Just a few thoughts a few yards off Ninian Central Platform, North Sea

So, here we are again. Just a few yards off one of the giants of the North Sea, the Ninian Central Platform. Not that looks as huge as it used to be these days, because there's a few even bigger ones around now.
At the time it was constructed though, in 1978 in Loch Kishorn, Scotland, it was the biggest moveable thing ever produced by man. Around 600.000 tonne of steel and concrete was tied together before the final product was towed out to the Ninian field quite a bit north on the UK sector. Up there just east of the northernmost tip of Shetland, according to this map. As soon as it was positioned and grounded at it's resting place it obviously lost it's record... as it was no longer moveable to anyone, unless you pick it to pieces of course. Looks like they have to at least start think about just that...
But OK, to be fair I have seen a lot of stuff mounted out here that looks a bit worse than this one. Just saying. We were at a rig a couple of days ago, or maybe it was yesterday. It really looked like something you would never like to spend too much time on board, to be honest.
You might even get lucky enough to see snaps some day, but being developed by me you know the film could end up in any way. As in we might see nothing at all, on a bad day. I will try, though. My very best, as it happens.

"Us and them" The Subsea Viking and the "Clair" platform out at sea, somewhere.

I was just out snapping a couple of snaps into the pinch black night, as well. With the 50mm Summicron I mentioned a few days ago. Attached it to the M6 and all, since the M3 thing ran out of film a bit earlier today after joining me for a short trip outside where I pointed the thing towards the fog as the Ninian platform slowly became more visible. They might be just a waste of film again, but you never know. Do you?
Well, snapped it up in the pinch black night I did, but maybe it was worth the hassle. You see, it has a quite impressive gas flame going, the Ninian platform. They need to burn off the stuff in a controlled manner, you see, just to keep things on the safe side.

The "Clair" platform again. They seem to kind of hanging in free air, up there. I guess we're better off with our feet planted onto a solid ship deck! :)

Last rumors indicating we are going westwards quite soon, to a more familiar place for us, which would be west of Shetland where the ship has stayed more or less stuck for the last 14 years or so. If there were prizes put up for people working in bad areas in the world my guess is that the guys working in the oil industry over there would take it home, easily. It's a bad, bad place. All the low pressures on the northern hemisphere seems to either be invented in that area, or if they by some odd chance came from further west they certainly hit the place pretty spot on, each and every time. It's one of them places that really takes it's toll, both on infrastructure, equipment and the people working out there. A rough place in the North Atlantic Ocean it is, at them oilfields we're trying to maintain as well as we possibly can.

Some rig. I don't have a clue which one. Something placed on the UK sector, at least.

This lens I got right here

Sure, I got quite a few metal cylinders where glass is mounted inside in different patterns and ways, but there's this rather special one. Production number 188 of a possible maximum of thousand ever made. At least according to the issued list of assigned serial numbers for this particular version of this legendary thing made of metal and glass. The mentioned list is from a certain company in Germany, so I would think it's quite accurate. No one knows how many actually made though, but the company itself probably.
And when this particular company issues special versions of things they used to make 50 years ago, only sky seems to be the limit pricewize. At least after some time has passed since delivery. You sometimes actually may get the impression you hold the holy grail itself in your hands.

One of many snaps done with the mentioned lens. In fact all of them in todays post are done using this thing. I seem to be learning to use the pics to give meaning to the words, eventually. 

I was aware that I own a rather special version of the Summicron thing, but truth is that I have not been thinking to much about it, and hence used it more or less in just the same way I would use any other lens. I am a lens user, you see, not a collector. My wife might look at this statement with a set of, let me say different eyes, but I am the one speaking now. 
I still like to have useable equipment to play with though, but when it comes to this particular item anyone a bit more into these things than myself would probably cry loudly if they knew that I actually used it attached to a camera. Walking the streets you know, pointing it in all kinds of directions and let it just hang there at my side dangling recklessly from that a bit less than half solid leather strap.

Joakim Nilsson from the band Graveyard singing his heart out in a small studio very nicely situated down by the sea on a small island just outside my home town of Ålesund, Norway. Ocean Sound Recordings... the name fits well enough, me thinks. Follow the link and have a peek! All things went wrong here, as I both pushed the film way over it's limits, and also made a big mistake when developing the film. There's still something about them, at least for me...

The manufacturer of this glass has a regime of etching their order numbers into stuff, and this tiny small cylinder has 11615 in nicely designed numbers written on the other side down there on one of them metal rings around the lens mount. If you got plenty of time you should go do a couple of fancy things on google and such, and you would find nothing much to be honest. But then on the sales-bay there usually seem to pop up a chance or two every now and then to get this thing inside the doors of your house, should you fancy so. Or maybe you will find out that you may use your hard earned money in a better way! 
Heck! I never thought the price had rised to this ridicolous level these days, so I am actually for maybe the first time in my history of owning cameras, really thinking about selling the thing away to someone that can take a bit more care of it than I will ever be able to do.
Well, it's not like I don't take care of my glass or anything, but I hate to walk around having to constantly remind myself not to break the thing. I feel kind of like being a concrete worker wearing diamond rings on my fingers all day, or something like that, having no clue what the feeling of wearing diamond rings on my fingers would be like. I know lots more about working with concrete, as it happens. But you know, destroying something slowly but certainly bit by bit each day.
There's a norwegian saying; throwing pearls for pigs... I don't know the english version, but I guess you can figure it out. What I'm saying is that I'm probably not the right person to own this thing. I am not worthy... to tell you the truth.

Then again, looking at the issue from a completely different point of view; why did the germans ever build this lens? This number 188 in that small series of maybe as much as a thousand. It's a great lens and it's well put together, believe me! Suits me fine it does as well when I point the thing into the somewhat right direction. Made to some of the best german specs ever, I have learned from todays reading about the matters.
They made it to make decent snaps, I would like to think. Not to sit inside some nerds hidden away vault somewhere we never would see the results of it being used.

Nah... I think I just leave it be just where it sits at the moment, more or less glued to my rangefinder from back in 1960. It seems to fit quite well on that camera, to tell you the truth. But OK, if someone would someday pay me the right ammount of pesetas for it I might just get myself another version of the same thing and use it in just the same way I have used this one. Still I would have money left to buy some film, B&W darkroom paper, maybe a used car or something else useful. At least a new camera strap...!
After all; a lens is a lens is a way to get light stick onto your film more or less the way you like it to stick. That's kind of the definition. Off that definition you could take what you need and use it the way you like, or you could argue a lifetime around what's more important of this and that... you know sharpness, bokeh... all kinds of fancy words going around inside a community of nerds like myself.
In my world they seem to be somehow over rated subjects anyway, and more or less worthless unless your style demand a certain look that by coincidence match the looks of this particular lens, no matter what type or make it is.

So, what's this you might ask yourselves?! Well, I only know it's a bridge over the old road that used to divide the area between two big shopping centers where I used to live. Then someone decided the shopping centers should merge into one... so they built this bridge over the road. It works as intended, I have heared from quite safe sources. I have used it myself as well, but I will not be the one to blame for wearing it out at some point...

Just to make this all clear. I bought this lens as a part of a few pieces containing the rangefinder camera, the lens, and a few other bits and bobs. One of them bits and bobs I lost a few months ago. An extra viewfinder as it happens, as these cameras used to be constructed with something you could either look upon as an in-built flaw or error, or you could look at it as just the right way to build it. It came without any possibility to put a 35mm lens on the thing and at the same time have a clue what you would get on the film. So you need one of these (only it had to be made in the 35mm version which is a bit hard to find these days). It's a bit over the top actually, as you might very well use your 35mm anyway and have a good enough clue if you got some experience with the 35mm vision in some way. 
Enough of that. I lost the viewfinder inside a taxi, and it was never seen again. At least not by me. 
So I thought I would get a new one. But nah... nope! This small bit cost almost as much as I paid for the whole balooba itself, and there is no way I can possibly order something like this and make anyone believe I need the thing. Not even at a fraction of the price it would cost me. So I leave it be.
Anyway, my point is that I seem to have done a good deal on the whole package at some point, at least if you keep an eye towards the bay and knowing that my lens is not that bad after all. It looks more or less as new, and I got all them boxes, leather bags, papers and everything that came with the lens from the old factory. It's a point obviously, if you ever want to sell stuff like this and bring in a good price at the same time. The collectors seem to care more about the fancy paperwork than how the thing itself works. 
I usually throw these things away, but in this case I did not. Looks like it might have been a wise decission for once. At least my kids might find out they want to get rid of a few things at some point in the future, and find out their old father actually owned something that might bring in a few pennies after all. They would never have thought that!

Oh... looks like I wrote another full story. But you know me by now, don't you? I obviously never read the book on how to make things short...!

Crew change day...

...and half way into the working period. And I never seem to get tired of nagging about how busy these days are. But OK, I will leave it all inside myself this time.

Sailed in to Peterhead around one o'clock today, and have been sitting here alongside all day. No chance to even get a half decent snap of the small town from the bridge or anything. Work, and nothing but work, all day. It actually seems I need to fish out one of them cameras and go for a walk around the vessel one of the next days, snap up some collegues or something like that. Just to waste some film, you know.
Sometimes you just have to do that, for some reason. I don't know why, but at some point you can't just hold back anymore, and need to finish that old film off. Either way.

It's from that quite silent place, again. In Scotland, as you should know. Sorry, but I'm running out of snaps to show up here, it seems. I should soon dive into that hard drive again, probably. I have not even trimmed that right hand side of it. See how sloppy I am with the scannings.

I just had a discussion going on with my son over on the fb chat. He's all digital this and that, and are now searching for a good but not too expensive digi shooter. I don't know where he's ending up, but I have read that much between the lines that I know he has set his mind on quite a few of my old lenses. Should mean he's got his aim at some Nikon then, I guess. Well, he will have to learn a few old tricks if he want to run away with to many of them fine lenses, for sure. But he will find out. I'm not too worried about that :)

It's been a while since I have posted this, I think. Done using one of the big japaneese ones, Mamiya RZ67. Big boxes they are, with huge and heavy glass in front. They are drawing nice pictures though, at times, if the person behind it all are able to adjust those wheels into some useful combinations. I suddenly see that this one could use a tiny trim as well. On the upper right hand, as it happens. Must be some disease I have caught somewhere.

It's getting late, again. I better try to find that bed in here somewhere. Should not be too difficult, as there's hardly enough room to even stretch ones old legs inside this cramped place. 
See ya!