Well it’s that time again, Scott Kelby has announced this years World Wide Photo Walk.
While it’s doubtful you get a stunning wining picture, it is fun to me up with fellow photographers, talk shop and maybe see something different about your city.
Nikon V1 – another fine job
Last week saw me commuting to Lincoln on the bicycle again, its only a 21 mile round trip and very enjoyable, but I also needed to do some personal photography requiring the equivalent of a 300mm field of view lens (on 35mm full frame).
Being on a bicycle with limited luggage space, the little Nikon V1 was perfect for this.
It seems every time I think of replacing the little Nikon V1 for something with either better image quality or better ergonomics a job comes up for which it is perfect for.
Come on Nikon, since the V1, the V2 and V3 have moved backwards, give us a Series 1 Pro. built in EVF and great ergonomics, with the image quality we have grown to love.
Weather stops once in a lifetime opportunity
The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum this week flew their airworthy Lancaster Bomber to England.
On arrival in Bomber County, Lincolnshire, just before it touched down at RAF Coningsby it was due to meet up with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and the Red Arrows, and all of them would pass over the iconic Lincoln Cathedral.
I had arranged roof top access to one of the taller buildings in Lincoln and was all set to photograph this once in a lifetime event. Unfortunately weather delayed their arrival and as they approached Lincolnshire a storm came up from the south forcing them to route direct for Coningsby, this storm also grounded the BBMF thus the event had to be cancelled.
These are the only two flying Lancasters in the world and they have a special connection with Lincoln and Lincolnshire. I hope they can arrange to fly over the city again and I hope i’ll be ready.
What should Aperture Users do?
If your after an all in one DAM/RAW processor that enables none destructive editing there are only two products that you should consider these have been, Apples Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom, both were released at the same time and both have advantages and disadvantages, I even know some photographers who use both.
This summer Apple announced that they would be ending there Aperture product. Now they do have a replacement coming soon likely to be released together with there new OS this autumn but if its anything like there other software releases recently, its likely to be a step backwards with less functionality at the start.
With this in mind many users are now considering jumping to Adobe’s Lightroom. Lightroom has always been my preferred product, but if your an Aperture user I would be tempted to wait and see what Apple’s replacement is like before jumping ship.
Adobe have announced that they will be releasing migration tools to help and so far they have released the following white paper:
http://landing.adobe.com/dam/downloads/whitepapers/54511.en.switch-from-aperture-to-lightroom.pdf
Photo Archive
I know of a number of photographers who keep a photographic archive. This is not their backup, but a copy of their selects saved either onto a spare harddisk or in the cloud/internet.
The idea is that these are saved in a different format. Commonly used is JPeg but a growing number of photographers now use DNG.
So why not RAW or Tiff?
Well RAW is just that an unedited RAW file not your final image unless you also bundle into your archive the database for Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture.
RAW files are a proprietary format that may not be supported in the future.
TIFF is a good solution if you have the harddisk space, JPeg is smaller but lossy
I find the ideal compromise is DNG. Now this is a standard that Adobe control but it is open and the specification is well published so many program’s can read and view DNG’s.
So if you have a spare drive or a internet storage solution, save your favourite photos as Jpegs or in DNG. Just in case.
If it’s an old drive ask if you can store it at your parents or brother or sisters house. If you have more then one drive rotate them round.
10 Tips for Adobe Photoshop CC
Terry White always has some great Photoshop tips. I remember how tough it was getting started and learning the basics, but this is a very good starter guide.
Before you do dive into using Photoshop, its a very good idea to get the Colour Space and Working Space, I have covered that in my blog before,here: https://brown-family.org.uk/colour-spaces-working-spaces/
Adobe Lightroom V5.6
Well its Friday and the weekend is nearly here. I have been lazy today, I had no blog prepared but on checking out Chris’s Blog this morning I read that Adobe Lightroom V5.6 had been released, its not long since V5.5 was released.
I’ll let you read up on the updates from the usual sites but Chris’s blog post is here.
You can get it here from Adobe’s site.
If your a creative cloud user remember to update from the Creative Cloud Installer and not from Lightroom Update.
Photo of the Month – July
Leica M8
Leica 50mm f/1.4 Summilux-M
50mm, 1/30 Sec at f/1.7, ISO640
Post Processed in Adobe Lightroom V5.5
On a MacBook Pro, OS-X 10.9.4
Headshots
I am always on the lookout for tips to help and improve my photography and I caught this video about Headshots by Frank Doorhof and Peter Hurley.
My head shots are generally quite different then those normal posed portraits you see, they are normally candids or more glamour focused but I am always after more tips to try out, whether on the street as above or in the studio as below.
Looking at non M Leica’s and other options
I am forever blogging that I am looking for the perfect compact camera. As one does not exist I keep considering areas that I am willing to sacrifice, such as ergonomic’s or image quality.
To this end I have spent a good part of this week in between gardening/house work and editing clients photographs investigating the high-end Leica options.
The options currently are:
- Leica X2 fixed 35mm field of view (24mm, f/2.8, DX sensor)
- Leica X Vario 28-70mm field of view (18-46mm, f/3.5-6.4, DX sensor)
When the Leica X1 was released it was exceptional and there was nothing like it except Sigma’s DX Foveon compact.
Since the X2 was released we now have lots of large sensor’ed compact and now CSC system cameras just as small.
The pro’s for these are image quality, lens quality, build quality is all very high,.
The cons: X2 is over priced for what you are getting and the Vario while stunning image quality from a great lens is just very slow. Here in the UK one would constantly be cranking up the ISO. Also neither have a viewfinder.
Its interesting that several Leica M shooters I know have gone for the either the Vario, or the Fuji X100s. I know one review who said the Vario on image quality but the X100s on practicality, the fantastic optical viewfinder, and faster autofocus won him over. One should note that the photographers that went for the Vario were also based in sunnier climates, though again if your out in the sun and want to use flash the X100s has some fantastic tricks like a built in ND filter and a leaf shutter for high flash sync speeds.
As Fuji have done such a good job borrowing some of the best bits from the Leica M, like the ergonomics and the viewfinder it would be nice if Leica could borrow Fuji’s implementation of the X100s’s viewfinder/evf combination and launch a Leica T Pro?
I have also recently spent some time getting my bicycle back into working order. I seem to struggle to find time for the gym so now try to cycle into Lincoln once a week which has made me think about cameras that would suite small bicycle bags. Certainly I would not want to be bothered with too many pieces; carrying a body and viewfinder would be too much. This is where an all in one design like the Fuji X100 score highly.