Category: Photography

Yesterday I popped over to Hartsholme Park with Chris Bennett and we spend an hour or two practicing our wildlife photography.

If your after shooting subjects like birds in flight then you have to practice regularly.  One the joys of digital photography is that you can spend a few hours on a Sunday at a local park and shoot a few hundred frames.  Then review when you are at home and delete the mistakes.  This is something that in the film days would cost you a lot of money and is one of the great advantages of digital, you can learn a lot from the instant feed back.

 

http://www.photographyshow.com

 

We are now less then two weeks away from the NEC Photography Show 2015.  On the main stage the person I would be most interested to see is Don McCullin but unfortunately I will not be able to make it that day, so it will just be the main stands i’ll be visiting.

If you get the chance to listen to a top photographer, its often well worthwhile.  Last year it was Joe McNally and he was a great speaker.

At the show this year I’ll again be interested in the Epson products; last year I purchase a Epson wide carriage printer and came close to purchasing a Fuji X100s in black.  The Fuji would make a great compact but I am still not completely sold on the X-Trans sensor.

This year I am after a Epson scanner, I still have a lot of slides to scan and still shoot the odd film, 35mm in my Leica M4, 120 in my Hasselblad when I am not using my PhaseOne digital back, and of course 4 x 5 inch large format.

The cost of the scanner will soon be recouped as the cost of even basic scanning means, a considerable expense.

One the camera front there are a number of things I want to look at.  The latest Fuji X100T with its new in picture optical viewfinder is one.  I’ll also be looking at the Panasonic LX100, and as Leica will be there, their version of this camera.

It will also be good to try the Lecia X and the Leica T.  Neither of these cameras have a built in viewfinder but an optional evf instead which means they have a lot going against them in my view but the X could make a good travel camera and the T would work with all my existing Leica M lens so there is much positive as well.

Its been a very quiet year so far on the photography front so far this year.

Normally I work on my Lincoln Bailgate project at least once a month but not this year so far.

For me it’s been a combination of stuck at home and on the odd day I have been out, stopped by bad light.

So, if your having a bit of a drop in the amount of good photography you do?

Well indoor still life or macro is a good place to start. It can be a good lighting challenge and you can learn a lot.

This week Nikon announced the D7200, a nice upgrade but where is the D300 replacement.

For quite a while Canon was top of tree for DSLR’s.  Then Nikon got aggressive and released the D200, from then on they had hit after hit with the stunning D3 series and bettering the D200 with the D300 and D300s, fast responsive and with its crop factor great for sport and wildlife.

Since the full frame D4 and D800 people have been waiting for the D300 replacement but it has not arrived.

The D7000 series has been a great series of cameras and can be well recommended but they are not D300 replacements.

If you want to know more check out Chris’s blog and the usual review sites.

As we work on the garden, I keep getting ideas for simple photographs, this was a quick snap of one of the three statues we have in the grounds.

The contrast was quite high with bright sunlight on the right on the image and deep shadow on the left its hardly a great image.

I thought it might be interesting to take a serious of these photographs over the coming year and see how things change, but that is not the point of this blog post.

While processing this image I found myself adding quite a bit of vignette, its interesting that we process our RAW files, add lens profiles to remove flaws like this, then we add these flaws back for ‘creative’ reasons.

 

Not many of us have a cupboard of Leica M glass, priced anywhere between £2000-£5000.  If we did then the megapixel race would be one to be welcomed.

With 6 megapixels giving a quality A4 print, and few printing larger, its difficult argue against that the current crop of 16 MP cameras are more then enough for most people.

But some of use cannot resist going higher.  I have already commented on camera technique and heavy tripod to get the best of high megapixel cameras but you really do need to consider the glass.

When the Nikon D800 was released Nikon took the brave move of releasing a list of recommended lens, its a short list and if you don’t own a few of these then maybe a D800/D810 should be off your list until you have some.

There are some fantastic high megapixel cameras out there now but remember unless you have the glass to match and the willingness to use the technique to get the best out of your camera then your high megapixel camera is just going to show up the imperfections in your lens and your technique.

• AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED
• AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
• AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II
• AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/4G ED VR
• AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR
• AF-S NIKKOR 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR
• AF-S NIKKOR 24-120mm f/4G ED VR
• AF-S NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G ED VR II
• AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4G ED
• AF-S NIKKOR 28mm f/1.8G
• AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.4G
• AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.4G
• AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G
• AF-S NIKKOR 200mm f/2G ED VR II
• AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/2.8G ED VR II
• AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8G ED VR
• AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/4G ED VR
• AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR
• AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED
• AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED
• PC-E NIKKOR 24mm f/3.5D ED
• PC-E Micro NIKKOR 45mm f/2.8D ED
• PC-E Micro NIKKOR 85mm f/2.8D

List from NikonRumors.com:

http://nikonrumors.com/2013/04/29/nikon-published-an-updated-list-of-recommended-lenses-for-the-d800e-camera.aspx/#ixzz3SMsr5zuN