On a more positive note, fish-eyes are very difficult to use to get "great" images. Fun ones yes, "great" much more difficult. Galoot (look up some of his posts) was (is I hope) expert at using a fish-eye. Your fifth image (hand-crafted) works pretty well. The most obvious candidate for the fish-eye treatment was the carousel but I think you needed to get in much closer.

Best wishes, Kris

PS I have never tried a fishy so these comments are based on looking at other people's images.

A lovely set with Blue Boats my favourite. West Cliff is a real picture postcard image but my it looks cold!

K.

Slice for me too and +1 for the square crop idea... K.

Nice shots, and I like the first one. The third one needs a little straightening up but I like the tunnel effect.

Kodak BW400CN is wonderful stuff, IMHO. I prefer Ilford Delta 100 if there is enough light, but it works pretty well when it is a little gloomy. As it is a chromogenic film it has HUGE exposure latitude so it is hard to get the exposure "wrong". "Over expose" and get fine grain but slightly flat images (easily corrected if you use the scans), "under expose" for coarser grain but more contrast.

Best wishes, Kris.

I'm still looking for a photo of the wooden tripod. I am beginning to suspect the tripod is rarer than the lenses they were designed to support!

K.

Oops yes, for 4 read 3...

I agree. The ME Super is so common/cheap on ebay because it was incredibly popular at the time and sold in vast numbers. It was small, light, well built, well featured from an amateur's perspective, a wind-on mechanism that was smooth as silk, a wide variety of lenses to choose from, and fitted the early 80s obsession for anything with push-buttons rather than dials. Mine was my constant companion for ten years until I wore it out and bought a second-hand MX specially for my trip to the Carpathians in 1993.

K.

4. Drinking straws (the bendy kind).
6. Oxo cube.

All taken with my Pentax ES and SMC Takumar 55mm f/1.8 lens on Kodak BW400CN film.













Best wishes, Kris.

As a teenager scouring camera magazines trying to work out which SLR to spend my hard saved cash on I was swayed by the Pentax ME Super being the best selling SLR for many months and receiving great reviews. The rest, as they say, is history.

K.