New Years resolutions...

, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

So…that’s 2008 done then…

It’s been a hell of a year for me personally, professionally and photographically…the loss of my beloved dog Jye, getting on a course at work that could result in relocation and of course becoming completely obsessed with photography following the purchase of my first DSLR. Over 1000 people have looked at my photos on Flickr, the most humbling thing is when you get positive feedback from someone who is better than you.

And I’ve learned and learned and all I’ve really learned is that I don’t know very much about photography!

So….my new years resolutions to be a better photographer:

1. Make the time to practice street photography and cityscapes.

2. Shoot more in portrait format.

3. Buy an external flash and learn to use it properly

4. Print more photos – Photobox is the best site I’ve found…I did two calendars and a photobook from their site, the quality/finish is superb and they were really well received.

5. Eat less cake….a more aerodynamic shape will help my photography no end…

So those are mine - what are yours?

Hope you had a great Christmas and here’s to a happy new year…

Lowlight Highlights

Seascape, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

It’s been a hell of a fortnight, yet another course for a week last week, then 3 days in Birmingham. I cannot believe how good it is to come home.

I signed off my last post with a comment that I’ve nearly had the camera for a year. Something I first tried when I got the camera was to blur water. I was disappointed with the results and as I’ve spent most of the last week or so on planes I’ve had the chance to read plenty of photo magazines and one article on low light photography sparked my interest in ‘water blurring’ again.

Obviously when you slow shutter speed you increase exposure, meaning that pictures get blown out unless you limit the amount of light.

I don’t own any ND grad filters so the only way to limit light was to go out at either dawn or dusk. As dawn is currently at about 8.30am in Scotland, this wasn’t much of hardship. So, on Sunday I was out and about on the beach, in the dark, slipping about on freezing rocks, trying to take pictures.

The easiest way I’ve found to blur water is to go into into ‘A’ (aperture) mode and crank the dial all the way round to f22. Aperture mode sets shutter speed automatically, and at f22 the camera will select a slow shutter speed. Also at f22, you’ll have just about everything in focus.

Once you’ve cracked that, the next challenge is stability, as you’re going for slow shutter speeds, the slightest shake has a massive impact on the final image. Given that I was on a really unstable surface and dancing around in the surf, a tripod was just about impossible to use. I think a monopod would have worked, but I don’t have one!

So I took to building piles of rocks to the height I needed and balancing the camera on the top. I then set the shutter to fire after two seconds and just shot and shot until I got the water effect I wanted. Because every wave is different, you have to experiment a lot before you get the desired outcome.

Anyway, the image above was one of my top 3, all of which are on flickr. Great fun and a brilliant way to de-stress after a difficult week.

Glen Orrin

Okay,

Writing in the midst of a long weekend. The weather in Scotland has been really annoying, snow showers followed almost immediately by sleet & rain that means that photography opportunities are limited once again.

However, I did manage to get up to Glen Orrin, one of the less talked about and less famous Scottish glens. It's not very accessible and was changed forever by the development of a hydro-electric dam to create Orrin reservoir.

The river Orrin runs past my parents house and must have been a really spectacular river prior to the creation of the dam. On the upside, it's green(ish) power and supplies some really remote homes with electricity.

Anyway...I got a few nice pictures, probably my favorite is this one of an old croft. It was probably abandoned about 80 years ago when the 1st world war decimated the crofting population and modern agricultural practices rapidly reduced the need for manpower on the estates, a very quiet, less vaunted Highland clearance.

There's a few more shots of the river and surrounding glen at the Picasa page. The next fortnight looks set to be awful, a busy work week then another conference in Warwick...then it's nearly Christmas and hopefully I can relax a bit.

Can't believe I've had the camera for almost a year!

Me Myself and I

Me Myself and I, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

A week in Paris, cultural capital and architectural wonder. France has brought us photographers like Nicephore Niepce who arguably invented the medium and Eugene Atget, a pioneering street photographer….surely I’d find something inspiration to take pictures of?

Ah…no. A week outside Paris at my companies training centre near Chantilly.

It was still a beautiful location; you can see some of my pictures on my picasa site. There’s a chateau and parkland and stuff so it was a nice setting for a training course…but photographic opportunities were limited.

It was quite a challenging course that required a lot of soul searching and this got me thinking about how you’d capture ‘soul searching’ in a photo….I’m not sure if I quite got it right, but I had fun taking it and it took my mind of the course for 10 minutes!

Oh yeah, I mentioned paintballing in my last forum post…don’t bother taking your camera it’s too risky! Mine stayed in the case the whole time.

In geeky news, Olympus have announced a new camera, the E-30 which looks very interesting. They’ve also re-released the 14-54mm lens, which seems odd as the original version is fine. Personally I’ll be upgrading my lenses long before I get a new camera body.

I’ve got a few days holiday (my last before Christmas) at the end of this week so hopefully I’ll get out and about with the camera.

Panorama Drama

A great week last week, on Thursday I climbed Cnoc Udais, a hill near my parents village of Muir of Ord. It was bright clear day and the snowy mountains made for some great panoramas and landscapes. I’ve had a really draining couple of weeks, with work stresses, an ill father-in-law and a lot of work related travel….I needed the break and feel a lot better for it.
Anyway, the history of Cnoc Udais is a dark one, the literal translation is the ‘Hill of Judas’, apparently the ‘cnoc’ looks like a pregnant woman (I couldn’t see it) and this is due to a woman being ‘ravished’ on the hill, (not sure who did the ravishing…English-folk probably)…anyway, as she lay down to die on the Cnoc, the hill took her form…changing it’s shape as a memorial to the tragic attack.

Regardless of its origins, the cnoc stands on it’s own in a valley surrounded by mountains, so the view from the top on a clear day is really spectacular. Also it gives some really alpine views for a relatively short walk; so the fantastic view at the top is big return on the small amount of the energy invested in climbing it. It takes about 3 hours for a return trip to the summit so you can be back down the hill in time for lunch…ideal.

There was a great article in last months Digital Photography on panoramas…and standing on the top of the hill seemed like a golden opportunity to try out some of their techniques. Photoshops stitching tools take a long time to process several photos, but the end result is usually flawless. Three of my examples are shown above…I’m really pleased with outcome and hope to get some of these professionally printed. For further Pano-related inspiration, take a look at this excellent flickr group.

I’m also working on a photo-book for a Christmas gift for someone, I’m using Photobox, the interface is excellent, you upload the pictures to the web at full size and use their excellent online tools to create the book. I used myphotobook for a little book for the wedding in August and wasn’t too impressed with the quality…I’ll let you know how this one turns out.

Going Paintballing this weekend so I’m unsure what photo opportunities that will present. The following week I’m staying in France for a conference…I’ll take the camera along but I don’t know what chances I’ll get to snap anything of value.

Autumn Fruits

Autumn Fruits, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

Autumn is my least favourite season. In the Scottish Highlands it’s the season of rain and wind, Summer is long forgotten and the crisp clean days of winter are still months away. Autumn is also the season when I feel most useless…my impairment is colour blindness, I don’t see dark reds, greens or browns properly. As a result the autumn colours are something of a let down for me.

Autumn feels like the day after a party, all of summer’s growth is lying about, everything is damp and decaying. The sun disappears until the first frosts and it rains and rains. I fully understand why people get SAD….

Anyway, I braved the heavy showers on Sunday and went for a stroll around the River Nairn, something I haven’t done for a while. This time I didn’t go out with a theme in mind…it kind of came to me whilst I was ‘on location’. I’ve been reading Giles Miltons excellent ‘Nathaniels Nutmeg’, all about the Spice wars in the East Indies 300 years ago.

When I saw that the hedgerows were full of Blackberries, Rosehip, Elderflower and assorted other autumn fruits, it got me thinking of the illustrations in old Herbals and this combined with my current colour toning fad resulted in todays picture.

As someone who takes lots of landscapes, I have little experience of macro (close up) photography, so often I’m looking at the big picture I fail to see some of the more attractive detail. With an abundance of fruit, the last flowers and and the amazing patterns of leaf litter, maybe autumn isn’t so depressing after all.

I’m on holiday for most of this week so am hoping to get out and about for a few more shots…more updates to follow.

Breaking into heaven

Breaking into heaven, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

Hi ho...another slack few weeks of photography following my camping trip.

If you keep an eye on my flickr site, you'll notice I've been working a fair bit over the last few months with texture and toning. The effects can be beautiful and whilst I'm no master, I'm quite pleased with the shot above and a few other of my efforts.

My attempts pale in comparison to two flickr masters of toning, Lara Jade and Rosie Hardy. It's really rare that I'm genuinely moved by anything, but these two have the kind of photographic talent that you can't teach.

I will never be as good as they are....and whilst that's slightly dissapointing, it's enormous fun to try and also to be wowed by thier work. Despite her photographic maturity, Rosie just turned 18....and over the 200 or so photo's she has on her flickr site, you can see the evolution of her photographic style from fairly typical studenty 'teen' stuff to start with to jaw-droppingly, mind bendingly brilliant stuff in the last few months.

Rosie's work is made all the more emotive by the fact that she lives and studies photography in the UK and has a boyfriend, Aaron (also a phenominal photog) in the US. Their relationship runs as a kind of soundtrack to the photography on thier respective flickr sites and thier shared blog.

I've kept an eye on Lara's work since she featured in a UK photography magazine...I think it was Practical Photgraphy? Her work is arguably more gothic than Rosies...there's some wonderful interpretations of fairy tales in Lara's flickr portfolio, and her work is instantly identifiable, kinda art deco meets gothic....genius? We throw that word around a lot, but she is amongst the best.

It just makes me want to pick up my camera...

Solitude

Solitude, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

God I’ve been lazy about posting…sorry.

To be honest there hadn’t been much to photograph recently. I’ve been playing with textures and toning as you can see on my flickr page, a few shots of the beach came out nicely but apart from that there wasn’t much.

Then last week I went camping. I try and camp at least once a year and always want to get away more often. This time, the wife and I went north, about 20 miles past Lairg in Sutherland to Strath Naver.

Sutherland is a barren, mountainous place and was the area most affected by the infamous Highland clearances. It is stunning and if you ever have the opportunity to visit, just go…it’s one of the last true wildernesses in the UK and one of the least ‘touristy’ parts of Scotland.

So there was plenty of photographic fodder, we hiked about 8 miles away from the road and fished a chain of hill lochs. The weather was sunshine & showers, incredibly cold in the early mornings and most interestingly of all it’s the breeding season for deer. Every night at sunset the stags would start bellowing and this would typically go on most of the night…ear-plugs are essential!

Despite their size and the fearsome noises, they stayed away from us. They only get vicious when cornered and are surprisingly timid. Due to the lack of a long lens, I couldn’t get any really good shots of them...but just being there was special. I’m really pleased with some of the landscape shots I took, if you’re really interested you can see the lot here or a few selected highlights here.

Back to the beach this week, inspired by the genius of Martin Parr. If you don’t know who Martin Parr is and you like photography go learn…

I’ve spent the weeks since my nieces wedding studying people shots, trying to understand what a good people shot looks like. With this in mind, I took the shot on the left…I didn’t get it quite right…but I’m having a lot of fun trying!

I don’t often have views on gear…but this is a bit of landmark. Nikon have finally managed to squeeze a video mode into their latest DSLR, the D90.

It’s incredible to watch the passionate reaction to this on the dpreview forums…these forums can be really aggressive but very informative and I’m amazed by the brand loyalty and complete lack of objectivity highlighted by some of the people who post.

The D90 announcement was welcomed on dpreviews Nikon forum and derided on their Canon forum. Despite the fact we all know that the Canon R&D people won’t be sleeping until they work out how to put video onto the next EOS. Canon also announced their 50d this week…to a fairly lukewarm reaction…..bigger processor, some additional bells & whistles, but no video mode or other ground breaking deal. Round 1 to Nikon then. BUT, the successor to Canons excellent 5d is supposedly around the corner so this year’s battles are far from over.

As a neutral it’s great to watch, also I have enough trouble trying to get still images right, there’s no way I could shoot decent video!

But the idea of using macro, zoom and wide angle lenses to shoot video must have appeal to a lot of people. I would imagine that for the average amateur looking to move from Point & Shoot to DSLR, the presence or lack of video could be a deal breaker. I was that person a year ago and it sure would have impressed me, newbies tend to look for feature rich cameras rather than image quality, or the lens range or anything else.

I think it’s great - Nikon continue to innovate and challenge Canon’s market share. As do Olympus and Pentax and Sony on a smaller scale. Whilst this competition exists, we’ll keep getting new concepts and ideas on our new cameras. I wonder what the next big thing will be?

The Ugly Button

Absence of posting - been away from the internet for most of last week enjoying my holiday.

Firstly - a great wedding you can see the pics here. This was the first wedding I went to with my DSLR, and my respect for professional wedding photogs increased tenfold. Shooting people is so difficult, firstly finding the right aperture so that all of your faces are in focus but you get decent bokeh, then ensuring that your subjects are looking the right way, smiling etc. It's a seriously demanding job and I really struggling.

At the reception afterwards I hit the limitations of the four thirds system. Plain and simple they can't shoot in low light. Typically this doesn't matter because I shoot landscapes during the day but for night-time shots I was reliant on my crappy onboard flash. I've now added an external flash to my lust list.

Okay, then it was onto Poolewe (way up the west coast of Scotland), to fish some brilliantly remote hill lochs. Stunning surroundings and some great photo opportunities. I also took my first panorama that I stiched in Photoshop, I'm really pleased with it, see above.

Finally, the week finished in Edinburgh, for a Black tie ball in aid of the brilliant Princes Trust, a charity I wholeheartedly support. Great fun, lots of wine and again a real battle in the low light conditions. As well as the ball I got he chance to shoot in a more urban environment, and once again found it hard to get my shots right.

To be honest I was disappointed with most of my shots over the week, whilst I had a great time I've been really struggling with how to take good candid shots, battling with aperture and it seems like I have an Ugly button that transforms beautiful people in squinting ogres!

Still, I learned a lot and hopefully will do better next time.

MICRO 4/3

Read this...

Now what I'm inferring from the above statement is that Olympus got it wrong with Four Thirds, so they've fixed it with Micro 4/3rds (MFT from now on).

This is Four Thirds but even smaller. All your existing lenses will work on MFT with an adapter but the new snazzy MFT lenses won't work on your current Four Thirds model....

An added feature of an MFT camera is that you compose your shot by looking at the LCD...the don't have mirrors and won't come with a view finder. Err...so it's an interchangeable lens point and shoot? A bridge camera with interchangeable lenses? I don't know.

What I am worried about is the future of Four Thirds. According to the press release, "Olympus will develop relevant technologies and devices for both Four Thirds System and Micro Four Thirds System standards."

But why bother? If MFT is smaller, lighter and more capable than clunky old four thirds, why make lenses or bodies to function on the legacy system? Why not force users onto the new MFT?
And yet, in the last eight months Olympus has released 3 brilliant Four Thirds camera bodies (E3, E520 and E420), this comes on the back of the award winning E410 and 510 last year. The lens range has recently expanded with a cheap wide angle, new SWD options and the very attractive 70-300. Surely that investment means that the future of Four Thirds is bright?

But then why MFT? Gah...going round in circles.

Anyway, I was going to spend £600 on the 12-60mm F2.8 lens, my first serious investment in the Four Thirds system. It's a great lens, I am probably going to get thrown out of the camera shop if I play with it one more time. But what's the point if the system becomes obsolete tomorrow? I could buy a Nikon or Canon body tomorrow and rest assured that their commitment to the DSLRs 'standard' format remains...I don't know.

Loch Scardroy

BoATS, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

Great weekend at the top of Strathconan, which is in my top 5 most beautiful places in Scotland.

Loch Scardroy (pictured above) is at then end of single track road that runs down Strathconan and past 3 amazing trout lochs and some stunning scenery, if you’re visiting the Highlands of Scotland and like taking pictures, ensure it’s on your list of places to visit.

Unfortunately, due to the elevated height of the glen, the weather is always rough, the high hills funnel the wind down the valley and I’ve only ever seen a flat calm on Loch Scardroy twice in 10 years. The wind however is a blessing because it keeps the midge (a nasty little black fly that swarms and sucks blood) at bay.

There is any number of good walks in the local area, the fishing is excellent (and affordable!) and the wildlife, most notably the birdlife is really diverse. There is a nesting pair of Peregrine falcons in the area, Golden Eagles, Black & Red throated divers that whilst elusive would make a great photograph. Just remember a compass, an Ordinance Survey map and waterproof clothing.

Anyway, due to that fact that we were fishing in a rowboat, the photographic opportunities were limited. I would like to praise my Lowepro AW camera bag…the all-weather cover got a good soaking and my camera gear was bone dry whenever I used it. Another must have accessory if you’re taking pictures in Scotland.

Despite the elements, wet boat and difficult conditions, I was able to get a few half decent shots. The one above is probably my favorite of the shots I took. You can see the rest on my flickr, or even more on my Picasa site.

I’ve got a wedding to go to this Friday (my niece), so I hope to get a few good snaps at that. Then a weeks holiday and (hopefully) some camping on Scotlands west coast.

Terrific, just terrific. A weekend of sea mist, rain and dull skies.

I managed to dodge the showers long enough to spend half an hour around Nairn, looking for something blue to photograph.

I found a few blue boats and doors etc...but the flat light and dull clouds really washed everything out. I'd say I'm an intermediate Photoshop user and the rubbish I produced this weekend was way beyond saving with my limited post processing skills.

At least all the chores I've not done for a while got up to date...sigh...

Hopefully the weather will brighten and I'll get the opportunity to go fishing in the hills next weekend, always a good photo there...

Finally, I'm thinking about doing a few blogs on my photowalks around Scotland, when and where I go, maps and so forth....if you think it's a good idea then either leave a comment below or twitter me.

plog?

No picture today!

I thought I'd type some stuff. I guess the big revelation over the last few days was that people actually read my blog! So to the handful of people that are looking at this every day and those that drop in from time to time...hello!

Anyway, there's some things I'd really like you to look at if you've got time, firstly the awesome Frederick Van (Johnson) has posted this excellent interview with Photoshop guru John Nack. In the interview the thing that interests me the most are Johns comments on a multi-shot depth of field type function that might work in a similar way to HDRs. I'm not doing the concept justice, so go listen to John and have a look around Freds excellent & varied video blog. (vlog? ...0log?...vidlog?...whatever)

For a lesson in how to do a photography blog (plog?) look at 365 to 42, by Brett Trafford. For a newbie like me this sets the bar for what I want to archive with my blogging (bloggery?). His photos (especially the birds) are tack sharp and gorgeous and backed up by really insightful text. There's also Brett Trafford Photography which has more of a tutorial feel to it and is shaping up to be a belter.

Anyway the weather forecast for tomorrow is excellent and my challenge for the week is 'Blue' as per the latest TWIP photo challenge. Hopefully some blue skies or blue seas or something - the standard of these contests is incredible but as I've said before, as a newbie I really like going out with a subject of some kind in mind. Even if I have nothing remotely near the quality of the stuff in the competition I will have had fun trying.

Passing Place

Passing Place, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

Let’s talk about HDR.

There’s a debate going on about HDRs and I think there is an element of snobbery around the whole thing. Firstly, the initially idea around a High Dynamic Range picture was that it would (doh) boost the dynamic range, bringing up shadows, correcting the exposure in a sky or adding tones and depth in under-exposed areas. Essentially, making a ‘normal’ picture better. With tools like Photomatix it’s possible to boost these levels beyond reality, creating some bizarre, unusual and surreal images that only bear a basic compositional similarity to the original picture.

Your HDR snobs (like Conrad Obregon in this book review on TWIP) think that ‘overcooking’ a HDR is somehow distasteful. Personally I liked to blur the line a bit, choosing to boost the contrast & saturation just slightly over what my eye sees as ‘normal’.

This lends a kind of oil-painting feel to my pictures that I really like, it gives my landscapes a sense of individuality. So in Conrad's (and plenty of others) eyes does this make me a bad photographer?

Interestingly, the more I overcook an image and the weirder it looks, the more plaudits and awards I receive on Flickr, “Cats Sunset” (see below) is my most successful picture on flickr to date, hundreds of views, several awards and loads of positive feedback. It’s also the most over-processed picture I’ve ever done. It’s actually a very dull landscape, rocky beach, tree and a little bit of sea water coupled with a moderately spectacular sky. It was fun to do as I was learning Photomatix, but I think that my ‘Storm Clouds’ shot is much more dramatic and significantly less processed than ‘cats sunset’. To date, ‘Storm Clouds’ has attracted less than half the comments and views of ‘cats sunset’.

So does that mean a ‘good’ HDR can be a ‘bad’ photo?

I don’t know, I’ve found my personal approach to doing it, I’m enjoying it, learning loads along the way and for the first time, attracting some great (positive and negative) comments for my work. I still take plenty of non HDR images; most of my portraits, macro and so forth are all just touched up in Photoshop.

HDR is simply a different take on things, like using a filter, or colouring your pictures in Photoshop or anything. It’s also new, and as with all new things it’s viewed with ignorance and used ignorantly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so find your personal way of doing your HDRs and enjoy it! Okay rant over,

***Edit - I originally stated that Scott Bourne wrote the article on TWIP mentioned in the above post - it's important to note that he did not. Apologies to Scott for misquoting him - Twitter is broken so I can't apologise personally.***

The Path Home

The Path Home, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

Okay,

Talk about highs and lows; I had a wonderful end to the week, fishing over on the West coast with my dad. Great fishing and some brilliant landscape fodder. Photomatix has been doing overtime and the above is one of the results. You can see the full set over on my Picasa site.

From a great few days holiday to a tragedy. As mentioned in a previous blog post, Jye our 12 year old German shepherd had to be put down on Friday night. I can’t put into words how much we’ll miss her, it’s awful not having her around. I’ve not gone back to the beach where we spent so much time…going to wait a few weeks before I face that. Jye was the most photogenic dog in the world and I’m working on one of these Photobooks to see if I can find a way

To try and fill the ‘fluffy space’ in our lives, meet Sol, the latest addition to my family. He is 10 weeks old, very cute and came to us free of charge – who could refuse?

The Jellyfish Road

The Jellyfish Road, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

Quite a productive weekend with the camera. As mentioned in a post last week, I always try to set myself a goal when I go out to take photos. Based on the last weeks (excellent) TWIP podcast, I decided to take more pictures portrait style rather than landscape style.

As someone who takes a lot of landscapes, this was surprisingly difficult and posed some interesting compositional challenges. Fortunately, the constantly changing Nairn seascape came to my rescue with 1000’s of beached Jellyfish, stretched in a long line across the beach. When the tide goes out in Nairn it really goes out, opening up about a mile of desert-like beach and these fellas were sitting about halfway down the beach.

I assume they were dead? They aren’t exactly the most mobile of creatures….not sure if they go dormant and wait for the tide again? Anyway, it made the walk along the beach quite surreal and from a photographic point of view an ideal opportunity to shoot a landscape style picture in a portrait format. The result is above and I’m really pleased with it.

As per most of my recent pictures, it’s a HDR but I was very gentle with the tone mapping, just bring the contrast up and trying to highlight the brilliant colours of the Jellyfish. I took a load of close-ups of the prettier ones, they look a bit like flat marbles, with the swirl of colour through the middle. I’m working on some kind of montage of these and will post shortly.

I’ve not managed to be on Culbin beach at low tide before, and it’s a hugely atmospheric place, the challenge is adding some foreground interest when surrounded by so much…nothing. The only thing to break up the otherwise empty landscape are these posts…possibly the remnants of an old pier or something…you can see my efforts here and here.

In other news, I continue to develop a love of my new Lightroom>Photoshop workflow, rather than Olympus Master>(several crashes)>Picasa>Photoshop….as someone who only shoots several hundred shots a week rather than a pro who might shoot several thousand, Lightroom really does the job, I think I’ll wait until Lightroom v2 comes out, which looks even better.

Lightrooms ability to process several tasks at once (like exposing the same RAW 6 times for a HDR image) yet still allowing you to continue working is a Godsend, I’m still getting my head around catalogues and whether I really need them but aside from this and a few minor niggles it’s great.

Finally, I’m getting increasingly annoyed with the bad-press that HDR’s seem to be getting…I’ll rant about that this week at some point and also I hope to have another trip out with the camera on Thursday or Friday this week, so hopefully some more eye-candy then.

"Fields" Triptych

"Fields" Triptych, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

Frustrating and stressful weekend!

The stress: my dog isn't well....probably on her last legs which isn't great news. Jye is just about the only member of my family who can put up with me when I'm out and about with the camera. Ah well...she's 12 which is a good age for German shepherds...she'll be missed...excuse me....manly sniff...

The frustration: maybe it was the worry about Jye, but I just couldn't take a good picture on my Saturday trip out with the camera. Every shot I took looked boring, done before and the blazing sunshine (whilst great) meant a lot of blown shots and the Oly white balance/exposure compensation doing overtime.

I was also exploring new territory, around the Howforth bridge. It's a really agricultural area to south of Nairn and following on from my successes with fields last week, I wanted to get some more 'pastoral' type scenes.

Okay so you've got great weather, rolling green hills, interesting subject matter? And the result? Not very much really.

So anyway...I decided to resort to some photoshop practice and using a template from the May issue of 'Digital Photo' - I created the attached. I'm quite pleased with it...it makes 3 rather dull pictures look a bit more interesting and I learned a fair bit about using the 'transform', 'distort' and 'skew' commands in PS.

Finally, "Cats Sunset" becomes my first picture to win awards on flickr and has had over 130 views! Not bad for a noob with 7 months experience.

Oh and even more finally, I was approached by Ed O' Keefe, asking if he could critique - "Greenweed" on his site. He's given a really balanced view of the pic and even gone as far as tweaking the pic himself to show how he would have done it! Not sure if I entirely agree, but it's really flattering to get critiqued on his external site.

Interesting that he's also challenged the horizon position...note that all the pics on todays blog entry are rule of thirds compliant :)

Cats Sunset

Cats Sunset, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

Workflow woes

I ranted the other day about trying to manage my pictures from a RAW to finished JPEG.

This may be because of my newbie status, but I really like Googles “Picasa” Software for browsing my pictures, deleting some and making basic adjustments such as straightening horizons, cropping and I also find Picasa’s ‘Gradient’ tool really simple for making skies more dramatic. I then use Photoshop for the more complex dodging/burning/levels/etc. Also with Picasa, you can upload pictures to your personal online webalbum with one click (rather than 31,000 clicks in Flickr)

However, on advice from fellow-photographers, TWIP and assorted other sources I recently began shooting almost exclusively in RAW, this mostly because I’ve fallen in love with HDR’s but also because of the flexibility in post processing that RAW allows.

The downside of Picasa as my ‘workflow’ manager is that whilst it understands what an Olympus RAW is, Picasa cannot make intrusive (save-able) changes to it, and forces you to save a JPEG copy.

I don’t like Adobe’s ‘Bridge’ software (too clumsy, too difficult to see pictures, doesn’t display Olympus RAW files) and I loathe, no I despise…no I detest Olympus Master – the abundantly awful bundled software that I got with the camera.

So….enter Adobe Lightroom. I’ve downloaded a free trial and it seems to be what I’m looking for. I played with it for a few hours last night and the above picture was one of the results. Some great little things:

* It’s quick – even the 10mp RAW files load fast.
* It looks good, the menus are fairly intuitive.
* It’s clever…you can ‘stack’ tasks, so instead of waiting for a RAW conversion, the conversion ticks away in the background and I get to work on the something else. I had 11 tasks working away last night! Olympus master implodes after one.

Some really annoying little things:

* Adobe are paranoid about ‘intrusive’ changes. Which is a good thing…unfortunately they seem to have taken this a tad too far in Lightroom, there doesn’t’ appear to be a ‘save’ button….you can ‘export’ pictures, create virtual copies, update catalogues, tweak libraries but you can’t actually save anything. This makes me nervous that the changes I’ve done to an image haven’t actually been applied.


* The whole catalogue & library thing is probably the most counter-intuitive thing about Lightroom. I just don’t understand it and to be honest I don’t think I need to. I’m very fussy about disk management, delete hundreds of unwanted pictures and I have a filing system that works. The catalogue seems to mean ‘folder’ and the library seems to translate as ‘a database full of your photo folders’. I could be spectacularly wrong about that…

I’ve yet to try tweaking jpegs in it. Essentially Lightroom is Picassa with RAW integration, but I like more and more each time I use it – I’ll keep you updated.

Anyway enjoy the pic - over 90 views of 'Greenweed' on flickr...must be doing something right!

grassandwire

grassandwire, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

I was chatting with uber-underwater photographer John, about the rule of thirds and how, on a lot of my landscapes my horizon sits in the middle of the shot, and should either be a third or two thirds from the bottom of the frame…so you get more sky or more land, depending on what is more dramatic. It’s one of these rules that is can be used to great effect or completely ignored.

I decided that on my weekend trip out and about, I’d focus on two things – firstly looking for landscapes that would help feed my ongoing HDR fetish and secondly, taking pictures that either complied with the RO3rds or challenged it!

So, here’s ‘grass&wire’…I’ve taken a fair few barbed wire shots…probably something Freudian about that…anyway, I noticed that the wire fence could be used to form a meticulous “rule of thirds” grid if I shot it straight on, so I decided to get as low as possible and shoot diagonally at the fence, grabbing a bit of barbed wire and some silhouetted grass stems in the process. I doubt the pic would win any awards, but as a beginner I’m really pleased that I’m slowly starting to form an understanding of what my photographic style will be and interpret these tried and tested concepts into my own language.

Something I’m finding increasingly useful when I’m out with the camera is setting myself tasks. Such as “challenge the rule of thirds” or “depth of field” or a theme like “strength” or “rocks” or whatever…competitions are a great way of getting ideas for challenges, I’ve only ever entered a couple of the competitions but I’ve used dozens of their themes. Living in Scotland with so much landscape, it’s often difficult to give a big beach shot perspective or inject drama into open moorland.

If you look at one of my favorite Scottish flickr photographers, Craig Robertson, you can see how he often uses seemingly insignificant things in very grand locations to capture the mood or feel of the place he’s shooting. His jaw-dropping shot of Nairn beach is one I try and emulate on a fortnightly basis! This shot of Loch Ashie sums up my point entirely. I studied this shot for some time…trying to comprehend Craigs ability that despite being so dwarfed by the majestic surroundings (that have been snapped a million times) he was able to focus on a few boring stalks and then work miracles. Well worth a look.

fly away

fly away, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

Took this shot on Sunday...it was raining and miserable...Nairn looked even more sad than usual.

Where the river meets the sea are these especially drab houses that back onto the river. As I walked home I saw the gull and the sky and click.

The picture got a four exposure HDR treatment once I got home and I'm quite pleased with the result. I used the 'exposure blending' setting on Photomatix rather than the more aggressive 'tone mapping' that I've been using on my previous HDRs.

The exposure blending seems to create a more rounded, natural looking image compared to my bonkers field pictures that I took on Saturday, dumped into Photomatix and then cranked everything to 10...I think there's more to this HDR thing than meets the eye.

In other news I'm over 60 hits on my seaweed pic which is a personal best!

Why Choose Olympus?

It’s a great question. Sony are producing some great cameras, Pentax are now leading the way in terms of “prosumer” sensor size, Cannon continue to deliver quality (if lacking a little innovation) and Nikon have 4 or 5 entry level bodies that get rave reviews in every magazine and website.

For me it comes down to a few things. A year ago, the Olympus E-510 was one of a handful of cameras that delivered Live View, Image Stabilization, a 10mp sensor in an incredibly compact size. Additionally, two of the best photographers that I know personally, namely Martin Phillimore, and John Akar all said the same thing: “It’s all about the glass”

Now, both guys use Cannon and have either the cash or the necessity to own L-Series lenses. For the uninitiated, these are the top-spec lenses for Canon and amongst the best lenses commercially available and also amongst the most expensive.

Unfortunately, I don’t have £1,000 to spend on a camera body, let alone a lens. Both Canon and Nikon users agree that their respective ‘kit’ lenses (the ones that come with the camera) are very poor. Which means their entry and mid-range cameras might be a bit cheaper but will require an additional investment in glass.

Olympus make lenses, they make lenses for microscopes, telescopes, cameras and a whole range of medical and scientific instruments that require a piece of glass. And they’ve been doing it very quietly and very well for a long time.

Olympus’s lens range makes a lot of sense. There are three categories, “skint”, “less skint” and “rich”. Or “happily married”, “unhappily married” and “divorced”. The kit lenses are brilliant, score highly in every test, regardless of how scientific they are and the 14-42 is widely recognized as one of the best kit lenses.

So I went with Olympus, good lenses at a good price and the two lens kit gives me a reach of 28mm to 300mm in 35mm terms. I love the camera, it’s intuitive, has sensible shortcut buttons, an easy to understand menu tree, the lenses are cool, the image stabilization works.

But

RAW!!!! Whilst I can understand the limitations of JPEG, every camera produces a file that can be read, edited and processed by any piece of software. Why are Canons RAWs different to Nikons different to Olypmpus

I have Photoshop CS3, but in order to expose/edit/modify my RAW files I have to use Olympus master..Olympus’s bundled picture editor. It is slow, it crashes a lot, it is incredibly limited. So my workflow has to be…take picture…then process the RAW in Olympus Master…then play with it in PS…arghhh! It takes hours to do it this way.

Greenweed

Greenweed, originally uploaded by Bexley98.

My first foray into HDR (High Dynamic Range).

For the unitiated, you take several shots of the same subject with varying exposures, from light to dark. Then you combine them in a piece of software (I use Photmatix Pro which is fairly idiot-proof).

For my HDRs, I'm using one RAW file and then exposing several JPEGs, for this shot I exposed 8 times. (-2EV, -1.5EV,-1EV, right the way up to +2EV)

As an Olympus user, the system is often cricitised for it's lack of dynamic range...to be honest it's not something I've really noticed but HDRs certainly add an element of the surreal and clearly generate interest amongst the photographic community. This is my first pic to have over 50 views.