Tag Archives: Photography

It’s getting to be that time of year again

After 5 or 6 months of almost non-stop rain, we’ve finally started to see some breaks in the clouds the last couple of weeks and had one or two days of rather lovely sunshine.

That means it’s time to get out of the studio and back on location!

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Throughout the year, even when I’m not actively shooting on location, I’m always looking for new places to photograph clients, models and other subjects.  It’s just something I tend to naturally do when I’m out travelling somewhere.

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Work Hard or Work Smart?

This post is the consequence of a conversation I had yesterday evening with my sister, chatting to her about the upcoming South Lakes Interclub Photography Competition, and how the whole thing works.

But it is also kind of the point I was attempting to make on my previous post about fixing things in Photoshop that you could’ve resolved at the time of shooting (well, one of the points I was trying to make).

In previous years, we’d remained at the venue (as a competing team, not as host) until at least 11pm usually (once past midnight – after which we had to make an hour and a half drive back home) due to waiting for technological hiccups to be overcome so that we could continue, but last year was different.

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Fix it in Photoshop?

During my talk for Lancaster Photographic Society recently, I was asked a question that I’m also going to answer here.  I’m paraphrasing, but it went something along the lines of…

“Is getting the right exposure in camera really all that important?  Can’t we just nudge it in Photoshop?”

Before I start, I want to clarify a definition here, and a difference between “right” and “technically correct”.  It is perfectly possible to make an exposure that is “right”, but not “technically correct” when you shoot with your post processing in mind in order to maximise the capabilities of your camera’s sensor.

Sometimes intentionally over or underexposing slightly allows you to capture the scene and process it in a way that gives a better final result than if you’d started off with a “technically correct” exposure.  So, sometimes “technically correct” isn’t the same as “right”.

But to answer to the question, the short answer is “You can, but if you don’t have to, why would you?”.

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Talks and Presentations

I have been a member of Lancaster Photographic Society for about five years now, ever since my wife and I moved to Lancaster.

Each week throughout autumn and winter we meet, and usually the photographers who come and offer presentations to us are detailing projects and genres that are very personal to them.

They tell some amazing stories, they sometimes go pretty in-depth into the technical aspects of how they do what they do, detail the circumstances that led them to be where they are today, and list some of the challenges they have faced along the way.

Occasionally we have a speaker from our own membership, somebody interesting, worldly, and presenting images the rest of us could only dream of creating.  So when I was first asked to present a talk, I was quite surprised.

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Sekonic L-758DR “Digital Master” Light Meter

In photography, there are many items we would buy if only we could find a viable reason for putting down so much cash.

sekonic_l758drFirst, for me, was the 70-200mm f/2.8VR.  For years, I lusted after one, but didn’t really had a legitimate need for one that would justify dropping £1600+ until about four years ago.

Then there was the 105mm f/2.8D AF Micro-Nikkor.  As much I would’ve loved to have been able to splurge on one, it was an expense I couldn’t justify until last year.  That was another one that had been on my wishlist for about a decade.

The Sekonic L-758DR falls into that same category.  It’s a handheld light meter that I’ve wanted for years, but with a retail price of £399, it just wasn’t going to happen.  Certainly not when my L-718 has performed so beautifully the last few years.

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TTSOL – WiFi On Location

During any given photo shoot, I usually have a few pieces of equipment with me that have WiFi capabilities, and it’s nice when I can get them all talking to each other and serving a useful purpose.

There’s the Nikon WT-3 grip for the D200 (which is a fantastic setup for shooting events where on-site printing is required, although on location shoots I generally just use it for behind-the-scenes shots), the Eye-Fi cards (mostly I shoot D300s bodies, which have dual card slots, one CF and one SD), the iPhones, the iPad, occasionally (but not often), a laptop (which will soon be replaced by a CubieTruck).

In a studio this isn’t an issue, but random locations out in the middle of the Lake District generally don’t offer WiFi facilities, so we have to create our own.

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TTSOL – What the hell does that mean?

TTSOL is going to become a section on the site that I will populate over the coming weeks, months and years.  It stands for “Taking The Studio On Location”, and it’s really just an attempt to make life easier for myself.

Working in a studio environment is great.  It really is.  It’s warm, it’s dry, there’s always coffee available, you have easy access to all your equipment, lights and modifiers, you can shoot tethered to a laptop or desktop and usually you’re not too far from a local pub to grab something good for lunch (or at least have a kitchen and microwave).

But, you see, the thing is, you can’t really create sets that look like this inside a studio.

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ColorChecker Passport

Thus far, I’ve only used this blog to post about Linux stuff, but I also created it to write about photography related things as well.

First of those photography related things is the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport (CCP), as I’ve had a number of people asking me about this recently.

So, what is it?  Why use it?  Should I buy one?  Or am I just throwing away good money?

Well, to describe it as simply as possible, it’s a sort of grey card on steroids, but also much more.

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