Category: Photography

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Quilt Show

So the last two weeks has been a bit blogging light, so what have we been up to?

Spalding Quilt Show

Well its been a mix of trips to things we enjoy, Quilt Shows, Fabric shops, a small motorcycle tour as well as lots of work done back at home.

We started the holiday with a trip to the quilt show held at Spalding in Lincolnshire. As is usual at events like this there are no photography rules to prevent people stealing the copyright of some of the quilt designs but there are still opportunities for a few photographs.

While Caroline went round the stalls I practices my candid photography, getting a few nice shots in the process.  Camera of choice was my little Leica M8 with the Summicron 35mm lens, which on the Leica M8 is a 46mm field of view.

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a none content kind of blog post

So with the best intentions I was intending to blog about my recent shoot photographing a breeding pair of Grebe’s with their young, but with the wonderful weather today, I spend the day weeding the garden, digging over the veg plot, and drinking a fine white wine while enjoying the sun, rather then editing photographs.

So just so you don’t feel to bad if you have been stuck at work all day here are the baby Mute Swans I was also photographing.

Baby Mute Swans in a rowForgive me the edit, its just a straight out camera raw to jpg with a little sharpening and a default tone curve applied.

 

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Camera Raw Updates Adobe Camera RAW 8.5 RC

The version of Adobe Camera RAW is 8.4, that is also what is in the current Adobe Lightroom V5.4.

The release candidate for Camera RAW 8.5 has bean announced and one thing that did catch my eye was a comment about the Fuji X-T1.

Fixed issue with Fujifilm X-T1 raw images appearing too bright at high ISO settings when using Dynamic Range 200% and 400%. Unfortunately, this fix may affect the appearance of existing images captured with this combination of settings. It is recommended that you (1) purge the Camera Raw cache via the Camera Raw Preferences dialog, and (2) review images shot at ISO settings higher than 1600 for unexpected brightness changes.

So when it’s released watch out if you have any images shot at high ISO and are using the Dynamic Range Options.

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Model Studio Day

I have a couple of days free in the first two weeks of June so if your a model and want to work with me please drop me an email and we can see if we can work something out.

Studio Complex Lighting Setup
Studio Complex Lighting Setup

TFP/TFCD at home or a local studio.  Looking forward to hearing from you, check out contact page on my other website to get hold of me.

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Picking a Photo of the Month

enjoying the sunenjoying the sun-2This months picture of the month is from another set I took around Lincoln Cathedral.  There were four images which I though were good candidates; two where very much like previous Photo of the Month’s so I dismissed those which left me with these two.

The top shot was taken at f/8 while the bottom at f/4.  I was after bringing the attention to the flowers so defocusing the background but still giving the view the chance to see what the background was.

 

 

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Sensor/Film Size and Perspective

Panasonic GX-7Most people are aware changing the format; eg MicroFourThirds, 35mm full frame, 5 x 4 large format etc, changes the field of view. So a 25mm lens on a MicroFourThirds camera has the same field as a 50mm on 35mm and approximately 150mm on 5 x 4.

What fewer people realise is the impact on aperture and ISO.

Recently Chris posted a video that covered this area quite well.

One thing I never see mentioned is the impact on perspective.

So does the rule about field of view also apply to perspective?

Large Format CameraPeople are advised when shooting a head and shoulders portrait to use a focal length of 85mm (35mm full frame), as this gives a pleasing perspective. It flattens perspective giving a more pleasing look to the face.

But what if you are a MicroFourThirds user. Does a 40mm lens give a similar perspective affect as that of a 85mm on full frame?

Well, we know the field of view is close to the same so let’s try a thought experiment.

Stand about 10 metres from someone and stare at their face; now do the same at 1 metre and finally 0.1 metre.  The closer you get the more the perspective changes and their nose gets bigger and bigger, its the same as if you use a wide angle lens and shoot them from a distance with a very high resolution camera, zoom right in and the perspective is quite flattened.  Walk close and take the same picture and the features become more pronounced.

They say the 85mm lens makes the nicest portraits on 35mm and that is because it forces you to stand far enough away to make the perspective pleasing.

The perspective is a result of the camera to subject distance and not the lens.

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Leica Monchrom M230 Announced

Well the rumours were wrong, it turns out the new Monochrom M230 is in fact just a chrome version of the current black M9 CCD Based Monochrom M.

Never mind still a stunning camera and still in a league of its own.

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Lightroom Key wording Part2

So you want to start key wording but the thought of sitting down and creating your own list fills you with dread, what can you do.

Well there are projects on the internet where people are building very extensive keyword lists.  The site lightroom-keyword-list-project.blogspot.co.uk is a good place to start.

If your into bird photography they check out the bird list.

This is just a very small sample:

bird 2.0-ioc-REPLACE OLD BIRD LIST
[ACCIPITRIFORMES]
[Kites- Hawks and Eagles]
{Accipitridae}
African Cuckoo-Hawk
{Aviceda cuculoides}
African Fish Eagle
{Haliaeetus vocifer}
African Goshawk
{Accipiter tachiro}
African Harrier-Hawk
{Polyboroides typus}

As you can see very extensive.

Lightroom Keyword Bird List

So here is a collection of Coot photographs.  I have imported the Birds list then picked it up and dropped it under the Animals keyword folder.  As you can see the original birds keyword folder is still there and these pictures of Coots are still referencing the old keywords and note the new so unfortunately you will need to go through and re-keyword but there are ways to speed things up.

Bird Keywords

In this example we are changing my Coot keyword to the new keyword Eurasian Coot in the new bird keyword list I have downloaded and imported.

So first in the keyword list find your old keyword and click on the arrow that appears on the far right of the keyword, this will filter your photographs by that keyword, you can then select all your coot photographs with a simple Command-A (Ctrl-A in Windows), then find the new keyword, click on the far right of it so the tick appears like in the above screen print.  All your filtered keywords now have the old and the new keyword.  You can then safely delete the old keyword.

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Rumour of a new Leica Monochrom Type 230

M-MONOCHROM-SILVER-WINDOW-TEASER_teaser

This week to celebrate Leica’s 100 year of making 35mm camera’s a number of special additions were announced as well as a Leica M Monochrom in silver.

But someone with did spot something far more exciting which was published on the leicarumors.com website.  The current Monochrom is based on the M9 while its likely that the new Monochrom is based on the current Leica M240.

It will be interesting to see what the ISO performance will be like. The current Monochrome while CCD based has fantastic high ISO with the Bayer array removed. I expect the CMOS M 240 sensor to be used, so without its Bayer filter I expect off the charts ISO performance.