After the previous days attempts at wildlife I gave myself an easier task today. If your after starting out then the biggest tip I can give you is to get the wildlife to come to you. The cottage in which we are staying for a few days in the South West has a lovely garden and lots of bird feeders scattered around. I filled up one of the feeders then sat myself down in a comfy chair with the camera setup on a tripod in front of me.
It was not long before the birds started to ignore me and came to feed on the freshly filled bird feeder. If you have a mirror-less camera or an SLR with a zoom lens that can reach to the equivalent of 300mm on a 35mm camera then on a bright and sunday you can get shots like these.
On this weeks Photographic trip there was two things I wanted to capture on film. A
picture of Tintern Abbey which hopefully I had achieved the other day and a photograph of the Wye valley from the view point known as Symonds Yat. This was the goal for today.
Symonds Yat is also well known for its nesting Peregrine falcons that nest in the cliff face. So today I would be packing both the large format camera equipment but also the the digital SLR’s with a selection of lens from the 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8 and finally the 300mm f/2.8. Just in case I also had a Nikkor TC17 which to the lay person is a converter which can magnify the effect of a lens by x1.7 but only lose a stop and a half of light.
When we arrived the light was quite poor so I left the large format equipment in the boot of the car and just went up to the view point with the 35mm SLR equipment. The Peregrine falcons were nesting in the cliff face opposite but proved to be far to quick on the wing to allow a mere amateur wildlife photographer such as me to get a clear shot. The buzzards in the area also made a brief appearance but they too kept their distance.
We had a view visitors on some of the nearby trees but I did not manage to get a clear shot of any of them. The above shot was about the best it got.
After a few hours of perseverance we headed back to the cafe to partake of the local lamb pasty. We then decided to pack up and go for a walk in the hope that once the sun started to set the weather might improve to enable me to capture the valley on the large format equipment.
We left the bulk of the camera gear in the car and just took the Leica and headed out on a short four mile walk through the forest. Unlike yesterday where we were carrying the large format gear and the big tripod up some quite challenging slopes today was much easier.
I spotted a few views that might make possible photographs in the future and its definitely an area I would come back to.
With the walk finished we went back to the hut near the view point to enjoy an ice cream and while there the clouds started to break and a hint of blue was to be seen. It looked like the might be a small chance of getting the photograph I wanted, so Caroline kindly headed back to the car to collect the large format gear and tripod.
Did the light improve and did I get my shot? Well when I get my film back I’ll blog some more.
It’s that time of the year again were we are going to spend a few days concentrating on photography. The intention is to take some landscape photographs but also a few wildlife shots. One of the locations was scouted out last year. I also used an iPad application called the Photographs Ephemeris, a mapping app which one can set a time and date and use to predict the location of the sun and moon.
Equipment wise, I wanted to limit what I took with me. For the Landscape I would be shooting large format using my Ebony 45S camera. For the wildlife then it had to be my Nikon SLR’s and the big heavy lens.
We would also be taking some time to visit a few antique shops and books shops, there might be an opportunity to grab a few nice shots of people and scenes, so I would need a small light easy to carry camera that would not be noticed.
I was torn between the Nikon V1 and the Leica M. In the end as they are both so small I will pack both.
Its been a while but here is another film image. Taken on a walk down Brayford Wharf in Lincoln one lunch time. This was shot on my old Leica M4 with a 35mm Summicron on HP5 Film. My partner bought a great quality ladies shopper bike from ecosmobike.com, perfect for the film.
Its part of a project I have been working on for a number years now but I thought I would share this one with you.
Just a few years ago there was one large sensor compact the Sigma DP, it was slow to use but had excellent image quality, and with each version it has gotten better. Now though it seems hardly a month goes by without another one coming a long.
Recently we have had the new king of compacts, the Sony RX1, a stunning full 35mm sensor’ed camera, and just the other month the new Nikon A with its DX sensor.
Well now we have the latest version of the Ricoh GR. At £600 compared to the Nikon at £999 its a bit of a bargain. Once again Nikon price themselves out of the market. I love my Nikon DSLR’s and they are very competitive, but on the Compact and System Compact ranges they keep over pricing themselves, as if they are scared of competing against their own SLR’s. When will they realise that DSLR users also want a good quality compact. I use the Nikon 1 system as my compact and to be honest that was over priced and with the heavy price drops that followed its release, I may not buy into the system any more.
While checking out the usual Photography sites I spotted on PhotoshopUser the announcement that Lightroom V5 Beta is now available. I quickly logged into my Adobe accounts and downloaded the beta. I’ll give it a first test later, but if you want to grab a copy yourself then get a copy from Adobe Labs, please note you have to have an Adobe account to login.
A few years ago Apple started to offer the option of SSD’s instead of a hard disk. Costs were very high, people blamed the ‘Apple Tax’ but early SSD’s with good performance and that worked correctly with the OS were few and far between. Most of them had maxiumum capacities of 64 – 80 GB’s not a lot for your main laptop but certainly an option for the new Ultra Light Laptops that Apple pioneered with their Air Range.
Now most manufacturers offer the option of an SSD and in the capacity of 120 – 250 GB they are getting quite affordable.
The little Macbook Airs now only come with SSD’s and the top of the range MacBook Pro can have one at 768 GB!
Last weekend I finally got to have a go with my wife Caroline’s MacBook Pro Retina, this 15″ Retina with 16 GB of RAM and a large SSD is a real speed machine, and I was amazed at the improvement it made working with large files in Photoshop.
My MacBook is the original 15″ Unibody from 2008, its little 320 GB disk is nearly always close to full so I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade, not by buying a new laptop but by getting a SSD to replace my old Harddisk.
The 2008 model is very easy to upgrade, simply open up the battery access panel and there staring at you is the battery and hard disk.
First you need a SSD, I took the easy option and just asked Crucial the memory company for a compatible model at 512 GB in size.
Once it arrived, I took a full time machine backup and also cloned the disk to an old external with a neat piece of software called SuperDuper.
If your using a version of OS X that was released from the app store you will also need some installation media. I have blogged before on how to create a bootable Install disk but in case you missed it you can find it here.
OS X – Ten Years Old
So with your laptop all backed up, you need to assemble your tools: a bootable OS X install disk, the new SSD and a Philips 00 Screwdriver and a T6 Torx Screwdriver.
Shutdown the laptop and turn over. Taking suitable antistatic procedures open up the access panel and remove the battery. Then with the Philips screwdriver undo the three screws. Carefully remove the drive and undo the cable.
You will now need to remove the four T6 screws in the side of the old hard disk. Once removed put them into the new SSD.
Connect up the cable and insert the SSD, bottom edge first being careful of the cable. Fasten in with the three Philips screws and put the battery back in. Put the access panel back and you are now ready for the fun bit 🙂
Connect up the power and also connect up your OS X bootable device. It’s now time to switch on and let the computer boot from your install media.
Choose the disk utilities option and format the disk. You can then do a fresh install of your OS. To get your data back you can either use Time Machine or just reinstall and copy your data back.
Its been over seven years since I have done a totally clean install so I thought it was about time. Finding all my software and licenses was fun but it was not long before I had a super fast MacBook Pro.
If your interested in installing an SSD do make sure its supported and also check the firmware revision. Mine did not ship with the latest firmware and some firmware has issues with OS X and Windows 8. Find a firmware that is supported and upgrade.
The firmware upgrade is straightforward but I’ll cover that another day.
If you want a clear article on doing this and many other simple computer jobs, check out the ifixit.com website. You can find an article here on the MacBook Pro upgrade I undertook.
The D800 has had lots of people including myself making comments mentioning that we now have near Medium Format Quality in a small format body.
With the cost of this why spend £20,000 on a medium format camera and lens at £5,000 each.
Or why go the other way, a Leica M, which needs manual focus, has no auto exposure modes, Costs £5,000, and lens which are anywhere from £1,000 to nearly £8,000.
Reading the internet forums people can get quite aggressive justifying their choice and putting down other cameras and users of other cameras.
The way a Medium Format Draws an image, the effect of Depth of Field on an image, and just the robustness of the files for processing means that for Medium Format users there is no comparison.
For Leica users, the small body, the ability to use a real view finder that shows more then 100% of the field of view, and the simply stunning lens that make it the smallest full frame camera system in the world, mean for them there is no other choice, why carry a huge heavy SLR.
Then the SLR user, the ultimate all-rounder that can tackle any job, why bother with any other system when you have such a capable system that can out perform in speed of focus, frames per second any other type of camera.
Choose you artistic tool of choice but please lets stop putting down other people for there camera choices.
The Motorcycle GP season is back, last night was the first race. Jorge Lorenzo had the perfect race and lead from start to finish but all the news was about Rossi. With him being back at Yamaha could the old magic come back.
Well if you have seen the race you will know that Rossi gave a master class in race craft coming through the field to take a fantastic 2nd place.
The last couple of years have been a little less exciting while Rossi has been struggling with the Ducati but the excitement is now back.
The big surprise for me was the young Marc Marquez, definitely one to watch and possibly a future world champion.
