I must apologise for not having changed the issue number nor month on the last magazine, although I did remember to change the contents, as you will have noticed!
I don't know where the time has gone since I sent out the last magazine! I have spent every Saturday and Sunday since the beginning of May taking my son to Dover harbour for him to train in preparation for his participation in a cross Channel relay swim with five of his school friends to raise money for Teenage Cancer Trust. They successfully completed their swim on 8th July in a time of thirteen hours and thirteen minutes - not bad! What is fantastic, is that they raised in excess of £10,000 for the TCT.
These outings gave me a chance to dust off an assortment of my cameras - not all Rolleis I should add - and use them to fill my time whilst they were training; to start with in a water temperature of 10.5°C. Fortunately for them, it rose to about 16°C for the actual swim.
Using well out dated colour negative film in some of my 'obsolete' cameras brought mixed results by way of colour cast, sensitivity and grain. I had bought some Kodacolor II 126 cartridges, dated 1979, from Photographica a couple of years ago. I had tried a couple of cartridges previously but they showed nothing except for a faint image of the numbers from the backing paper. Had they become fogged by excessive heat or security X-ray machines? Naturally, I did not take any of these with me! I did however take my Rolleiflex SL26 with a 126 Agfacolor dated 2000, my 6x13 Heidoscop with an Ektachrome 100 Plus dated 1999 and my Minox 'spy' camera with Minocolor dated 2007. The results on the whole would have benefitted from a little more exposure, and they had a blue cast. Removing this in Photoshop was relatively easy but they still have noticeable 'muted' period colours that I had all but forgotten about. Had the team been wearing swimming costumes from the 1970's, viewers would have believed the photos could well have been taken all that time ago!
I had planned to write this piece whilst I was waiting at Dover, on swim day, for the safe return of the team. We had risen from our camp site at 02.00 - we had to be at the quayside at 03.30; they were due to leave at 04.00, just before dawn.
Once the first swimmer had disappeared into the darkness, it was time for a cup of coffee and to watch the dawn break. It was a bit overcast, so there was no dramatic sunrise to photograph. The sun did come out later that morning and it turned out to be a very hot day which offered no opportunity to sit down and press keys on my computer. Unfortunately it did rain later but I managed to take plenty of photos with my Rolleiflex 3003, a camera that I forget how much I enjoy using - but then that applies to most of my Rolleis!
- Front Cover: St George by Peter Moyse
- 3 Rollei films and papers
- 4 Holly Ground by Harry Kitchen
- 5 In Passing by David Morgan and Wanted
- 6 Prototype Rolleiflex 3003 digital camera
- 7 Photos by Michael Coles
- 8 My first Leica by Jim Graves
- 9 Sectioned Zeiss lenses
- 10 Your Forum
- 12 Rolleiflex 3003 power supply by J. Wild
- 14 Leitz daylight developing tank
- 16 Letter from Paris by David Beake
- 18 Rollei Mikro-Tubus and Mikro-Prisma
- 19 Dubrovnik by Denis Camp A.R.P.S.
- 23 Various items and For Sale
- 24 Faultless enlargements by C. Albrand
- 28 127 film supply by Jim Hurtle
- 30 Zonal heresies by Harry Kitchen
- 31 Vivian Meyer
- Rear Cover: Selsey Shoreline by J. Wild
