Snow Garden

Got back to the chalet about 8pm last night after struggling through the snow. Took a few snaps with the Pen. The first one was on Auto Iso (3200, sooooo noisy), and it was dreadful, even on the screen. I set the ISO to 800 and the aperture to the largest available (f/3.5). The shutter speeds were from 1/5 to 1/13 for the lowest light ones, and all hand held. They don't seem too blurry to me (edit: on reflection, looking at the full size shots, I withdraw that!)

No PP done, too busy at work :(

They are all over here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinl2048/sets/72157623050916328/

Non-challenge Sunday

Shooting into the sun with my 50mm f/1.4 results in dohnuts. Yeah, I've overdone the sharpening but I like it. Currently my desktop wallpaper.

I was given some lego and I finally got around to making it. He's a fierce wee beastie.

One for the missus

Suggested by Vanessa. I might have another stab at this when at my sisters on boxing day as she has a real live canine pet.

A bit soft, 50mm f/7 @ 1/50s, ISO400. These full frame cameras have much less DoF for the same lens as APS-C DSLRs.

I'm very keen on my blue background.

Awright Guvnor, 'ere's me first

There's a reason I'm an engineer, and not an artist.

With real snow, too. Holly off the bush in the garden.

50mm, f/7, 1/40s, ISO160

Building up to my "proper planned entry", just need o buy a couple of things....

Cor Blimey, it's Tom's second attempt.....

16-85@85mm, 1/25s, f5.6, ISO 400

Another snap shot while cooking. D300 gets veeeery heavy when holding it one handed! Again, with enough time and OCD tendencies, could have spent half a day with the tripod and various jury-rigged clamp arrangements to get the exact shot I imagined.

Kev's Impossible Challenge: Toby's First

Of little artistic merit, but trying for some humour. 50mm, f1.8.

Tom's first - Challenge 7

Possibly one of the stranger pictures I have taken. Slightly soft, but was very much of the moment while cooking a huge vat of curry to take to a family weekend. Given time and without a panful of onions and spices burning in the background, probably would have got the tripod and set up properly, rather than a handheld, low light attempt.



50mm, f2, 1/60s, ISO 640

New Challenge - Rhyming Slang

You won't Adam and Eve what I've come up with. for this next challenge.

Pick a Cockney Rhyming slang phrase and take photos around that subject.

Yes, a bit random, but full of potential for interpretation and stretching the rules, which is encouraged.

As an added extra, submitted photos should *NOT* mention the selected rhyming slang phrase, but the others should try to guess it. NO CHEATING!

This should be fun. Usual rules, yada yada yada.

Challenge - where we at?

Lost track of who, where and when, as I think Toby stepped in to take over Kev's spot last time.

Is it now me...or does Kev get to take his turn now?

Opens Can of Worms

OK. Saw David at the weekend. He wants to replace his camera as the old one is broken. He is thinking about a DSLR. His concerns are

• It is small
• It works well in low-light

Not looking to spend much and not looking to get into photography (this will mainly support his historical lectures) I suggested he went to the nearest camera shop and handled the Nikon D3000 and Canon 450D. These - I think - are the entry level models. (I know the D40 was pretty small when I held one.) Not sure where the Canon 500D fits; is it a replacement for the 450D? The Nikon does ISO 3200; the 450D 1600 - but the 500D does 6400.

Any comments? (Without any flaming!)

Photoshop Disasters and Ralph Lauren

Posted this to FaceBook, but you might have missed it. I know Tom is a fan of Photoshop Disasters but according to BoingBoing they've had a take-down legal threat from Ralph Lauren.

The photo in question is truly dodgy and deserves all the opprobrium it gets. Especially, when the model in question is pretty damn skinny to begin with. (Or maybe just better photoshopped in those other shots.)

Also ran out of time

Was hoping to get a few images I've had rattling around in my head this week, but sickness and a press day looming (and the fact some of the ideas are probably unattainable) means I'll probably have to wait until the next opportunity.

Meanwhile, a few which almost made it:

Transport Challenge - Also Rans

I think this challenge is about to finish fairly soon and I see little chance of me coming up with anything stunning in the last few days. So I thought I'd post the best of the ones I rejected. Here goes.

1. More slow shutters

This was supposed to be ironic. Lots of effort, but nothing being transported. 

2. The postal strike. Again, this was meant to be ironic. Nothing is moving. I feel there was a good photo to be had (the red against green was nice) but I couldn't find the right angle.

3. This was a snap-it-now-or-miss-it one. Saw the two guys with the canoe and took the picture. Verity was on my shoulders at the time so it's a miracle it's not blurred. 

4. Couldn't resist. But neither could I find an interesting take on this famous TV prop. 

Toby....

You mentioned you'd got a cheapish tablet recently - how are you getting on with it and anything to report on use?

(edit: or did you already tell us and I've completely forgotten?!)

Kev, you were right...

EP-2 announced, comes with slot on EVF.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0911/09110501olympusep2.asp

Transport Challenge - Toby's First

Well, now for something completely different. Like Kev, I took a  load the other day whilst out and about but wasn't sure any made the grade - maybe it's just Tom's efforts intimidating me so I might have another look at them.

So, being stuck inside because of the rain, I tried something else. Here it is. 

25sec, ISO 200, f4.8, 40mm. Drew the light trails on with an LED in a child's toy. 

Kevin snaps a T.I.T

Trotter's Independent Trading that is. Spotted on the M25 a couple of weeks ago and snapped with my iphone (ISO ??? f/??? ???s - it's phone, not a camera ;)

I'm certainly not claiming this is a special photo, but just an observational shot with a bit of humour.

Kevin, you plonker!

Challenge - Tom's Third

Sorry, edited this because I uploaded the wrong size.

Interesting time standing in a field at the end of Luton airport, with jets screaming by 50 ft overhead and trying to work out how to photograph them. First my favourite, but second, as always, a close run thing.

A field, end of Luton airport runway (f8, 1/25s, ISO 250. 16-85@16mm))



A field, end of Luton airport runway, looking the other way (f8, 1/320s, ISO 1400. 16-85@32mm))

And I thought some of our challenge subjects were difficult!

http://www.photographyblog.com/news/panasonic_lumix_award_2009_2010/

Tom's car park

Here's a crop and 'muck about' from me. I'm crap at cloning so please ignore the crude blurry attempt. No sharpening applied.

Carpark pushed processing

Generally not very good at creative photoshopping - tend to be more an enhance, repair and rescue user. Tried pushing processing bit further, as Kev's suggestion....suspect I'm still being too restrained!

Challenge 6 - Tom's second

Carpark in St Albans (f8, 1/80s, ISO 400, 16-85@30mm)

Challenge 6 - Tom's first

Been thinking about something like this for a while, but as always, in practice what seems like a good idea...

Tripod not quite tall enough to get the camera over the bridge railings, so had to shoot through the bars, which limited angle and how wide I could shoot. Bugger to focus as well, as the road surface itself is too dark to ge a lock on and the cars are obviously travelling a bit to fast to get a reliable point on. In the end manual focussed on one of the white lines and then locked it.

Also had to cope with a) busy-body PCSOs interrogating me on what I was doing and b) gangs of chavs trying to interrogate me on what I was doing.

Experimented from 1 sec all the way up to 30 secs. 30 secs too long in that light and for traffic that speed - in my opinion. Light trails too dense and surroundings too lights.

Top my favourite (f8, ISO 200, 5 sec, 16-85@85mm), but below was a close run second (f8, ISO 200, 15 sec, 16-85@58mm). Too busy I think.

Another impromptu personal challenge...

Sadly didn't see a single item of transport while walking with Sammy today, so kept myself interested with a widest angle possible only allowed challenge (in this case 16mm).

As before, no cropping or PP'ing (other than whatever PS bridge does when I save it as a jpg...think it applied some mild sharpening)

Found this a lot harder than the 50mm walk the other day.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=335852&id=850030623&l=e340f13f6e

Fantasy and reality camera buying

Two questions for you chaps:

You win a pretty hefty lottery prize - not the jackpot, but enough to allow you to spend some serious cash on camera equipment without feeling too guilty, let's say no more than £20K...what do you buy?

On a more realistic note, once Alamy clears (and following my "what the camera earns, I get to spend on photography" rule) I'll have about £200 to spend. Beginning to lean towards getting a more compact bit of kit as it's getting less feasible to lug round the D300 at all times, although I do try.

What do you reckon? Try to scrape some extra together and get something a bit more expensive as a Christmas pressie to myself - I'm thinking G11 or GF1?

Or limit myself to the cash and see what something like a Fuji F70 or F200 is like as a true pocket cam?

And other thoughts on proper compacts? A compromise too far and am I going to get wound up by them?

Distorted thinking

Nothing to do with the current challenge - still "pre-visualising" on that one (i.e. very little idea of what to do and hoping something will occur soon!)

To fill the time, here is a photo I took while on holiday in Scotland this August. Thought it might be good for stock, but then wondered about the perspective problems caused by the wide angle - so had a play in Photoshop with the distortion correct filter and ended up with the second picture.

Interested in your views - was it a successful exercise? Is it worth going to the bother? Does the uncorrected image look too distorted to you? Does the new version look better?

Challenge 6 - Transport

Firstly, Happy Birthday MisanthoPix! (I think the first post was 16th October 2008.)

OK. Kev is never going to get his act together so I am proposing a challenge.

Subject: Transport. (This came to me when ferrying the kids about yesterday and debating how far they'd walk, when we needed to take the car, etc, etc.)

Interpret it as widely as possible. (Lots of macro shots of a shiny, new dérailleur from Kevin is acceptable; posing in lycra is not!)

Usual rules:

Theme: Transport

• 
  Submit up to 5 pictures.
• Post processing and digital manipulation is allowed.
  
• brief line should accompany each photo (e.g. location or subject, camera, exposure details, etc).
• The photo must be taken between 18th October and 18th November 2009.

Idiotic photo mistakes - 1

Portrait shot of brewer in Isle of Man, first shot, flash fires but strobe warning beep goes off that it's not been able to put out enough light. LCD on back shows shot massively underexposed.

I'll quickly explain here that while charging everything up for the trip, began to think about how long I've had my rechargable AAs and wondered if they had a limit on the number of charge cycles you can put them through, which may explain my getting locked into the wrong solution.

Immediately assumed it must be batteries, so change, do a test shot of a nearby wall, everything looks fine. Another shot of subject, another underexposed shot and warning beep.

Bit embarrassed now, decide perhaps I'm right about batteries not holding charge and put another fresh set of rechargeables into the flash.

Brief moment of clear thinking and I do actually think about checking settings - notice camera is still in sports mode from when I last used it at the weekend. Shutter priority, auto ISO, so everything all over the place and while I've got one half usable shot (bottom of two posted), I can even see on the LCD it's too noisy to print. Reset to "portrait" settings bank, thinking this will solve issue.

Another underexposed shot and with subject clearly losing patience, let him escape. Try again 10 minutes later against different background with another set of fresh batteries, same bad results (first of two posted). By this time he thinks I'm some fool who's been handed a camera for the first time - so I give up.

Only when I've got back into the car and have another, slightly calmer look at the camera that I realise while I've switched the camera from sports to portrait settings and from shutter priority to manual (I usually shot indoor flash shots at around f8, 1/30s) the shutter speed from the weekend shooting remained the same when I switched to manual (1/500).

Lessons learnt/relearnt:

I always used to set my camera back to a "default" setting before putting it away - which might have helped, except logically it might be best to store camera set up for quick shooting/action shots. Perhaps should start doing this again!

Also always used to do the WIFE check before shooting (WB, ISO, focus, exposure) but got a bit complacent.

50/50: for personal amusement

I admit it - I've been seeing another photo sharing site.

Mainly to amuse myself on a wander round the local lake with the Samster which takes about 50 mins, and also because all I could be bothered to carry was the 50mm. I'f I'd thought about it, I'd have probably limited myself to 50 exposures as well.

No cropping, no photoshopping.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=327544&id=850030623&l=796189db48

We going to get an official challenge soon Mr L?

Alamy musings

Give or take a few days, this time last year was the momentous day when I took my first steps towards stock photography wealth and had my first batch accepted by Alamy. ;)

Year on, have had a look at how things have gone and may, or may not be useful to share:

Yet to have a major problem with passing Quality Control. Learned very early on to be extremely harsh with my own QC and if I had even the slightest doubt about sharpness etc, I didn't even bother to try putting it through QC - because of Alamy policy of rejecting all photos currently awaiting QC if just one fails, it's not worth it.

Be careful if batch processing and upsizing. My only QC problem came from a handful of pics within a larger group which I'd forgotten had been slightly cropped before I batch uprezzed...which meant they didn't quite reach the min uncompressed size required. Thankfully, and another important lesson, this is a rare case where Alamy will only reject individual photos rather than the whole batch, if this is the only QC problem.

Have now got 233 photos on Alamy. Have currently sold just under $250 worth (annoyingly tiny amount under $250 (about £150) in fact, which is the threshold for Alamy sending out a cheque!). That means average earnings per photo uploaded is 66p. If images continue to sell at this ratio, I'd need about 2,000 images up there to pay for a D300 each year.

Keyword indications seem to show most popular images (for viewing and zooming at least, if not buying) are location based photos (Orkney, Newcastle etc), rather than objects or specific identifiable places. My three sales have all been "landscape" locations.

"Zooms" on Alamy have really dropped off recently (mainly because the image you see when you hover over a pic with the mouse is now more detailed than the zoom), which makes it difficult to assess how attention grabbing images are. On the plus side, the only reason for zooming an image now is to see the price/licence restrictions or add it to a lightbox - so it's been suggested a zoom on an image is a much better indication someone, somewhere, is thinking about buying it.

This isn't going to make me rich - but the time invested is relatively small, especially if I'm just reusing photos I would have taken anyway, and once they're uploaded, they can potentially make money with no further work.

Cheers - Tom

Nice to see...

...the megapixel arms race might finally be over

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0908/09081908canong11.asp

Winding back from 14.5MP to 10Mp certainly seems to be a tacit admission that the last few rounds of development have been steps in the wrong direction - or perhaps consumers have started to show they're actually caring about pic quality and low-light performance.

G11 looks rather nice, now they've put the swivel screen back. If I had a spare £500....

Cheers - Tom

Pointless photographic experiments #2

First, there was Tom's sweet wrapper. Now, if you've ever wondered what happens if you use a cheap pair of sunglasses as a "grad" filter (I noticed the sunglasses in question were darker at the top than the bottom so stuck it in front of the camera) this is what you get.

It's Barmouth viewed from Fairbourne beach, by the way.

Tripod matters

For Toby: not sure if I described how I carry tripod...pic tells a thousand words and all that.

Mini Challenge - late entry!

Like Toby, not a huge number which fitted the brief to choose from. Particularly liked this one:

50mm saves the day!

Firstly, I have a huge queue of photos needing sorting and processing, which include some shots from the party...which I will upload eventually!

Thought I'd post about photography at the Great British Beer Festival last week - which always proves to be the most challenging location photographically for me every year.

As you'll see from the first pic (for information really, it's technically messy!), it's a nightmare of not-very-bright mixed lighting (white balance is always fun), bad backgrounds, hot spots, high ceilings and nothing to bounce flash off.

Initially, I tried using the flash, but with no bounce opportunities, found I was getting harsh foregrounds and too much drop off in the backgrounds (second pic). Forced to use ISO 800 and a wide aperture anyway to try and balance everything a bit more - with the associated noise - I figured I might as well try some flash-free shooting with the 50mm...and got some much better shots - like the third pic.

Interestingly enough, having snooped on the file info for the shots taken by the pro on the first day, he took a very similar approach - no flash and ISO 1250...his shots with a Canon 1D3 and rather more expensive zoom lens were outstanding considering the difficulties.

16-85@16mm, 3s, f/22, ISO100



16-85@38mm, 1/50s, f/4,8, ISO800



50mm, 1/50s, f/2.5, ISO800

Tripod stuff

Mentioned this to Kev at the party, the other end of the spectrum from my Manfrotto!

(Did post a link to this in the original tripod posting, but to save Kev searching!)

Party Photo

Good to see you both there yesterday. Checked through my photos and there was nothing stunning. Checked again, and still underwhelmed.

This one, however, amused me. I make no claim for artistic merit: a decent enough exposure, but a distracting background, and it looks a bit too posed (although it wasn't). But it kind of sums up Sarah on that day: silly grin, big tray of drinks.

35mm, f5, 1/500 sec, ISO 400.

Mini Challenge: Party Tomorrow

Here's an idea. We're all going to be at the same event tomorrow with our cameras.

Challenge: pick one image only from the day (to capture any aspect of the party) and post it to the site by this time next week (Friday 24 July).

Another Alamy sale!

Bizarrely same image - which still doesn't appear to have been removed as threatened, despite being National Trust.

Magazine in the Russian Federation apparently. Only $44 this time, so still no sign of that early retirement.

Copyright

Dunno if you can see this Facebook link (there's a picture left) but my sister has had one of her photos ripped off.

What would you do? Has anything like this happened to you (and how did you know)? Do you embed contact details in the EXIF data? (I don't but I think it is easy to get Bridge to do this automatically.)

Photo printing rated in Which?

Always a bit dubious about Which?, especially when they talk about more technical stuff like cameras...they're digicam reviews are usually hilariously dumbed down. However, they're quite good at testing things which just involve trying out lots of different, but largely identical service.

Latest issue has photo printing services rated.

Bonus Print and Snapfish come out top at 65 per cent and 62 per cent respectively. Tesco and Photobox rated "Don't Buy".

Guardian Camera Club

Just stumbled across this in the Guardian.

Quite interesting, although I was not stunned by many of the photos. That said, I think she did a better job of the recession-type images than we did. I liked the removed Woolworths sign. The "sold" signs on the new apartments were also nice. Probably more up your street Kevin. (I noticed she was holding a Canon so some lack of quality was to be expected.)

Also, a bit confused by the title, it says you are invited to submit images on the topic (and gives a flickr stream) but no more information. I doubt, I'd ever submit one anyway; I never have for the competition at on the back page of the Saturday magazine.

Talking of competitions, isn't it about time you set a challenge, Kev?

Don't all rush

Amazing the recession bargains you can pick up

Sunsets, revisited

Not much going on around here at the moment,  so here goes. You were both very nice about a photo I put on Facebook a while back. This one, I think.

As a number of others liked it, I'm thinking of getting it enlarged for the wall. So a couple of questions.

1. Have either of you tried larger than A4 prints (obviously done via Photobox or similar). Any do's and don'ts? What about canvas prints?

2. Secondly, is this the best shot I took at the time (I took loads).  I think it is, compositionally, at least, but few more can be found in this gallery.

What do you think? (I have included 2 similar ones - xxx95 and 97 - not because I think they might be the best, but because I liked the contrast between using flash and not using a flash in this situation.

Sorry that they all include people. I took a few without, but I found that they didn't do anything for me. My taste, I guess; I know some are of the opinion that figures shouldn't be included in these shots. 

Alamy update

Celebrating my first sale on Alamy. A whole £50 - so not quite ready to retire and become a stock photographer for the rest of my life. It's also a picture taken at a National Trust property and NT has just ordered Alamy to delete all non-authorised images taken at their properties - so likely to be the first and last money I earn from that image!

Search for B407D9 at www.alamy.co.uk to see my new favourite picture! (and taken with the D70)

Some colour for Kevin

I still prefer it b/w, but then again I'm chromatically challenged, so tend to see b/w and contrast better anyway!

Polarizer definitely would have been good to have to help boost the sky, if you look at the mirror shot (post below), you can see how the sky has been improved by the polarizing effect of the mirror.

Cardiff selection

A few of the more "photographic" attempts from Cardiff - although don't think Kev is in any danger of losing the King of the Architectural Abstract crown. (And is the 100th post?). Once Alice has had a chance for first viewing, rest of the weekend should appear somewhere on Facebook soon.

Museum Kampa - Prague

Ok, so I photographed yet another building. This is Museum Kampka, one of the modern art galleries in Prague; itself having been renovated and extended with 21st century glass work. As you can imagine, I was in my element exploring reflections, shapes, colour. From what I can tell so far, this is my favorite.

I've not done much PP as my little dell is not calibrated and the viewing angle dramatically affects the on screen colour and brightness, so I will do it properly when I get home.

EXIF: 5D2, 24mm, f/11, 1/500s, ISO 200

Challenge #5 - reportage

More weird settings: f9, 1/320s, 45mm, ISO 720

Sleeveface - harder than it looks

From the hard-hitting reportage of the recession, I was mucking about the other day after reading about the SleeveFace phenomenon. Basically, if you haven't heard of it, you get someone to stick a record sleeve in from of their face and take a picture. 

Here's a couple of examples. 

It's not as easy as it looks. 

Challenge #5 - so whose stupid f**king idea was this?

f8, 1/320s, 85mm, 640ISO...WTF? Can only assume it was a hungover morning when I got the train into St Alban's, as I walk past a series of closed shops on the way to the office. Got lots of fairly similar closed/for rent premises which I might subject you to if I can't find anything more original.

Reportage Challenge: Toby's #1 - again

Attached again - didn't upload properly the first time.

Reportage Challenge: Toby's #2

"Bail out the workers, not the bankers"; the Socialist Workers Party haven't had so much fun since the recession of the 1980s.  Again, bankrupt Woollies store in Worcester. Going to become a TK Maxx, I believe. Is that a sign of recession or recovery? 

25mm, f8, 1/800sec, ISO400.