Classic Cameras: Ensign Midget

This is the first post in a new series to show you some of the cameras I have in my antique and classic camera collection, starting with one of my smallest cameras, the Ensign Midget.

The Ensign Midget is truly a pocketable camera and is still smaller than most of the modern small digital compacts. The Midget was launched in the mid 1930’s with the wonderful slogan “Wear it always… like your watch” and was manufactured until 1941 when the involvement with the war forced Ensign to stop manufacturing most of it’s cameras. You can read up on the full history and the different models on the Ensign historical site: Ensign Midget.

What makes this a treasured little gem in my collection, is that in addition to the miniature camera, I also have the original leather cover, box, manual, leaflets and even two rolls of film in their original box.

Storm damage

We awoke in the early hours of Tuesday morning, unable to sleep due to the deafening noise of the gale force winds outside. Following several loud thuds on our roof and the worsening rattle of slates and metal, we decided to head downstairs to relative safety, scared that one of the trees would fall onto our cottage or a branch would break through our bedroom’s velux window.

As it was still pitch dark and too dangerous to go outside, we made a cup of tea and settled in the lounge to ride out the storm. As soon as we had checked the weather forecast online, the lights flickered briefly before total blackout. With the emerging light outside we could eventually see the devastation of the huge branches that had broken off the trees beside our cottage and hit our roof lying in the garden

The force of the gales hitting our cottage full on was phenomenal. We could clearly see the gusts rippling across the loch before hitting our cottage full on. This movie was taken through our patio doors’ windows well after the height of the storm when there was sufficient light. The force of the gales was phenomenal and the amount of water being blown off the loch was amazing to see.

When the winds had died down even more, we went outside to inspect the damage to our roof. As you can see from the images below, the lead flashing was blown upwards, and the slates were damaged in five places, with the main damage being caused by the falling branches. Later we found some of the slates that had  been blown hundreds of meters away into the fields behind the cottages.

Later in the morning Jim, our neighbour, and I started the clearing and the repairs. First we nailed down the corrugated iron on Andy’s roof before clearing the fallen branches in our garden to gain access to our roof. Jim’s experience with slating was invaluable and we cannot thank him enough for his effort and help with repairing our roof.  Without him we would not have been able to repair the roof ourselves.

Thankfully, we were prepared for unexpectedly long power outages with an abundance of candles and an open fire for warmth, boiling water for tea and coffee, and for cooking. We thought of going to the Kames for a bar meal, but they were closed for food due to the blackout. It was a novel experience though, cooking Irish stew for dinner on the open fire by candle light.

Due to the non-stop horizontal rain and the continued blackout, we decided to head back to Glasgow on Wednesday afternoon, a day earlier than planned. It was a journey through a landscape devastated by the storm. We had never seen so many trees felled in one gale before. There were several stretches where the trees fallen across the road reached double figures. And we were lucky, as the road to Dunoon had literally just opened. In fact, were driving behind the van that removed the ‘road closed’ signs.

Mayan Arches at Uxmal

One of the most distinctive features found in Mayan architecture is the Mayan arch, a corbelled arch that spans entrances and vaults. As the Maya never discovered the true arch, the Maya were limited to construct single storey buildings with narrow, if sometimes long, rooms.

The Mayan arch can only support a limited amount of weight and requires significantly thickened walls and an abutment of other stone or fill to counteract the effects of gravity and to avoid each side of the archway to collapse inwards.

The description in the dictionary of a Mayan arch is not easy to comprehend: a corbel arch is constructed by offsetting successive courses of stone at the springline of the walls so that they project towards the archway’s center from each supporting side, until the courses meet at the apex of the archway, often capped with flat stones.

A picture paints a thousand words, so rather than trying to explain or visualise the Mayan Arch from this string of words, I have selected a set of images of Mayan Arches taken at our last visit to Uxmal to illustrate the Mayan Arch and it’s construction.

It is worthwhile to view the above image of the Mayan Arch at the House of Pigeons in full screen mode, and to zoom in and navigate around.

Is it a squirrel? Is it a cuckoo?

First, the facts. The squirrel cuckoo or ‘kip cho’ in Mayan or ‘cuco ardilla’ in Spanish is a largish bird measuring up to 50cm in length, has reddish plumage on the upper parts and grey on the lower, and is characterised by it’s long tail with white markings.

While admiring the massive crocodiles (from a very safe distance of course!) found at Lake Cobá, I heard an unusual bird song coming from the nearby jungle. Not that an unusual bird song is out of the ordinary, as the song of nearly all the birds in the Yucatán are alien to me. So I decided to turn my back on the crocodile to sneak to a hole in the stone wall on the edge of the jungle with the aim to find the source of the sound.

I spotted the singing bird with a striking long tail on some rocks in the undergrowth very quickly. Unfortunately, it was shy and hiding just too far away from me within the jungle to get anything other than a heavily cropped ‘evidence’ or ‘identification’ shot (below, middle). While listening to the bird’s song and hoping that it would come closer, I noticed a slight movement in my peripheral vision.

With a quick refocus, I spotted it’s mate on a branch close by. Luckily I got a brief but very welcome opportunity to take a couple of shots (bottom left and top) of this cuckoo hopping from one branch to another, before it flew to a branch close to it’s mate (below right) before the pair disappeared out of sight, deeper into the jungle.

The Mayan people

What better to do at Christmas when the wind howls through the chimney and the rain lashes against the windows than to look at pictures from our travels to warmer climates. In other words, an opportunity, or should I say another attempt, to finally sort through the 2,500 images from our visit to the Yucatán and Ciudad de México last Christmas.

These three images of Mayan people will be the start in a series of posts covering our travels through México in December 2010. With our travels through the Yucatán we were partly retracing our steps from January 2001, so I will attempt to find some of the old photos to show you the fenominal change this region has gone through in a decade.

I took the image of the Mayan women with a young child at the market on Plaza Major in Mérida, a colonial city founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Montejo. Over the past decade, Mérida has changed from a characterful, quiet colonial town  to an extremely noise, dirty city with the bustle of a multi million population.

The old Mayan women was folding the hand embroidered handkerchiefs that she was selling to the tourists in the shade beside the great ball court at archaeological site at Chichén-Itzá. We brought a massive smile to her face by buying half a dozen of these traditional coloured souvenirs without haggling too much.

One of the most notable scenes in the Yucatán is to see the children play happily on the street wherever you go. I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw boys play football on the the streets in Glasgow, a sad enditement to our changed society dominated by computer games. These bare footed boys and girl with flip flops were playing football on the road leading from the Villas Arqueológicas to the historical site at Cobá.

Urban cormorant

While taking Lola out for a walk along the River Kelvin in the West End of Glasgow, I spotted two cormorants sitting on a derelict railway pillar in the middle of the river. Even though it was a very damp, dark and overcast afternoon, I took my camera out of the bag to make an attempt at taking some shots of these magnificent large water birds.

It was so dull that I had to crank the ISO up to 3200 to get the exposure, while still only achieving a very slow 1/80 at f5.6 handheld using my 70-200mm lens with 2x extender. Above all, it was not easy getting a clear view of either of the two cormorants due to the straggly trees obscuring my view and thorny branches swinging in my face, but I eventually managed to get a few good shots of both birds.

While taking some shots of one of the cormorants, I noticed a movement on the far bank and was surprised to see an urban fox out on the hunt in the middle of the afternoon. Unfortunately, the fox disappeared very quickly out of view after I had managed two shots with the cormorant in focus and the fox out of focus in the undergrowth. The best one of the two (above) probably qualifies for a ‘spot the fox’ competition.

The apparent stalking of the fox and vulnerability of the cormorant in the above shot is in fact an illusion. The two birds were quite safe, sitting high and dry (ok, not quite so dry) on a 10 foot high pillar in the middle of the river, with the fox merely passing on the far away river bank, as the last image illustrates.

Once again, today has proved: never leave home without a camera, irrespective of what the weather is like.

Windswept Ranch Moor

I met up with Tim Parkin for some photography on Rannoch Moor, arriving at the lay-by after an hour and a half’s journey in the dark from Glasgow just seconds after Tim had parked his camper van. We started off in Tim’s camper van with a freshly brewed cup of coffee and a blether before heading out onto the windswept moor in the early morning light.

Unfortunately, the conditions were far from ideal, as there was a very strong wind blowing across the moor. Not only was the wind chill factor unwelcome, the wind was so strong that nothing, apart from the bigger rocks, was still enough to photograph. After a bit of wandering and shooting a couple of shots, we agreed that we were literally being blown off the moors and to seek a more sheltered location behind the mountains and in the forest at Glencoe Loch.

While out on the moor beside Lochan na Stainge, I only took two photographs, but managed to get one that I am actually very pleased with, especially given the conditions: a panorama of the view to the Black Mount across Lochan na Stainge.

Before heading to Glencoe Loch to seek shelter from the wind amongst the trees for some more photography, Tim showed me an area of devastation on Rannoch Moor. The forest had been cut down years ago, leaving a wonderful derelict area. The mixture of tree stumps, rotten wood, grasses, mosses and lichen is asking for a return in the near future for some intimate landscape photography.

A wander onto Muirhouse Muir

After several weeks of more or less continuous rain, the weather appeared to change during the morning to a dry day with a low winter sun. So I decided to head up to Loch Ardinning after lunch to seek some photographic opportunities and for Lola to be able to run and mooch on the moors.

On arrival, it looked like we got there too late. The last bit of mist was lifting off the loch and a light rain started when we parked the car. With the rain and more dark clouds looming, I choose not to take my precious Sanderson.

The winter sun was already very low, and the loch was already in the shade, so we pressed on and headed out to Muirhouse Muir onto higher ground. The autumn colours of the trees and bracken in the late sun light was absolutely stunning. While Lola got the scent of rabbits and was busy mooching, I managed to get a few of shots of the autumn colours, further enhanced by the rainbow, before the sun went down too far and the bracken ended up in the shade.

Further up the moors we got some spectacular views towards the Kilsyth Hills, with the faint rainbow and mist in the glen providing spectacular views. The sun was setting very fast, so we headed back to Loch Ardinning for some sunsets across the loch. The contrast between the bright sky and the shade moor and loch was phenomenal, so I ended up taking some of the shots below using both a 4 stop and a 2 stop natural density graduated filter.

Once the sun was gone and the sky turned grey, Lola and I headed back to the car. We must plan better and leave earlier the next time, as the short outing was just a little bit too rushed, and golden opportunities were missed. Then again, how can you plan for an afternoon out in the sun when the weather forecast predicts snow fall.

Portrait of a whippet

I have had my Canon speedlite for several years now, but have only used it sparingly as I tend to find the results too harsh when using the flash, even with a Stofen diffuser. This is more a reflection of my lack of knowledge on how to use the flash than anything else.

So when I heard another photographer saying that he always lit his models through bounce flash (when not being able to use studio lights) to create more natural lighting, I thought it is time to found out a bit more and experiment. After a bit of Googling and reading I came across the excellent web site by Neil van Niekerk, who provides a wealth of information on techniques for using on-camera and off-camera flash. A must read for anyone wanting to delve beyond the most basic use of flash.

What specifically caught my eye was the simplicity of it all, and Neil’s ingenuity to use ‘the black foamie thing’ for bounce flash. So the following day I went into town to hunt down some black foam. It wasn’t easy, but I was in luck, as the second art store I went in had Funky Foam in the kids section for £1.79 for an A4 sheet. With a couple of elastic hairbands, I had just bought my cheapest photographic accessory ever.

Time to experiment! I had a choice of two models at home, but found only Lola willing. I tried bounce flash off the wall to the sides, of the wall behind me and off the ceiling, and I must admit, it works an absolute treat.

Here are a few portraits of the super model, both in colour and black & white, hopefully showing that the bounce flash results in a more natural lighting and in giving nice shadow and detail, as opposed to bleaching everything out.

House of the pigeons

The House of the Pigeons. The name was given because the fretwork of the cresting resembles a pigeon house. At the centre of the cluster, there is a patio which was surrounded by palace-like buildings, of which only a part of the North building remains. On it one can observe a cresting made up of nine stepped triangular units with fretwork resting upon a row of pillars which used to be covered with painted stucco bas-reliefs representing human figures reclining on pedestals. V. Segovia investigated the astronomical functions of this building which dates between 900 – 1000 A.D.

The elusive wren

And you thought that swallows were hard to shoot? Well you can think again…

I have been on a quest to shoot swallows in flight this summer, and my, they are much harder to shoot than fast and agile whippets. After the swallows disappeared to warmer climates, I was looking for a next challenge until my eye caught a little wren hopping along the tree catching insects.

And a challenge I got. I found the little wren even more difficult than a whippet at full speed or a swallow in flight. I just couldn’t get a decent shot of this tiny, elusive bird that hides in the undergrowth, is extremely shy, and moves too fast from hiding place to hiding place. With a fast subject like a swallow, you can practice technique, but if you only ever see the wren for a second or two, now that’s hard to get.

The opportunity came after the first autumn storm when we had thrown broken branches into a large pile beside our cottage. The pile of lichen covered wood, chopped from the broken branches, proved to be a heaven for a pair of elusive wrens with the insects in abundance. With a lot of patience, I managed to get these images that I am quite chuffed with.

These images again show the quality that my 70-200mm lens and 2x converter delivers wide open and at a high ISO (400mm, 1/200, f5.6, ISO 800).

A wander to the Broomielaw

A lunchtime wander exploring the Broomielaw with some of my work colleagues.