Clee Hill in the Fog / 3rd roll with the Xpan II  

If you’ve a keen eye, you might be wondering what happened to the second roll, I posted my first and now I’m in the third. Well if your really interested, you can see them on my Flickr. Some ok shots, but nothing particularly mind blowing. As such, I thought I’d skip to roll three where I have a few things to report, and hopefully some slightly more interesting shots.

The second roll, broadly speaking went quite well. Initial worries I had about the light meter are gone, I was of course just being a bit shit. Where the second roll went ok, the shitness returned for roll three, though this time I do have an adequate excuse. The biggest issue with this camera is a dicky rangefinder. It need vertically re-aligning, as at the moment it’s way, way out which can make for some slightly difficult focusing. I’d not really had a problem up until this point, since I’ve had time to think about what I’m doing, and have often just zone focused. For this third roll though I tried to use the rangefinder a bit more. Unfortunately it turns out its damned freezing on top of Clee Hill in January, and hurrying to get out of the cold does nothing for your results with a slightly wonky rangefinder. 

Clee Hill in the fog

Clee hill is a odd place, I’ve not really explored the extent of the abandoned works up there, I’m not even sure what it used to be; a quarry I think. Whatever it is, it’s quite erie in the fog. I’ve been up there before, funnily enough, also with a panoramic camera, the Minolta riva pano. It was damned cold then too, though not a patch on the other day. The other day was the sort of weather where when you take your hands out your pockets they go numb almost instantly. Not my favourite weather by a margin, but, needs must, and driving past me and James couldn’t resist stopping to take a few shots.

Mostly ok, a few near misses with focusing. It’s these two shots are possibly the two that represent the most of my disappointment though.

I am keep to get to grips with portraiture with this camera, the aspect ratio lends itself to some very interesting compositions I think. These are two I would have been more than happy with… and to be fair, I still am… Just would have been nice if I’d not missed the focus. Ah well, I should just probably get that rangefinder calibrated.

Despite the continued bumpy start, I’m still really enjoying this camera … It’s providing me with every bit of the challenge and enjoyment I was hoping for!

Cheers

Hamish

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