The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: dressmaking

It was warm in August. The light was long and good. Now the clocks have gone back. The children are excited about Halloween. The days are cool, the evenings dark before you've thought of tea. The light is not so good for dressmaking, and the impetus is weak as well. Soon it will be Christmas. Doesn't it all come round quickly?

I continue to provide accommodation for an old Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8 dating from 1971. Occasionally I ask it to pay its rent by pointing it in some random direction. Photographed with a Nikon D700. F/5.6; 1/125th.

Nikon D2Xs and Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens at f/2.8.

Originally this photo was in colour and looked uncertain. Conversion to black and white made it more confident. I took this photograph with a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 AI lens on a Nikon D700. The Micro-Nikkor was manufactured circa 1978, give or take a year either way. I bought it for £65 in 2011. I don't know how many previous owners it had had, but it has survived many of my periodic lens culls because it is such fun to use. The camera settings were 800 ISO, 1/160th, and f/4 in aperture priority. Although shot as a JPG I nonetheless used Lightroom to convert and boost here and there, plus cropping to 8 x 10" format. Image no. 27,316 on this D700.

The new dress, as yet uncompleted, was shot as a JPG, at 1/320th and f/4 with ISO set at 800, using a Nikon D700, with a Nikkor-H Auto 85mm f/1.8 lens. For many years I searched sporadically for a Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8 lens which had been factory-adapted to the new Nikon AI system introduced in 1977. The company never offered the lens in the AI range because they had a more compact f/2 lens ready to go. Opinions vary over which was the better lens, but there is strong affection for the original. At long last I found one for sale; cosmetically beaten up but still functional, as you might expect of a Nikkor lens of the 1964-77 period.

Nikon D2Xs and Tamron 35mm f/1.8 lens.

Myrtle is on her second year BTEC combined dressmaking and photography qualification. She funds the course with income from her sideline as an actress in blue movies (see above). Myrtle uses a Toyota sewing machine and a Nikon D50 digital camera. Her ambition is to meet and photograph her idol Billy Idol. All this is entirely true.

Some further nips and tucks to do yet. Nikon D50 and Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens.