Shutter Fug

Shooting at Batemans

2011-07-23T19:19:00.002+01:00

A busy life means I haven't done much lately, but today I went to Batemans which was a bit of a challenge.

DPE and DPT reviews

2011-04-03T09:20:00.002+01:00

The other two magazine reviews are now up.

Digital Photography Techniques
http://shootstart.com/blog/?p=722

and

Digital Photography Enthusiast
http://shootstart.com/blog/?p=726

April Amateur Photographer

2011-04-03T00:10:00.001+01:00

I took a look at the latest Amateur Photographer magazine. There are some more magazines coming up.

Garden Snow Birds

2010-12-19T11:55:00.001Z

A new post - Garden Snow Birds.

Shoot Start is nearly living

2010-12-04T17:42:00.000Z

The new system at http://www.shootstart.com/ is now living and breathing. The blog is running, there is a gallery system running and I've managed to get a forum working. Let's see how many days that lasts before someone spams the hell out of it.

Reviews To Come

2010-11-14T19:36:00.002Z

Besides all the book reviews that I've put on the new site here there are still six more to come. Even though I'm still doing a lot of work on the shoot start web site I've promised myself that I'll read these books before the end of 2010.

Digital Food Photography by Lou Manna promises to give up a good few tricks of the trade to get those photographs that make the viewer want to eat the paper.

Still Life and Special Effects Photography has been changing hands for three figure sums; and that's to the left of the decimal point. Why, I can't understand because even though the pictures are stunning and show you how they were achieved, I don't think I could carry out many of them without a studio and serious extra equipment.

Creative Lighting Techniques for Studio Photographers by Dave Montizambert promises to give up the secrets of taking that standard portrait and breathing some magic in to it. I'm looking forward to this book.

Master Lighting Guide For Portrait Photographers by Christopher Grey contains a large section on the equipment and appears to take the beginner in to the realms of knowing how to use their lighting equipment to the best effect.

The Photographers Eye by Michael Freeman focusses on composition; an area which my own photography needs work, so I'm expecting to learn and be inspired by this book.

Posing And Lighting Technniques for Studio Portrait Photography by J.J. Allen is a long title, but a short read. I'm wondering how this will fair against Grey's or Montizambert's books. Time will tell.

So, keep an eye out for these reviews coming soon.

Light Temperature

2010-11-07T08:36:00.002Z

I just finished the article on light temperature and even included a quick trick for determining your light source temperature in case you're dealing with one of those awkward new fangled thingamies.

Equipment section working

2010-11-06T20:52:00.002Z

The equipment review section of the new site has the three current bags in place. More will be coming.

Three more sections to do and two of the three columns of the site will be complete!

IGPOTY at Wakehurst

2010-11-06T18:59:00.002Z

There is a new post on the Shoot Start blog about seeing the IGPOTY at Wakehurst today, and a few pictures I took of the autumn light and colour.

Monopods

2010-11-06T10:32:00.001Z

I personally believe that monopods are one of the most underestimated pieces of equipment.

Think Tank Belt Review

2010-11-05T08:36:00.002Z

In creating the new Shoot Start site, I managed to post a review of the Think Tank belt system. It only got three stars out of five.

Sharing the love

2010-11-01T22:58:00.000Z

Well, it is big thanks to Chase Jarvis, Joe McNally and David Hobby for giving me the permission to use some of their pictures and video in a talk to my local camera club.

I've just come back from presenting it and I think it has got a few people to catch their thoughts. It took a good while before it happened though. It was planned last year but had to wait until this seasons fixtures.

Many of the meets are a similar vein, either competition nights or a guest comes in to present their photography. This night was a bit different. The theme was community and sharing. How the likes of Chase and Joe are documenting their work and lives and putting it up there for other people to not only learn from, but be inspired by. David's work at Strobist needs very little introduction to the masses that he has contributed to the photographic community.

The night was a change from the normal camera club fair and it sparked a number of questions from people. If some people look at their photography in a different light and change their patterns then it has been a good night.

That is what the night was all about ... energy ... innovation ... getting out there and doing it. As I stood out the front, I definitely felt energy and interest coming back at me.

Well worth the time.

Country walking advice video

2010-10-14T05:57:00.000+01:00

I've been quiet for two main reasons. Firstly, I've been putting a lot of energy in to ripping my DVD collection. I'm fed up of being forced to watch five to ten minutes worth of advertising crap and having to wade through repeated company idents (Yeh, Fox, suffering your bleedin' trumpets FOUR times before being able to watch MASH) and ... well, times have moved on and disc is dead. Well, blu-ray was superseded by holographic disc even before it even hit the shelves. I want to watch my films on my phone, my netbook and on other such devices that don't have DVD drives.

The second is that I've been making another advice video. This time it is about walking and shooting in the British countryside. I hope it helps someone...

3D on standard bodies

2010-09-13T12:56:00.000+01:00

This interesting development from Lumix was reported on Amateur Photographer.

A 3D lens that fits on the existing body. There is no further technical information as to how this works (must be something bleedin' strange if you ask me) but is probably doing the reverse of the printable flat images that deliver a 3D experience to the naked eye without glasses.

I dare say that there will be more information in due course, but the important thing that I am taking away from this, is that existing equipment can be taken in to the 3D stills photography arena without a major systems change. Now THAT would be a miracle.

I've been quiet

2010-09-04T20:41:00.000+01:00

Yes, I've been quiet for a while.

A couple of things have happened. Firstly, I was on holiday for two weeks. Nothing outlandish, just a caravan in New Forest (again) for a fortnight.

Secondly, I've decided to create a new web site for the photography side of things. This means I'm busy transferring this blog to a site that I control ... off Google. The new site is still in the design stage, but it should bring together all the bits and pieces that I've learned over the years, and put it together in a fashion that makes it easier for people to dip in to.

So ... I beg your patience while I do all this!

Review - Kata 123-GO-30

2010-08-19T14:26:00.001+01:00

Although the Expedition 8X is a superb bag, it has a couple of problems. In my search for an alternative I settled on the Kata 123-GO-30 but it, too, has its troubles. Here is my review.

What a lens

2010-07-30T21:45:00.002+01:00

Well, for all the Pentax lovers out there, I happened across proof that not all the hacks use Canon and Nikon. I was just by chance watching the special features DVD for The Fifth Element which had a section that covered the arrival of Bruce Willis at the Cannes festival premier of the film (we're talking 1997 here) and for the flash of a second there was this rather large Pentax lens in the picture.

Amazingly, looking at the guys grip on the lens tripod mount, I actually believe the intrepid photographer here is hand holding the beast! Covering the entire entry event with a lens like that ... man, that photographer is going to have sore arms in the morning. Given the year concerned, that must be a film body on the end of it, but ... there but for the grace of a lottery win, go I.

Polarised about polarisers?

2010-07-12T07:08:00.004+01:00

A polariser is a wonderful bit of kit, but I see so few photographers using them these days. Yesterday I pottered around Wakehurst Place and my circular polariser was fitted all through the day.

The primary problem with a polarising filter is the large amount of light that it eats up. It can only be used with good sunlight; either that or a tripod and a slow moving subject. These duck shots are a case in point. As I turn the polariser you can see what it does to the water. Unfortunately, being in the shade the duck was blurred but because I've got more duck shots than a hunter, I couldn't be bothered to get the tripod out.

You're not only looking at the water, however. You'll notice that the colour of the duck and the floating leaves change also.

Water isn't the only thing that a polariser is good for. It can really change the tonality of the foliage, as you can see in these two shots. The exif is intact in these jpegs, they were taken 8 seconds apart from each other (me, turning the polariser between shots)

Another area where I don't see many people use it, is actually for statues and buildings. A polariser can really affect the shadows and cut out unwanted light. As well as the quality of the stone work here, just take a look at the top right of the shot to see what happens to the sun light in the window.

The other thing is to look at the shadows. Even on a bright, sunny day you can redeem some of the harsh shadows and get a wonderfully balanced shot. So while other photographers are cowering under the mid day sun, you can be out there, kicking shadowy butt. Try doing THIS in photoshop :-) And yes, the shots were both hand held.

Using a polarising filter with your camera is relatively easy. Just look at the bottom of your flare hood for a cut away opening. Once you've taken the small door away, you can adjust the polariser with your finger without having to take the flare hood off all the time.

Light, light, light

2010-07-06T07:11:00.002+01:00

David Hobby posted this video from Fstoppers.com which is Lee Morris proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that with the right light you can use perhaps the worst camera in the world and come up with great shots.

The capability of low quality cameras have been shining recently. Competitions specifically for mobile phone photography have been turning out some serious entries. Henry Reichhold has been doing some stunning shooting with nothing more than a Nokia N86 and some of his work has been on display at Heathrow Airport. Chase Jarvis uses his Apple iPhone and developed The Best Camera named, basically, after the fact that the best camera there is, is the one that's with you at the time.

Many of the demo and thumbnail shots for my blogs have been with my camera phone, because the secret sauce is usually down to the amount of light that is available. Enemy number one with a mobile is hand holding and number two is the on camera, "flash," which, when it does have enough power, gives your subjects a really crappy look. But with enough light I can get a really great shot of something which is definitely good enough. Some of the small tricks I use even with a small camera, can be found at Shoot Green that I started to put together specifically for small camera shooting. Now, there are even photography courses specifically aimed at the camera phones that are out there. Wow.

I even did a Christmas Quiz at the end of 2008 of the same shot taken with different cameras; the answers are here.

However, Lee goes further than I can; he gets out the studio lights and shows what can be done with an iPhone camera. Go Lee!

We have contact...

2010-07-04T08:47:00.001+01:00

Like many people I've worn glasses most of my life. I have astigmatisms in both eyes and they're about +2 on the left and -2 on the right. What a combination!

Also like many people, I've been using my camera with my glasses. Until yesterday.

I haven't got any test pictures to show you, 'cause 1) I don't want to waste your time with pictures of walls, trees, bushes, gravel floors and the arse end of my car but 2) I'm on the netbook away from home and the hard drive is near death's door. Yes, Toshiba replaced the failed motherboard on my NB200, but it seems that the trip to Germany has damaged the hard disk. But despite suffering IT issues and being on the road, I'm still bringing you this post. Isn't technology wonderful!?

Anyway, returning to our scheduled programming, the net result was that I ended up with contact lenses. They've taken a few weeks to get used to. I've been sat in front of a mirror, poking my finger in to my eyes in an effort to get the things in and out; and it took until yesterday to get comfortable to the degree of lifting the camera to my newly cloaked right eye.

The experience wasn't too bad. One of my more usual failings that have to be fixed in post, is composition. Now that the lens of the glasses are out of the way, however, I feel more confident about my framing. I have better contact with the camera.

The one problem with a contact is that if you blink then the world can go fuzzy for a second or two, and if I was capturing fast action or looking for the moment, I find myself questioning whether contacts are the right thing. Time will tell on that front.

Also, whereas my glasses protect against UV and have a reaction system in them, the contact lenses don't; which is a bummer. Also, in the sun I've got to take standard sunglasses on and off; and I don't have the cash to splash on a non-corrected version of my reaction glasses, either. The sunglasses I've got are a bit on the heavy side which means that when out in the country I'm less likely to see the animals move in the bushes.

Using contact lenses aren't all benefit, there are a few drawbacks. Instructed by an optician who had specialised in contacts her whole life made getting over the squeamish side of things very easy. She taught me the right techniques to use to get the lenses in and out. Finding a good optician is important to me. Fortunately, my luck was in and the local independent optician really saved my bacon. I dread to think what will happen if Specsavers buys him out.

Net result; once confident in using them, they don't always sit easily on your eyes and can give you that blink of unfocussed vision. Contacts have given me the feeling of being at home with the camera again and I don't have the compositional trouble like I used to; but at some point I'm going to have to get reactionary standard sun glasses.

Stay tuned for a more detailed review as I get used to them in time and see whether it really was putting the effort in to being able to poke my own eye out and not flinch.

In terms of which type of contacts I'm going for, as most of my photography is on an occasional intense basis, I'm going to use dailies. That eliminates the need for all the cleaning faff; use them and throw them away. If one drops out of my eye I haven't got to waste time scrabbling on the floor to find it, I can just open myself a new lens packet. Also, as I won't be using them that often I can save the wear and tear on my eyes.

The monthly pair that I've been getting used to have been quite a neat thing once the technique of getting them in and out was achieved; but I wonder about the cleaning issue when away from home, camping, or at an event at someone else's property; which is where most of my photography happens. I don't like the thought of having to find extra cleaning solution or carry around the lens case. Anything which helps the shoot go more smoothly ticks my boxes.

There is also the question over whether having a contact lens on will help my eyeball revert to standard eye sight; flatten or control the astigmatism. I don't know on that one. I do know people who wear monthlies that stay in their eyes for the entire month, even when sleeping, and they don't seem to have a problem; but neither has their prescription changed as a result, so it looks like I'm not going to gain any health benefits here; it is all risk of using against convenience of life. That's what its going to boil down to over the next few months.

Right now, however, it is 8:30 and I'll be going out for breakfast soon, so if you'll excuse me I've got to go upstairs and stick my finger in my eye. If you hear any screams, don't worry; it is all part of the learning process.

The Wheel of Life

2010-06-29T06:52:00.000+01:00

I ended up cross posting this on Shutter Fug (videography) and Life Of A Stranger.

There is more photography to come from Port Lympne, but I put this together from footage I shot on the mini safari that was part of the package for, "Livingstone Lodge." This involved an elongated tour of the hundred or so acres of land which is given over to free roaming hoof stock and the information given by guides who came from Africa and spent considerable years dealing with the ecosystem there.

The wheel of life is actually quite fragile and it is amazing to hear some of the checks that nature has put in place to avoid some disasters; and then how man has come along, made one change and killed over a hundred species giving himself a good deal of problems in the process.

One of the things in this video is how the Red Lechway graze the rough grass. Once they are done, when the floods come fish can traverse the wider flooded planes, eat the insects and lay larvae. This is then food for birds, etc. and when the waters go, the softer grass is available for other animals to graze on as the rough grasses have gone. When the Lechway are taken away, the fish are confined to the river, birds haven't got the same food available and starve and also the fish don't get to eat anywhere near the amount of insects they would have done; leaving man with an insect problem. Plus, the other grazers can't get at the soft grass because the rough grass is still there.

The guide made another point; why are we eating animals that we have to inject, dip in chemicals and wreck the habitat so they can graze on soft grasses. Better to instead use the naturally occurring animals instead. He has a point.

The other major thing was that nature has a protection mechanism against inbreeding. This is because inbreeding gives rise to genetic malformations including white animals. Normally, white animals are killed by the parents because they can't survive themselves; white animals can't camouflage and can't hunt; they'll starve. Also, they attract predators to the whole herd. White animals can't be reintroduced to Africa, firstly because it is human intervention that allowed them to come about in the first place and secondly because they can't survive there in the wild. So, if you are attracted to part with money to support conservation efforts aiming to reintroduce white animals to Africa, best check up on them first; there is a good possibility that the efforts are complete frauds and have been created specifically to get peoples money. In a few days I'll adjust this paragraph to include links to where you can do just that and be certain of where your money is going.

Science is also making things worse. Sub breeds exist and science wants to conserve these. The guide told it truthfully; if herds come across each other, they'll just mate and produce half breeds. Nature doesn't care, so why should we; especially as it gets in the way of reintroduction efforts. After all, so many species were introduced from other continents some years ago so it is a bit of a joke to ensure that some breeds are only introduced in to certain areas based on the breed that they are.

This is not a good situation.

Proud to be British

2010-06-27T08:17:00.002+01:00

It is when you see cars like this that you not only want to celebrate the engineering history of the UK but also the continuing love and dedication that some people have got to the preservation and upkeep of some treasures.

This Rolls Royce is over a hundred years old and is still earning a living. In this case, collecting newly weds from church. It was an opportunistic set and the owner gracefully let me photograph the car from close up. The current owner has done more than a hundred thousand miles in it himself and is anticipating many more. The details in a machine of this beauty have to be noticed as well as the overall impression of the car itself.

The Teleprompter - Part 1 - Hardware

2010-06-25T08:43:00.000+01:00

It was a bit of a puzzler as to where I put this post, but I thought photography might be the best place of them all.

As yours truly is engaged mostly in video recording some of the tips and tricks, it is necessary to create a smooth appearance and not stutter over words and phrases in order to get the words out.

A teleprompter was going to be the only answer to the inevitable range of post it notes and scribbled bits of scrap paper. How to get one at reasonable cost, however, was going to be a big question. Some, "reader," systems that hold the teleprompt below the camera were no good because being close to the camera meant that my eyes were obviously not looking at the viewer. I'd tried that. A mirror solution was the only solution that was going to work.

How to do it at the lowest cost, however, would remain the only issue.

I ended up getting a reasonable unit from Teleprompter Mirrors called the personal teleprompter. It isn't much more than two frames linked with a large hinge and a silvered mirror fitted in to one of them. A shroud and a bracket to keep it at the right angle and it was good to go.

Obviously, I wasn't going to be mounting it to the display of a laptop; I needed flexibility, so I had to design something that my limited carpentry skills could make.

The key feature of this design is relative simplicity and what I perceived as a combination of flexibility and strength.

The four posts and the arms are made from 1" square wood and the positioning of the posts gives the arms support but also leaves the front open so that if I have to insert a display that is wider than the board, I can.

The front lip was put on to prevent anything slipping off the front should I decide to angle the unit down a bit, but three screws can see this removed and possibly replaced with an extended front should I want to go that way.

The other key thing about this was that with everything on the board, I used two pencils, one at either side, and then rocked the unit on top of it. Doing this see-saw action enabled me to move the pencils until I eventually found the natural centre point for the weight. A bit of drilling later and I had a bolt that went through the board and can sit in a standard umbrella holder.

I have to admit to taking the brolly bracket down to the DIY store and getting an assistant to help me find the most appropriate bolt. Kat Maul hand made a wide washer for me so that I didn't put too much pressure on the underside of the wood when I tightened the nut up, and she also gave me a split washer which will help stop the nut from coming undone over time.

Now you can see the teleprompter mirror itself, mounted using the velcro strips that came with it. With a screwdriver it can be packed flat again and the velcro means it stays on the arms reasonably securely and if I have to, I can adjust its position.

The construction is relatively straightforward, consisting of two frames joined together by a strong, wide hinge. The glass is fitted in one of the panels and a black shroud is also added. I decided to undo most of the bottom pins, leaving only the two closest to each edge, to make the glass easier to clean and to give the shroud a bit more room to flow over the camera.

The tripod itself is a difficulty here. There is a collision between the tripod and the display. The camera needs to be reasonably close to the glass, otherwise it will, "see," the horizontal frame in shot (zooming can help, but sometimes eats too much light, which is made worse when shooting through a silvered mirror) but the tripod legs prevents the screen coming too far back. There is, perhaps, a case for a custom built tripod mount, perhaps something that runs on the rails, but I'll have to think about this.

Ultimately, this is designed for use with a tablet. I've got my eyes on some of the 8" Android tablets that are coming out of China for about £100 but it will be a month or two before I can afford one now.

Fortunately, more by luck than judgement, my netbook can be fitted in to the gap and the bottom edge of it rests very well against the teleprompter frame. Not ideal, but it will get me through the next few months.

A larger laptop will obviously have problems doing this because of the width, but I thought that getting a wider teleprompter screen would both be more expensive and too bulky. The 17" standard screen mount is a nice width; too small and I'd have trouble mounting the camera tripod. It would have been possible, certainly, to go with a 15" screen and an 8" tablet, but the resting platform for the tripod might be an issue. If you're thinking of following me, I'm afraid that you'll have to make up your own mind and take your own gamble!

It was only after the event that I realised with a little more judicious chopping of wood, that I could have created arms that rose 45 degrees. It would then have been simply a case of ordering the correct glass from somewhere and fixing it to the arms. The only downside to this solution would be that collapsing it would remove strength over time. It wouldn't travel well.

Anyway, here it is in action during my very first try out...

The Sony NEX DSLR

2010-06-20T07:29:00.001+01:00

It was expected, but has it started? The end of the DSLR? Well, I offer for you The Registers hands on report of the camera.

The big bug bear for me is that the lenses are still large. Indeed, the comment I put forward for moderation is... "I mean, that 50-200, was it 4 to 5.6, was it 2.8 throughout the range? What? It is easy to make a small lens at poor performance but if that was a 4 to 5.6 and they then manufacture a 2.8 that is eight times the size of the body ... it's no DSLR killer, that's for sure."

But it is warning shot across the bows not to invest serious money in more lenses. The anti-shake system, taking and combining six 14 mega pixel images in just a couple of seconds ... man, that is some serious computing power on board. They are now at the final hurdle; lens technology. Once they've cracked that, the game will change; but not until then I think.

To that last question on lens technologies, Scotty might have an insight, "We canna' change the laws of physics, Cap'n."

Lighting for Portrait Photography

2010-06-05T07:24:00.000+01:00

I finally got around to reading Steve Bavister's revised book on portrait photography.

Not far in to the book, he writes, "If you don't have much time then sophisticated lighting setups are obviously out - which is one of the reasons so many of the pictures in this book were taken using only one or two heads." and that is a distinct bonus for those learning lighting, especially for the beginners who may only be able to afford a single head and a couple of basic modifiers.

He lays the groundwork not only for lighting, but also what the other professionals such as make up artists, hair and clothes stylists bring to a shoot. The stuff that even if you're just a lone photographer, you need to be aware of because it will have an impact on the picture.

By page twenty, Steve has lain the groundwork for shoots and basic lighting tools.

The book doesn't go straight for flash but spends about forty pages looking at available light, taking the reader through using positioning and reflectors to make the best out of whatever natural light may be available.

A good portion of the book runs on one light only, all be it enhanced with reflectors in places. It does then finish off with some more complex multi-light set ups and throughout the book gives the final shot with an easy to understand diagram of where the model, camera and lights were positioned. A paragraph usually supports the shot giving basic details; it doesn't get overly technical.

For someone new to lighting, I give this book a four out of five. It gives good description and examples of how the resultant light looks. I feel it will give any new student of light a good foot up in understanding how to better light their subject for the effects they want.

It is not a passive book, however. There aren't any simple mathematics that can be lifted from the page here. It will require being actively aware of the visual learning that needs to happen, to benefit from this book.

Using Flash Technical Guide

2010-06-03T16:58:00.001+01:00

Not much use if you already know how to use flash, but I'm hoping that it might help those who come to flash and haven't got a clue as to what it is all about.

On camera, off camera, modifiers and all that jazz. Hope it helps someone!

A new bag

2010-06-02T06:31:00.000+01:00

I've been taking time, lately, to record a video series on flash for people like me who are new to the subject of on and off camera flash. Two more parts to put up on Viddler and things will return more to normal around here. That doesn't mean that it has been all quiet on the western front.

I'm in the middle of a few days walking; twenty miles down and another twenty to go before I return to work on Friday. Having to remove all the gear out of the Expedition 8x is proving to be a real pain. So much of a pain that I've done another load of bag research. I've even exchanged a few e-mails with Lowepro; but I've settled on the Kata 123-go-30. I didn't go for another Tamrac because of the lack of space for non-photo equipment.

In its favour is a good balance between equipment and space for stuff that supports a day hike. It can hold a reasonable number of lenses and also a tripod using the extra (looks bit floppy) foot holder.

On the downside appears to be no external loop for a pouch; I like to keep my water bottle easily accessible. I'll have to work out a way around this.

Many modern designs are trying methods that allow a backpack to sling. The Kata has an X strap ability, but I'm not sure how well this will work with breasts. I'm also intrigued to find out how much/little padding/support is there for the back. Looking at the pictures, I don't think it will be as comfortable as the Tamrac.

There are two things I feel are missing from everyone's designs. One is easy access to the mobile phone; an ability to get at the phone without having to take the pack off is a real plus. Some safe, velcro phone pouch on the shoulder would be good. At the moment I'm attaching my phone holder to one of the shoulder strap rings.

The other is the lack of rain cover for the tripod. No one seems to have cracked this design issue yet. From all that I've seen, the moment a tripod is attached, all the weather protection options go out the window.

More details and a full review when it arrives.

ZFS, fault tolerance and mirroring

2010-05-16T06:56:00.007+01:00

There is one thing in my head; more so now that SDXC is on the scene. It is also one of the reasons why I feel exFAT is more irrelevant than ever on removable media...

Fault Tolerance.

I mean, think about it. The opportunity is actually already present. Not only that, it remains such a massive possibility that I can't imagine why someone hasn't done it already.

It goes like this...

Firstly, a device such as a camera, has two SD card slots. Instead of running a weak file system like FAT or NTFS, they engage with ZFS to mirror the two cards. I mean, in a professional world where fault tolerance and reliability is highly prized, why not?

With the capacity of the XC card it would completely eliminate the need to run to an external backup system. After all, many of the backup systems out there have weak file systems anyway; the best they can manage is mirroring.

So what happens when you get home or want to send the SD cards through the post or something.

All you need at the recipients end is an external card reader, just like we have now. Such a card reader would have two SD slots, it can take the pair of cards (or even one, ZFS is fault tolerant remember) and present one file system to whatever device is attached. If you wanted to go the extra mile, the SD card reader could actually be smart enough to present the files as if they were a different file system! This also allows you, if absolutely necessary, to hand one card to the client at the end of the shoot and have one copy yourself without having to add on the hours it takes to dump the card to another media; that is at the expense of the fault tolerance, however, but it would then be an option.

Don't have ZFS support on your OS? No problem, just flick a switch and the device will present in ext3 for you. Or if you absolutely HAVE to, exFAT. This kind of ability could also be built in to the camera for its PC USB connection. Imagine the power of being able to switch presentational file formats to match whatever system you're connected to!

Got a problem? Want to get deeper in to the cards? No problem, a GUI will interface with the card reader and tell you of any problems and give you the opportunity to fix anything which the card reader itself isn't able to fix. Oh yes, the file system can fix itself up like you wouldn't believe...

But why put the effort in to ZFS? Fault tolerance of ZFS goes far beyond many other file systems. It can detect data errors that others can't even see. As Synchronet writes, "As a matter of fact, ZFS is the only file system that's self-healing and automatically fixes bad blocks with 99.99999999999999999% certainty - the odds of a collision on a 64-bit checksum."

Sol why the fuck are we still stupid enough to buy products that are based on FAT, forcing us to carry around external mirrored hard drives when there is the ability to have faster, superior fault tolerance right in the very devices we are using?

I tell you ... just look at the cost of FAT file system licensing and the prices being paid by the big companies who's products we buy. They could develop and bring such a ZFS open source solution to market with ease for a fraction of that money.

Madness. The whole damn thing of continuing to licence an archaic file system for our portable media is madness.

What does it take?

2010-05-15T15:44:00.000+01:00

Someone, on a forum that I'm a loose part of, asked a question and raised a number of sub-points.

In the many discussions i have seen. Many and most are technical discussions. This is after all strobist.! But honestly, don't you think you matter more than your gear? Do you try to re-create the look of some other person's photo, or do you Create the look of your own photo? I'm wondering what it really takes for someone to be "the best" photographer? What separates the visionary from the mass?

This was my reply...

Well, I can't tell you what it takes to be a successful photographer, but I can tell you what it has taken for me to hopefully have earned a little respect among people as a computer engineer.

-What personality does it take to be a photographer that get's rehired?
What it takes to be an engineer that people are glad to call on, is someone who keeps the customer in the picture. Appraised. up to date and in the loop to the extent that they want to be. When I've had work where I know I can't handle it, I've been appreciated more for telling the customer that and even handing the work to another engineer. I have nothing to gain from embarrassing failure.

Trust and honesty is sometimes appreciated more than I have ever realised.

-Do you consider only the ideas you have or do you listen to your subject's input?
Every technician I've met has their own way of doing things. Just like photography equipment, there is a basic standard of computer equipment. It is not so much what tool you use, but how you use it. A clear understanding of the B point in any journey aids that journey immensely ... and I'm just the driver, it is the customer that knows where they want to be. It is part of my job to put my oar in to the creative process, however, but it is a right I don't always exercise as some customers just won't listen.

-Do you keep a notebook where you sketch your brilliant ideas? Do you actually try to create these ideas into photos?
Technique is everything. You can see a neighbouring building, envy it and want to re-create another in its image. However, I don't always have the same materials at my disposal. The best I can do is increase my understanding of my bricks, my mortar, my tools ... it is only by knowing these things that I can hope to build a building that will be solid. Inspiration should be just that ... something that should inspire creation, not mimic. Even so, there are standards that everyone learns and basics that everyone builds

How many of us have been in computer class, given a list of number and told to write a routine to sort them in to order ... and how many of us have re-invented the wheel known as the, "bubble sort."

-Are you very concerned about how the subject feels or do you care more about the photos/aesthetics? and does that sometimes mean braving the worst conditions?
I've fixed some very nasty faults on systems where the client is losing money rapidly with down time, and I have the managers breathing over my shoulder in the server room because of it. I have to be concerned that the customer feels confident that a solution is close at hand, or being worked towards at every step of the way. These people can crush my reputation ... if I ignore how they feel, I risk disenfranchising them from the situation, and they will react badly to that.

There is more to be gained by failing honestly than succeeding dishonestly because when the next situation comes around, as it inevitably will, they will know the person they would rather have on the job.

-Do you help other photographers and contribute in communities?
IT knowledge is massive. No one person can know it all. When your computer blue screens, when you encounter an error message you haven't seen before ... how many can say that they turned to the internet and didn't find the answer?

-In real life, does the lighting in your home/school/office actually affect and bother you? Are you really understanding of what light is good and bad?
Light affects us all. We seem to adapt, however. It wasn't until our office was fitted with daylight bulbs that we could see the difference between our room and the unconverted corridor and it was only then that we asked ourselves how we could have worked in such lighting.

It is known that experts say this and that about lighting quality, but we don't know about how it affects us until we are outside the forest looking at the trees? How many city workers don't think twice about the air that they breathe until they get up in to the mountains and take a deep lung full of fresh air?

Once that worker returns to the city, it isn't long before the fresh mountain air is just a fading memory and the mother of necessity over rides us once again.

The green tinge of some lighting affects some worse than others and those that have no choice but to endure it, find other ways of battling any depressive thoughts it engenders.

You know ... in some ways the human species really is remarkable.

-Are you a peoples person?
To a degree. Communication has to be effective, at every level, in order to progress. We are humans, however, and need solitude as much as we need company. You don't have to be a people person, however, to be an effective communicator; you don't have to be a people person to be able to listen to the other person and empathise with their situation. You don't have to be a people person in order to be able to be an effective team member and work towards a solution.

...but it helps.

Do you try to re-create the look of some other person's photo, or do you Create the look of your own photo?
I use other peoples solutions as a means for the customer to tell me where they want to be. Sometimes the time honoured solutions are the best. Sometimes you strive to make the wheel that little bit rounder, that little bit smoother, to work with that little less friction. There are set standards which I can follow and I know I'll end up with the right result. There are times to follow that pattern and there are times to break the recipe and inject fresh ingredients.

Only you know when those times are right.

So, yes, I matter more than my equipment ... but I am only as good as the equipment that supports me and my knowledge and skill in using it.

Infra Red

2010-05-12T21:55:00.002+01:00

I've been doing more with Infra Red. My main aim has been to improve the AF in dim light conditions, but I haven't had too much success. The IR torch in this video only manages a couple of metres.

Low Light AF lock

2010-05-06T19:30:00.000+01:00

If you're camera is like mine, a pain to AF on subjects when there is low light around, then you can consider an LED infared torch.

The trick is this. While most DSLR sensors have a filter which prevents IR light from being recorded (check whether your camera has this filter by taking pictures of IR remotes firing) the focusing mechanism has no such filter.

The end result is that if you illuminate your subject with an IR torch, then the AF mechanism can see it, but the IR light doesn't get recorded in the final picture.

I'll let you know about my results when it finally reaches me, but in the mean time, here is an experiment I did a few years ago...

The LRPS feedback

2010-05-01T10:13:00.003+01:00

The feedback by the chairman concluded, "Your panel was a 'near miss.' It started with two strong images which were of high quality and showed your involvement with the subject. They also showed that you can achieve Licentiate standard. Some of your other images were less strong and we wondered whether perhaps you had included then 'for variety.' Variety can be shown with lighting, use of different lenses, depth of field and viewpoint, not just subject matter. We sensed that you probably have more suitable images in your collection already."

Well, I admit here and now that the panel was relying on the feedback of others rather than my own understanding of the rules. I mean, I got the main thrust of the Licentiateship as it was spelled out in the handbook, "To be successful you require a sound basic technical skill and you need to show that you are competent in all the areas set out in the criteria below." and I'll come back to that later. However, we'll take a look at the images that were presented.

There were three judgement sources at work here...

An unknown mentor that gave feedback via the RPS.
An FRPS qualified person in a club not too far away took a look at around twenty images and produced the panel from them.
The feedback from the panel itself.

There was also a person I won't name, who helped me put together the images to present to the FRPS person from which to draw the panel.

Number one drew criticism from the mentor, "well composed but needs to be sharp from front to back. The foreground is out of focus. The choice of lens aperture and point of focus could be viewed by panel members as a technical problem."; yet the panel described it as one of the strong images which were of high quality. This shot was actually a 1:1 crop out of a shot I took of a bearded Australian dragon named, Aussie. It is, perhaps, a good example of how different judges opinions can be.

This image seemed to garner approval from all three sources (the unknown mentor, the FRPS and the panel.) There was a degree of blur and noise in the image which I think was hidden by the lights. I included this for variety of subject rather than the quality. I didn't crop this image.

The shot of BlueBell Railway staff came from the outside choices. It wasn't included in the original set of pictures that went to the mentor, but was a choice included by the FRPS. The panel, however, didn't like it., "Image 3 was probably an impossible scene - it needed either more detail in the figures or alternatively for them to be complete silhouettes." Two opposing ends of the spectrum there; but this was judged the worst of the panel.

This shot was, again, not one seen by the original mentor but the FRPS picked it. The panel didn't offer any specific comment on it so I assume it was included in the overall feedback above.

The same with this shot. Not sent to the original mentor but picked by the FRPS and didn't draw any specific panel comment.

This one was included as a result of a fourth person from a club. It was a crop at their suggestion. It was also moved to the left and I had to artificially create a portion of the right arm of the sofa. It was also selected by the FRPS but drew comment from the panel for the lighting. It required more light on the face. It is one of the grandfathers favourite shots, being up on his office wall at work.

This shot was actually a complete candid. The room was set up with soft boxes on studio light. The little boy was changing his clothes in between shoots and there was a soft box off to his left which just happened to give enough light for me to get the shot ... it was total chance. But it does have a nice tonal quality and it has attracted some comment. I am left wondering whether the panel are wanting to be too perfect here.

The flower was a lazy shot. The mentor picked it up as looking to be L standard and indeed the FRPS picket it out. The panel commented that it could have done with more DOF. I admit that I was lain on my back, on the floor, and the orchid plant happened to be above me. I just picked up the camera and took the shot as best I could without having to dig out a tripod. It did have a distracting section in the bottom right which the mentor picked up on, and the club member also commented about, so I cloned that out before it went to the FRPS and the panel.

This shot was a long beach exposure; the action of the water coming in and out is what created the mist effect. It was one of a number of shots I took and I considered the best of the bunch. It, too, drew no negative comment.

The flower was not seen by the mentor but was picked by the FRPS. I have to admit that it is one that I have on my wall; it has drawn a lot of comment from people who love it. The panel, however, didn't like it. They wanted the centre flower to be better lit.

Lastly a portrait which the mentor didn't see but the FRPS picked from the images. Again, the panel criticised it for not having enough light on the face.

And this brings me to my conclusion on the feedback from the LRPS panel. They are expecting people to use fill flash and reflectors for portraiture. If you are like me and effectively on your own, then using a reflector isn't going to be easy. For someone who is not used to modelling, it will be difficult enough for them to follow your posing instructions, let alone for them to handle a portable reflector as well. So for that, you're in trouble.

As for using a flash to fill ... ugh. It is a technique that can take practice and needs precise knowledge before you go out and try to use it to catch portraits. Candid portraits are difficult enough to catch in the first place; but to have to calculate fill flash as well makes it nigh on impossible. All you can actually do is put the flash on automatic and pray that the system will expose correctly.

I have seen pictures of people who have gained their qualifications some considerable years ago. In the length of time that has past, their pictures don't have the edge to the modern eye. Some decades ago, a colourful picture of a far Eastern village would have drawn comments of wonder. Now, we are all used to them and I have to wonder whether those same images would have passed the qualifications now.

It has come to the point where, perhaps, our experiences have jaded us to raw photography, to the skill of capturing the image as it happens. Maybe a natural image is now becoming unappealing to the eye. One thing is for sure, I dare not use any of my candid portraiture in a future panel, regardless of whether or not the tonal quality pleases me.

The mentor, the FRPS and the panel agreed on a good number of occasions, but in some instances disagreed strongly. This is, unfortunately, the way that any subjective process goes and if going for the LRPS yourself, my only advice is to keep it safe, keep it consistent and be prepared to use some light modifiers to amp the ambient if the main subject isn't isolated well enough from the background.

Sensor Cleaning

2010-04-25T11:01:00.001+01:00

A look at how I use both the Giotto Rocket blower and the Pentax ICK1 to keep my camera sensor clean.

Macro Tube Photography

2010-04-23T07:32:00.000+01:00

A ten minute look at macro photography using a cheap macro tube, rather than an expensive dedicated macro lens. The macro tube I'm using is here.

47th Street Photo - lesson learned

2010-04-20T07:32:00.003+01:00

It could have been worse. It could have been MUCH worse. Fortunately, I got a cheap ring flash, all be it with brown glue all inside the collector. The other saving grace is that I ordered it through Amazon so at least there is SOME form of protection for me.

47th Street Photo has horror stories dotted all over the Internet. This is their web site...

The package arrived pretty fast enough, but I immediately discovered the glue in the collector; as I posted here before.

> Please accept my apologies for that. We have heard about this issue before.
> Please let me know if this affects the light output and we'll promptly
> replace it.

That sounded fine, so I requested a return. In short order I got back...

> Please accept my apologies for that. Due to the size of the product and the
> costs of facilitating the overseas return, we would like to offer you a 50%
> refund if you can accept the product. Please let me know if you would
>  accept this resolution or would prefer to exchange.

I confirmed I'd still like the replacement and then despite sending another couple of reminder e-mails, nothing happened until a week later I threatened filing a case with Amazon. Then I got this...

> Please return the lens to the address below for an exchange.  Please mark
> RMA#512703-NGEX-BZH on at least two sides of the box. Parcels without an
> RMA# will be refused.

Now, I know for sure that I didn't order a lens. Then I did some Internet searching. 47th Street Photo has an Internet history as long as my arm. Given this response, there is NO WAY IN HELL that I'm trusting these people with a return of the goods. I'm going to take the 50% and run like hell from this deal; chalking it up to experience. If I don't get the refund, of course, I'll be lodging a case with Amazon in 48 hours time. I'll keep you updated.

For your own sanity, stay well away from 47th Street Photo.

That golden hour

2010-04-18T14:30:00.003+01:00

When you get knocked down, you've just got to get back on that horse again and ride, ride, ride. Well, actually I had this planned for a while. The alarm went off at 4:30 and Darth Hobbit and I hit Worthing beach. The pier wasn't very photogenic from a distance but the boats were.

Sadly, as something has gone wrong with my RAW conversion system (I think installing Ubuntu over Kubuntu at a time where there is a major release a week down the line, wasn't the smartest thing to do) I'm stuck with digikam's batch processor so I've lost the golden feel that the RAW images have.

By the way, digiKam is coming to Windows, so if you like Adobe RAW but don't want to fork out the cash and were using the free version of idImager before they started charging for it, well now there is a free open source alternative. Digikam.

Digikam comes via another open source project, the KDE Windows project which aims to allow Windows users to run any KDE applications natively. It isn't quite there yet, but it is certainly coming along. Keep a close eye on it.

If you want a look at digikam, I've done a ten minute look at a slightly older version here. The latest Linux version is actually running quite sweetly.

I failed the LRPS

2010-04-15T16:21:00.000+01:00

Well, the title says it all.

The feedback letter will be with me in a couple of weeks, so that will be my time to judge the judges!

Am I a bit down? Yes. Rejection never did anything for the soul, but I do know from the little time I've spent at the camera club, that judges can interpret things from all over the place. One even changed the rules of the competition on the night of the event!

I interpreted the licenciateship as being a demonstration that the photographer has a grasp on the process of photography and after the years I've been practising, I thought the shots I submitted demonstrated that.

However, obviously not.

I will wait for the feedback before I make up my mind about the RPS. Although I feel quite down about this at the moment, it would be completely unfair of me to let rip against the RPS based on the other judges that I have seen in action.

Latest news

2010-04-14T08:33:00.001+01:00

Well, the RF-602 triggers have arrived from Yongnuo. Also, the sellers of the CoCo flash have been in touch, all be it very slowly, about the ring flash with all the glue in the collector. They seem to be dragging their heels.

They did offer me 50% refund if I accepted the unit as it was. That off came in on Sunday at 11:05. I responded by 15:55 that same day and this is now Wednesday morning and I'm still waiting for a response.

Now that I've got 3D titles and things like lapel microphones are arriving, I'm starting to record the how-tos on video. Stand by for a video on the macro tube which I'll start filming when the decent lapel mic reaches me. I'm hoping it comes today. The radio mic (much cheaper, I only wanted it for the convenience of the wireless unit) was not much cop. Plus I'm waiting for a mono to stereo converter so that I can do away with the cross hum that populates the ground feed.

Once all that is sorted, I'll be eagerly filming stuff for you. So stay tuned as there is plenty to come.

Co-Co - a better view.

2010-04-07T08:34:00.000+01:00

This is a better view inside the collection part of the co-co taken with my SLR this morning. As you can see, it is very messy. The glue covers a significant part of the collector. You can see just how dirty this actually is. The very fact that you can see the glue proves that it is altering the light temperature.

As a matter of performance, the ring flash with the glue on it, eats three stops of light. A light meter at 1 metre away from the flash registered f22 at full power. With the co-co fitted, I got f8 at that distance. So it confirmed what I knew; to use one of these things, you need a powerful flash pulse, or else you're going to have to give up ISO in order to rescue depth of field.

No word back yet from the seller, although I was expecting to hear something this morning. I'll keep you up to date.

Ring in a flash? I should Co-Co!

2010-04-06T12:48:00.007+01:00

Look. It is the first day back to work after four days off. It was the most imaginative title I could come up with.

Imaginative definately describes this ring flash adapter. Designed originally by Ray Flash, the moulds to create it were done in China. The story goes that Co-co nabbed the moulds and created their own knock off. Well, if that is true, (and it looks likely that it IS true) then this is one of those knock offs.

Yes, I took a chance.

So do I feel guilty? Well, in a world where he who is without sin should cast the first stone, I can only say two, unrelated words. "McKinnon," and, "Boeing." That is all I'm saying on that subject.

Anyway, here I am, sixty quid (plus postage) lighter and one knock-off heavier.

It has literally just landed in the office and already things are not looking too good. On the one hand, the build quality seems reasonable. For something as awkward and cumnbersome as this, I have some faith in it. Faith is the order of the day here, as with having to face return postage to the USA, if something is screwed up, it will be expensive to replace.

Not only that, but the time factor in having to return it and then wait for another one to get shipped out is a real pisser. When someone can't ship me good product on the first attempt, that really gets me so angry I could turn green and jump accross the atlantic. I won't say where I got this, however, as I'm giving the supplier a chance to review the situation and come back to me on it.

Two things, however, have me concerned. The first is the dial that puts pressure on the flash head to hold the device on. That looks and feels oh, so seventies cheap knock off toy-ish. The second is of more concern to me ... which is that there is glue inside the top section of the mount, where the flash pulse initially fires and is collected. That, for sure, is going to have a negative effect on the power. Also, it is going to colour the light ... and that isn't very clever.

Michael Grecco

2010-04-05T20:40:00.000+01:00

Grecco is the writer of, "Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait," and while the photos were stunning, I couldn't take much away from it.

He has started a YouTube channel of behind the scenes videos which shoe in part, the team behind him. There is a real collection there which go across his work, but to me they say the same thing as his book and I've got trouble taking anything away from these except what I perceive to be the core message, get creative and do it.

This is just my personal view, however. I believe that if you've got some time on your hands and don't know what to watch, then you might want to poke around some of the videos he is sharing. Some of them are just downright fun.

Storage and Carrying

2010-04-04T06:51:00.001+01:00

I recorded some video about my current storage and carrying solutions, but YouTube decided to mess around with its set up and hacked me off. So I'm trying out Vimeo. Let me know in the comments what you think of the new video system ... it looks like, as Viddler doesn't work with Linux properly, that it will likely be Vimeo or Revver ... see what you think.

Children photographs vital to development

2010-04-02T12:35:00.010+01:00

This report on Amateur Photographer, was actually a long time coming.

It is about time that officialdom actually got real about photographs, security and protecting children from abuse.

Targetting photographers was never going to have the slightest bit of impact on this issue, but as usual, blind, deaf and exceedingly dumb officials didn't want to hear it.

Personally, I think that a lack of knowledge as to HOW to stop child pornography is as much to blame, as is socieites own knee jerk hammering. We all screamed loudly for something to be done about child abuse and officialdom had to react ... I find myself asking the question, what the hell else did we expect them to do?

The one thing that needs to be done is that officials have to stop persecuting photographers and take a long sit back and actually think again over what they are trying to achieve.

What they have done so far only persuades people that the mission was not, "to protect children," but rather, "to assert authority we don't have and make ourselves feel superior."

Now that they have firmly hit the buffers, let's sit back and see what they decide to do next ... either learn from their mistakes and do their bloody job, or carry on with their blind stupidity and attempting to stroke their egos. Unfortunately, past history suggests the latter.

A weekend away - Stratford

2010-03-30T07:00:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the Jpeg artifacts. These are a lot of pictures in not a lot left of blogger file space.

Stratford Upon Avon. What can you say? A town that seems to have Shakespeare wherever you dare to look. For all shots shown here, the ISO is 100.

Stratford is a beautiful town which, like Warwick, is peppered with architecture that looks as if it is threatening to throw a brick at your bonce should you so much as sneeze in its general direction. The day was going to be full of hard sunlight, loads of tourists and who knows what else.

This is a front elevation of Shakespeare's birthplace. The house he lived in is no more, but at least this one is still standing. You'll note that for the vast majority of the pictures you are about to see, the most that has been done to them is a little exposure tweaking and on a couple, some sharpening. Anything else, and I'll tell you.

Early starting is the key to getting buildings like these without anyone in the picture. I considered myself lucky to start shooting at 11:30-ish and it didn't take more than a couple of minutes patience before I got a clear shot at many of the buildings, and I was using this trick on many of the less popular buildings throughout the day. The lack of people is not a Gimp cloning trick; I just waited for a clear shot. There were a few times when this didn't work, but I got what I wanted for the majority of the time. In fact, moments after grabbing this picture, someone came out of Subway and stuck their advertising billboard in front of the building I was shooting ... talk about luck.

Once or twice I had to shoot over a car roof to get the positioning as best I could for the skewed buildings and street furniture, but it was definitely worth it. Again, with no tripod, the sun allowed me better hand held shots; more aperture allowed the street furniture to be present with the buildings.

The harsh sun, however, is a cruel mistress and you can easily see how a harsh shadow can completely ruin a shot. The occasions where something like this can actually benefit a picture have been very few and far between for me. Harsh sunlight has almost always been a barbed friendship.

Hall's Croft is the Jacobean Doctor's house and contains a patch of garden which grows the herbs and other plants that a physician of the time would have needed. For some reason, it wasn't packed solid with people and was a nice place to get a cup of tea; and also a nice place to photograph from the street also.

Back to business, however, and the harsh sunlight. The statues had no defence from the light and as you can see from this shot of Shakespeare himself, the light was a mess and it would have been a better choice to return here on a cloudy day; but alas there was little choice other than to press on.

The shadows in this kind of light are as fixed as the wrinkles in her dress. The only thing that would change them is the ticking of the clock. Here, however, as the sun rose, the shadow under the chin would have covered more space. I should have been here a few hours earlier and maybe I would have seen more of the face, but I did what I could.

Alas, poor Hamlet. Lit by the same harsh sun there is little else to be done other than to try and use shooting position and framing to create an engaging capture and put your own slant on another artists story. This was 1/125 at f8 and I had to apply sharpening. It was actually a fair old dance as I was one of a crowd of people, mostly tourists, shooting poor Hamlet.

I don't know what drew me to this shot; the sun is right at the top of the frame. 1/2000th at f5.6, the camera was in Program mode and made its own decision here. This is something that I'll do when shooting in to the sun as it tends to cast everything else in subtle shades of brown. Even shooting directly in to the sun I have had the camera turn white clouds in a blue sky, to interesting shades of tobaco. (if you decide to replicate this, PLEASE use live view, not the optical viewfinder.)

But on to the buildings and architecture. Harsh shadows can actually end up being part of a composition if you're on the right side of the subject, so don't count the shadows out, even if they are harsh and ugly. This was a very comfortable f8 at 1/250th.

The big bonus, however, are the clouds in a blue sky. Mix them with architecture and you can really kick off some great shots. f8 at 1/350th here and I was very lucky with the angle of the sun as by this point I had travelled most of the way around, "Holy Trinity," by that point.

Holy trinity is based on a Saxon monastery dating back to early 1200 and is on the bank of the Avon. We arrived just at the end of Eucharist on the Sunday and witnessed the large number of people coming out after the service.

The positioning of the sun, as it was starting to come down from mid-day, was giving just enough shadow to add definition to these windows and the brickwork. It was almost like filling the grouting in with a slightly thicker black marker.

Inside Holy Trinity would be where the next set of challenges lay but the powerful sun was actually going to help me out here. I would be pushing my hand held abilities to the max and not using any flash whatsoever inside the church. Still a working church with a solid congregation, any building like this is worthy of respect and it is always worth asking if there is a fee for people to photograph inside the building; in some cases there is, in some there isn't. Holy Trinity is one where there isn't a photography charge, but a donation is expected if you go to the part where Shakespeare's grave is.

The windows high up and powerful sun light really helped me out on this f4 shot at 1/6th of a second. Of course, the shake reduction system was active and I took three or four shots; one came out reasonably sharp. If the sun hadn't been out, then this would not have been possible.

The power of the light through the windows is visible here as the different colours on the stone work. The grave was shot at f4 and at 1/10th.

This, I believe, is a first edition bible which is chained. You can see how important it can be to practice low level light photography without a flash as the glass would have killed the picture. Like the organ pipes, this was f4 at 1/6th.

This is a 1:1 of the bible picture above, shot through glass, hand held on f4 at 1/6th on ISO 100 using the 50-135 DA* 2.8 lens; and if anything, this picture is a little worse by dint of the Jpeg compression. I think I took three shots of this bible. Not a bad piece of work thanks to the harsh sunlight streaming through the windows.

So, if the sunlight is too harsh for outdoor photography, then perhaps that is the time to seek some indoor locations to shoot.

Stained glass windows are a nightmare. This was taken at 13:13 with the sun starting to come down behind it. f5.6 in order to get the depth of the window from top to bottom, and I didn't quite manage it. I was on 1/30th of a second as it was and I think, had there not been more people around, I would have re-shot with f8.

This is also a 1:1 unaltered piece of the above picture. You can see the kind of detail that we can get with a hand held shot in low light. Practice, practice, practice.

Finally, I finish with the 14th-century sanctuary knocker. It took shot after shot as people continued to come in and out of the door. The position of the knocker was pure fluke as one of the church staff members happened to move the door position and I was on one side, squat down in the porch. Again at f4 and 1/6th, it took a number of attempts to achieve this picture. It has actually had a slight unsharp mask applied to it, but even so, I think it is a wonderful shot.

A weekend away - Warwick

2010-03-29T19:24:00.000+01:00

Warwick. Cloudy day. For photography that comes as good news and bad news. The good news is that harsh sunlight is significantly tamed and that means good, soft shadows. The bad news is that it means less overall light with which to take a hand held shot.

Then, of course, there is the problem with the subject itself; a town of such an age that the medieval builders didn't exactly do a plumb job. If you are an architectural photographer, you're going to do your nut in this place. If you get one thing straight (lamp post) then something else is going to look like its falling over (clock tower) so take your best shot.

I mean ... seriously ... some of these buildings look like they've been out on the piss and are looking for someone else's shoulder to steady them.

Some of these buildings damn near look like they're going to fall on you!!! You're chance of getting good, straight, building photography of everyday buildings that weren't of cultural significance in the day, is next to friggin' zero.

You're also battling against modern pigeon shit protectors and other things which completely wreck a good shot. The only way around this is hours in Gimp to get rid of the netting.

One way around some of this is to change your angle so that the shot looks more artistic. In cases where the architectures lines are fighting you, try to vary your angle so that any oddities in the lines and building work are hidden from view. Some times there will be very little that you can do, but if you've come up against something that you really want to photograph and you're going to spend time in Gimp afterwards ... at least give yourself the option and take the time to wander around the subject to see if you can improve the lines.

There will very likely be times when you can never get a building to look one hundred percent; in some cases, that actually comes as part of the charm of a building that is hundreds of years old; it is up to you to see the picture and make the best of it that you can.

Lack of light is a definite problem. Some people see me firing about ten or so images off in some cases. Despite this, out of 196 shots I took in Warwick, I kept 73 of them. That's better than a 1 in 3 and I'm happy with that. But why am I shooting like that? Two reasons.

Reason 1 is to try and keep the camera still. Cloudy weather means little light and although I won't move from ISO 100, I'll try and push the shutter speed along with the anti-shake to get whatever f stop I can handle. In years to come, increases in sensors will mean we can give a little on the ISO, but for now taking multiple shots handheld is the only way to pray that one of them will come out sharp.

Reason 2 is composition. Even slight movements in the camera can result in a big change in composition. Here, I decided to try and include the key hole in the shot but not only do I think the composition didn't work, but also that the key hold is out of the depth of field. I'd have to do some processing to make that of any use.

Art does have a habit of encouraging more art and this piece was, "To celebrate the life of David Eliot Mycroft 1970-1998" so there is no telling what you'll find. To be honest, in the architecturally sterile towns and housing estates, I have found little art, only interpretation of the architecture mood itself, but historic places like this seem to continue to encourage creation. You can never really be sure of what you'll find around the corner.

Of course, while the architecture may stay still, the people that live in these areas continue to move with the times and there are shots to be had. Next to the owner of this wonderful Alaskan Husky (or I think that is the breed) was one of the town characters who also insisted that I shot him; and then there was this dog, tethered by its owner who went in to a shop for a while. I wish I could have done more with that look of abandonment!

The long story short is that these towns are full of bits and pieces of history but take work to bring them out which, if you're walking around with other people and have a timetable to stick to, can be a bit restrictive and tat can fee like a waste; so practice, practice, practice and have some techniques to hand for working in low light without a tripod.

A weekend away

2010-03-29T07:00:00.000+01:00

Well, it happened. Mum, desperate to escape the confines of the home and the chaos of a kitchen that still isn't straight since we started tearing it asunder in mid Jan, wanted to go on a coach trip ... and I had to go with her for company.

So, armed with my ~~trusty~~ Pentax K20d, the 50-135 DA* and the 16-45 DA; I went forth in to the lands of Warwick Castle and the modern town living off old Shakespearian wit, Stratford-Upon-Avon.

The long story short is that two days, shooting over 600 RAW images I didn't even get one battery to show half depleted.

The camera and 50-135 were carried in the Think-Tank Digital Holster 50 with the shoulder strap. The 16-45 was carried in a lens pouch, in my handbag. When it came to day shooting, the camera was out all the time and whatever lens wasn't on the front of the camera, was resting in the Holster, ready to swap out. The 16-45 didn't actually get any use in Warwick at all but it got heavily used in Stratford.

The coach trip actually cost about £130 for two of us on a deal for the weekend and included breakfast in the price; leaving us to find an evening meal and lunches for both days. So if you're looking to practice your shooting but don't want to spend big and can't afford the holiday time off, then look in to coach trips as a cheap deal to get somewhere that isn't your back garden. Also, travel to and from the pick up point needs to be factored in, possibly at awkward times of the morning and evening; we left home at about 6:45am and didn't return back until about 8:45pm.

In the next few posts, I'll go through was was a grey day shooting in Warwick and then a sunny day shooting in Stratford. Stay tuned.

More 3D news

2010-03-27T13:07:00.003Z

Nintendo are said to be releasing a 3D version of the DS which will add further pressure on to the progress of consumer demand for 3D in times to come. A question to be asked is whether the 3D DS will possibly come with a 3D camera as well. We'll have to wait and see.

Manual Macro - part 4

2010-03-24T20:05:00.001Z

All these long exposures are fine if your subject isn't in a hurry to crawl away, but what if you need fast shutter response? Well, flash is the only answer and I have the standard Pentax AF-360FGZ. With the flash set to manual full power, angled up 45 degrees and diffused, I ran a few tests.

The Pentax 50mm was now out of the running. That left the Sirus and the Vivitar. At f8, 5cm away from the subject, the camera could run at flash sync of 1/180th. I got a comfortable f8 for this hand held shot with the Vivitar.

The bonus of the Sirus is that I can be 35mm away from the subject. The downside to this is that the flash has to work harder to cover the distance. To get this shot, I was down a stop to 5.6.

It is thus possible to take the Sirus up to f8 and simply push the RAW in post. This is unpushed. Shooting at f8 is likely what I'll be doing.

There are two extra options, of course.

The first is to angle the flash straight-on to get more power. This will affect the picture and likely produce a hot spot, but light is, as photography, to taste.

The second, of course, is to get a more powerful flash! I always have the option, should I need it, of using studio flash to do this kind of work; however, hand holding in a studio can usually imply a style of shooting where a tripod can be used; but, hey, it's an option.

Manual Macro - part 3

2010-03-24T18:51:00.004Z

Last up here is actually the first lens I tested, which is why there isn't an f8 shot here; I didn't think about it until the second lens. However, we're not going to let that hold us back.

An f3.5 to f22 28-70mm lens with a 1:4 macro, I tested this at 70mm with the macro enabled. Like the 50mm, it ended up about 5cm away from the model but shot a very slightly tighter 1.2cm on the shortest axis.

At f3.5 I have to admit that I love the bokeh on this lens. It even handles the bright areas quite well on this 1 second exposure.

Finishing off with an 8 second f22 exposure, I have to admit to almost falling in love with this shot. I might just actually re-run this shot with a better framing of the eyes and lips. This lens has definitely picked up what the Pentax 50mm missed.

CONCLUSION

If you know me, you'll know I'm no fan of Chinese produce. This metal extension tube system from Qingfeng, however, is an absolute gem. These are the others at the companies e-bay shop.

If you're thinking of this, ensure that you get one to match your system and be very aware that it requires a manual lens in order to use this ... this system doesn't transmit ANY linkage between the lens and the body.

The 300mm lens got me to about 5.8cm on the shortest axis, so this system is getting me twice as close with the 135 lens and phenomenally close with the 50mm and 70mm. Also, I've got more options with the rings, which let me come further out; sadly adding and subtracting the rings seems to be the only way to get more control over the focal length, but I can't argue for the price.

The big advantage of a tube over a 3x optic is that there should be far less chromatic aberration using a tube as there are no extra optics in the way. Each has its place, however, because to make use of a tube, you need the manual lens.

So, now I have two lenses that will be taken out of the retirement case and will return once more to my active camera bag. This opens up a whole new range of creative options ... I just hope that I find something a bit more unusual to shoot than flowers, spiders and flies.

This is one of the best damn fivers I've ever spent. Thank you, China.

Manual Macro - part 2

2010-03-24T06:40:00.002Z

The second of the three lenses in this test is the Pentax 50mm. Running from f2 to f22 with no macro function of its own, this lens focussed while 5cm away from the model and recorded about 1.5cm width on the shortest axis.

The full face picture is expandable to see the 800 pixel wide version.

At 1.3 of a second exposure at f2, it is quickly seen that the depth of field doesn't catch much here. If anything can be said to its benefit, it is that the light and blurring has an interesting, seventies effect. The 1:1 shot of the nose shows that it isn't catching much detail.

For 2 seconds at f8, however, I think this is the lens' sweet spot. Reasonable detail in the cheek markings although the far eye is out of focus. The nose 1:1 shows that we're getting reasonable results from this lens.

Ten seconds was the time on this f22 shot, only starting to lose a touch of focus at the furthest cheek. We appear to have some flaring and we're losing detail which I think is the result of being this far down.

Manual Macro - part 1

2010-03-23T19:13:00.001Z

These are the extension tubes mounted on the camera. Three different lengths of tube which screw in to each other. At either end is a K-mount bayonet which also screw in to the tubes to make a complete assembly. This then mounts on the camera as would a normal lens. The lens then mounts in to the front of the tube.

Because these tubes are completely manual, the lenses we use have to fully support themselves, which means manual focus and aperture control. Also due to the lengthening of the tube, we're going to lose depth of field and we also need more light.

There were two lights positioned close to the model giving nearly 9ev of light; f22 at 1 second ... it would have been possible to hand hold at f2.8 so we're not talking that much extra light but definitely above indoor light levels. The long story short, the more light we can get, the better to make up for the depth of field issue.

First up with the extension tubes at full extension was the Sirus 135mm. Having a 1:7 macro which I engaged for this test, it has an f-stop range from f2.8 to f22.

The lens focused at a respectable 35cm away from the subject so not so intrusive. This gave just less than 3cm subject height on the shortest axis, so for these shots I went portrait. Here we have a reduced frame and a 1:1 section of the hair. As you can see, it isn't the best quality but if the picture is shrunk down a little, it should be perfectly acceptable. This exposure was 1/4 of a second ... all shots are at ISO 100.

Going to f8 at 1 second, you can see the obvious improvement. The 1:1 section this time is of the eye.

We finish off with f22, and you can see the difference. Again, the 1:1 is of the eye and this 8 second capture shows that the lens has a definite limit in its quality; our only gain here is the depth of field.

I had to show you this section of the statue's right ear and the change from the sharp hair to the back of the neck. For some reason, the difference of texture and shadow drew my eye.

K mount macro for a fiver

2010-03-23T13:17:00.000Z

Macro has always eluded me; I've never quite had enough money left over for a macro lens. For five pounds from China (where else) comes this metal, three part screw system which can be put together in combination for various different lengths. It is fully manual so it requires a lens with an aperture control on it, so I'll be turning to my trusty older lenses to see what I can do with them. For the moment I've been using my 300mm lenses at a couple of metres distant in order to take a close up shot; but hopefully, this will give me more choices. Well, for a fiver at least it sounds as if it is made of metal.

The only thing I kept

2010-03-20T14:04:00.006Z

The only thing I kept from reading eleven copies of Amateur Photographer, was the article on creating an artificial catch light in the eyes.

The reading problem

2010-03-17T08:56:00.000Z

One of the problems I'm facing is my reading material. Honestly, it has gone completely out of control. Here is the contents of my chair-side reading basket, the stuff I have yet to read.

You will notice the large number of photography magazines in there. Notable by their absence are the photography books and DVDs (they get read/watched quickly) but there are a lot of magazines in there. There is also the odd Mensa magazine and BlueBell railway magazine that I haven't really read thoroughly yet. I'm actually part way through The Naked Trader (hey, I've got to find money for my lens addiction from somewhere) and Sex.Com is all about how one man stole the most prostigeous domain name ever, and the rightful owners decade long battle to get it back. For crying out loud, the criminal even pretended that he was a judge at one point!!! The Dianetics books because I want to know what the heck all this scientology stuff is all about ... so far it is all bad news for scientology; no science and no religion. The SAS handbook because I intend to increase my activity in the outdoors from a photographic stand point and although I'm already a basic first aider, if I start going up mountains and possibly pot holing (don't joke, it is on the cards) then I want to be able to be of some use should something go tits up.

I really do believe that many people underestimate just how unforgiving the British landscape can be if it puts its mind to it.

The Royal Photographic Society journal can probably come out of there; I've actually got two copies of that one, but there is another just on the shelf that has to be read.

So what the heck DO I want to read?

Well, to be honest, magazines just ain't delivering it any more. Don't get me wrong, Amateur Photographer is putting out stuff that I want to read, specifically the news, but by the time the magazine has dropped through the door, news issues have come and gone and no-one is talking about them any more or I am so out of date that I'm also out of the conversation.

If AP had a subscription service whereby they would send their news articles to me by e-mail, I'd be up for that. As mobile devices get more powerful, I can get a HTML e-mail handset and read stuff on the move.

Not only that, but technology has really amped up the possibilities and none of the magazines have cottoned on. I'd love to be able to select the articles that interest me.

Let's see ... Sat 1st August 2009...

News - gimme, gimme, gimme to my mobile device.
Reviews of books, exhibitors and websites - PDF to the home e-mail please.
Letters - PDF to the home e-mail please.
Articles - PDF to the home e-mail please.
Testbench - if it ain't my system, I don't wanna hear it.
Lenses for bird photography - if it ain't available in my system, I don't wanna hear it.
"Your Pictures" - AOPY, some nice pictures, but I disagree with the judges much of the time.
Features - PDF to the home e-mail please.

As far as the technique articles go, I'd like to be able to specify my technical level and only get articles that are of interest to me. Once I am receiving articles that are technically samey, I'd bump up my technical interest a point and filter out some of the stuff that I know.

The goal here is to only be delivered information that is relevant to me. Also, having articles as individual PDF's enables me to save them for filing later; at the moment I have to rip pages out of the magazine and file them ... when I want to go back for a technique that I read about a couple of years ago, I've got to hunt.

If I'm thinking of a new camera case, or a new tripod, I'd like to be able to select those options and get articles on what is new in those fields.

The advertisers won't lose out anyway; a quarter page add on a PDF article page should satisfy them. The magazine would also be on to a winner as they'd have better feedback on what their readership is interested in. Statistics would end up changing from magazines sold to subscribers and also page imprints; these kinds of stats could actually end up hurting the magazine, but, hey. If the subscriber could pay according to page imprints received, that would also make their money go further as well. Someone only wanting news articles could spend a tenner a year while someone else could go through fifty quid or so for all the technical articles.

Perhaps a monthly e-mail containing the articles that I missed with a link for me to get them e-mailed to me ... funded by my remaining page imprints of course.

From my point of view, unless the publishers get more relevant, I don't want to know. As the articles land in my in-box, I read the subject. If I want it, I read it, if I don't it doesn't even get opened ... simply sent straight to trash.

To the question of copying, I answer simply to look at what DRM did for the music and film industries ... yes, it limited customer choice to the degree where apathy in the customer base actually fanned the flames of piracy. If a camera club takes out a subscription then their cohorts are going to all see the same single copy anyway. Libraries keep copies also. There comes a time where magazines really have to shake off the shackles of protection and give the customers what they want ... flexibility.

Face it ... right now they're getting odd bits and pieces, balanced with complete disinterest from me. This is one customer that isn't hanging on to their coat tails waiting to buy what they have to sell. If they want this customer, they're going to have to deliver what I want to buy.

Stand by for batteries

2010-03-15T13:06:00.000Z

The Register carries this report on Lithium-sulphide battery technology.

It still has to overcome the low cycle count ... um ... very low ... but things are going forward. Unfortunately, they also neglect to include any information about operating temperatures but it is always worthwhile keeping an eye on where battery technology is going.

Orphaned

2010-03-05T09:28:00.001Z

The Register has a very interesting article on the impact of publishers being granted impunity over orphaned works; coupled with much of the modern photo processing software, this could be a toxic mix, as the article explains.

3D TV sales predicted to be relatively fast

2010-03-03T15:37:00.000Z

This report by El Reg on the predicted price and take up of 3D TV looks like there will be a significant proportion of 3D TV ownership in the next couple of years. In five years, the dent could be significant; in fact 3D TV could put home based OLED TV product back a significant number of years.

As 3D TV drops below the £1,000 price mark, then why would people go for a non-3D TV at that price? Logic says that consumers will start to demand more of their media in 3D. If you're a wedding photographer that isn't planning in retiring in the next five years, I believe you need to keep a firm eye on 3D technology.

And unless something else major happens in the 3D arena, I suspect I will stop banging this particular drum for a while. (sighs of relief in the back rows.)

10 for 10

2010-03-01T21:09:00.011Z

As you're reading this, I should be presenting it to the MSCC. It is 10 for 10 night, when ten people spend ten minutes presenting ten pictures to the club.

It isn't too strict, I have 11 pictures here and I'm not sure how far I'll get but at least here, I'm not limited to ten minutes, either. Booh yah!

My decision to get in to photography came as a result of two things. Firstly, I was drunk. Secondly, a house mate was selling her Pentax K1000 camera. Like the un-wise fool that I was, I used my students allowance and bought it. The drunken part of it came from walking home with a friend, along the dual carriageway that runs through the centre of Sheffield. We rescued a little kitten from abandonment underneath a truck, and I adopted her.

Also from that same, first roll of film, came this shot and although I can't say what it was about this picture (the colours were richer on the print) I thought I had some form of talent in this area.

Before I knew it, I was trying to get in on the professional arena. I ended up for local magazines, taking pictures. Initially, there was a thrill in being handed a jacket with, "Photographer," on the back, or being given a pass that read, "Access All Areas." It didn't take long before the thrill wore off and it was starting to become a job, like any other.

Although I was invited to help out with pictures, some of which were also covers, I never made it in to the career. To get meaningful employment you had to be a member of the National Union of Journalists; and to get in to the NUJ you had to be ... you guessed it ... in appropriate employment. Faced with that catch 22, I gave up and just shot for myself.

Like the stupid fool that I was, I carried a large camera bag of equipment even to work where I was undertaking twelve hour shifts at a bakery. Not able to afford a bus, and will holes in my trainers, this shot was a 4am picture of the monument at the bottom of, "The Mall," in Sheffield; that is how there were no people around. It was also because I passed there on my five-ish mile walk from Nether Edge to Hillsborough to start on my 6am shift.

People weren't as scared of cameras and privacy back then. I didn't have permission to take my camera in to the bakery, but the staff nevertheless let me take pictures of them while we relaxed in the canteen.

I continued to take pictures where I saw them. Not having enough formal experience to know what I was doing, I just took the shots of what my feelings told me were pictures worth taking; things that said something emotional.

Even though I didn't have a clue as to what the rule of thirds was, I was managing to obey some of these laws when I took the shot. Rather than obey teachings, I was taking pictures that, "looked right," to me.

Then I got in to effects. Here I was, waiting in a hospital for a 2pm appointment. Naturally, I had my camera with me and this was the picture I made.

Further experimentation followed and I tried all sorts of bits and pieces, doing whatever I could with just the camera I had and whatever film I could afford.

Finally, photography has meant people. Here is my earliest mentor, Barry Barrington-Jackson. Unfortunately, no longer with us, Barr gifted me a decent lens for my camera, rather than all the second hand stuff I had been buying from the junk shops. He gifted me a flash gun and also all the equipment I needed for a black and white darkroom developing and printing lab, right the way down to a film developing canister.

Barry looks hacked off here because he was taking a picture of me for the Mensa magazine and I was popping off shots at him with my K1000. He wasn't best pleased!

Is HDR overused?

2010-02-26T21:14:00.000Z

I read an article recently asking the question of whether HDR is overused. It brought my mind to recall other similar discussions like whether sepia was overused; whether desaturation was overused. It seemed to flip my mind to a photographers style; could it be said that a photographer who always shot/processed a particular way was overdoing it?

My conclusion was that the question, itself, was a nonsense. A picture either works, or it doesn't. If a photographer produces so many images that people see them as being repetitive, then that becomes the signal that there is an issue ... that perhaps there isn't enough difference in each image that enables it to stand out among the crowd; that there is some other element within the images that is so samey, so repetitive, that people turn off to the work as a whole.

I think I'm lucky that I can see the image on the back of the camera, before I've shot it. There are people who can see the image, post processing, as if it were on the front of the magazine, before they've even packed their equipment to travel to site ... those people, in my eyes, are photographic, creative gods.

So no, I don't think a technique can be overused; even a single, developed, practised and honed photographic style can't be overused. But the images still need their own magic; their own personality, and that doesn't come from style or process alone.

I do believe that damage can be done by photographic magazines that publish their techniques; there are then large numbers of pictures shot and published all over the world, that use that effect. That can turn some people off; but the switched on person will practice that technique and keep it in their bag of tricks because somewhere ... at some time ... they will take a picture which ... by the application of that technique ... will sing to the world.

New storage

2010-02-23T12:30:00.001Z

Last year we saw the SDXC format gain rattification. Products are now starting to come out that use it. Having 64gig in your camera must be mind blowing. It was bad enough in the days of micro 1Gb hard disks that sat in place of a CF card. Cost will, eventually, fall. Let's face it, £250 for a 64gig card with those specifications is such that if I spent the money on Ultra II 16Gb cards, I'd only end up with an extra 16Gb of storage (five 16Gb cards) at slower transfer rates; so there isn't a lot in it to be truthful.

Also in that article, 6Gb/s Sata 3.0 is finally with us properly at last.

For those who have 90 minutes to waste and have an interest in home servers and storing their ever increasing amount of picture files, I have a ten part series on making a secure home server using Open Solaris on youTube but you need to be comfortable with command line prompts in order to benefit from it ... but the result is that I can build a fault tollerant operating system - tollerant of faults not only to the file system, but also tollerant of software upgrade failures - in about an hour. This one is 3Tb of Raid 5 storage and it can actually be upgraded with relative ease ... the system takes the load as this video shows me upgrading three 4gig memory sticks up to three 8gig sticks without having to even shut the machine down, or for the users to lose access to their data.

The power of ZFS is that I could actually split that raidz set across drives on different interfaces if I wanted. I can restrict and protect users rights to quantities of storage, compression can be switched on and off at will and I could even port the ZFS pool between operating systems and not lose functinality. And more. There is much power there to be had.

Yes ... if you are brave enough, Open Solaris will even let you add hard disks to the SATA and ESATA channels of a running system. All you have to watch for is not causing a power short. (still safer to power the machine down, though.)

Playing The Joker

2010-02-15T22:37:00.000Z

If you ever get the chance to hear Don Mitchell ARPS talk, especially the "Playing The Joker" talk, I suggest you strongly consider taking that chance.

Don is probably what I would consider to be a good judge. His talk this evening proved why ... he is open. Many of the pictures he presented to the club this evening not only broke the rules, but trampled on them and kicked them down the sewer. His pictures nevertheless stood on their own. Only two in the on-line gallery that I've pointed you to, were in tonights talk; (maybe three) and I think that many of them are far better presented in print format than on screen.

Don has experimented with many things, and indeed still does. Another supporter of getting things right in camera, he nevertheless experiments wholeheartedly with different papers, inks, styles ... the effects are sympathetic to the images he presents and he has considerable dark room time under his belt.

He has even taken monochromatic prints and added colour by painting nail varnish on the nails, or coloured in lipstick; even filling in the green, yellow and orange of a flower alongside a heavy, monochrome railway line and sleepers and then submitting it to a contest! Certainly, many of the things he has done and his views on photography could easily spark considerable discussion.

If I had an image judged by him, I'd be sure that he was judging the image. I can't imagine Don coming out with the usual, tired phrases that I've heard some judges use (indeed, although I've only heard one or two of these, "rivet counter," judges in action, they seem to be legend) but he seems to be able to shift his own perspective and tune in with the photograph and the circumstances in which it was made. That, I believe, is something to be applauded.

The evening was very entertaining and I saw a few printing techniques I'd never heard of before. I laughed a bit and right at the end, we were treated to Don playing the banjo as the last of two short sequences of his pictures played.

Wonderful, charismatic man. Great evening ... and I've still never taken my camera to one of these nights yet and likely never will!

National Trust - how did I miss this?

2010-02-05T13:13:00.001Z

Well, I missed a landmark announcement by the National Trust. That'll teach me to keep an eye on Amateur Photographer's news feed.

We'll have to see how this one goes.

3D point and shoot

2010-02-05T12:43:00.003Z

80% is what The Regsiter gives to Fujifilm's 3D compact camera. It does beg the obvious question of how the hell is the phtoographer supposed to view the images and handle the viewfinder.

Are we going to start seeing Japanese tourists wandering around London with red/green specs on?

Somebody pinch me.

On a serious note, this is now going to bring home based 3D viewing technology in to the spotlight. We will have to wait and see whether the end of 2010 brings a major change to stills photography or not. There is still a serious lack of 3D standards out there ... or rather, there are still a lot of different standards, as per bleedin' usual.

UPDATE - Amateur Photographer carried more news on a 3D picture printing system. No glasses required, apparently.

Quiet for a while

2010-01-31T21:24:00.000Z

Yep, the snow has come and gone but chaos still reigns supreme in this house. I have a copy of Photography Monthly to review, along with an increasing basket of reading material. Much is happening in my life, including a kitchen refit, which is taking up shed loads of time; plus my photography bench is covered in technology thanks to a server rebuild.

But panic not, because I'm going to lay bare the magic of creating your own file server.

I've had my own file server for years. I even took it out to Germany with me when I lived in Muenchen for a short while. The security of data is paramount, especially to photographers; but doing it on the cheap is near soddin' impossible.

Well, my server needs a critical upgrade (yep, I ran out of space) so I'm documenting the creation of another home server. (with 3 terrabytes of storage!!!) Using a standard PC, I'm going to create a system which has data security at its heart, and done using a free operating system called Open Solaris.

Trust me ... you won't believe how easy this is going to be.

The hardware is in place. I've done masses of testing to ensure that what I'm doing is going to work. Once the next version of Open Solaris comes out in a few weeks, I'll let you all in on the secret of how to do it. Not only that, but I'm also going to discuss low power and portable versions as well.

Ooooh! Aren't you excited!!! ... What? What do you mean you'd rather sit there and polish your lens? Ah well ... talk to yourself 'chelle.

Flexible newspaper is here

2010-01-18T10:47:00.001Z

I have to admit it came sooner than I thought. The Register has the lowdown. Can't yet be folded like a broadsheet, but we can't be too far off it now; all it will take is a hinge material and some rugged flat connectors and it is job done.

Surely, from here, it can only be a few short years before we face the death of the newspaper as we know it. However, I only take this to mean the distribution, the physical printing. In terms of content and layout there has been no sparkling step forward yet.

That means no major change for stills photographers in the short term as people still seem to like the content layout and style of the newspapers we currently know and love, but change is sounding large on the horizon.

And colour is on its way too.

3D TV interest rises

2010-01-15T13:58:00.001Z

To recap, I believe that the introduction of 3D TV in to homes could trigger a change for photographers over the space of half a decade-ish.

So, I'm keeping my eye on 3D TV interest. Among the statistics reported by The Register are...

Electronics price-comparison site Retrevo said yesterday that while a mere 39 per cent of consumers were aware of 3D TV in the home before the release of Avatar, that figure rose to 60 per cent after the film's debut.

The movie's benefits for sellers of 3D TV kit is less clear cut. Before Avatar premiered, more than a quarter of consumers — 27 per cent — said they'd buy a new telly to experience 3D at home.

After the arrival of Dances with Wolves in space — surely 'James Cameron's spectacular 3D epic', Ed — the number of potential 3D TV buyers rose, but only to 32 per cent of the total.

...but notes that the cost of the devices at the moment will put people off. In all, the percentages rises aren't that great especially as we don't know the actual figures.

Even Josh Greer, predsident of the company behind the technology that was used to create, "Avatar," isn't all that hot on 3D TV taking off in the home. Certainly, he has a point in that at the moment, the commercial technology available still has a way to go to overcome the initial confused enthusiasm and for everyone to pull together. I agree with the overall theory that by the end of 2010, we'll have a much clearer ... ahem ... picture, of where 3D in the home is going.

What the hell am I thinking?

2010-01-10T09:39:00.002Z

You're probably wondering why my forecast on the last post is as short as five years ... and why if these technologies have been around for so long and have flopped every time, then why are they going to work now? And how are they going to be a threat to photography as we know it?

Well, there are a few things that I believe are going to be critical.

You know that Microsoft is pushing Windows 7 so hard because its chief competitor is XP? Same thing here. Joe public has basically got everything he wants. There IS only one new thing to actually sell, and that is 3D. High definition has been around for ... how long now? Its old hat.

The problem with these major companies is that they still need to sell us things in order to make money. Many of the new inventions are actually coming at us for free. DVB2 will shortly deliver high definition signals to us over terrestrial aerial; (if the BBC ever get the codec compression right) not even the need to buy a satellite dish. Once you've got a decent quality telly in your living room ... that's it. Maybe a Blu-ray player? Games console? We've got it all, already ... and that is the point ... that is why the sales volume will be turned up to full blast.

The industry are going to push 3D down our necks. Wherever we look, it is going to be 3D. There are televsion channels in the pipeline which will feed us nothing BUT 3D all day long. They want us to eat, smell, drink, sleep, eat and ... wait ... I said eat already, didn't I? Yeh .... 3D.

Trust me; by the time all this is over, you're going to have to paint your dick in red and green 'cause those marketing freak shows will have us wearing our 3D specs to the bathroom. (well, it has to be the red and green option ... you wouldn't want your private parts changing spacial dimension at 120 times per second, would you? ... What do you mean it would save your right elbow?) Just look up the shutter glass method.

So ... this is going to get a monumental push from all the technology sellers because a lot of people have already just spent a fortune on high def kit and it is going to take mountain moving kinds of advertising money to get people to part with more wonga for the next gen kit to keep money coming in to the corporates.

Once everyone is hooked on 3D TV in the next three years, supplemental media is going to have to follow. By that time, games consoles will be 3D also and traditional PCs will be being pushed to keep up ... either that or the pressure will end up seeing the end of cutting edge games on the PC all together. No shit, Sherlock ... I really do think that this is a possible outcome. 3D on the desktop is a potential video/monitor driver nightmare.

Advertisers who want to get to the hip people with money to spend, will be making their adverts on 3D TV very shortly; the stills media will be a few years behind. That will mean commercial camera kit will change direction and that will leave the amateur out in the freezing cold.

So what could save the day?

Well, despite much of the newspaper hoo ha, many of the on-line images I'm seeing are stills. I'm not seeing that much video on my on-line media consumption these days. The video to my desk still comes via You Tube and the catch-up players. The Saint Petersburg Times is still a digital version of paper ... and you know what ... although we've got super-duper-ultra-fast broadband ... even the USA are having to kill the, "all you can eat," bandwidth deals.

That translates to still images continuing. Video is still bandwidth hungry and the commercial model would have to change before our ability to consume, changes.

If the PC does not go 3D, then the Internet will likely stay 2D for most of its content ... and as that is where most of the still photographic media is showing up these days, then there is a good chance that a fair chunk of photographic work will remain 2D.

All I can honestly say is to take an asprin and hold on for the ride, because 3D is going to be all that the technology folks are gonna want to feed you.

My predictions in short...

3D TV is heavily pushed.

The next generation of games consoles go 3D

The 3D broadcast channels become readily available on terrestrial.

PC's and the Internet stay 2D because of bandwidth costs and too many differing 3D format technologies. (might not if some formats drop out of the race)

High end games no longer come out for PC due to games console hardware specialisations.

Physical newspapers hit the dirt within five years.

3D still cameras are pushed in to the home, "instamatic," market - software allows them to be shown on PC as 2D, or fed through to the families 3D-TV.

Rites of Passage could have a customer demand to be shot in 3D

In 5 years-ish, media readers will go 3D (using the no-glasses method) and advertising will want to be shot in 3D

In five years, standard 2D SLR photography as we know it now, could see the advanced amateurs start to be pushed in to a niche. Who knows where the five years after that will see 2D DSLR photography.

As to the survival of books, I think they'll continue, but the whole publishing market place has had a major shift this last five years on its own account. The future of the book is outside my thought range, but if the readers take off in the newspaper market, then it will see another major change.

One thing is left on my mind ... after 3D has been pushed out to all and sundry ... what are they going to follow that with?

No-glasses methods vary. Philips use a lens on the TV; something that could lead to 3D still pictures on our walls. A much older version (2005 post) uses a two image animation which is the shutter glass method without the glasses! Mistubishi showed off in 2008 yet another technique. And there are yet more methods of displaying 3d on a 2D screen without needing glasses. Just look them up.

Static 3D on a hand held reader is technically possible. All they have to do is start selling.

I need to change my glasses.

2010-01-09T17:04:00.004Z

Why do we take pictures? The pros take them because the customers want them. For most of the rest of us, it is because we want the memories or the challenge.

This could be exactly the thing which kills the SLR as we know it, and drives us headlong in to 3D stills photography.

Now ... go get a tissue and wipe up that coffee spill before it stains your keyboard.

Two inventions are about to go nuclear over the next few years. They are old inventions that have finally come of age. One is the good old electronic newspaper. Number two is, of course, 3D TV.

3D TV has no other option but to drive our demands further. Computers will have to follow being driven by gaming demands, along with the Internet. By the time that battery power has improved, electronic readers will be capable of pushing out 3D pictures.

With 3D technology in the home and the probability of stills media following suit, how long is it going to be before companies want their stills advertising shot in 3D? How long before wedding couples want their happy day recorded in 3D? Well, I reckon 5 years; that is assuming that people are still getting married in five years time.

That would be interesting ... Photoshop CS-3D. For crying out loud ... can you IMAGINE doing multiple exposure merging in 3D? THAT is going to give people a headache. Now ... which plane is the eraser in?

How long before we are even wearing our 3D glasses outside to read the 3D billboards? .... ok, ok, I'll give you that one ... even I think that 3D advertising hoardings won't take off in this decade. It will largely be a home and advertising thing for the time being.

I have to admit; I was waiting to replace my TV before most of the new technologies had settled down a bit. I was expecting DVB2 to come along any day now, and it has; new equipment should be sold for DVB2 reception any day, if they aren't already. What I didn't expect, however, was the speed with which 3D TV was going to be unleashed; I thought it would happen at the tail end of this year. They are already on the market and look to be competitively priced.

Well, now is the time to either save for a new 3D TV or else be prepared to pick up a great new HD-TV for a cheap price.

For crying out loud; I had to hock all my old equipment for a 55-135 DA* .... and now I'm going to need TWO of them!!! Whhhaaaaaa! Where'd I put that twin lens reflex?

Oh, by the way, Teletext is dead. Long live the red button.

Exchange the rates?

2010-01-03T11:48:00.000Z

For the last three months the Yen has been between 140 to 150 to the pound. That is a little more than half what it was when our equipment was nice and cheap.

The economy is stabilising now that the bubble has burst, so it is worth keeping an eye on the exchange rate; but personally I think our camera equipment is going to be at these new, higher prices, for some time to come and that could have a negative effect on the camera manufacturers.

Who knows; we could see some manufacturers go out of business unless they have eggs in differing baskets.

For Canon, they have a considerable range of printers and other imaging systems. Pentax are backed by Hoya and linked to the surgical optics. Nikon ... apart from cameras I'm not sure what they do. Olympus, Fuji and especially Sony have fingers in other pies also, but perhaps Sony has suffered the most.

The charts I can get are in Euros from German markets and show Nikon starting 2000 at about 35 per share, dipping to about 10 from 2001 to 2005, climbing steadily to about 20 in mid 2008 before taking a dive to 7 and climbing back up to about 13 euros per share at present. Canon have been roughly 27 per share until 2005, climbing to over 40 in 2007, crashing to 17 in early 2009 and climbing back up to nearly 30 at present. Hoya started 2000 at around 25, dipping to around the 14 mark to 2003 and climbing to about 30 for the beginning of the second half of the decade. In erly 2009 they crashed to about 11 before climbing back up to around 18 now.

Translated by me, Canon have been the strongest major camera performer over the last decade and have the strongest price, just under 30. (beaten by the wider portfolio Fuji, however.) Nikon started well but entered a major slump before starting to gain value again. They are currently at half of Canons share price. Hoya have been more stable and avoided much of the turbulance. There was a nasty trough in late 2008 but they are ahead of Nikon, being about two thirds of Canon's present value.

It seems that Canons wide market base enabled them to remain strong, also the case with Hoya. Nikons specialism might have cost them dear, but they are by no means out of the race.

Fuji performed very well, despite a dip in late 2008, maintaining about the 32 euro mark; they have a very wide portfolio. Olympus have been stable around 20 euros. (again the expected trough at 2009) The surprise was Sony who were at 30 for most of the decade, but hit the trough below 15 and have only recovered to around 20 euros. For a company like Sony, this isn't good news.

You can click on the graphs to go to the market page where I took the snapshots from.

Canon

Nikon

Hoya

Fuji

Olympus

Sony

I've been quiet

2009-12-31T14:15:00.000Z

Partly due to ill health and partly due to being overworked, as usual, I haven't put much forward lately. However, as this is now coming up to a new year, I thought I'd put some suggestions to the BBC Trust board. Well, they have been advertising on TV shows for how the public want their licence fee spent, so I put forward two suggestions. One of them, is having a regular magazine for photographers. If you want to put forward your own ideas, or indeed if you want to add your voice to mine, you can e-mail the trust on trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk

Dear Sir/Madam,

I was a bit lost on this; there doesn't seem to be a straightforward tunnel
for feeding in programme ideas.

Anyway, the trust wants to know how the licence fee payers want their money spent, so here's a couple of ideas for you. This is how I'd like some of my licence fee to be spent...

Firstly, "Doing without China."

Personally, I'm fed up of the goods I get from China going wrong and not lasting. Also, with the recent execution of the UK citizen for drug trafficking, I would like to cut down on Chinese goods. So here we go...

*) There was a reporter doing a stint on living life without plastic, but how easy is it to live life without Chinese goods?

*) It could open an investigation in to what went wrong in the UK, including a look in to Maplin Electronics, once one of the public's most prized electrical component retailers and now just a company that resells electronic tat.

*) We have country of origin on our food, but why not on our other goods? Why do we have to wait until we've got the product in hand to find the, "made in" sticker? Some goods I've bought from garage shops don't even have a country of origin on the packaging or the goods; isn't that against the law?

*) What about our purchasing morals? After the recession and our decade love affair of treating our gadgets as throw away commodities, are we back on the quality hunt again and if so, what has our taste for the cheap and cheerful done to our home industries?

The second program idea is for photography. A magazine programme aimed at photographers, but also allowing the public in to this very public, yet private world; where there is much going on in the world of photographic art.

Despite the recession digital cameras remained high in the sales figures. We've got cameras in everything, including mobile phones. How many people know how to use them, though? Would the Royal Photographic Society get involved?

Add to that there has been the long running hoo-ha over the police stopping citizens and how many amateur photographers actually do know the law?

A monthly competition where show watchers win the chance to go somewhere and shoot things; just look at the outings that Photography Monthly readers have got up to, and my own encounter with them in Port Lympne Wildlife Park, where we even went in to one of the monkey enclosures and got some stunning pictures ... http://www.msknight.com/shoot/index2.html#3

There is massive opportunity here for a magazine program; maybe not weekly but possibly bi-weekly or at the outside, monthly. I'm not talking about the competition documentary rubbish that serves to merely entertain, I'm talking about something practical that passes on knowledge, discusses issues of the day and gets things in to the open. We are facing a massive crunch between the
right to take photographs and individuals privacy. Who knows but documenting everyday life might end up in serious jeopardy; which would be a shame because much of what we know about life in our recent history has been because of photographs taken at that time.

Cameras are shifting off the shelves . If you take just the serious grade cameras we're still talking serious figures for the UK alone, "Consumers snapped up nearly 125,000 DSLRs in December 2008 and January 2009." http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/digital_camera_sales_beat_recession_news_277645.html%22 - and if you extrapolate that to the bridge and compact cameras, that's a lot of Joe Public with serious equipment in their hands.

Where a light meter helps

2009-12-23T04:15:00.000Z

I've seen a fair few posts about people saying that you don't need no stinkin' light meter. Well, for them, that may be true but at the end of the story is that it is down to your own decision.

A light meter has its uses in various areas, and not only ratios. It is most useful at the extremes.

To start with, and actually more importantly, incident versus reflection. That link takes you to my small 2007 investigation in to light metering. Part 3 of that series showed a complex light situation and how the hand held meter worked where the on board meter got confused.

Extreme of Histogram

The camera can only give you a reflective reading and the histogram is only good to a degree. If the correct exposure for an image happens to mean that the histogram ends up bunched at either the top or the bottom, then so be it. Someone popping and chimping could very well be screwing up the exposure if they are forcing the histogram to where it shouldn't be.

Extreme of time

Most cameras seem to top out at 30 seconds exposure. Even my cheap-ish light meter goes to a full minute.

Extreme of situation

There are cases where you can't afford to pop and chimp. You've got to get it right out of the box even with a digital camera. Portraits of people that don't like to be kept hanging around while you keep adjusting your equipment. If you're doing things regularly, then you'll know your equipment and experience will get you most of the way there.

The most important thing about light meters, however, is to make your own choice. If you can borrow one and spend some time learning about it, then you can work out whether it is good for your work flow.

The most important thing about having the figures, however, means that you're not fighting with the cameras metering system. If you've just got too much or not enough light coming in, then you can flip the camera to manual and override it.

Me? I've got one and it has helped me out of odd situations although I don't use it on a regular basis. If I had my money again, though, I would have probably doubled the cash on it, for the extra extremes.

Petition Approved

2009-12-18T19:42:00.000Z

Well here it is. Any UK citizen or ex-pat can support this petition. Um ... yippee?

For those of you who are not Windows aficionados and are fed up of cameras or other equipment not coming with support, software or drivers for your operating system, you might want to consider the petition.

Don't shout at your hard drives

2009-12-12T20:21:00.000Z

I was alerted to this video after going on a Sun Solaris 10 admin course. This bloke knows what he is doing and ... by the way ... if they think you've shouted at your disks, it might void your warantee. So ... next time your machine blue screens, try to keep your temper. It isn't good for the hardware!

Why Beauty Matters

2009-12-03T20:17:00.000Z

For those in the UK I've been watching this episode of Why Beauty Matters. The presenter makes the comment that Duchamp was trying to change things, and pondering what he was trying to change them to. To me, that is the wrong question; the wrong angle to come in on the understanding. I don't believe Duchamp was trying to, "change," what existed; I believe he was trying to widen a very narrow pallet of taste.

Duchamp made the point in the interview that he believed that the word art had been discredited. Personally, I believe that art has been alienated; stuck in time when it should be expanding to keep pace with society. That then begs the question of whether it is art that defines society or a society that defines its art. Personally, I think it is the latter ... but that is just me.

Duchamp's urinal provoked thought. It didn't blow my senses like looking at a stunning picture or a superbly crafted sculpture, but it set my mind off course and forced a re-evaluation; it had an effect. I have more senses that are to be challenged in art than simply my eyes.

Roger Scrutton is, to me, perhaps wanting to hark back to a society of a different period. Art reflects society, and society has changed. Did building architects really replace beauty with utility ... or did they design something which was beautiful to them at the time? Would anyone have parted with the money for a building unless they actually liked what they saw on the drawing board? Scrutton's calling the architects vandals is the final nail in the coffin for me. I am left with the belief that Scrutton has approached this whole subject with a closed mind and seeks to bring, through the camera angles and arguments he puts forward, the viewer to the same conclusion as him.

Scrutton endorses the view that we view beauty by putting aside our personal needs and just looking on things for what they are. I agree with him wholeheartedly on this point. But little has changed, en masse, throughout the ages in terms of the time spent connecting with beauty, I believe. The majority of people have always had to scratch their living, concerned with where the next morsel was coming from. So I don't easily perceive, as Scrutton suggests, any change in the, "dawning of beauty," on us.

However, the problem is that beauty will always be in the eye of the beholder. As is the case with music of the different ages, beauty is also in the ear of the beholder. What generation ever manages to make a connection with the music, meaning and understanding of a generation younger than themselves?

I believe it is a stage of realism; in fact a stronger connection with nature. The balance of natures own beauty and horror; and to try and deny the rawness of nature itself is to try and place ourselves in a rose tinted view of art. Using art in Scruttons suggested way is akin to using drugs; maintaining an existence in an unreal world. Scruttons world of beauty would anaesthetise the pain of reality.

Alexander Stoddart made an absurd suggestion that if someone were to pass a skip that contained Apollo Belvedere Torso, that they would be so arrested by it that they jump in to dig it out ... I mean ... dream on. Not everyone has Stoddart's ideas of beauty. And that, I believe, is the point.

There was one point not covered in all of Scruttons ponderings on architecture ... the future. We see artists renditions of not only buildings but entire societies, portrayed in hundreds of years from now; and we perceive those as beautiful. I believe that Scrutton might describe those renditions as not of beauty, but as creations of lust. This only leaves me to level the same accusation at the works of the past; at their time, were they born of beauty, or of lust. And of our concrete architectural mistakes; did not the architects of years ago make their mistakes also, or was every creation perfect? Somehow, I doubt that we see the mistakes of times past, just as the future would never see our present day mistakes if it were not for modern record keeping.

Studio Photography Essential Skills

2009-12-01T21:05:00.000Z

In my opinion, this book is as essential as Light, Science, Magic. The difference is that it covers practical lighting situations more than the theory, and is backed up by exercises and explanations.

Communication, design, portraiture, product, still life, controls, exposure, light ... he goes through the lot in a language that is easy to understand and well supported by diagrams. Perhaps the most enlightening thing that John says is, "In the context of communication and design there is no right or wrong, only good and bad relative to the styles and tastes of the day. Unlike most other genres of photography the inspiration for a studio photograph has to be preconceived. Studio photographers cannot observe, compose and interpret by pointing the camera at the world around them. In a darkened studio there is no world around them. The studio photographer has to create or obtain everything appearing in front of the camera."

Sadly, the advertised support web site is no longer up; simply redirecting to the publisher, but that doesn't take anything away from the value of this book. There are also various activities designed to help you learn what John is teaching, by putting the book down and going to do something; perhaps the wisest thing of all, learning by doing.

The book isn't all technique, however. It shows the art to which the techniques relate and encourage the reader to visualise; to imagine; to see beyond the pages of the book itself. It is almost as if John is reaching an arm out of the pages and setting light to the readers taper that runs to an imagination explosion.

High key, low key, specularity, composites, metering, compensation ... if you're looking at a pile of lighting equipment and scratching your head, then this will kick start your mind in to wanting to get stuck in to creating, and give you the direction in which to do it.

The revision questions, by the way, don't have an answer table; you have to read the book to find the answers.

Club Meet

2009-11-30T23:13:00.000Z

Depressed. That's all I can say. And I'm not talking about my competition entries. Suffice to say that I've ended up forming an opinion, and I have referred to someone to hopefully change my perspective.

Art Photography Now

2009-11-28T21:44:00.000Z

I finally got around to reading it. Susan Bright starts off by ensuring peoples mentality is up to date among the opening pages with, "The digital revolution has impacted in ways that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago, causing some to ask not, 'Is this art?' but 'Is this photography?'" She is quite right in making that statement, I believe. The role of photography as evidence, has been well and truly blown out of the water.

The opening of this book effectively shows how photography, perceived perhaps as the ultimate record of truth, can be taken as a tool in so many different forms of representation and is perhaps as flexible as the artists brush. This opens new doors of thinking and breadths of image sculpture.

Unless the reader is familiar with the different periods and artistic movements, this introduction is going to be hard reading.

The rest of the book shapes up to be a difficult read also, taking the reader to challenge the psychology and philosophy of all aspects. As an example, she writes of Cindy Sherman, "Her work is not concerned with finding an essential core but with debunking it. Her work focuses on the postmodern belief that our identities are made up of multiple selves dished up and adopted in a series of performances and masquerades in order to fit in with how culture has defined and determined us." Personally, as someone who has experienced crossing societies gender roles, I can fully connect and understand this viewpoint and definition.

Furthermore, Susan also goes in to details like the effect that different kinds of camera have on the subject; a large format camera invoking a different subject response than the SLR. This boook certainly wastes no time in going off in to the serious depths of the human psyche and the investigation and interpretation of such.

After reading the book, however, I am left with more questions than were answered. I will still be asking myself the question, "I know it is a photograph, but is it art?"

Photography swalowed by the box shifter.

2009-11-26T21:28:00.000Z

It used to be a wonderful medium. A journey of passion. Equipment used to last for ages and provide us with reliable results.

Now, the bean counters and the box shifting mentality has accompanied the rise of photographies popularity. No longer is kit as reliable as it was. The increase in picture taking has resulted in a rush to get equipment out to market and has ended up with such a mass manufacture drop in quality that has affected the entire range of the corporates. This has not necessarily been matched by a drop in price.

Even at the lower end of the market, product could be expected to run for a good number of years; but it seems that the short termism of chasing the ever larger profit margin combined with our desire for everything on the cheap, (lets get it straight, the consumer is just as guilty as the manufacturer; they simply provide what we want to buy at the price we want to pay) has wrecked the legacy of our camera equipment.

The only people surviving this mentality are the likes of Leica and Hasselblad, who are way out of the reach of most mortal pen pushers like me.

Personally, it looks like the best course of action is to keep my head down until something else captures the populations fascination and photography is left on the shelf as yesterdays fad; then ... perhaps ... the quality and passion will return.

LRPS entries

2009-11-23T12:04:00.000Z

These are the pictures that I put forward for my LRPS assessment. Having viewed some of the portfolios in the example documentation, I believe that this one stands a reasonable chance. Maybe a few of the shots are out of the ordinary, but we'll see whether I cut the mustard as a photographer yet.

All adjustments from the image as it was taken, are included in brackets.

The first one is the orchid shot. Included as the first shot because it is relatively easy on the eye and also shows positioning; I was actually beneath the flower when I took this shot.

ORCHID - (very slightly cropped)

The technique of long delay is shown here; the shutter was open for some seconds while the waves came in and then out again over these rocks. The camera was on a tripod.

STONE GHOST - (as shot)

The sun and moon shot is, I hope, conveying more control as the camera settings are really ramped to get this shot in to direct sun light. The white clouds in a blue sky have all turned various shades of coffee brown. (if you're thinking of aping this kind of shot, PLEASE use live view.)

SUN AND MOON - (slightly cropped)

I had the advantage of being out with a pro-photographer friend when this shot of Portland Bill was taken. We arrived before sun rise, each selected our shooting positions and set to work. (the sunrise/set calculator was a great help in my decision on where to set up) This is a silhouette, but still has crisp detailing on the metal work on the lighthouse.

PORTLAND BILL - (minor dust removed)

After confirming that photo editing was an expected part of the LRPS, I decided to enter the Christchurch beach huts. In this picture, the detritus has been edited out (coffee cups, etc.) and the sky has actually been replaced. It is meant to convey lines and angles.

BEACH HUTS - (sky replaced and articles removed)

This is a very heavily cropped shot; the eye of an Australian Bearded Dragon. The crop resolution is 1:1 the presentation resolution and represents about ... oh, an eighth of the original picture.

OZZIE'S EYE - (heavily cropped)

The horses eye is difficult to explain. It seems to convey its own message. It was actually taken in the rain and poor light, so the depth of field is not the best, but the focus is sharp on the eye and I hope that this, together with the colouration and texture of the skin, carries this to good favour.

THOUGHTFUL HORSE - (a fly removed)

For the hell of it, I threw in some still life. Why, I'm not sure. I just did. A different and, hopefully, reasonably executed shot.

WHITE WINE - (as shot)

The guitar player was my one deliberate, "capture the moment," shot. True, some of the other shots like the horse and the dragons eye were also not easy to catch but neither were they that obvious. This shot has colour, sharpness and, "a moment." ... I hope.

"DECOYS" GUITARIST - (as shot)

The last shot is a rose and is meant to show aperture control as well as contrast selection. Most of the foliage was sufficiently behind it that I could get a good depth of field on the rose itself, but still throw the background out of focus.

ENGLISH ROSE - (as shot)

I won't have the results of my entry until the end of April, so I'm not holding my breath. We'll see what turns up.

Interfit unit fails again

2009-11-22T19:10:00.000Z

Call me thick, but if I transport some lighting equipment for twenty minutes in a car, in a padded aluminium case, (that they live in anyway) then take them out and set them up, I would expect them to work. Wouldn't you? Well, after a year of operation, one of the Stellar X units failed. They had actually only been out of the house on two occasions prior. Plugged in, switched on, there was a muted beep, a muted pop and it died. The fuses were intact and a smell of burnt electronics came from the ventilation slots. I haven't got a clue what happened but it smelt an awful lot like blown capacitor.

I know these units aren't supposed to be of the kind of standard that some pros use in the field; (ie. in forests, golf courses, beaches, anywhere and everywhere you can heft a battery pack and heads) this isn't Elinchrom we're talking about here ... but the way that this is going, I'll be too scared to take the Interfit kit outside the house.

I'm actually writing this on the Sunday that this has happened. I've e-mailed Interfit so this will test their metal once more. By the time you are reading this, I'll have had some form of response from them. (No you won't, because I forgot to set the post time forward. You were meant to be reading about this on Thursday. Oops.) To be honest, the treatment I've had from Interfit to date has actually exceeded my expectations; but I've got a feeling that this will be a failure too far. Time will tell.

At least it is possible to take some form of picture with one operational light, but all in all it was a disappointing four hours shooting.

Stunningly inspirational

2009-11-22T12:53:00.000Z

If you're stuck in a rut and can't afford big bugets for models, stylists and all that crap, then take a stunning leaf out of this book of toy photography and get stuck in to making big pictures of small subjects.

There are some really inventive shots in there that are well worthy of a visit to the toy store.

Why chase the distinctions?

2009-11-20T08:42:00.000Z

Those who know me are aware that I am not a lover of competitions. It is a notorious and foregone conclusion that each judge has their own favourites and that disagreement between photographer and judge is a hideously common occurrance. So why go through the hassle?

For a start, I'm not up against anyone else here. I'm up against myself and a pannel; not a single judge but a number of people. There are three sets of standards and it is up to me to push myself to reach those goals. The full details are in PDF here. The LRPS I believe I can achieve with what I have already shot. It will take care to select the ten shots required, but I believe I can do it. After twenty years of shooting and the last three years being quite heavy on the photo production, I think that my current work shows that I have control of the camera and the main controls of photography...

Presentation: Overall Impression of Portfolio

Technique: Camera Work

Technique: Technical Quality

Seeing: Visual Awareness

Thinking: Communication

The ARPS goes further and is where the focus shifts from technical competency and goes to creativity. This, I believe, I can also achieve once I apply myself to the requirements of the application. I also believe that some of the work I shot in the last two years already gives me a good starting point to compiling the fifteen images necessary. It is explained in the document as follows...

"The second level of The Society’s Distinctions is the Associateship - a significant step up from the Licentiateship. While in the Licentiateship we are looking for a basic competence and skill, to be successful at Associateship level you need to demonstrate a high standard of technical competence as well as provide evidence of creative ability and the development of a personal style. You also need to be able to show that you are in complete control of the technical aspects which allows you to produce quality which is entirely ‘fit for purpose’ i.e. it suits the subject."

FRPS, however, is a whole different ball game and requires a degree of excellence that I don't think I will be able to achieve for a considerable number of years; I just don't have a camera in my hands often enough to be able to reach this level. I might manage it by the time I retire; if I am lucky. This is what the document lists...

"The highest Distinction offered by The Society is the Fellowship, which is awarded for excellence and distinguished ability, combined with evidence of originality or freshness in approach. By definition, achieving the Fellowship involves a significant amount of time and effort, but it is a goal worth aiming for and it is attainable.

The award of a Fellowship confers a recognition that you are a photographer of considerable merit and expertise, and is an achievement of which to be very proud.

In order to be successful, it is essential that the technical quality of your submission for the Fellowship is excellent and, if the work is interpretive, then the quality should be appropriate to the subject and intent. The presentation of your submission should be to the highest possible standard.

The assessors are looking for outstanding work that may be pushing forward the boundaries of photography in the discipline concerned. They want to see individual work with a strong personal style and a maturity of vision, both in the individual image and the presentation as a whole. They also want to be convinced that you are seeing, thinking, and working as a photographer at the highest level."

So, for someone like me, who doesn't earn money from photography, doesn't have assignments, no one to please other than myself ... this gives me a goal; something to shoot for and although continued membership of the RPS will cost a decent chunk of money for someone like me, on top of the assessment charges, it will be a fair whack of dosh that could otherwise be spent on equipment ... but I think it will be worth it in the long run.

This is the kind of photography that I aspire to be creating. Some of these shots are really stunning, and I want to create things like this ... but I will only achieve these kinds of levels if there is a goal to chase.

Royal Photographic Society

2009-11-18T20:18:00.000Z

I got back home and, true to their word, the documentation was waiting for me. Consisting of the Distinctions Handbook, a copy of the call for 2010 entries to the 153rd International Print Exhibition and a copy of the journal for November; volume 149 number 9 ... that's a considerable publishing history. Also fitting, perhaps, that The Queen is on the cover. Their web site is here.

The Distinctions Handbook details the three main awards, Licentiateship (LRPS), Associateship (ARPS) and Fellowship (FRPS). It details the full process; the only question I had afterwards was whether I had to be present at the assessment, to which I think the answer is, no. The first part is to ascertain a level of competence as a photographer. More on that when I hear back from my first application in a few months.

The journal itself contains a separate section entitled, "Membership Matters," and contained a few short articles by members and a few event details that I brushed over. The journals main body started with a Presidents Report and then launched in to articles; feeling just like a general photography magazine. The content, however, was primarily art based and didn't contain the plethora of how-to that fills the news stand magazines. It was pretty much art all the way. Yes, there was some equipment reviews but the pure mathematics of it was 56 pages of article against 10 pages of adverts (there were some sub-page adverts so I've handled the maths as best I could) which, at a membership of £93, assuming 12 issues per year, that comes down to just under 14p per article page.

I pluck an unread copy of the only general photographic magazine I'll read these days (Amateur Photographer) out of the "still to read" bin and calculate it out at ... 54 pages at an annual subscription of £91.80 ... well, that is less than 4p per article page as AP is a weekly, not a monthly.

However, membership of the RPS is more than just a magazine subscription. It is the right to carry the letters after your name for any distinction you earn while you are a member. It is also a society; I'm not sure of the full benefits yet, but I'll work that out in time. The journal itself is also of a higher print quality and written more as a journal should be, rather than a magazine; so the simple price comparison is only the simplest of yardsticks; we are talking apples and oranges here; but they are both hanging fruit.

If there was a bridge between the two, then Professional Photographer would be it, at a current offer of £25 for twelve issues, that is a magazine worth looking at for artistic information without the price tag. But back to the RPS...

If you are aware of your equipment options, know your photoshop/gimp processing and just want information on the artistic world of photography, then taking a look at the RPS should be on your to-do list. Also, if you are over 65 the membership drops to £68 while students are just £40. There are also other charges for overseas, disabled and family memberships, so check them out if they apply to you.

Where are we going?

2009-11-17T07:51:00.000Z

When the likes of Chase Jarvis' iPhone pictures aren't of much interest to society at large, (judging by the low individual image view count in relation to his much larger general following) then I think it is right to ask where images are going. Where the community is going. Where the world is going. We are in the middle of a massive re-evaulation; many movements exist, religions seem to be waning and people are standing up and evaluating themselves as individuals.

I believe that this is what the world is becoming; a planet of individuals.

Talking of individuals, we had Anne Quarry, ARPS, giving a talk to the club last night. Anne is representative of photographers who not only still shoot film as a main medium, but also still shoots slides. It raised more questions in my head than I judged were safe to voice in club discussion. I found myself questioning my own interpretation. I'll explain...

Some things are linked to a period of time in our history. If a piece of furniture is freshly made which harks back to a period some decades prior, then it looks out of place. More appropriately, I believe it looks out of time. The same thing seems to exist with me when I see slides. What it is, I can't put my finger on it. As Anne said at the start of the talk, it is notoriously difficult to keep slides clean. Perhaps it is the subtly muted colours ... I'm not sure. Pictures taken of current events which are on slides just have that ... unsynchronised feeling for me.

It isn't a question of what it is right or wrong to shoot in, it is just that, for me, the media adds its own characteristics in to the mix and I need to be aware of that.

Anne's own presented pictures covered a range of locations and covered a few different styles, primarily the street photography that she did while on lunch from work and also her love of architectural works, in particular reflections of buildings in buildings.

I think that seeing Anne's work has been the final push for me to investigate the Royal Photographic Society. They now have details winging their way to me about the licentiateship. We'll see what happens.

There seems to be a bigger journey here than just my own photography. I'll keep you updated, but with there being a four month time span between submission and review of licentiateship applications, it won't be a quick update.

Free book - Photographic Therapy

2009-11-14T07:53:00.000Z

I'm currently reading a free PDF book by Ronaldo Gomez and I'm about a third of the way through it. The long story short is that connection with the subject is vital, but this book appears to be 77 pages of Ronaldo's experience in communicating with women in particular and a chunk of that expands the main headlines in to accounts of his, in this vein, and how he managed to overcome the various social situations that some women brought to a shoot and still captured the emotions within them.

Some of Ronaldo's words and writing style sound aloof and self opinionated, but it is worth sticking with the book and reading through this, because he has good reason to have the experiences that he has; a knowledge of inner emotion which is a key to faster empathy and an easier shoot.

When it comes to passion, Ronaldo has it in spades. I connect with much of what he says; in my own recent experience I shot a woman who was brought to me by her husband; she had never been shot before and certainly not in the nude; she was rightfully apprehensive and I had to take considerable care. I had done a lot of planning. It turned out that her breasts were a mismatched size and I had to account for this, while still shooting her nude. The sheet got torn up in my mind but I had to keep the cool, calm professional and guide her through her first shoot. They loved the pictures and I breathed such a huge sigh of relief that it generated a few killowatts of power at the local wind farm.

They later came back for another shoot.

What Ronaldo is saying here is ultra important, but if you're already successfully photographing people in emotional situations it is odds on that you already know instinctively much of what Ronaldo writes. Yes, there are also a few styling and posing tips and tricks in here as well, (although most of us will never likely have access to an infinity pool) so it might be worth a blimp through; but if you are thinking of starting in earnest to photograph people in intimate settings then I would class this as a vital read. I'm now two thirds of the way through it and I'll probably complete this by the end of the day; I'm looking forward to the section on shooting couples.

Lighting for Portrait Photography

2009-11-12T11:14:00.000Z

This wonderful birthday gift reached me today. It is on the pile of things to be read and reviewed. A quick flick through the lighting diagrams reveal much of the two softbox approach with the occasional third light on the background, but I won't be able to tell for sure until i've gone through it properly.

It has arrived just in time as I am scheduled to do some portfolio and portrait work in a little over a week. I'll let you know how it all goes.

Adobe lays off one in ten

2009-11-11T12:17:00.001Z

An interesting report on the BBC records a cut in Adobe's workforce. The last year has seen Microsoft entrench itself, cuting products like Money and other side projects to focus on its core business.

It will be interesting to see what gets cut. Photoshop is a major business player; with Gimp nipping at its heels. Flash is playing a major part in the international Internet media arena and with Silverlight being dumped by ITV it remains the undisputed king. Acrobat is a big document archiving system and before the days of Open Office, perhaps the only true cross platform formatted document transport system; but times have changed and PDF may have run its course.

One in ten staff is a significant cut (7,000 to 6,300-ish) but I don't see them closing any of these key systems any time soon.

The interesting thing for me will be to see what happens to its advertising spend. This could spell a bit of a problem for UK photography magazines for whom advertising money is a significant boost. With the pound hovering at 152-ish yen for the last month, it will be worth seeing what happens; if this hits camera sales then that will have a more serious effect on cross board advertising revenue and this will really hit our magazines. I haven't yet seen any announcements from the smaller supporting services like camera bags, tripods and the like.

Adobes share price has been rising steadily, trading at about $40 per share for most of 2007 and 2008. It took a massive drop to about $18 early this year before climbing back up to about $34 as I write. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

Perhaps it will be interesting to see whether the version wars will either keep people from buying a new Photoshop version to cope with the RAW files of newer cameras, or else not even bothering to upgrade their cameras at all.

Perhaps Adobe could consider a subscription service for people with older Photoshop versions, to sell packages of filters that allow newer RAW files to be opened. That might help both Adobe and camera manufacturers to break the link between the two.

Still Life

2009-11-09T22:28:00.000Z

Well, tonight at the club was when the entries were judged. I had two pictures in but was looking for the comments. Surprisingly, I did well in the points. How, I'm not sure, but the comments that came back were very helpful. The judge was Jack Bates FRPS, MPAGB and he offered what I thought was some extremely good comment on the images entered.

For those of you who were eagle eyed, there was no post on last weeks meeting which was a talk from Helene Rogers, FRPS, MPAGB, FBIPP and FMPA. I was waiting for an e-mail which hasn't come yet; but I might have to report on the evening regardless whether the e-mail does actually arrive.

Still life always causes a heated discussion because there is a fine line between still life and other forms like table top or record photography. Not only that, but some of the better compositions can look too natural and leave the judge pondering whether the arrangement was done by the photographer or whether it was a happenstance shot of an existing arrangement. I don't think many people envied Jack's job this evening.

Some lone objects managed to make the cut as still life because of a combination of framing, lighting and control of depth of field. This kind of attention seemed to lift them out of the tabletop or record classification, although I did get the feeling that Jacks own line between these photographic types was fine tuning itself throughout the judging.

For some reason, wine made for a recurring theme throughout the evening. People were left to draw their own conclusions!

Large, Medium, Small earned me 17 out of 20. The concept of a large format camera being viewed on the ground glass of a medium foramt camera. with the final composition being taken on a small format camera was a good one, however the judge seemed to believe it had been photoshopped, which it hadn't. The critical problem was that the shot didn't carry its story. Comment was also passed about the metal in the bottom left of the frame and that he would have liked to have seen that cloned out.

Red Fire earned me twenty out of twenty. How, I'm not sure because I know that I can do better than this. Jack didn't seem to mind the fact that the bottom aspect of some of the glass bases were not easily visible, the image seemed to carry itself.

Next competition is Natural History. There should be some stunning entries in that class which will be worth viewing.

Here, by the way, is the set up shot for Large, Medium, Small ...

...you will notice the battery soft box flash unit that lit the Linhof without spilling on to the ground glass of the Hassy. The metal on the Hassy frame was lit by natural light. In this shot, the natural light then acted as fill light, with the flash being the main light.

Is there a secret to getting a good still life shot? After coming away from the evening I concluded that if a shot looks like it could have been set up as it might have been in real life, then it is treading the fine line. If an arrangement consists of a single item, then unless the item is treated in a very artistic way then the judge could take it as being a reference shot.

There were some stunning pictures that didn't fit in to the still life catagory for precisely these reasons. Among the better still life pictures was a single flower, in a thin vase, with one leaf. The whole thing was superbly arranged and all the different whites blended superbly, the high key arrangement only broken by the green of the leaf blade. Stunning arrangement, and because of the background and the lighting, there is no way that anyone would have thought it was an accidental arrangement.

Technical issues with Pentax I'd tackle

2009-11-02T15:24:00.000Z

First up is that when a new camera comes out, the firmware updates for previous models, stops. Customers who have cameras which should be lasting for years, are then left feeling abandoned; no further development work to be done on them. That is not what you would call good customer service for a start.

Since the first K10d and the grip, I had been complaining about the lack of an AF button on the grip. I even put forward a suggestion, to make the ev+/1 and "green" buttons together function as AF - an option in the firmware to turn on or off the ability to do it ... and a firmware update is all it would take.

I spend a fair amount of my shooting time with the camera in portrait orientation. The grip is a big thing for me. The other thing is that in order to capture a moment, I need the camera to respond the moment I hit the shutterbutton; I need it to take a picture, not faff about trying to refocus. hence I take the auto focus off the half shutter depress and on to the AF button instead. However, having no AF button on the grip means that a fair whack of my shooting is done with my right hand twisted over my head ... that won't do my wrist any good, I don't think!

Of course, the same grip was compatible with the K20, so it wasn't until Pentax completely changed the grip that there was an AF button installed. Surprise, surprise.

The flash handling is also suicidally stupid. For Pentax, the flash synch has always topped out at 1/180th of a second. This is a good deal lower than the 1/250th of the competition. This figure hasn't risen, even in the K7. The consequences are there for the reading. Excatly what moving to 1/250th would mean for the longevity of the shutter, however, I'm not sure.

If the camera is faster than 1/180th, then it doesn't even send the flash trigger signal to the hot shoe. That means tricks like partial frame flash are impossible to achieve.

But why are such things needed? Well, apart from the obvious one of using chemical flash units, of which there isn't that much around any more apart for use in cave shooting and making a flash register on film when shooting video, there has been a surge in off camera flash photography. very dramatic effects can be achieved by balancing the flash against the ambient light.

As the aperture relates to the power of the flash light hitting the subject, the only control you have to control the sun is the shutter speed. Failing that, you need more light to account for closing down the aperture. Which means that in daylight, you've got problems getting the really nice, contrasty effects ... or you've got to move your flash in so close to the subject that they could use it to scratching that irritating itch on their nose.

You might instantly think of the high speed sync available via TTL. Fine, except with Pentax there is a minor problem. Using the Pentax built in optical TTL has problems, particularly when shoting in to sun and, as all optical systems suffer, line of sight issues. That leaves us turning to the third party wireless providers like Radio Popper and Pocket Wizard ... with the exception that neither of them easily work with Pentax ... perhaps the Radio Popper Px system might, but that is an expensive option.

So ... by not even bothering to transmit the "fire" signal above 1/180th, it robs us of some shooting options. Also, high speed sync on the flash units means less power overall. It would be interesting to learn why Pentax have stuck at 1/180th.

Anyway, to another few issues; using the Pentax optical wireless system, if shooting with a manual lens, the Pentax system obviously doesn't have any TTL information to transmit to the flash guns, but this means that it doesn't even bother to send the, "fire," signal either. So you can have everything set up with as high a quality second hand manual 50mm as you can get your hands on, and shooting flash guns, even when they are manually configured, with the optical wireless system, won't work.

We just need less nanying in the system; it is up to the photographer to make the mistakes and not for the camera to stick its tongue out at the photographer and say, "naaah, nah nah naaaaah nah," as it stops us from doing the creative stuff that requires us to break the rules.

One of the issues with wireless as opposed to optical is the differing frequencies in other countries. Well, that is easily solved by creating a pluggable unit that is created depending on the country concerned. Being similar to an SD or even a micro-sd card, slip it in to your flash units and your camera and you're talking on the right frequency for your country. Not only that, but any shooter could take their equipment to another country and only need the new frequency modules for that country; they wouldn't have to rent other units and get used to new equipment, and they wouldn't have to ditch their investment in country specific wireless systems. Only having to manufacture the one overall unit would also realise lower manufacturing costs and also enable units to be changeable at will should countries go through what the UK is currently going through ... a redistribution of spectrum. All you'd need is the new frequency modules saving you from having to ditch your entire wireless equipment expenditure.

How would the flash units know to fire from a specific camera, though? No problem; just as is being done now ... mount the flash to the cameras hot shoe, half depress the shutter and have the camera blow its serial number in to the flash. That means the flash would only then respond to that camera body.

Of course, it is also possible to consider a side-mounted wireless receiver which would talk with the flash as if it was the camera connected to the hot shoe ... much easier and potentially more flexible for cost, as it could include group ratio controls as the Radio Popper JrX does now.

What photographers could really benefit from, however, is an open source TTL system ... but the manufacturers are unlikely to colaborate on such a solution.

The K7 is reported to have also solved a number of major complaints, including noise and focusing in low light.

The last thing was that I commented on Pentax World that I enjoy shooting with my Hassy in the 1:1 ratio and that freedom of composition ratio is an important creative decision for me. Low and behold, the K7 enjoys multiple ratios in its shooting. Ho hum.

What would I do?

2009-10-31T12:01:00.000Z

I've taken a significant swipe at Pentax and their lack of engagement with the customer base; with their complete lack of performance and their transition to a box shifter with no pride in their product or their customer service. So it is time to redress the balance.

Despite being around longer than Canon and Nikkon, Pentax are losing out. This, however, isn't the first time this has happened recently; this David v Goliath scenario has played out recently in the console wars where the Nintendo Wii went head to head with the graphical processing power houses of Microsoft and Sony, the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The Wii floored the competition on the sales field; so it is possible to take on the big guys and win ... but it needs guts and innovation.

Competitions
Entry level sytems offered up as prizes in photo magazines are designed to get people won over to a particular system. The prizes are not of significant value enough to be worth entering for people who are already in those systems unless they are after a second body. The purpose of the competitions is to win new customers that will hopefully purchase more lenses, etc. in the future. Let's be clear about that.

So; are photography magazines the place to do it? I'd argue that it isn't, for a number of reasons. If someone new was going to buy a camera, how would they do it? Usually off the back of someone else who already owns equipment; or else they'd go to a shop or lok at the on-line reviews. Offering up a competition as a happenstance method of winning new customers seems to be more of a miss than a hit.

If new customers are the aim, then it makes more sense to be engaging with education establishments that offer photography courses than chasing people who are already likely to be involved with a system.

Old stock
In an ideal world any manufacturer would sell the stock that they have made, and would have sufficient stock available as and when consumers demand them. Not having a unit ready for sale could easily lead to a customer opting for another system, and that means a loss of future system sales. So while stock levels for higher value items like DA* lenses are going to be low, the numbers of entry level systems are likely to be high; and in the world of the compact camera where models change on a very fast basis, this means that there will inevitably be old stock hanging around.

Old stock costs money to store, money to dispose of and doesn't do much for the old bank balance. It makes sense to use that stock to further Pentax's cause. Again, links with educational establishments that offer photographic courses is a strong target for the entry level DSLR systems, either offering them at reduced rates to students that haven't got their own kit or else donations for students that come from low income families ... investing in the next generation of professional photographers.

As far as the compacts are concerned, there are a large number of charities around all over the place that need to record events. To have the Pentax name appear on a list of supporters of charities gets the name out in the community.

This, however, would not come without a cost. Firstly, the scheme itself would need staff to administer it and even giving away a unit for low cost or free still ties Pentax to having to support it. Unfortunately, good will and possible future sales are not easy for accountants to show on a balance sheet ... but then, that is what all this is about. There is also the danger that Pentax could end up liable for product disposal, just as the larger white goods manufacturers are now.

Customer engagement
Talking with Pentax has, for me, felt like talking in to a black hole ... and it isn't easy to find the black hole to talk in to it in the first place, either. If a customer doesn't feel good about their experience of ownership, then that is going to cut down the word of mouth of their experience that is given to other people ... and that is one of the sources of new customers referenced to in the first section.

Existing customers breed new customers. Don't take care of existing customers and news will travel ... fast.

Customer experience costs money. No way around that. How much money, however, depends on the approach.

Pentax already operate a photo gallery, but their primary photo selection process involves other participants voting on submitted pictures. In a fair world, that would be no problem. The world, however, isn't fair and lengthy discissions about the Pentax Photo Gallery on DP Review turned up people who will vote against pictures of flowers purely because they think that there are already too many flower pictures on the system. Against a view like that, no picture of any flower stands a chance of being considered on its own merit.

This kind of solution is big foot bullet time.

So how to handle the work load? Firstly, restricting a members submission to one or two photographs a month should help reduce the workload. After all, how many amateurs take that many pictures that would be worthy of gallery inclusion? It would be possible, again, to engage with educational establishments to work with photography students on the final year of their courses, to judge photographs at a first level. Using a points award system for things like, composition, contrast, etc. would provide feedback for the submitting photographer and also greatly restrict the entry to second level.

The students could earn points for the number of photographs they review and those points, up toa maximu, could translate in to photography kit. Thereafter, the photographs that score above a certain threshold, would pass to the current Pentax last level judges.

After all, if you pay peanuts, you do get monkeys; and doing something badly is sometimes worse than not doing something at all.

Back in 2007 I found a bug with the wireless TTL flash system. I reported it. It was fixed in the next firmware relese, but wasn't even mentioned in the release notes. I received no correspondence and in order to determine whether the bug had to be fixed I had to run another test myself. The bug had, indeed, been fixed. However, after trying to report the bug to Pentax UK, the reponse I received was to report it on the Pentax US site. Effective communication is important and bouncing your customers around from pillar to post is not good practice; especially when they are trying to do you a favour.

In the modern day of the Internet, it is possible for one central fault reporting system to exist in Japan, and for all the regional sites to redirect to it with a language tag to ensure the right default language is presented to the customer. One reporting channel and better control. Win-win.

The same can be done for suggestions, etc. and even a small customer honour roll for those that contributed to making the system better ... even if it is a list of names after an issue or suggestion.

But at the crux of all this, I have to honestly ask myself ... when was the last time that Pentax actually came to me, as a user, and actually asked me for my opinion or thoughts? What do I need from a system? What do I need for my shooting? I just feel like I'm on the other end of a, "mother knows best," conveyor. Again, the Internet can help here; automated forms that customers fill in - the serial number of their camera body should help with security to stop response rigging.

It is time to open up. As a user, the threat of going full frame has been hanging over my head. Dare I risk expenditure of other lenses when there is a risk that Pentax could end up going full frame and wipe out my lens investment. Keeping those kinds of cards close to Pentax's chest is what prevents system investment; and with the amount of changes going on in the industry at the moment with micro four thirds and more, if Pentax could give their users a firm commitment to maintaining the K mount and APSC sensors, this would encourage confidence in the system and confidence in equipment investment. Of course ... a lack of such an announcement furthers speculation that a system change could be imminent which actually restricts sales.

Next time... technical issues.

P is for...

2009-10-28T19:50:00.000Z

Well, it used to be the day when the "P" in Pentax used to also stand for P as in Passion. Sadly, no more.

P now stands for Pure, Protective, Punctilious, Parsimonious Profit.

Scrooge would be proud.

For those who have followed the chronicles of the three K10d bodies that failed I can now feel comfortable in announcing that the K20 also has a failure. I have corresponded enough with Pentax UK now, to feel a hundred percent certain that the UK team have no teeth; no passion for their performance; no pains for their patrons and, perhaps worse of all ... no pride in their product.

The fact is, as I see it, when the third K10 failed, Pentax should have recognised the grief that had been caused and been more flexible about allowing me to switch out of that system; what they should have done was throw up their hands and say something like, "Whoops, this isn't normal; our stuff has really let you down, caused you some grief; let us help you out a little here and work something out."

Not only didn't they do that, but the shop had to fight both mine and their corner, tooth and nail, to prevent us losing out to the repeated kit failures.

I thought that the K20 would be the end of the run of bad luck. It wasn't, and I have lost all faith in Pentax ... and after briefly corresponding with one of their UK team, they have done nothing to give me a glimmer of hope again.

I now have to take time to consider my very, very few options. For sure, however, it will have to wait until the kitchen has been done next year, at the very least.

In my humble opinion, the P in Pentax now stands for P as in Pathetic, Pseudo-Positive Poop.

What's so special about Canon?

2009-10-23T12:58:00.000+01:00

This article on Amateur Photographer shows how out of touch and inconsiderate of other technologies some of the photography magazine reporters actually are.

The report records Canon's jump from 10 megapixels to 16 and how it will give photographers much more cropping power. Excuse me, but the Pentax K20d went to 14.5 over a year ago. What is so special about Canon doing this now? They have also missed the Sony that went to over 20Mpx, presumably because the quality over ISO 400 was described as unusable; perhaps said reporter didn't consider it for this reason.

Also, this quote "and takes the camera's file sizes to the limit of what can be easily and quickly transmitted over wireless networks." ... What? ... Excuse me? ... As a qualified and practicing network engineer, I would like to hear the facts and numbers behind that statement. I HATE it when magazine reporters just use their authority and start throwing around statements with no facts behind them; as if the readership should just take what they say as gospel.

Why am I so upset about this? Simple; because so many people haven't got a clue about their networking systems that they can misconfigure the system and that leads to something getting incorrect press that it doesn't deserve. I've seen it happen on too many occasions. Not only that, but some people are using, shall we say, less than current technology to test against. Bad science.

Somehow, I think I'm glad I cancelled my subscription. Very sad day for photography magazine reporting, I think.

The Park Camera visit

2009-10-21T16:24:00.000+01:00

Well, it wasn't the sales pitch that people had thought would happen. Peoples credit cards were safe, for the time being.

In accordance with my last post of not naming any names, the presentation took account of a few simple concepts; teathered/wireless shooting and also Adobe Lightroom.

The teathered shooting and wireless transfer technologies had been around for a few years, including the SD card that had a bluetooth transmitter in it; (Eye-Fi) the only difference is that the 2gig storage had been increased to 4gig in the pro version. Pros have been shooting teathered for some considerable time, most usually with the laptop mounted on the same tripod configuration as the camera, effectively becoming a larger preview screen. The remote controlling systems for Canon and Nikon were demonstrated and, full credit to the rep, low cost alternatives to the expensive Nikon software were put forward, (Canon ship their software free with their cameras) points made of the ability to use the 30 day trials and also the newer innovations such as the iPhone software that can remotely control a camera that is USB teathered to a laptop.

Wireless USB technology wasn't shown, which for me offers more possibilities; it would offer the full control abilities of the cable USB connection, but without the cable. Personally, not worth it for me but I can see it as being added as a techological, "me too," in future cameras just like high def video has been.

To the Lightroom demonstration, it was a good demo; point taken and credit given for demonstrating powerful but more affordable software that doesn't have the full power of Photoshop but contains many of the features that an amateur photographer will need for the majority of their post processing. Of course, however, Park Cameras does do a day course in Lightroom! Take it for a spin yourself and take a peak; you'll have to, "register," with Adobe, (ie. give them your details so they can send you loads of advertising crap. I'm a cynical sod.)

I have to admit that I found myself, yet again, suffering for my IT literate and inquisitive traits; I knew what was being taught here. It did bring me to mind that although the club has guests from considerable locations, maybe they don't have an officer who has an eye to this kind of advancement; I wonder if the members are aware of the advances in the photography communities on the Internet.

Full credit to Park for not doing the heavy sales thing and for presenting lower cost alternatives to some of the technology displayed even when things don't go through them; although I wonder how many of the people attending would have actually owned an iPhone. The demonstration of where technology is going, however, is always a good thing even if people don't follow it; it at least shows that things are moving forward, developments are being made and that photography is moving on ... it is then down to the individual as to whether or not, and how far, they want to climb on board the progress train.

Then again, I wonder how many people would be interested in the things I've learned in the last couple of years; it has struck me that the majority of pictures I have seen so far have been ambient light and some photoshop in places, so I have my doubts.

1 Terrabyte Micro SD card future

2009-10-21T12:38:00.000+01:00

The Register brings a report that micro SD cards capable of storing 1 terrabyte are now feasibly possible. Good job that the SDXC standard is ahead of the game!

Wow. Imagine never having to buy another SD card again for photos; never having to delete your RAW images. Fuck me, that's scary.

This isn't April first is it? Is it?

Just spotted...

2009-10-20T07:26:00.000+01:00

It is an article form March, but I've only just spotted it - Miroslav Tichy makes his own cameras from rubbish.

My Lens Plans

2009-10-19T09:55:00.000+01:00

I'm a great fan of using cheaper lenses to work out what is needed and plan a roadmap of lenses to buy. Although there is the dark spectre of developments like micro four thirds which threaten to upset lens mountings and throw photographers everywhere in to a process of kit changing, I'm hanging on to the current system which I think will still be around for some time to come.

The 50-135 was the one lens that I had a chance to buy before the prices shot up massively. I traded in some of my existing equipment for this lens and it certainly lives up to its reputation. This lens demonstrates why the DA* range is worth the extra money.

Portrait and model shooting is where most of the money seems to be; at least for me. There are people around who want pictures of their family and things, so when the opportunity came to get one of the DA* lenses, this was the first investment.

Number two on my list, far from being a wide angle, is actually a 300mm prime. The ultrasonics and weatherproofing of the DA* range is the extra icing on the quality cake and outside is where most of my personal photography has been. As mentioned on the previous post, the 300mm has been the key to both the zoo and airplane shots. What it lacks in f stop, it should more than make up for in crisp, sharp shooting and fast response.

This lens, however, went up from £700 to £1,100 so where before it would have been a hard climb, it is now in the realms of silly money for me.

It is then that the 16-50 brings up the rear on the main coverage for things like indoor shoots and wide angle landscapes. This will be finishing off the main round of shooting. Even though it is only £810 it is still expensive to the degree of me wanting the 300mm first.

The 60-250 is not my first choice of lens and if something else crops up that more closely matches my requirement, then this will easily fall off the list. As this lens is currently in the realms of £1,200 it is well out of my budget.

There is a need to go beyond 300mm and it is good to see that this is recognised by Pentax. What they do in this range, however, will likely cost a small fortune and I'll probably never have a lens like this, but we'll see.

What is missing?
The one lens that could knock the 60-250 off the shopping list would be something around the range of 30-200, or better still 20-200. I find, when I am out and about, that I am flipping between the old 50-200 and the 16-45 that I own. Changing between those lenses on such a frequent basis was a recipe for getting dirt on the sensor very quickly. Pentax need to look at this.

What about Macro?
Well, I do admit that I could do with a macro lens in my line up, and I could also do with a wider angle than 16mm for indoor work, but these are more specialist lenses that I haven't really looked in to yet. The 16-45 has been good enough for most of my flower portraiture and I'm not exactly in to creepy crawlies, so I have to get through the expensive lens list above before I take a look in to this kind of shooting world.

Pound to Yen Exchange Rate

2009-10-15T14:35:00.000+01:00

It is no difficult thing to wonder how our camera equipment prices have got much higher in the UK. At the top right there is now a live chart of the last year of the exchange rate between the GBP and the Yen. (it took me some time to sort out their Windows server not interpreting %26 correctly; but I worked around it!)

Reaching a high of about 250 yen to the pound three years ago, we're now about the 140 yen mark, which is at least up from the crash point of 120 yen last January. The chart below should be live so return to this post to see the live data.

The long story short is that when the pound against the yen goes up, so our camera equipment gets cheaper again. We want it to be at least 200 yen to the pound and for camera shops to then clear the stock that they bought during the expensive period.

300 through the window

2009-10-14T15:33:00.000+01:00

The only way to seriously compare the Tokina and the DA was to mount them on a tripod and take the venitian blinds out of the equasion. Still firing through plain glass, however. If you can't work out which shot is which lens, then don't give up your day job.

The sharpness of the lens is self evident, no doubt about it. My fears about the speed of auto focusing are reasonably well founded and the difference between the camera motor and the ultrasonics is obvious. The focusing ring runs for half the circumference of the lens, which is the same distance for the 50-200 stock so it isn't much worse in terms of overall performance although it, "feels," a little slower on AF. Whether there is a gearing difference internally or not, I'm not sure; I'd have to get out a stopwatch to be certain.

The autofocus speed could be an issue with the airplanes and the slightly shorter overall reach could prove to be an issue when shooting through cages ... but only time will tell for sure.

The new 300mm

2009-10-14T10:51:00.000+01:00

It had to happen. I had lost too many shots this last year because of the lack of a good long end lens. The nude under the railway bridge was out of focus. The Bornmouth aircraft show suffered horrendous chromatic aberation and Port Lympne Wildlife moved too fast for the f8 I was stuck to. Also, using a manual focus lens while wearing glasses is not the best solution.

The 300mm DA* lens, however, is way out of my budget, so I ended up with a DA lens that cost a fraction over £300 once a low cost UV filter was included. Here, I'll compare the two.

The DA lacks two key things over the DA*, namely no ultrasonic motor and also the lack of weather proofing.

The Pentax cameras have not been the best for automatic focusing since they came to market; and using the standard motor I am expecting this lens to hunt. I've used the ultrasonics on the 50-135 and I know the difference. In fact, as most of my shooting lately has been with the 50-135 or the manual 300mm, I will likely find it a handicap going back to the camera motor; but because of finances and the exchange rate, I have no choice.

Weather proofing has actually increased my shooting confidence in outdoor weather conditions; when others would be packing their cameras away, I can keep on firing away and capture the best of the emotion that comes out with the wet weather. Not having weather proofing on this lens will likely see me shy back away again.

Although the DA isn't the most pin sharp and doesn't quite match the DA* series for quality, it is certainly a step above the stock lens and will be a serious improvement on the ageing, milky, slower and cromatic aberative performance of the Tokina 300mm.

You see, the way I see it is this... standard, "stock," lenses are cheap and ideal for exploring photography. They are ideal for working out what you like to shoot and where you want to put the serious money when you get around to it.

People are attracted to success and there isn't that much success that can come around from using stock lenses. With good light that works for the lens, a stock lens can put out a respectable picture, but when it starts going outside the picture perfect conditions that is when things like CA and lack of overall performance come in to play and you start missing shots. And that hurts.

Soft lenses can be overcome by some judicial sharpening and down sampling an image; but that needs a good sensor which produces a relatively noise-free and digitally large image.

So if success breads success, then there is no alternative but to start upping the quality of the lenses once you've worked out where you're going. The stock lenses won't go to waste either; the low cost of my stock lenses allow me to use them in risky conditions where I either haven't got a weatherproofed lens of the range I want, or else I am going underwater, where most insurance companies will not cover the equipment.

Therefore I had hit the barrier; I needed better quality but didn't have the cash to go for the top edge.

So lets take a look at area coverage. The outer section here is the 55-300 DA and the inner section is the 300 Tokina. The difference in area covered between the 300mm digital and the 300mm manual is quickly seen, with the manual giving a slight zoom/distance benefit.

Now we're going to head up to the comparison shots. These are pictures taken out of my home office window, through venitian blinds to simulate the cage environment at the zoo. These were 1:1 ratio shots uploaded in JPEG Photoshop 12 quality and start with the Tokina 300mm, then the Pentax 55-300 DA and then the Pentax 50-135 DA* ...

The differences are plain to see. The Tokina is milky and had CA on the edges on the white window pane. That CA is not present in the DA, however the DA* delivers a much crisper image than the DA, showing its superiority.

To be honest, this is exactly what I expected although I was hoping that the DA would deliver a slightly sharper performance than it has. Nevertheless, it will have to do for a couple of years before I can afford the DA* systems.

Competition Time

2009-10-13T07:49:00.001+01:00

If you are unlucky enough to actually follow me regularly, you'll know how I feel about competitions. You'll also probably guess that I wasn't feeling too enthusiastic about attending the first MSCC competition of this season. I went along firstly because that is what new members should be doing, and also I wanted to see what people were shooting.

The judge was Glyn Bareham. Let me tell you, this guy is no slouch. He certainly knows not only one end of a camera from the other, but seems to have knowledge of all the most common locations and seems to have shot most of them himself!

The main thing that marked the difference was that Glyn offered some good, strong, constructive criticism to the room about the shots that he saw. It was really great to hear this happen. What was also surprising was that I was finding myself agreeing with the scores; I wasn't with him point for point, but I was at worse two points out.

I recognised a fair portion of the shots myself; particularly the Bluebell railway, the East pier at Brighton and a number of the lesser known areas. What that says about me, I'm not sure; perhaps I am not being as innovative as I believe I am, and maybe even I am merely following in everyone elses footsteps. Certainly food for thought.

The presentations themselves were interesting. It started with two slides, went on to about forty-ish projected images and then went to the printed images. The printed images were by far the better looking of the presented material and I was reasonably close to the front; there was more contrast and detail present. However the scoring seemed to be fair and even across the board.

I am actually motivated to enter two of my own pictures for the next competition which is the still life category. They are not, however, aimed for high scoring as they are not the more usual images so are unlikely to gain the empathy score; but I certainly want to hear how my work is interpreted. The competition itself is on the 9th of November, so I'll report back.

Next week will be a talk from Park Cameras; we've already been warned to keep our credit cards at home. The talk will be given by a particular member of staff that knows me quite well, so I'm sure that once he sees my face in the audience he will likely dry up. He is the person who took the twisted prism fault on the first K10 and diagnosed it as barrel distortion. I might actually miss this event; haven't decided yet; I don't like to be the cause of bad air.