Author: Richard

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Photographic Goals

Setting photographic goals are a useful exercise.  They encourage you, make you shoot more, and drive you forward, make you a better photographer.

A goal should be challenging, and even if you fail, hopefully you will learn something to make you a better photographer.

Over the last few years my goals have generally been relatively simple.

  • Shoot More Weddings
  • Shoot More Commercial Portraits
  • Shoot More Studio Work.
  • Shoot a Roll of 35mm film
  • Take one good picture a month
  • Take one good picture a day for one month
  • Photograph some wildlife

All very generic, and I think I accomplished all of these well; except for the last.  Have you ever tried to get one good shot a day for a month!  It was hard to get one good picture a month.  In fact 2010 I think was the only year I came close to this.  I got 11 out of 12.

Moose Peterson wrote an interesting piece recently for the BT Journal (The Biological and Technical journal for Wildlife Photographers) and also in his New Year post on his Blog.

This was more about planning for goals, and it made me think about my goals for this year.

Many are going to be the same.

  • Shoot More Studio Work.
  • Shoot a Roll of 35mm film
  • Take one good picture a month
  • Photograph some wildlife
  • Shoot more Medium Format

But again these are all very generic, I feel a bigger challenge coming on.  With that thought I considered some of the great shots I had admired by other photographers.

One in particular by Joe McNally is one I have particularly admired.  Its a Dancer  leaping on the beach.  So one of my main goals this year is to try and produce my own version of this shot.

Joe is a great inspiration, and I greatly admire his portrait photography.  He taught a seminar over here recently in London which unfortunately I was unable to make.  Please Joe, visit again, and not just London.

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Monday Morning Commute

Well its a normal week, and were all back at work.

It started as always with the commute on our trusty steed, our BMW R1200GS, the best bike I have yet owned.  Always a joy to ride, and this morning despite the sharp frost the road conditions were fine, a health 2.5ºC, so a spirited ride to work.  What a great way to start the week.

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Star Gazing Live – BBC

This was a good week for astronomy.  The BBC had three nightly programs called Stargazing Live.

The second program was of course the highlight, covering the partial solar eclipse that occurred that morning.

I had the opportunity back in 1999 to witness the a total solar eclipse.  It meant getting up early and jumping on the motorcycle for a 300 plus mile ride to catch the eclipse.

They gave some good tips on capturing photographs of the night sky, well worth watching and showing the BBC at its best, entertaining and educational.

Luna Eclipse

I have done some astronomical photography in the past and will post some pictures and techniques in future blog entries.

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That fitness kick

Well we hit the gym again last night, Wednesday is Yoga class.  Only the four of us but a good class and a good evening.

Unfortunately I did over do it a bit, combined with the gym session at the weekend left me with an aching back this morning.  Riding a motorcycle with back ache is an interesting experience, luckily the weather was fine with no repeat of yesterdays icy roads and Tuesday snow.

If your getting back into your fitness routine, take care, the Christmas break of no exercise, lots of food and drink means a slow start is best.  Easy to say, not so easy to do.

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Yearly Mileage

Today was the first day back at work for us.  As is usual, we commuted on the bike.  It was the first bike ride of the new year so as is traditional with me, I made a note of the mileage on the bikes.

Llagollen

The Honda has reached 58040, so last year we only did 351 miles, at least thats slightly better then the year before when we only rode 282.

Crossing the Ford

The BMW has reached 17660, so last year we did 7513, the year before was 6716.

When we had more time we used to regularly go on long bike rides and weekends away.  It got to the point I was doing 12000 miles a year.  Now we only manage a few weekends out a year plus one big bike holiday, plus the daily commute.

The typical sports bike only manages about 2500 miles a year, while a tourer about 4000, so we are still managing more milage then most bikers.

Today was a bit of a challenge, as we had to face snow covered roads, always fun.

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Synchro Daylight or Fill in Flash

No work today, but I did want to do some experimentation with Synchro Daylight.  An old term but basically its when you mix flash and daylight together.  Most people have heard it described as fill in flash, it can also be used with great affect when the flash is the primary source and the sun as the fill-in.

Its something I have used in the past to great affect, and modern hot-shoe electronic flashguns to make it very easy.  But I wanted to have a play around with manual, and trying out the balance flash functionality in my light meter.

Sekonic L 758 Light Meter

I bought the L-758 for its spot meter feature when shooting medium and large format.  But it also has some advance flash features and can show the balance of daylight to flash.

So equipped with a Nikon D200, a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 and a SB-800 flashgun I ventured outdoors with my flash meter and volunteer model for the day, my very patient wife Caroline.

First a simple portrait with daylight, manual mode.  Easy.  Then the flash set to manual at relatively low power.  The light-meter held by my wife under her chin with the de-fusion dome pointing at the flash gun.

After several attempts and varying the flash power, the meter was only reading the flash component.

I had to commit the ultimate male sin, find the manual and give it a quick read.  Unlike previous meter’s I had set it to the Flash-C, but this actually meant Flash with a cord, not Flash and Continuous light.  The mode that had just the Flash symbol turned out to measure both flash and continuous light.

With the light meter now in the correct mode we tried again, varying the exposure and flash output and reading the balance of daylight to flash from the meter and comparing that to the results seeing what we liked.

It certainly makes judging your exposure when mixing flash and daylight easier and I hope to put it into good practice with a summer beach photo shoot I intend planning.  I just need to find a location, a suitable model and a bit of good weather.

Heres looking forward to summer.

Daylight and Fill in Flash – Model in the summer house

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Back to the Gym

Like most people, the new year means off to the gym.

We try to go twice a week.  We had a break and only went once over Christmas but today was back to the normal schedule, so a hard work out was the plan.

Christmas had not been kind, I had put on 6 pounds in weight!  I concentrated on a cardio workout, legs and core, and boy did I feel it.

Afterwards we had a chat to the staff, as a letter had come over Christmas advising us of an increase in our gym membership fee’s due to the increase in VAT.  We soon negotiated a discount and now pay less then we did five years ago.

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Happy New Year – and the end of an era

Happy New Year Everyone

The end of an era.

As many Photographers already know the great film Kodachrome was discontinued in 2009.  While manufacture ended, there were still a few places left where you could get it developed.

The last has been Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas.  This has been the last lab in the world that was able to process the film.

Well today is the end of an era.

Dwayne Steinle the owner, will today have the last every roll processed.

With no more places left to process the film today is the end.

I shot a few rolls of Kodachrome 25 myself back in the 1980’s, but my allegiances switched to that young upstart Fuji Velva 50.  It is a sad day.  With so few film sales now, not many films can survive but I am glad to see film has seen a bit of a revival this year.

Even I have shot more film this year then in the past six.  Most of it being Medium format and some Large Format, but I only shot one roll of 35mm.

I think we may see the end of the 35mm film, but medium and large format still seems to be going strong and sales even increasing.  Lets hope it continues.  I still feel there is a place for film in this very digital world we live.

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Flash – Studio Lighting

Flash!

No not Adobe’s flash, I am not getting into that argument.  I have an Apple iPhone and I fully accept its a better phone for not having flash, but then I am also a flash user and on my professional website I use flash for my photographic galleries!

No this post is about Photographic lighting.

Most photographers are used to the typical hot shoe flash.  The hot shoe flash is quite the modern electronic marvel.  I have a pair of Nikon SB-800’s and they are great.  Full TTL control; if you are scared of flash then just set them and your camera to full auto, and with appropriate flash head positioning you can get great results.

The key is not to use the flash in the camera’s hot shoe but use them off camera.  For fill in flash and the odd party I use hot shoe flash with great success.

For studio work, I always use professional mono-block mains powered studio lights.  That, with a good soft box produces results that are hard to beat any other way.

I usually hire a local studio with Elinchrom RX lights, and find I get good results far easier then with small hot shoe flashes.

Many photographers are intimidated by studio lighting.  It seems hard work.  The camera has to be set to manual.  You have to use a flash meter to calculate your exposure.  Then there are all the complicated accessories, softboxes, brollies, snoots, barn doors and honeycomb grids, to name just a few, to modify the light.

I have now started to think about getting some studio flash myself.  The very high end stuff is out of the question, far too expensive for the few times each month I would use it.  But it needs to be of good quality, robust for travel, have stable colour temperature and high speed flash duration to freeze action.

In the UK that leaves you with just Bowen’s and Elinchrom.  If your in the USA then Elinchrom and brands such as Alien Bee’s are popular.

I have spent quite some time now researching the brands and am still no nearer choosing what I want.

Bowen’s lower end models work with battery packs, so are easy to use away from mains power, there are a large array of accessories available, and you get good reports about customer service.  They are also a UK brand, and even the lower end models are very well built.

Elinchrom are what I am used to.  The Rotolux softboxes are the best, and the skyport remote system is excellent.  Most Pro’s I know use Elinchrom.

Once the brand is picked, where do you enter the system, go for the bottom of the range, cheap but will they take the abuse of travel.

I have to admit, after a lot of research, all I have managed to do is confuse myself more, and I am still none the wiser.

Checking out the forums has not helped, its nearly as bad as the Nikon and Canon arguments.

Any advice gratefully received.