If I had a photograph of you….

Geoff asked me a question the other day and I thought I should share the answer.

What’d he ask I hear you cry.

He asked why there were no pictures of people on this blog.

 Well….

 The simple answer is I don’t want to put pictures of people online without their explicit permission. To date the only people I’ve even tried to take a proper photograph of have been my wife and baba, and to be honest they appear in most of the E550 pictures I’ve taken of people as well. Anyway, given the nature of the web and the fact that once a picture is online it’s in the public domain forever we’re both reluctant to put pictures of the baba online where anyone can find them. So, that leaves the missus or me….

 She said no. I didn’t argue.

That leaves me.  Maybe VanGough(?) did self portraits, but not me. No siree.

 So, until one of you lot volunteer or I convince the wife that paying for a model is all about photography and not being a letch, all you’re likely to see here is pictures of things and places.

Hope you all understand.

Taking Control…

Thought it was time for another piece of kit review.It’s well known that low light needs either a bright flash or a longer exposure (either a wider aperture or a longer shutter speed). What I only discovered recently is that landscape shots can also benefit from it. those shots where the water looks like mist or the grasses have that ethereal (cool word) quality are all taken with longer exposure times.As a reformed Sabutamol addict (puff free for 2 years now), I’ve got this fantastic hand tremor (OK, it might be natural - Sabutamol could have nothing to do with it. Please don’t sue me!) . Anyway, the tremor means a lot of my pictures are more blurry than I’d like. I’d thought the tripod I borrowed would help with this and it does to a degree.However, that moment when you push the button on the camera still can cause a shake - even on the tripod. so I bought me one of these…. Canon RC-1

The Canon RC-1 is a simple remote control for the Canon camera (it works for the 440D - no idea about yours). Incredibly simple to use, it allows pictures to be taken from a range of about 10 feet in front of the camera, though not really from behind (OK, no comments about taking it from behind you freaks).It comes with a handy strap clip to keep with your camera. This seems pretty robust and secure - certainly mine hasn’t fallen off in the last few weeks.I have only one negative about what is otherwise a tasty bit of kit. When you change the camera to remote, it doesn’t change back between sessions - Pain in the bot….erm…neck when you only use the remote occasionally like me. Anyway, at less than £20, it’s worth the pennies in my opinion.

… On a jet plane…

“I’m leaving,

    on a jet plane…”

Actually more like they’re arriving on a jet plane, but still…

(1/320, f/11, metering - matrix, focal length - 55.0mm, 19/08/07 13:03)

This turned out much more sinister than I’d planned. I liked the sight of the plane escaping the clouds, the silhouette was just an added bonus.

I’d thrown the camera in the boot of the car because we were out with the “new shoes” and ended up at my brothers house. He’s a fantastic view from his back garden and I’d snuck out to take a few shots. The airplane shot turned out much better than any of the landscape ones.

The original was a lot more wishy washy than this, but I felt this looked much better. Comments, as always, are welcome!

The plane is on final approach to Belfast International.

Welcome to Northern Ireland.

Baby Needs New Shoes

I’d planned to get out and about today, ideally into a local park or even into the garden to try some more of that aperture stuff I’d talked about, but the weather was so oppressive and dank I decided to stay indoors and warm instead.

That is apart from a trip to buy baba some new shoes. Her first pair actually…

So, bereft of ideas for pictures I’ve tried to get a bit arty with those.

(0.6s, f/4.5, metering - matrix, focal length - 28.0mm, 18/08/07 20:34)

(0.8s, f/4.5, metering - matrix, focal length - 28.0mm, 18/08/07 20:35)

(1/2, f/5, metering - matrix, focal length - 28.0mm, 18/08/07 20:37)

(1/3, f/5, metering - matrix, focal length - 33.0mm, 18/08/07 20:43)

Two things came up as I took these. Firstly light and secondly background.

Light first - These were just taken using the little flash on the 400D plus the light available in the room. Before Picasa did it’s “I’m feeling lucky” thing, the pictures were very washed out with the red taking a lot of life from them. I’m not sure Picasa actually helped (I’m going to try and blog about that soon), but…

Background - Can’t help but feel these would look better on a white background. I may try this again with a white sheet or something to help reduce the noise (and the reds!).

I’m not sure if I have a favorite here. Probably the third one. I think. Maybe. I know the last one has ended up looking very bright or over exposed or something. Think that ruins it (I’ll go back to Picasa and see if it did something funny I guess - maybe even look at the edited image if I get brave)

For reference, the idea was to try and come up with an arty shot showing baba’s shoes (a sign of independence and growing up) composed against a book about Winnie The Pooh (the classic child’s adventure story).

Would the real Giant Ginger please stand up?

Gak.

I’ve been linked. And in being linked, it’s been pointed out that I never actually reveal my name here.

 This wasn’t on purpose. I actually thought it was on the bit about me thing.

 So it is now, or it will be just as soon as I’ve typed this.

Thanks Geoff for pointing that out.

Aperture - Big holes have small numbers…

Or, as my wife asked me earlier this evening

Why are you taking photos of the clothes line in the rain?

I’d mentioned earlier in the week about being so unhappy with the results of my weekends snapping. One of the problems I had was that I was trying to learn a bit more about Aperture and when I reviewed my results I couldn’t see what went wrong.

Here, let me show you….

(1/160, f/8, metering - matrix, focal length - 47.0mm, 12/08/07 15:56)

(1/8, f/36, metering - matrix, focal length - 47.0mm, 12/08/07 15:56)

Now, apart from the image on the right (or above - damn you blog editor thingy!) being a little darker. Changing the aperture appeared to do squat.

But, the theory I’d been told/read/guessed was this -

Aperture is the size of the hole in the lens that light can get through.

The amount of light hitting the lens can be controlled in two ways

1. By opening or closing the aperture
2. By increasing or decreasing the length of time the shutter is open (shutter speed)

You achieve a level of brightness within the image by complementing aperture and shutter speed. A smaller hole will require more exposure time

Aperture is measured in stops, typically fractions of how much of the lens is open and is referred to as a F number. F/2, F/4….

• F/2 effectively means the lens is half open ie: 1/2
• F/32 effectively means the lens is open to 1/32

OK, so far? Yeah so was I.

Now, apparently a large hole (small number) like F/2 would mean that the depth of field would be reduced. Something to do with less exposure time and beams of light and Star Trek stuff I think….

So, why did my two images with vastly different apertures look basically the same?

I asked a friend in work today (thanks friend!), who didn’t point and laugh and didn’t just mutter under his breath (thanks again friend!), but explained my mistake. Put simply…

The focal point in the shots above is basically infinity (not beyond it Mr Lightyear, no siree) and getting a shallow depth of field on something that far away is always going to be a problem.

He suggested I try to “focus” on something instead.

So, I did.

And here’s the results. Ignore the pictures, or rather ignore the content of the pictures, its just an example.

(0.6s, f/32, metering - matrix, focal length - 55.0mm, 16/08/07 19:19)

(1/5, f/18, metering - matrix, focal length - 55.0mm, 16/08/07 19:19)

(1/50, f/5.6, metering - matrix, focal length - 55.0mm, 16/08/07 19:19)

So, hopefully what you can see here is that as the aperture changed (opened - the number got smaller and the hole got bigger!), the background became more blurry and the shutter speed increased.

So, what are the lessons learned tonight?

1. Big holes have small numbers (Aperture is effectively 1 over the number)
2. Increasing the hole size reduces the shutter speed
3. Little numbers give shallow depth of field (blurry backgrounds)
4. Standing in the rain taking photos of a clothes line may confuse your wife and make you look like a twonk

 

Lord, I hope that’s right.

Subscriber is me - Digital SLR Photography Magazine

No pictures today (again!)

Instead I thought I’d mention this magazine (again!) and say that my first copy as a subscriber arrived last night. I’ve been buying this for the last few months and some of the articles are brilliant.

While hunting for my chosen toy and debating the whole passage of time, I bought a few different magazines. My responses to them ranged from “I wanna spend how much???” to “I just spent £4 on a book of adverts!”. A lot of magazines seemed obsessed with selling me thousand pound lenses and cameras rather than telling me what was in my price range. Little things in Digital SLR Photography like how to make your own reflectors and how to improvise filter mounts make it so much more accessible to people on a budget.

It was their review of the D40X against the 400D helped push me into Canon’s laps (mmmmm comfy), and it was their features of David Nightingale (Chromasia) and other fantastic photographers which makes me want to take better shots.

For those trying to learn the art, the fact the provide the exposure settings for a majority of their shots is superb (and it’s why I do it to).

My one complaint is that their website doesn’t live up to the quality of the magazine. 

If you’re looking for a magazine on Digital SLR Photography you can’t beat this. It does exactly what it says on the tin…erm cover.

Learning To Snap

Ye fake Olde Boate, or messing around with Picasa

I know you can do all this with Photoshop and Gimp. I also know it turns out better. But since I don’t know how to do it with Photoshop or Gimp and since I’m so fed up with last weekends pictures, I did this with Picasa and thought the result looked cheesy.

So I had to share.

Meanwhile, I’m patiently waiting for Queens to announce their evening course schedule to see i there is a decent photography course on. I’ve found one in Lurgan, but want to keep my options open in case Belfast suits.

 So, anyone interested in joining me for a few weeks fun in Photoshop?

 Oh, and for those that want to know - the image had a sepia filter applied to it. It then had 5 film grain filters to give it that really old look. Cheesy huh?

How not to park a boat…

As I’ve mentioned, Saturday and Sunday were pretty unsuccessful in terms of photographs and learning anything useful.

Still, I thought I’d share some of the shots this week. If you have opinions about what went wrong, or advice on how to make better use fo things, please let me know!

I could get into a diatribe on the decline of fishing within Ireland and how generations of fishing heritage are being lost because of over fishing and EU bureaucracy….

Instead, I thought I’d share a good example of how not to park your boat.

(1/100, f/5.6, metering - matrix, focal length - 18.0mm, 04/08/07 16:05)

Personally, I think the image is too dull. I’d prefer the shadows under the boat to be less black, allowing some of the detail and the rust to be visible. In retrospect I should have got lower and been looking up at the boat to make it more expressive. As usual the image has been quite heavily cropped and had minor tweaks from Picasa to make it presentable.

Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag

One good thing to come out of the weekend was finally getting to put my camera bag through some proper carry time. Previously, I’d never carried it for more than 20 minutes at a time so I was reluctant to say it was a bag or a bag of sh…

On Saturday, that all changed.

But first, the bag itself!

The Lowepro Slingshot 100 AW

Manufactured by Lowepro, the AW 100 is their entry level sling bag.

This came as an upgrade option for the camera kit I puchased, and at the time I was nervous about it, but though it looked a little more sturdy than the standard Jessops bag.

According to Lowepro, it’s possible to store a “Digital SLR with attached lens; 1 - 2 extra lenses and personal accessories”. Mine currently holds a Digital SLR with 18 - 55 lens, a 55 - 200 lens, a flash gun, a UV filter, a polarizing filter, a Cokin filter kit (with filter box), all the manuals, the extra lens caps, a sun doofer for the end of a lens, that sandisk card holder I mentioned last week, a spare battery, a sink, 2 towels and an emergency 4 star Radisson SAS hotel*.

Now before I begin, let me just point out I’m a big bloke. not big as in a little tall, or a little overweight. I mean big as in I have my own gravity well - small objects keep sticking to me! “Where I walk, I blot out the sun”, that sort of size. 

So anyway, Saturday saw me on an open boat (yes, the one in the picture from last week) and out for the day to Inishfree. Not the island from the poem, the one in the Atlantic, the one which if you miss the next stop is some island with a big copper woman with a book and a torch on it.  I had the bag in it’s backpack position and was pleased to see that not only did the straps fit me (with some slack) but also that it was incredibly comfortable to wear. It felt light and I wasn’t restricted in any way.

Upon beaching on Inishfree, a single click of a strap and the bag shifted from my back to my side, with the camera in a handy position to just lift out as needed. All the kit I needed was easy to get whilst still feeling secure. Watching other people on the island looking for a dry, clean spot to start rooting in their bags I was left feeling all superior - Well done Lowepro!

The handy little extras on their bag where great too. The screen cloth attached in the bag was a life saver for dealing with pesky rain drops and the water proof cover meant the kit all arrived back to base dry and snug - unlike its owner.

By my reckoning, I had the bag on my person for maybe 5 hours on Saturday. not once did I find it a burden. I was so impressed and comfortable with the bag that I ended up out walking on Sunday again to see if I could steal something from the weekends shooting.

To be honest, with the amount of kit I’d bought I was contemplating a new camera bag in the very near future. Now, I think I’ll keep the 100 AW and maybe just buy something to keep the bits I don’t need on a day out and about.

 I don’t plan on rating kit on this site, but if you’re looking for a cheap camera bag and don’t have a lot of kit to haul, this one might be for you.

* OK, so I was exaggerating about the sink, towels and hotel.