Author: Richard

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Bird Photography

Wildlife, especially bird photography is a difficult and expensive area. Going for an APC-C sized sensor gives you the advantage of that x1.5 crop factor with Nikon and x1.6 for Canon.  But as the megapixel count goes up noise generally also goes up.  Shooting at dawn, long lens needed, that crop factor can be a helpful and a cost affective way of extending your lens. That consumer 70-300mm f/5.6 lens becomes a 105 (112) – 450 (480)mm with no loss of aperture, but unless light is good you have to crank up the iso until your photos look poor.  The other option, a low noise full frame sensor, now you can really crank up the iso and get excellent clean files.  But now your 70-300mm f/5.6 is just that, it only reaches 300mm.

Spend good money or make compromises, its a very difficult area. Compromise; well you could try that 300mm f/4 with a x1.4 teleconverter, but again not a cheap solution.

Many top bird photographers are using 400mm f/2.8 with x2 teleconverters. Thats when you start to realise that a D3s is cheap and is only the start of the real expense.

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Photo Tip: Sharpness 3

Sharpness.

Something all photographers worry about, this the third in a series of posts will look at:

Aperture

The aperture you use can have a major impact on sharpness. The effect can be pleasing or unwanted.

Generally most lens will be a little unsharp wide open, for a fast portrait lens a little unsharpness round the edges can be quite pleasing. The main difference between ‘professional’ lens and ‘consumer’ lens is generally, they are faster and a little sharper wide open, but you can still get great results with cheaper lens. The key is to use them at there optimum aperture. Most lens even the cheapest can perform quite well when stopped down a little.

If your after a simple rule use your lens at f/8 or f/11 and you will get the best out of it.

There is also another consideration. Defraction. Closing down the lens a little does improve sharpness but closing down too far actually starts to lower quality as defraction starts to impact. So as a general rule close down a stop or two for maximum quality and sharpness but don’t stop down too much and only shoot wide open open if you want a slight softness.

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More iPad tools for Aperture users

Well I keep going on about the tools I want for for the iPad, especially tools that link to Adobe’s Lightroom.  But what if you don’t use Lightroom but use its arch rival Apple’s Aperture or even just iPhoto from Apple’s iLife Suite of apps.

Well there is now an app for you too.  Pixelsync.  As I use iPhoto for some tasks, I might give it a try.

That also gives me an idea for a future blog post, workflow.

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Happy Birthday Caroline

This week, it is my wonderful wife’s birthday.  We are taking tomorrow off work to go out for a nice meal.

As promised I have the DVD’s you wanted but did I get you an iPad?  You will just have to wait and see.

Lots of Love from all the family.

 

PS for Photographers out there, buying your partner some nice flowers also gives you the opportunity for you to practice your still life techniques.  Just don’t tell them!

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Flowers using Flash

I was thinking that I would have my next flower photo shoot in the studio, but then I thought it would be good to show you what could be achieved with just two flash guns outside on a sunny day.

The setup is relatively easy.  Camera on tripod with hot shoe flash and a moderately short telephoto lens in my case a D200 with a Nikkor 105mm f/2.8.

To my right I mounted a Nikon SB-800 hotshoe flash.  This was mounted onto a small light stand and was firing into a small brolly.

The camera mounted flash was set up as a trigger and was not contributing to the overall exposure.

Behind the flowers I had a black cloth. This was supported by the usefully provided double ended clip that comes with the Nikon Macro Flash kit.

The actual exposure was very simple I switched the camera to manual and set the flash to FP Hi speed sync.

I picked a shutter speed in conjunction with an aperture to give me sufficient depth of field and but would underexpose the picture.  The flower exposure would be handled by TTL flash.

After a couple of test shots, the photos looked a little dim, so I dialed in +2/3’s of a stop and they looked good.

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Photographers iPad Tools

While I do not have an iPad yet, I like many other photographers can see the use they can be put through.

While some consider it useless, and label it a toy, unable to be used for real work, a joke for professionals, many people think its great for when you cannot take the trouble to carry a laptop.

To be honest when travelling I sometimes take Medium Format Camera equipment, 35mm equipment, lighting equipment and heavy tripods and light stands.  Sometimes the last thing I want to add is a laptop.

Yesterday I spotted a posting from Adobe about a beta Photoshop App (see Chris Bennett’s Blog Post).

Photoshop is not one of the key apps that would make me buy an iPad but if someone released the Library Module of Adobe Lightroom then I would be buying an iPad like a shot.

http://blog.photosmithapp.com/

Well that day may well be nearly here.  Check out the Photosmith Blog.  This seems to offer what I want.

For heavy image work then a laptop in the field in not really the tool.  Heavy image work is a job for back in the office/home with a powerful computer and controlled lighting conditions in the room, and a calibrated monitor.  No, in the field its evaluating your work, making picks, keywording, metadata and quick adjusts to help you evaluate the shots.

When this gets released, together with some of the tethering apps that are coming out; Elinchrom’s and Hasselblad’s remote control apps then the iPad will be coming with me, out in the field and in the studio.

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Lee Filter System

If you are after a filter system you cannot get better then the Lee Filter System, but if  you are after a particular filter get your order in now.  The popularity of the Lee Filter System has exploded and there is a very long waiting list now.

I have now been waiting four months for a new set of Glass Grey Graduated filters, hope they arrive soon, I have a foreign trip planned and was hoping to use them.

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Happy Birthday Mac OS X

OS X - Ten Years Ols

I just found out that its the Mac OS X Operating System’s 10th Birthday today.

Its certainly come a long way.  While at work I use Windows, Solaris, Redhat and AIX, at home I stopped using Windows as my primary operating system not long after Windows XP was released.

Working my way through various versions of Linux before finally settling happily on Fedora Linux.

Well that changed when I decided to buy Caroline a Wedding Present of an Apple Powerbook.  OS X was just so easy to use, never getting in the way and just letting you get on with the work at hand.

While Apple users may like to claim Mac’s never crash this is not true but they certainly do not crash often, certainly an improvement on Windows, NT4, 2000, XP and 2003.

Through what little I have used Windows 7 it to looks very good now but I think i’ll stick with OS X for a few more years.

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HDR – Love & Hate

Many photographers have a Love & Hate relationship with HDR, I like it when its used with a degree of subtlety but even I have sometimes gone over the top when I feel the image suits it.

Interestingly the general public tend to like HDR more then photographers.

This is about as over the top as I go, but felt the image suited it.

If your interested in HDR check out the website stuckincustoms.com, some very dramatic examples and tutorials.