Jokul Frosti or Jack Frost (my namesake) to you and me, painting the trees with a deep hoar frost on a dull old day. Don't be a fair weather photographer as many of the best opportunities for interesting pictures present themselves in less than clement weather.

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I have an approach to the photographic art which can best be defined as going walkabout with my vision switched on and my camera in hand. It fits perfectly with my genre of photography, that of representing the genius loci of places I like to explore.

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When I manage to make a photograph that is pleasing to my eye, for whatever reason, and I sit and admire its tones, textures, shapes, forms, use of light and all the rest of the gubbins then often a sobering thought will cross my mind.

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There is much written about the 'rules' of composition, long lists like the top ten, fifteen, twenty tips of great composition. Who can remember them all? We need something much simpler for practical use.

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I like using film, accordingly I like using my F80 with which to shoot it, I also like using my Nikon prime lenses that go with my F80. I really like the end results I create with them. What's not to like?

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Turns out one of my favourite lenses to use with my F80 film camera has become my 85mm f1.8. This so called portrait or short telephoto lens seems to fit with my "minds eye" vision which often tends to mentally crop out the near foreground of a scene to focus in on a subject.

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Anyone who knows me well understands that I am a bit of a 35mm rangefinder camera aficionado, favouring cameras from the likes of Contax, Zeiss and Leica, constructed of such materials as titanium, magnesium and duraluminium alloys. So it may come as a bit of surprise that one of my favourite film cameras in my collection is an SLR, in fact a Nikon F80, made extensively out of engineering grade resin which is camera marketing department speak for plastic.

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As I was sitting here this morning chatting about the disposable nature of modern digital media. The consensus was that everything has become commoditised, short lived, transient in value. In respect of photography, in the early days a real photograph was a precious physical item requiring time, money and skill to produce. It was a highly valued, treasured thing of longevity. Now we create millions of digital images all the time mostly of little consequence, quickly forgotten and lost in the profusion of the many. Digital photos are simply disposable items of fleeting value.

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It's that time of year once more, when the bluebells appear in swathes in ancient woodland with their heady wild hyacinth scent and lovely deep blue-violet flowers. Mind you a few can have white or pink flowers too but mostly they are blue. They are a photographers delight but also provide a great challenge to capture their true colour just right!

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Wandering around Milestones once more, travelling light with my RX100 VII compact camera demonstrating its impressive capabilities in some very low level light conditions typical of most museums, designed to help conserve the colours of many of their precious historical artefacts.

Amazing the quality that can be squeezed out of a 1" sensor camera.

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There has recently been a big resurgence of interest in compact digital cameras just at the point when most of the big makers have got out of the business of making them having made the judgment that the market for them was dead! Those who have kept the faith continue to clean up as a result and the used market is booming for these little beasties as a result as well. As for me I still have and continue to use with much enthusiasm my lovely little Sony RX100 VII, last of their now discontinued compact camera series!

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As with many museums these days Milestones, whilst still delightful, is not what it once was. Time was when it transported us into a world of yesterday, evocative of a bygone era of local industrial heritage and how we used to live. Now it has succumbed to the modern need to provide endless "what's on experiences", to be a place of "child friendly" entertainment, to be big event driven. Heritage watered down, oh dear!

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Fujifilms' X-Trans CMOS sensor produces high quality images with rich colour, tonality and dimensionality using a unique colour filter array that suppresses moiré and false colours without an optical low-pass filter whilst achieving high resolution comparable to 35 mm full size sensors.

Maybe? Well back in October last year I bought an X-T50 to test the theory and have been trying it out ever since.

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