Family, Photography and other misc news
Today saw us exploring the east coast of Suffolk.
We found ourselves at Orford Castle, from the top there are some delightful views to the south. The weather was a little overcast but I still thought it worthwhile to take a few black and white shots of the castle.
I enjoy photography in all it’s forms, but the man made landscape and model photography are definitely my favourite two.
Today we spent the day in the lovely sea side town of Southwold. I seemed to be in a black and white mood, and spent time looking for shots that would suit.
Most of these shots were taken with the Nikon 1.
In the late afternoon as the sun started to sink we headed over to the Pier and the big tripod and Hasselblad came out.
The shot I really wanted was not possible due to some building alterations that had taken place, but I am going to re-think it and try a slightly different version at low tide, but I got a number of what I hope will be good shots once developed.
The best shot of the day was taken by Caroline, I’ll leave you with that.
Today we went on a shopping trip to Norwich, clothes and quilt shops for Caroline and for me a visit to The Window, the smallest coffee shop in the world.
The shopping and coffee went well, though Caroline did not buy any quilting material we did manage to get some clothes and Coffee.
Hayley our champion Barista served me one of the best Espresso I have had this year.
I’ll certainly rate Coffee Aroma in Lincoln and The Window in Norwich as the top two coffee shops I have visited this year.
While walking round the city I also did a little street photography, always fun.
We are off on a Photo Trip soon, there are some images that are fixed in my head, that I want to achieve. I have the camera, lens, filter and location all sorted out, I just need the weather to pull it off.
What to take on a trip is always a vexing question. When in the car, which is what we will be this time, makes the choice easy. We will be after some landscape shots (Hasselblad medium format kit), we will be near some RSPB reservers, so SLR’s, heavy tripods and long lens. Then there is opportunistic shots. Well for these it is what every you have with you, so on this trip it will be either an SLR with a standard consumer lens or the new Nikon One.
Yesterday Adobe released a Release Candidate for Lightroom V3.6, with Adobe Camera Raw V6.6, so last night I was able to give the RAW files a good tryout.
These are not all straight RAW conversions for the Landscape shots, after converting them to Tiff, I imported them into Nik software’s Colour EfexPro4 and Viveza2 as a test. For the shot of the birds on the lake, nothing was done except a bit of sharpening.
Also here is a near 100% crop of the bird shot. As you can see quite impressive for such a little camera.
How do Car drivers put up with commuting on busy roads.
After just two days, I could scream. No matter what I am commuting by bike tomorrow, some Ibuprofen and paracetamol should see me through the trip to work.
Even with a sore neck and shoulder it will be preferable to sitting in traffic.
I over did it yesterday at the gym, so today I am nursing a poorly shoulder and sore neck, this meant a trip to work via car and not bike.
Because of that I left work a little earlier then normal and took a walk along the river before going home.
It was a good chance to try out the Nikon 1 in more challenging circumstances.
It has noise, and is not perfect, but for a handheld snapshot, wide open at f2.8 at iso1600, I think its quite a pleasing photo.
People have to remember what this camera is for, its never going to produce high quality noise free photographs, but then again, neither is any small light camera. If you going after high quality and insist on pixel peeping then try a Nikon D3, or get the Tripod out and use a Nikon D3x, Leica M9 etc. Or go large and use a Lecia S2 on a tripod, Hasselblad etc if your after ultimate image quality.
Small cameras are about compromise.
Always use the right tool for the job. Wildlife photography is a good example of this. Heavy professional SLR’s and big Heavy Tripods will get you that killer image.
Obviously you also have to have enough practice and skill to get the shot! Something I do not have when it comes to wildlife, but I keep practicing.
©Chris Bennett
The shot above is me on Sunday, all the equipment and no idea! Actually you would be surprised how often wildlife photographers come back with nothing. Sometimes it takes years to get that image in your head captured in camera.
The weather gods blessed us this morning. I checked Twitter (sad I know), and I saw that Chris was heading out to Hartsholme Park. Checking the weather report it was not brilliant but looking outside there was a hint of blue in the distance.
I arranged to meet Chris there and packed my bag. A couple of Nikon D200 SLR’s with 12-24mm f/4 and 70-200, f/2.8 lens. I had a Nikkor teleconverter (X1.7), for using with the telephoto giving me extra reach.
With the promise of good weather this would also be the best change so far to try out my new compact, the Nikon V1, so I also packed that with a 10mm f/2.8 and 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6.
As you can see, I definitely need practice, a number of nearly shots but not great shots. The reference shot of the Tufted Duck is not to bad, and the single bird in flight is so nearly there. I just clipped a wing so it will not be making my portfolio.
As you can see here, Chris certainly did better.
As well as photographing birds I also took a number of landscape shots.
Here is the same shot twice, I have edited this quite heavily in Photoshop to give it a more painterly and artistic feel, the second image is the original.
It was a fun morning but very cold, before we left, I took a photography from the bridge. I took this shot with my SLR, but also bracketed it so I could try a HDR version. As well as using my SLR I also took the same shot with my new Nikon V1 with the Nikkor 10mm f/2.8.
Of the four shots below, the top two are from my SLR. The bottom two are from the little Nikon1.
I don’t think the HDR Version works in this case, but I have to admit the two bottom shots from the Nikon 1 are not to shabby at all. The one in the bottom left is an out of camera jpg, the one in the bottom right is the raw file that I processed in Nikon ViewNX2
The difference in the colours between the SLR at the top and the Nikon1 below is probably down to the fact I used a two stop gray graduated filter and a polariser.
Well this weekend is the end of the MotoGP season. Not only that but for many UK riders, this is also the time when most hang up their leathers for the winter.
Caroline on her Honda
There has been some good racing and the skills on show are fantastic. Unlike UK riders these guys will not be hanging up there leathers, now its testing, training and for many hitting the dirt trails for some off road riding, nothing improves your riding more then riding on the slippery stuff.
For me, i’ll still be commuting to work on the bike. Hopefully we will not have as much snow as last year. No matter how cold it gets I love commuting to work by Motorcycle.
Keep it sticky side down guys.
Well today was the Lincoln Photo Show up at The Lawn, in Lincoln.
Myself and Chris Bennett (Update: who now has a review on his site), popped up to the show in time for the opening.
Still in the search for the perfect compact and high-end interchangeable lens portable camera (i.e. not an SLR), I was looking forward to trying out a number of cameras.
Top of the list for both myself and Chris, was the Sony NEX7. On paper this looks close to being the perfect high end portable camera. At 24 megapixels, its a little higher in the resolution then I would like, something more like a D3 with 12 lovely noise free megapixels would have suited me better, but the megapixel count keeps going up.
In general it was what I expect. Downsides were just the white balance and the auto-bracketing. The main room had terrible light and I doubt any camera could pull off correct white balance (one could the V1), so possibly not a fair test. The bracketing was quite limited, only three shots with 0.7 stops between them. Hopefully that will be fixed in firmware. As a keen HDR user I would have liked it more customisable. The camera is capable of in-camera HDR, but I would rather do it myself. The handling was excellent and the Tri-Nav control interface enables fast customisable access to just about any feature.
This is a really a power house of a small camera, and it challenges SLR’s, as an all round camera. Many users would be better off with this then an SLR, it really moves the camera world on.
Its still on the list and could well be the camera I go for.
I also tried out the new Olympus Pen3 with the optional EVF. The EVA was very impressive, and the build quality of the camera was excellent. Panasonic really need to release an updated external EVF for there GF range, they are starting to fall behind.
At the Panasonic stand I had a good look at the compact LX5. A lovely little compact but I thought the handling of the new Fuji X10 and the Olympus ZX-1 was better.
Finally I headed to the Nikon stand and had a play with the Nikon V1 again. The EVF is great, and what made things more impressive was that the white balance was correct, the only camera to achieve this. Also the Autofocus was noticeably quicker then any other camera I had tried (except for the SLR’s).
There are issues with the interface, and I feel the camera does not quite know where it should fit. Interchangeable lens but a smaller sensor then Micro Four Thirds. Amazing high speed focus, built in EVF, even spot metering, but then no easy access to switch ISO, change from Aperture Priority to Manual.
I was still very impressed and as an always carry round camera, it makes a killer compact, with better then compact camera image quality. There was a number of show offers on and so I decided to treat myself, and I left the show as a new proud owner of a Nikon V1, and a selection of lens.
I now have my killer compact and will bore you all silly over the next month with my findings and pictures. The one at the top of this post, was taken with my V1 tonight and the 10mm f/2.8, its a out of camera jpeg converted in lightroom to Black & White. A simple shot of my laptop keyboard.