Category Archives: Photography

Talks and Presentations

January 23, 2014 John Aldred Leave a comment

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.

Continue reading Talks and Presentations →

Photography

Sekonic L-758DR “Digital Master” Light Meter

January 22, 2014 John Aldred Leave a comment

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

First, 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.

Continue reading Sekonic L-758DR “Digital Master” Light Meter →

CubieBoard, CubieTruck, Linux, Photography, Raspberry Pi

Eye-Fi on Linux

January 18, 2014 John Aldred Leave a comment

My current WiFi situation on Location works for me at the moment.

As I shoot, a couple of seconds after hitting the shutter, the images come up on my iPad screen. I can immediately see which images have hit their focus and are nice and sharp without unwanted motion blur.

I can get a better overall view of the scene on the iPad so I don’t have to spend hours fixing something in Photoshop that I missed on the tiny LCD on the back of the camera. I can just see it and fix on set before taking another shot.

As I’m planning to turn the CubieTruck into a portable backup storage device for use on location, I thought “What if I could transmit via WiFi to the Cubie (or Raspberry Pi) instead of the iPad?”

Continue reading Eye-Fi on Linux →

iOS, Photography, TTSOL, Windows

TTSOL – Eye-Fi on Location

January 16, 2014 John Aldred Leave a comment

I’ve talked about some of the pros & cons of the Eye-Fi card before, but on location these days, it’s something I find difficult to live without.

It’s a luxury, not a necessity, but it does allow me to speed up productivity and waste less time on a location shoot wondering whether the image I just shot is adequately sharp, if I’ve hit the correct point of focus (the camera LCD is just too unreliable – especially when you need to manually focus), or just to see the overall composition on a larger screen.

Continue reading TTSOL – Eye-Fi on Location →

iOS, Photography, TTSOL

TTSOL – Shooting Tethered On Location

January 14, 2014 John Aldred Leave a comment

There was one location at which I shot at quite a lot during 2013 (at least 20 times over the amazing few weeks of summer we had last year). It’s fairly close to Lancaster (about 10 miles out), and it looks absolutely gorgeous, but only up until about noon.

During the morning, shooting upriver, the sun creates a beautiful backlight on the water and your subject. Pop a flash from the front, and…

Continue reading TTSOL – Shooting Tethered On Location →

Photography, TTSOL

TTSOL – WiFi On Location

January 12, 2014 John Aldred Leave a comment

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.

Continue reading TTSOL – WiFi On Location →

Photography, TTSOL

TTSOL – What the hell does that mean?

January 9, 2014 John Aldred Leave a comment

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.