The V700.

K.

I think this is an SPII because it has a self-timer. The SP500 and SP1000 didn't.

The mess the battery cover is in would suggest that someone left some in there which went rotten and corroded the cover. Hopefully the meter is still working. You need to check the seals around the door and the mirror haven't gone all sticky and nasty too. They can be easily replaced with a kit from Interslice.

I use Varta Photo Special V400PX 1.35v batteries which I got from someone else on the forum, I forget who now. The ES does indeed use completely different batteries.

As to BW film, Delta 100 ASA will give nice fine grained results, Kodak T-max 400 is faster (obviously) but is a little grainier which will suit some subjects. Tmax can be pushed to 1600 for that grainy reportage look. Colour slides you have Fuji Velvia which gives a very saturated colour look (nice for flowers) or Provia which is a little more toned down. I don't use colour print film so cannot help there.

Hope that helps. Kris.

Thanks Malo, I didn't know about that one. I'll give it a go when I get home.

Kris.

1. Brief Encounter
2. A Room with a View
3. Monty Python's Life of Brian
4. Star Wars (original movie)
5. Lord of the Rings (all three.. does that count as one?)
6. Casablanca
7. Serenity
8. Star Trek (the latest one)
9. Logan's Run
10. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Try watching the series "Firefly" which has the feel of a western in space...

As to old transparencies, I have two filing cabinet drawers of them in archival hanging files dating from 1982 to last week... I rarely shot anything else until I started using digital. I used BW at college for the student rag but rarely used colour print film, the quality never seemed up to much compared to transparencies.

Best wishes, Kris.

Interesting Pete, thank you. I would have taken the shot at 2 minutes at ISO 100 if I had (a) my cable release (b) some means of timing it and (c) it wasn't about minus 4C at the time! I was walking home across the fields when the moon rose and I thought, ah ha!

Anvh. Interesting idea re: multiple exposures but in this particular case it would have messed up my star trails! Amazing how far they move in just 30 seconds. I wasn't sure they would show at all and was worried the "dark frame subtraction" might have got rid of them as hot pixels. Useful idea and I'll keep it in mind for next time.

The glow on the horizon of that shot is light pollution from the town about seven miles away.

Best wishes, Kris.

The pre-flash would be too quick to allow the eye to have time to react. My guess is that the red-eye reduction will help a bit, but as ever the only real solution is to use an off-camera or bounced flash set-up which will give nicer looking results anyway.

K.

The Uni won't splash out for things that flash...

In the fortnightly competition I took a long exposure image of a church by moonlight. This raised some questions!

1. As I was using a tripod I kept the ISO to 400 and used an exposure of 30 seconds. The sky in this image is quite noisy. To minimise noise, is it better to up the ISO and keep exposure time down, or vice versa?

2. A plane flew across my best shot (it would, wouldn't it!). I contemplated keeping it in to emphasise the long exposure but in the end decided it was distracting. When I cloned it out, however, the cloned area is still faintly visible because the noise is, well less noisy. Any tips on how to clone in these circumstances?

Best wishes, Kris.

Oh wow, thank you. I wasn't expecting that, and second place is always good in my eyes Well done all, some lovely shots, and well done Prieni for quick and excellent judging.

K.