China to the UAE

Andy Brandl has posted the lens onto an old contact of mine that I know from the macro world.  Yousef Al-Habashi in Abu Dhabi, UAE.  When I first got into high magnification macro, it didn't take long for me to find some of his work.  It really is top tier, and he's also a very friendly, informative and willing to share in any of his experiences.  The kind of contact that any photographer needs in order to improve.  I want the final collection of images to be diverse when the project is completed.  Unfortunately this means that the high magnification macro slot has been taken by another contributor further down the line.  So we are restrecting Yousef to pretty much anything else.  I'm sure this will not be a problem as I have seen plenty of his other images that are equally stunning.  Should be really interesting to see what he produces.  Good luck Yousef.

Yousef sporting an interesting hat.


A recent images produced by Yousef.

Andy Brandl

I must apologise for the infrequency of my blog posts.  I recently got ill with Bell's Palsy (facial paralysis) and a lot of my time has been taken up visiting Doctors and Pharmacys.  Despite this the lens is still making good time on it's travels around the globe.  Dan Goodwin finished his time with the lens and posted it to Andy Brandl in China.  Me and Andy have been in touch quite regularly and we have a very nice image taken with the lens for the book.  He has since packed the lens back up and shipped it off to Yousef Al-Habshi in Abu Dhabi, UAE.  Here is a photograph of Andy with the lens.  Thanks for a great job Andy, I'll be back in touch towards the end of the project.

Andy Brandl with the lens in Hangzhou, China

A little more info about Andy ...

Andy Brandl, 36 - Photographer, Psychologist.
A German freelancer focusing on architecture and landscape photography.
Andy seeks out subjects and locations for his photography primarily in China and Germany and works as a Getty Images contributor, using digital full frame Nikon equipment.

Andy describes his photography as being directed by his moods and intuition when taking the shots and by the current extent of his interest in processing techniques when finalising them in order to best suit his vision.  When in China, photography is Andy's means to come to terms with the many contradictions of this country, for a Westerner, a peculiar fascination of its own.

Here is a recent shot by Andy that I particularly like, that he has given me permission to post on the blog (thanks!).

Moving whilst standing still, by Andy Brandl.

New Zealand to China

Dan Goodwin has completed his short date with the lens. Quite a few images he got through! Hopefully he can make his mind up for which one he wants in the book. The lens should now have been shipped to Hangzhou, China where our next contributor will be waiting to receive it.

Dan Goodwin with the lens

The project has begun

Today I shipped the lens to New Zealand for it's first leg.  We now have about 28 photographers included in the project.  Most of them, as you would expect have specific date requests, so I was looking for someone with quick communication to squeeze in the first photograph.

The photographer is Dan Goodwin, an old acquaintance back from when I only had a superzoom and gained all my knowledge from a group on flickr full of other people with the same superzoom.  :) His work has always been of a superhigh standard, especially his black and white HDR.  Lets hope he maybe decides to create a black and white HDR for the project.  Nudge Nudge.


Also to brighten up the blog a little.  i thought I would include my favourite photo of his.  hope you dont mind Dan.




I will add a couple of new pages soon, when I get the time.
Where Is The Lens
Where Was The lens

Hopefully they are pretty self explanatory.

A mystery roll of film

There was also an old roll of 35mm film in the bag with the lens. I took it to be developed into digital photos at the local camera shop. Looks like someone's photos from a trip to France, specifically the Canadian Vimy National War Memorial, Vimy, France. Hard to determine when exactly they were taken. I suppose the blue car is the biggest giveaway. I haven't figured out what the car is yet. I'll get around to it.

Click here to see the images from developed form the film.

Update : The football shirt the boy is wearing in this image

That's a Sheffield Wednesday Football Jersey from 1995-1997.  The photos are at the latest 17 years old.  Still kind of weird though.

Photographer Invite

A friend of mine recently had his second child, and decided he needed a bigger place for his family.  He found a suitable (much larger!) place and moved in.  A few months after the move, in the new house he found an old leather camera bag covered in dust.  Inside were three camera lenses.  He did not know anything about photography or lenses, so on a random visit he gave them to me.

Two of the three lenses, packaged together had suffered the test of time.  The aperture blades had become corroded and quite stiff, and evidence of fungus could be seen on multiple glass elements.  The other lens was wrapped separately.  I can only assume the material it was wrapped in had different properties to the material the other two were wrapped in, more suitable for preservation of glass, and therefore, as I unravelled it, out fell a 50mm prime lens in pristine condition.

It is a Prakticar Pentacon MC 50mm f/1.8.  A little researched suggested it was not worth a great deal, it was more than likely the kit lens that come with a mid-range SLR from at least 20 years ago.  As with most old kit lenses, their value doesn't reflect their quality.  This lens is a prime, and should render very sharp high quality results.  The mount is M42 screw thread.  It was nice to be given a lens for nothing, but I had two distinct feelings about it.  Firstly, although I have acquired the lens, I don't really feel like it is mine.  Somebody, at some point will have carried it around on a brand spanking new SLR and possibly took lots of photographs with this lens, the numbers etched into the focus ring are worn from use.  It makes me feel a little strange about using it.  The other thing I felt, was that i would probably never use it.  I can easily get hold of an adapter, mount it and get some photos, but it is unlikely to replace my more modern 50mm prime.  I thought it was a shame to have been hiding for many years, only to then be discovered and placed on a shelf for many years more.

I had noticed a few blogs online, where budding photographers had done a project 50 50, which put simply is ...  50 photographs, taken over the course of 50 days, with a 50mm prime lens (Hmmm maybe it should be called project 50 50 50).  It is interesting to see the variety of ways a 50mm prime can be used to create beautiful images.  I thought about giving it a go, and giving the lens a new lease of life, but I still feel a little strange about using / owning it.  Then I come up with this idea.

I'll send the lens to 49 photographers that I know from the internet, but have never actually met. Hopefully if they agree, each of them can take one photograph using the lens, then send it on to the next photographer on the list that I will co-ordinate.  Finally if it makes it back to me along with 49 photographs, I will take the 50'th photograph and use all the images to create a book of photos that I will get printed, and send to all the photographers that contributed.  Sending the lens on it's final voyage around the world!  I will keep this blog up to date with the lens' current location, which photographer has hold of it, and post their photo once created.

Hopefully you are reading this, as one of the photographers I thought would be a great selection to contribute to this project.  If you are, and you do not wish to be involved, thanks for reading this far, please let me know that you are not interested and there is no need to read any further.

Aha! so I see you are interested in being involved?  Superb.  I thought the thing that would work best, is for each photographer to have two pages in the book.  The left page will be divided horizontally into two, the top half will be a portrait of yourself holding the lucky 50mm prime.  Ideally if you can be in a location that is typical for where you are in the world, it will give a good feel for who you are just form the photograph.  The bottom half of the left page will be where you can write a little about who you are, what kind of photography you do, and a few short words about the image you created.  The right hand page will be taken up entirely by the photograph.  Both the portrait image and the main image should be in 4:3 format and landscape orientation (the book will need turning sideways to view the full colour photograph).

There's not much more to it than this.  If you need any further information please let me know.  I will try and keep my co-ordination emails at least one person in advance, so that they can be ready to receive the lens by the time you send it.  In the "pack" will be an adapter for Nikon and an adapter for Canon.  Hopefully that covers most fitting requirements.

Thank you for being awesome.

- Craig