Monthly Archives: October 2026

“Chania Nights”

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Travel | 1 Comment

Hi Everyone,

Street shot, Chania, Crete by night. Lumix 20mm f/1.7.

Kind regards

Leigh

The big “C”

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography | 4 Comments

Hi everyone,

I have chosen to share some news with you all. The doctors have told me that there’s a near certainty that I have Stage 4 lung cancer. They still have a couple of tests to do but I feel pretty certain that their diagnosis is right. Unfortunately stage 4 cannot be cured but it can be treated to prolong life so, given the best case scenario, you might hopefully be stuck with me for some time to come 🙂 however my ability to get out and take photos has for some time now been getting increasingly harder.

I’m not wishing to be sensationalist, melodramatic or seeking sympathy. I’ve been running this blog for more than 13 years and, in that time, I’ve made many good friends and I feel like I want to let my friends know where I’m at. My blog has always been much more than just about sharing my photographs, experiences, travels, techniques and gear etc. and one of the most enjoyable and rewarding things has always been meeting, conversing and sharing information with you all.

As you can imagine this has come as a huge shock to me, my family and friends and I’m determined to take whatever treatment options that I’m offered and fight this thing with all my strength of body and mind. Without bursting into my rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” which, trust me, you really DON’T want to hear 🙂 , I’ve been truly blessed with a loving wife and family and good friends, a great many very happy memories, some fabulous travel opportunities, been fortunate to be able to indulge my passions for photography and music, what more could I have possibly wished for?!.

Warmest Regards to you all,

Leigh

Modular Thinking

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Hi everyone,

As previously mentioned I recently bought a 52mm Kenko Nostaltone filter. My usual filter size is 58mm, I got the 52mm because I didn’t want to wait until April of next year to get a 58mm size from Japan and the 52mm is also a tad cheaper which is never a bad thing 🙂 . This isn’t a problem as the vast majority of my lenses have a filter thread size of 52mm or less.

This got me thinking on adapting four of my most frequently used small, light Micro Four Thirds lenses to this filter thread size. My Lumix 14mm f/2.5, 20mm f/1.7 and 35-100mm f/4-5.6 lenses all have 46mm filter threads as do quite a few of my other lenses and my Lumix 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 lens has a 37mm thread size so I bought four step up rings to step them all up to 52mm.

In order to minimize things I adapted one of my metal screw on 46mm hoods by fitting a 52-46mm step down ring and, to the front of the hood one of my 58mm magnetic adapter rings and lens caps allowing the hood to be used on three out of four of the above lenses. Why carry several lens hoods when one will do?, after all I can only use one lens at a time 🙂 . The exception to the above being the 12-32mm lens to which I fitted 37-52 mm and 52-58mm step up rings plus another of my 58mm magnetic adapter rings and lens caps. No vignetting at 12mm with a 52mm and/or 58mm filter/s fitted.

It all might sound more than a bit complicated but there is method to my madness 🙂 and this arrangement is very versatile as it allows me to shoot with:

  1. No filters fitted with or without a hood.
  2. With a 52mm filter fitted with or without a hood
  3. With a 58mm filter snapped on to the end of the hood.
  4. With both 52mm and 58mm filters and a hood if, not frequently, I so wish.

As an added bonus my TG-5 camera and filter adapter also takes a 52mm filter size for which I have a 52mm CPL filter I bought some while back. Fitting the 52mm CPL to one of my lenses as well as the hood allows me to rotate the filter by rotating the hood which is my preferred way of doing things as it’s quicker, less fiddly and still provides protection from knocks and flaring.

In total, 3×46-52mm step up rings, 1×37-52mm step up ring, 1×52-46mm step down ring, 2x58mm magnetic filter adapters and caps, one 46mm lens hood with 58mm front thread, there you have it 🙂

Kind regards

Leigh

Hotham Park.

by in Photography | 2 Comments

HI everyone,

I took my Pen-F camera, TTArtisan 23mm f/1.4 lens and Kenko Nostaltone Orange filter for a little walk around the park this morning.

Edited in Luminar NEO and NIK Viveza.

All the best,

Leigh

Kenko Nostaltone Orange filter.

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Hi everyone,

The other day in a post I mentioned I was waiting for delivery of a new filter. This filter is one that I’ve been greatly looking forward to trying out. Kenko make three Nostaltone filters in orange, blue and green. They all have different properties, I chose the orange version to try out as I have a leaning towards warmer, softer, diffused images. The orange has a stronger colour effect and some unusual flare properties as well as a weaker diffusion effect compared with the blue version. The blue version has a weaker colour effect and a stronger diffusion effect and also some interesting flare properties. I’m not sure about the green filter as I’ve not been able to find a lot of information on it. These filters are somewhat hard to get in the UK and mine came by a very bizarre route from Japan to the UK via Spain and France!.

Below are some straight out of camera shots taken with the Nostaltone filter mounted on my Olympus 9-18mm lens at ISO 200 with sunny white balance setting. I wanted to find some Autumnal foliage as I though the filter would work well with the Autumnal colours. It’s been a lovely sunny day, because we’ve had a long, hot, dry summer the foliage is still very green for this time of year, I’ll probably repeat this later in the month. I haven’t done anything in post with these images except for lens corrections and, as the filter softens the image, I’ve left it that way and not applied any sharpening. I edited the last image to make it look more Autumnal. 🙂 With one minor exception I couldn’t get it to exhibit the blue lens flares, even without my lens hood fitted which might be a factor of my lens choice, I’ll be trying it with different lenses.

Kind regards to all,

Leigh