New 19 November 2008;
re-edited photos 29.12.08 

TEESSHIPS
PERSONAL SIGHTINGS

19 November 2008
South Gare, River Tees

HOT OFF THE PRESS

48TH ANNIVERSARY SIGHTINGS

It was 48 years today that I noted my first ship AYUTHIA in Middlesbrough Dock on a foggy Saturday morning, 19 November 1960. With the forecast being for a sunny day today I decided I would indulge myself with my first and only visit to my home ground South Gare for 2008 to play with my new toy which I got for my birthday a couple of weeks ago.

And here are the results of experimenting with my new Panasonic Lumix FZ18. I was attracted to this by seeing the results obtained by George Robinson and others on his Riversea site. The only puzzling thing seems to have been that there appears to have been only a short production run, with this camara now withdrawn from stock by most of the mainstream companies!

I can say only that I am absolutely delighted with many of these first efforts!!

So, how’s this for a first attempt? Just disappearing out into Tees Bay way beyond zoom range of my old cameras (did not even get them out of the bag today) but able to snap her at x33 magnification!

29.12.08: When I first edited and posted these initial views from my new camera I did wonder why I had not achieved the sharpness and clarity demonstrated by others using the same equipment.  Then, at the beginning of this month, acting on recommendations by my friends Michael Green and Harry Appleyard, I purchased an Epson V200 scanner, primarily so I could start scanning many unseen negatives from my black and white collection. Some of these initial results you should see quite soon on other TEESSHIPS pages.
I mentioned above about my FZ18 camera having only a short production run. I have a feeling I have cast a similar jinx on this scanner because within a week of me taking collection from Tesco Direct it had disappeared from their catalogue!!!
However, it actually took me a few days to explore the Photo Impression 6 software that was part of the scanner package but when I did so I was astounded at the results, particularly the improved sharpness available.
This has led to me re-editing most of my first series of photos, which are now displayed here. I did not bother trying to do much with the out of focus Tees Bay shots in Part 5, but most images on the other 4 pages improved considerably.

The view above was the one I posted originally, but here is the sharper version:

The edited revised version, as are all other of today’s views: