The Itch

Do you ever get the itch?

When I say itch I mean the itch and not an itch…an itch is something you need to go and see your GP about before something falls off. The itch is that itch, that urge, that need to go out and photograph something different. Whether the itch be a new subject, a new technique, a different way of looking at things or just grabbing a bit of kit you haven’t used for a while and going out with a fresh mind to scratch at it. The itch might come of its own accord or it might be triggered by something you saw, were involved in or by someone you know scratching their particular itch.

I’ve had my own peculiar itch for a few days now, set off by some photographs I saw on a Facebook group and this morning I got the opportunity to scratch it. As much as I love the technical side of photography, the itty-bitty details, the pursuit of perfection, the dreaded pixel-peeping I also like to try and mellow my obsession at times. Not every picture needs to be pin sharp. Not every picture needs to be shot at low ISO with flawless gradations, an absence of grain and a tightly controlled dynamic range. Photographs can speak to you in many ways, an imperfection can be their reason, flaws make them something they may otherwise fail to achieve and a bit of grain is definitely not the end of the world.

‘The Big Cat’

At work we’ve had a Nikon Reflex-NIKKOR-C 1:8 f=500mm lens in for a little while. I’ve used it before getting a excellent results but today I didn’t want excellent, I didn’t want to go out and aim for pin sharp, perfect images, I wanted to go out and have a bit of fun. With that in mind I dug out my old X-T1, shoved a couple of batteries in it, set the menu up so it was shooting monochrome, let the ISO do whatever the hell it liked and crucially didn’t pay any attention to what the shutter speeds were doing – if I got shake – I got shake. It’s a mirror lens – a catadioptric optical system where refraction and reflection are combined in one system – something that was popular in the 70’s and 80’s but today has lost favour…not for good reason. They are smaller and less expensive to make than conventional telephoto lenses but they have fixed, quite moderate, apertures and produce a very peculiar out of focus rendering of spectral highlights with a strong ‘donut’ shape to them. You’re either the sort of person who is gonna embrace the donuts and love them or find them distracting and stick with a smoother bokeh…I kinda like ’em.

Along for the experience was the dog, my X100T and my trusty Billingham Hadley Pro for when the inevitable rain stopped play. As usual on a Sunday morning we ended up at the dogs favourite bit of coastline full of muddy puddles, open horizons, sand, sea and seagulls. The rain held off for an hour so I wandered about looking for shots that were a little different, a little challenging (a flying gull is not an easy target with a manual focus, 750mm equivalent focal length lens) and had in some part a chance for make those donuts shine.

I got my gulls, sharp but not perfect. I pestered the dog until he momentarily sat still, I pointed the lens at some leaves and even decided to grab a puddle selfie with the X100T.

I went out to shoot something different, shoot in a way that was less than typical and I went out to have a bit of fun – I scratched my itch. Tomorrow my X-T3 is likely to be locked onto a tripod, my ISO low, aperture and shutter speed optimised and my processing tweaked to as good as I can manage.

Will the photographs be any better?

Technically they will but I don’t always think technically better is better better.