Family, Photography and other misc news
I had a number of personal photography projects planned this year involving shooting models outdoors.
I am now pretty glad I did not get round to organising anything, as the weather would have made it a bit of a wash out, but it’s now time to risk it.
So if your a Lincolnshire Model who fancies an outdoor shoot and is willing to risk the weather then get in contact.
Its very common when photographing children to find yourself shooting down on them. Its something I find myself doing far to often.
Try getting low down and either shooting from their llevel or even lower and shooting up at them. It really helps and improves the shot.
For Film users a blog can be a odd affair.
Before digital took off, I used to shoot a lot of Black & White. Sometimes I would shoot in the morning, develop and produce a set of contact prints in the afternoon, then print my final selects that evening. Having my own darkroom was great and I could easily lose hours in there.
This was as close to instant film photography as I ever got.
Now I still shoot film but the great majority of my work is digital. Now digital is truly instant. I can go on a shoot that day, post process the images, blog and publish them the same day.
The other month I have had the privilege of spending just over a whole week doing nothing but either location scouting or taking pictures. The purpose of this photography trip was to get some Large Format Landscape Photography done.
By the end of the week I had shot 4 frames of film and 700 digits shots.
It’s likely to be at least a while before I get the film developed, so how do I blog about that. Do I publish the digital shots now and the scans of the film later. Post date my log entries? In this modern fast paced digital world we live it’s difficult to know how to present my film work as they are always shots from the past.
Thursday saw us exploring North Wales and visiting Castles. We had rain in the morning but the afternoon was sunny so we had a blast riding round the Snowdonia National Park.
In the evening we found a lovely Greek restaurant and had a wonderful meal. Later we walked back to our hotel along the harbour. Typically the Sunset was rather nice as I had left my camera back at the hotel.
At least I managed to get a snapshot using my Phone.
This summer so far has been particularly British. We had very little rainfall up to mid Spring, once the drought was official it’s been heavy rain since.
Today we spent our day riding the twisty valley roads, and mountain passes of North Wales. The heavy rain has meant that the rivers and waterfalls have been in full flow. With great scenery like this, it’s easy to find great locations for photography, but one can keep visiting for years before you get the weather and the light you need to get a truly stunning shot.
Even with the rain it’s been a great days motorcycling, if not photography.
Nikon 1 V1
Nikkor 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6
110mm, 1/250 Sec at f/5.6, ISO200
Processed in Adobe Lightroom V4.1
On a Mac MacBook Pro, OS-X 10.7.4
The commute to work this morning was a little more challenging due to more closed roads as the Olympic Torch headed out of Lincoln.
As the main road I needed to use was to be closed it made sense to park up by the next village the Torch was due to visit, join in the crowd and experience the event until the road was open, then head into the office.
Once again I took a few shots with my Nikon V1.
I have to admit its not as good or as easy to get a good shot with fast moving subjects, even a runner with an Olympic Torch as an SLR, but for its size it beats just about every other small compact camera.
Its lovely to see the community spirit that has been around over the last few weeks, starting with the Queen’s Jubilee and now with the crowds supporting the Olympic Torch as it travels through our communities, its been great to see the British Spirit pulling together.
Just a few Snaps taken with my Nikon V1 as the Torch came past my office.
A lot of amateurs only have one camera, often believing its ‘The Best’.
For those of us luckily enough to have more then one body, we get to choose the best camera for the job at hand.
Tomorrow the Olympic Torch arrives in Lincoln, I have other work to do but I hope to be able to get a shot of the Olympic Torch coming past.
With commuting by Bike, my camera choice is somewhat limited, but also the choice of camera should be driven by the subject and what suits it best.
The Fuji X-Pro1 certainly made an impact when it was announced, but many of the reviews have been less then stellar. Two major concerns; processing the RAW files has proved difficult, lets hope Fuji engages with companies like Adobe and other software companies that produce RAW developers. The second concern has been the autofocus speed.
I am more hopeful for the latter, the Fuji X100 was also very poor at focusing, but regular firmware updates has since improved this and many other areas where the camera initially fell short.
One thing that many people wanted with the Fuji was for it to act as a cheap Leica M body. Well unfortunately focusing manual lens is difficult, if your after a cheaper body for your Leica M class then for now look at other cameras.
For two different views of the Fuji, check out:
If your after a body for your Leica Glass and cannot afford an M9, then the current top contenders are the Ricoh GXR, the Sony NEX-7 and do not discount the Leica M8 or the even better M8.2. While there are issues with the colour; Auto white balance is poor, and the over sensitivity to infrared can be a problem for colour shooters, unless you use filters, but this can be an advantage for Black & White fans.