Nikon Speedlight SB-24 in first use

One advantage of vintage gear is that everything associated with it is likely to be cheap, often very cheap meaning that you try things out that you wouldn’t normally consider. So, to my purchase of a Nikon F4, I have added a medium quality zoom lens Nikkor 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 AF-D (the review in the link pretty much confirms my own thoughts about the lens and its performance though I feel a little less generous – it only gets acceptably sharp after f5.6 and I would not describe its zooming action as at all smooth, nevertheless its a convenient lens to keep on the camera) – and today, just out of the box with fresh batteries, a Nikon Speedlight SB-24. This was a flash unit that was designed to work extremely closely with, specifically, the Nikon F4. It measures for the correct exposure through the lens during the exposure and as you change settings on the camera such as the aperture or the focal length of the lens the flashgun makes its own internal changes through its clever connections in the hotshoe. (it doesn’t seem to do any of this when fixed to a more modern Nikon like my D810 unfortunately). I’m yet to see the results of a few headshots that I’ve just taken, of course, until I finish the film and get it developed. Youtube offers some useful tutorials on the effect of various directions of pointing the flash head, along with the effect of fixing a white card to the top of the unit – which I have tried as seen in the picture here.

Upto now I have never been interested in using flash and most photographs that I have seen that do use it, even fill-in flash that is supposed to be subtle, have been the exact opposite of the kind of pictures that I am interested in taking. However, I can see that it is possible to use flash carefully and this speedlight/camera combination makes it particularly possible. My first assumption that you point a flash unit directly at (the face of) your subject was clearly (terribly) wrong – that’s why these units can tilt upwards and swivel from side to side of course – so that was my ignorance. I’m going to keep experimenting.

I’m expecting a waist level finder in the next week or so.

Two 1980s film cameras (Nikon-Pentax) compared today

Was it worth it to buy a new film camera when I had a perfectly good one in the drawer, one that I have owned since 1984? It was time for some comparisons. I put a roll of Tri-X through each and developed both films in exactly the same way. I scanned them with exactly the same equipment and settings though I might have made their curves a little different in Lightroom. I took some of the same subjects.

Pappenheim by Pentax ME Super (SMC 50mm f1.4) might have been shot at f2

Nikon F4 | Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D | Tri-X Pan 400 Digitized with Nikon D810 | daylight Home developed in D76 | 6.75 mins | tank

The author photographed by Pentax

Bookshelf by Pentax

The images are very comparable and it takes a bit of magnification (more than you can do with these images here) to see that the Nikon seems to produce clearer, sharper images, possibly with more contrast though that could be a LR effect. What this comparison of a few images chosen from two rolls of 36 pictures does not show you is the completely out of focus shots that the Pentax produced, probably a good half dozen of those, plus a couple more where the exposure was wrong. The Nikon on the other hand did not drop a single shot. In terms of camera movement, neither of them compare with a modern camera with vibration reduction.

Above the contact from the Pentax

This is the Nikon

A(nother) New Camera: Nikon F4

Having bought Bellamy Hunt’s Film Camera Zen after spending some weeks checking out the old Nikon film cameras from the 1950s to their last F camera, I decided that one of these was for me. I enjoy the lightness and simplicity of my Pentax ME Super that I bought (duty free – supposedly) in 1983 or 4 at Singapore airport, but too often the images are poorly focused (by me) and never exactly sharp. I have hesitated about shelling out for a second film camera. I was interested in the last largely mechanical Nikon F camera, the F3, because of its reputation and nice style. Its currently selling for between £300 and £400 and I couldn’t justify spending that amount. But I noticed, in passing, an F4 at about half this price and have ended up spending around £200 for a beautifully preserved version that arrived this morning from Japan. The F4 was one of three transition professional cameras that Nikon made between mechanical film cameras and their first (professional level) digital SLR, the appropriately named D1. It was manufactured between 1988 and 1996. From the serial on the camera I have bought it looks like it was made in 1992. After the F4 came, predictably, the F5 which is huge and heavy and not just heavy like the F4, and the F6 which is virtually a digital camera that still uses film. Its clever but is on the market for around £1000.

Today, the day after receiving it, I put a roll of Tri-X through it. I wanted to test that basic things like the exposure meter and the focussing worked and also to see whether my more modern lenses would work with this 1980s camera. I shot the whole film in a little over an hour (a record for me – mostly it takes a few months to finish a film) and developed it just now in the kitchen. I was very pleased that my newer G lenses worked very well and focussed more quickly and quietly that the older AF-D lenses. I have quite a collection so its a real attraction for me.

Its old school but I made notes about every exposure so I can check that there are no problems with the camera.

Now that I have developed and scanned the first roll of film, I can say that it performs perfectly. The autofocus works and the exposure meter works very well. The only alert was that this camera predates vibration reduction so there is some obvious camera movement on shutter speeds less than 1/60. I will have to remember that.

Here’s some examples:

Nikon F4 | Nikkor 35mm f1.4 G | Tri-X Pan 400

Digitized with Nikon D810 | daylight

Home developed in D76 | 6m 45s | Tank

I’m hoping there is some way to bulk edit the camera info in Lightroom etc. In terms of workflow, I have made a preset that makes positive images from the scanned negs, then each image just needs a little tweaking of its curve. This will be fine for B&W but colour negatives are much more tricky and I might resort to Negative Lab Pro, a plugin that costs about £75 at the moment so not cheap. Trying it – the camera and Negative Lab Pro, with some Kodak Gold – about half the price of Portra – is my next plan.

First ride with Keis G601 Heated Touring Gloves

I bought these heated gloves last December on an impulse after reading a positive review in Adventure Bike Rider. I have worn them once for a very short ride after installing the wires through my jacket and today rode from Cambridge out to Eye in Suffolk and back – about 100 miles. The temperature varied between 7 and 9 degrees. It was dry with bright low winter sun and a little wind.

Here they are.

First, let’s backtrack a little. Buying items like helmets and gloves, or clothing on line, i.e. without trying on different sizes and directly comparing how they feel is hazardous. I have wasted money on a helmet that when I got it could not decide whether it was too small. In the end I decided to keep it and wore it out and about. But an hour’s ride showed me that it was too painful to wear and it had to go – on ebay and at a significant loss because it was too late to return it. Wearing a helmet around the house is just not the same as actually wearing it for a couple of hours in the open air. I also bought these gloves, following the sizing guide on the website, trying them on, thinking yes these are a little tight but will probably stretch, lets keep them. Today I wore them on my first extended ride – 2 and a half hours – and set to their highest heat. The fingers were rather uncomfortable, especially over the knuckles causing me to try to hold on and operate the bike with straight fingers. By the end of the two hours I was feeling that they were rather hot in places and I could not quite manage to turn them down while riding along a motorway, though they are simple to move between the three levels of heat when stationary. But it wasn’t until I got back and took them off that I saw the red marks on my hands where the heating elements run.

An hour later I had this painful blister caused probably by a combination of too much heat i.e. a burn and the pressure.

When I wear them again, if I do, I will try wearing silk liner gloves underneath and keep the heat turned down. I wonder if this is another expensive mistake. In the meantime, I look forward to the Spring and temperatures in double figures.

New Touratech Luggage option for KTM790Adv

Even though the KTM catalogue from 2019 – its the last one that made it into my house – shows their middle-wieght adventure bike, the 790 Adventure, fitted out with black aluminium panniers, most riders seem to put soft, weight-saving luggage on the bike. The brand in vogue seems to have been Mosko Moto. You can fit a surprising amount of travel gear into their Reckless 80 litre bags.

I got drawn into that but always secretly wanted the convenience of some hard luggage, especially when going on a short ride or to do some shopping. And my Touratech aluminium luggage left over from my last BMW was still taking up room in my garage which is also full of a kitchen, old vacuum cleaners and furniture. And a topbox is a handy place to store your helmet while you are in the supermarket. I tried some nice strap-on tail pack from Kreiga, mounted to the Perun rack that I fitted soon after buying the bike a few years back. It was great for carrying some tools on a ride but not much else. Eventually I have caved in and started investigating fitting the mount for my Touratech top box onto my 790. You have to buy the whole set up to get the tubular mount. But Touratech in the UK could not tell me when the black version would come into stock so we agreed to try the kit made for the Husky 701 as they are very similar bikes. The cost was £150.

The kit arrived and on my first attempt to fit it I found that the Husky and the KTM have very slightly differently placed holes for the bolts that fit the rear rack. My second attempt involved fitting the tubular mount onto my Perun rack which was fiddly but possible. And it does not look too bad.

The top box would be much better if black but is fine. I don’t think the taste police will pull me over for it.

Another Icknield Way ride

It started as a trip up to my garage to search for my lost angle grinder. Once I had realised that it was not to be found (how can I have lost it?) I decided to work on my newfound confidence and ride the short section of the Icknield Way again. Its a short and not bad ride out there from Cambridge, through Fulbourn and Balsham, so why not? This time I wanted to record it so took my GoPro mounted on my helmet and another camera pointing more or less at me. I arrived at Balsham and turned everything on then set off, past the ‘Unsuitable for Motors’ sign (assuming that this didn’t actually mean ‘motors are prohibited). Things started off well. The track is gravelly in most places, straight and pretty flat. A little way down things started to get muddy with the the huge and soft tyre marks left by a tractor. I had one moment of instability on the slippy mud and then managed a climb. Further on, the muddy tyre tracks covered the whole track – apart from about 18 inches on the side that I only noticed afterwards. Heading across them at about 18 mph the bike quickly went into a slide and I ended up in the hedge and on the floor for the second time in as many months.

Unlike my fall in Wales, this time I wasn’t hurt and got up feeling optimistic I could pick up the bike and get going again. But for some reason the side stand had come down and was jammed in the mud. With a great deal of heaving I moved the bike out of the hedge but could not lift it enough to get the sidestand up. It was completely stuck despite some digging around it with my Leatherman blade. I did too much pointless heaving and tugging and pretty soon felt a sharp pain where I had broken my rib two months earlier and could not believe how stupid I had been to do all this.

I looked up and down the lane but it was clear very few people came down here. I started thinking about walking to the nearest house, but to ask anyone to come out and help me seemed a bit unrealistic, especially if they did not like the idea of people riding motorcycles on this route. Eventually I remembered my Cambridge based bike-riding friend. I hesitate before asking people for help but I could see little option. Luckily there was enough signal to reach him and kindly he agreed to ride out and help me. I was hugely relieved but while waiting for him I did more useless heaving. I thought about the advice not to ride potentially tricky terrain on a bike like this alone.

He came, and methodically helped get the bike into a position where we could both lift it and rode it up to a place where the ground was dry, then rode with me back to the garage where I surveyed the not-too-much damage on the bike.

The GPX file even shows my meeting with the hedge (yellow) followed by some moving around (red)

What is the moral of this little story? Don’t be an idiot. Get a lighter bike if I want to ride even these ‘easy’ tracks alone (I was looking at reviews of a Yamaha Serrow on the way home…). Yes the adrenaline of the first moments after falling can help you lift a bike, but it is good to survey the situation carefully before putting in unfruitful and potentially injuring efforts. Having a few friends is much better than having none. Another thought – which I am adding a few days later after having looked at the Icknield Way official websites – is that I should check on which stretches of the Icknield Way motors are allowed and which they are not. There are plenty of Youtube videos of people riding adventure bikes on tracks around fields claiming that they are riding the Icknield Way but if I were out walking I would certainly not want to meet up with a large motorcycle travelling at some speed and possibly in a group on these often narrow paths.

Last night I went up to Cambridge and dropped by the garage. It is very bleak on a cold winter night (it was Halloween). I had never been there in the dark before. I also saw that everything was covered with mud.

Can you see my angle grinder?

The contents of the flask were very welcome on a cold foggy night

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