Richard & Caroline's Blog

You can find a lot in books and on the web about the quality of light.  While good photography can be done in bright light and high sun the low sun in Spring and Autumn does give one more opportunities.  Now we are in Autumn a walk in a local grave yard revealed a bit low sun catching the top of the angel sculpture.  A simple shot made far better with the low directional sunlight.

This shot of a Tufted Duck would look dull without the low sun illuminated it from the front.

Its also a technique that can be taken into the studio with this shot above used as good example, a softbox close up from the side with a little fill from a top hair light.

One should consider light for its direction and its colour, when using flash the source size is also an major consideration.

Now that Autumn is here I’ll be visiting the local parks most weekends, to capture the changing colours and falling leaves.

My first trip last weekend still had most of our local park in clothed in green but there is a hint of colour starting to appear.  I look forward to the coming months ahead and revisiting these areas, documenting how the light and colour changes.

If your an iPad user then currently the best option for processing your RAW files is PhotoRaw. With Apples update to iOS7 some developers have taken the opportunity to produce all new versions and have you pay again for the software.  Its nice to see PhotoRaw has been fully updated and is a free update again.

Light is an interesting thing.  Low sun tends to produce more interesting photographs then high sun.

The above shot is an exception, taken in the Summer, close to noon with high sun.

Spring and Autumn can often produce better light then the summer or winter.

Somebody mentioned to me that Autumn has now started I was quite surprised I was sure we had a few weeks yet of summer still to go.

So a quick web search was in order, when do the seasons change?

It turns out there are three ways of defining the seasons.  The UK Met Office define them by strict calendar dates; June, July and August is defined as summer.  The way I feel the seasons should be calculated is by using the Solstice and Equinoxes to define the season changes.  The last way of calculating the seasons is by using phenology, so when the leaves start to change colour autumn is starting.

For more information check out the following two sites; The UK Met Office & Space.com

The mirror-less Fuji X-E1 released recently was a slightly new direction for Fuji.  There are a number of defining features that one thinks of when you mention the Fuji X range.  First the X Trans sensor, then the hybrid optical/evf view finders.  Finally the transitional controls with real aperture rings.

The X-E1 had no view finder and also a new range of lens with no aperture ring.  Now we have a new low end model the X-A1, this is similar to X-E1 but without the X Trans sensor; so basically a Fuji X branded camera with none of the features that define a X series camera.

Its an odd direction for Fuji to take, basically this is the same as most other mirror-less options, it will be interesting how it takes off.  I would also like to know if it has the AA filter.  The big thing about the X Trans sensor was it did not need the AA filter so if this does not but has a bayer array then their marketing department is sending mixed signals.

If you check the stats on Flicker, you will see that the iPhone is the top camera.

Phones get a lot of criticism on the camera front, but if you compare them to most low end compacts they are pretty good, and as you tend to always have your phone with you its understandable why so many good pictures are taken with phones.

With the release this week of the iPhone and its improved camera and clever dual colour temperature flash you can see from this and from the recent Sony announcements on the phone front that phone camera manufactures seem to be thinking outside of the box and finding solutions to problems that camera manufactures have been unable to solve.

If your after a compact, apart from high end compacts or mirror less cameras its hard to recommend any that could do a better job then most camera phones today.