Pig Sty Avenue

This is the only exposure worth saving out of two rolls of film for the Orangemen's Walk. It's a decisive moment, at least, but a technical disaster. There was the problem of the Nikon F's meter, underexposing everything by at least 2 stops. And a bright sunny day meant his bald head was fine, but his face in deep shadow. Post processing gave me a not-bad shot, which could have been a good print with better technique. I'm not blaming everything on the equipment, I'd have to give myself a "must try harder" in the autodidact's  report card. The whole Nikon F Photomic meter/battery farrago means - so far as I can tell - the meter is useless. I could replace with an eye-level prism, for a stylish looking non-metered camera, but photography for me now is about getting good quality prints, not looking stylish. So lesson one, the F won't cut the mustard. Lesson two, now I know why press photographers ALWAYS use a flash - this guy's face in shado...

It was a bit like what (I suppose) it might feel like to drive a classic sports car: other drivers would give it a second glance. For drivers read photographers. It's a very stylish camera. An icon. But I need to be hard headed, and it's just not up to the job. Long story short, when I bought it back in 2011 or thereabouts, I learned that the meter would have to be tweaked to function with modern batteries. It was sent away to Liverpool for that and a CLA. It came back with dust on the mirror which hadn't been there before, and (as I've eventually worked out) a meter leading to underexposure of about two stops. It's all come to light in 2018, because it sat unused for several years, so I can hardly kick up a fuss with the technicians in Liverpool now. I don't even know if they're still in business. No one else is, apparently: camera repairers in Edinburgh and Glasgow didn't respond to my inquiries. I read somewhere you can send any Nikon back to the mo...