubbling, not sure about the yellow cloud though I don't think it adds much but that's what experimentation is all about.

The last one was stacked in Photoshop but I finally worked out how to change the parameters in HeliconFocus so ran the same set through that. Interesting that it cropped more tightly but I think it gives a cleaner result; the PS version matches the size as seen on the first of the stack whereas the HF version matches the size of the last. I need to get more into the HF settings to fine tune it and that's where it differs from PS. I also tweaked the histogram to pull up the reflections.

Gareth, give it a go, let’s see what you come up with!

Thanks David, I used Photoshop to stack the images although normally I prefer HeliconFocus. Over a long stack PS was able to auto align the images but I have yet to find how that can be done in HF.

A Novoflex Castel-Q focusing rack from Speedgraphic which arrived yesterday so they are definitely still working online. Having spent ages researching I came across a review which put this at the top; not cheap but a beautiful example of German engineering and it worked at a downward angle without creep. my first trial was a magnolia shot (see the Share your lockdown photography projects thread) which required almost the whole length of the rack using the f2.8 50mm macro lens.

Thanks Gareth, I will think about that. I quite liked emphasising the water aspect and will try some more if I can face another grilling (pun intended) as to where the pan had got to! The other idea I had was to place some picture glass over black paper, but that could result in a double reflection so probably a non-starter.

Following Chrism8's idea I decided to have a go, but not having glossy tiles I filled a black grill pan with water and floated a magnolia flower in it, with a matt black card background. I then decided to mist spray and focus stacked 11 images in Photoshop. The main issue were hundreds of very tiny light specks which I didn't see until processing.

Those Priory buildings look interesting, I have added them to my list of places to visit when we are free to travel, thanks for sharing the photos.

SteveF you might try The Imaging Warehouse based just outside Stratford upon Avon. They stock film as well as an impressive selection of film processing stuff, and are still operating online.