19/09/24

Bath. Lovely Bath! If you’re ever there I recommend you arrange to drink champagne from a large copper bath with a mud mask at a spa. If you’re anywhere I recommend you arrange to drink champagne from a large copper bath with a mud mask at a spa. But that’s by the by, here I got a wonderful opportunity to test out my then-newly-acquired Minolta AF 85mm f/1.4, which probably remains my favourite lens to this day. It’s got to be around 40 years old at this point but it performs remarkably well. I realised after our first night that I had failed to bring a 72mm UV filter with me for the trip, so I popped into a camera shop called London Camera Exchange to purchase one. The gentleman behind the counter spied the lens and immediately remarked “Solid bit of kit that!“. He recalled working with the lens when it came out in the 80s. As a non-driver it was the closest thing to someone saying ‘Nice car, dude!‘ I’ve ever experienced.

In the future I will look to better isolate and balance skin tones as I develop my portraits.

I had brought the a7sii with me to practise videography and colour grading as well, please check out a short travel video I made here.