Firstly is the “before” shot:

Next the “after” shot:

Both pictures are exactly as they come out of my Canon 350D, with no post-processing applied. Both pictures were taken at ISO 200, aperture priority of f/11. Exposure times were 1/200s and 1/100s respectively. White balance for both was fixed at 5650K.

Notice how adding the filter brings out the blue in the sky, giving the clouds much more definition. Also note how the grass looks significantly more green – this is due to much less reflection of the sun off the foliage.

Final image is after some post-processing, with a bit of a better crop to ignore the ivy branch I missed in the viewfinder (my 350D doesn’t have 100% coverage, although I should have spotted that one). White balance has been corrected slightly and I’ve also cloned out the electricity pylon in the centre horizon and wires on the right hand side.

Put simply, for the average consumer, not really.

There’s plenty of cameras available now which have a resolution of 10-12 megapixels (MP). So are they any better than my Canon 350D, which “only” has 8MP? And what can my big, heavy, expensive camera do that your svelt pocket sized 10MP thing can’t? A friend once asked (referring to my £700 Canon lens) “so how many times zoom is that?”. Well, it’s a 70-200mm lens, so that would probably mean “nearly three”. “Only three? Mine has got 10 times zoom”. So what gives then?

For a quick demonstration, have a look back at my post about the religious pamphlet, dated 31st December. The image of that leaflet was taken using my camera on a tripod (see the post following it) and that produced a picture with quality far better than is necessary for a simply blog entry.

To highlight the difference, the leaflet itself was 4” x 5.5” and I’ve zoomed into a section of the woman’s head. Note that the zoom level is twice normal size: i.e. for every pixel on your screen, that’s two which appeared in the original image. The actual section of print you’re looking at below corresponds to about 0.75” on paper.

The first thing you notice is the grainy-ness of the image (click for a bigger version). That, though, is nothing to do with inadequacies of my camera. It’s actually the camera picking up the way the printing process works. I couldn’t believe it at first either, but apparently so. I had to go back and very carefully examine the original, only to find that there wasn’t anything wrong, but under very close inspection there was the print bubbles as seen above.

So how does it capture such fine detail? Well that’s because the lens is massive compared to all of the standard compact cameras. A bigger lens means more light is captured, which means a better quality photo. After all, that’s what a photograph is: just some light landing on a bit of film (or electronics in this case). Unfortunately, a bigger lens means it’s more expensive and heavier.

There’s also a bit to do with what happens to the light after it hits the electronics. In compact cameras, the camera makes a quick decision on what it deems to be detail that would never be noticed by your average punter and then throws it away. That’s right: at least half of the detail your compact camera picks up in a photo is thrown away before it even appears on the screen at the back of the camera.

There are two reasons for this: so that you can get more pictures on a memory card; plus it means that you can take the card out of the camera, plug it into a computer and you’ve got images. With my camera, it’s a bit different. Instead of throwing away stuff, my camera keeps it all and I go through each image deciding for myself what will look good and what will look bad. Yes, it means I use more memory up per picture and the process takes longer, but I think it’s worth it.

If you’re heading out to buy a camera, don’t be fooled by megapixel count.

By the time we got there, it was dark (about 4:30) and not “town dark”, which is a sort of orangey-hue twilight; but “countryside dark”, which means it’s starlight, moonlight, or nothing. We had thick, low clouds which meant nothing was visible. Anything you could see was being blown around by the gale-force winds, so that ruled out any long-exposures too.

The next morning we needed to be at the Christening for 9:30 – 10 minutes drive from our hotel for the night. With a little one, that means getting up at 6 to get everything ready for the day ahead. We still managed to be 5 minutes late to the venue because I left my mobile phone in the hotel room. Problem was, we were godparents so couldn’t just sneak in at the back either.

After that was more gale-force winds, torrential rain and driving to another venue for a very nice n-course meal. I don’t remember exactly how many courses there were because I lost count. So no pictures there either.

I finally did manage to “get it out” (oo-err!) while at the second venue to take some family photos for the Christening party, though. It was worth every penny.

The original one I had was kindly donated by my in-laws, but it was really designed to be reasonably cheap and for camcorder use. That means it lacks the stability and adjustability which is preferred when using still cameras. It was also quite small, meaning every time I wanted to use it, the legs were at full extension and I still needed to bend down low to look through the viewfinder. So I went and ordered a Manfrotto 055XProB tripod, with a matching Manfrotto 488 ball head.

It is a truly beautiful piece of kit and absolutely rock-solid. Height is spot-on – even without the centre column extended up high, the viewfinder is perfect for my eye level.

The centre column itself is very clever too. It can be raised and lowered to offer an extra foot or so of height, should you need it. The whole thing can also be flipped round 90 degrees to the horizontal plane so that you can take photos from a whole new angle – very handy for macro shots.

Indeed, that’s how I got the photo for my previous blog post – put the leaflet on the table and setup my camera above it. From there, I just set ISO to 200, Av mode and set the aperture to f/11. Zoom in a bit to avoid using the lens at the widest zoom setting, while auto focus takes care of getting it right first time.

That keeps everything nice and sharp with the minimum of fuss. This needed a 1.5 second exposure, so use the self-timer mode to avoid needing to touch the camera when the shutter is being triggered.

The photo to the left is how the setup looked – plus it was about 1 minute’s work too: such is the ease-of-use.

Unfortunately, such ease-of-use and stability comes at a price. As far as tripods go, this wasn’t that expensive, which means it is made of traditional aluminium. Now normally aluminium is associated with being lightweight, but the modern alternative is carbon-fibre. These c-f tripods are very expensive – typically double the price of their aluminium counterpart.

So the only problem really is the weight of the thing: 3.2kg, or 7 pounds. If you want to walk somewhere, you need to add to this weight the contents of my camera bag: a Canon 350D, a Speedlite 580EX flash, lenses (x4), and various batteries. That makes my all-up weight when taking my camera out a fairly hefty 8.7kg (about 19 pounds). Even with all that mass though, my camera rucksack still feels good when properly strapped to my back.

The photo below shows a close-up of the setup, which includes the horizontal centre column and the ball head (the bit between the silver plate and the camera body).

We’re visiting friends in the Lake District later in January, which should hopefully give me a few good photo opportunities in the winter sun for landscapes. I’ll report back here.

Now bats flit around in unpredictable patterns at a phenomenal rate, so bearing in mind I was simply hand-holding the camera, with manual metering and manual flash exposure and operating the shutter myself, I was quite pleased to capture it at all. Best I managed was the following image:

Certainly recognisable as a bat, if not exactly Wildlife on One quality. The photo above is heavily cropped: the original looked like this:

]]> http://www.ianburnett.com/2008/09/13/bat/feed/ 0 http://www.ianburnett.com/2008/04/17/photography-project-shape/ http://www.ianburnett.com/2008/04/17/photography-project-shape/#comments Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:46:17 +0000 Ian http://blog.ianburnett.com/2008/04/17/photography-project-shape/ I mentioned a while back about my weekly photography project to try and improve my image-making. The start of the list is “Elements of an Image: Shape”. So that was my brief for today: look for clearly-defined shapes and make them the focal point of the image. This can either be in the form of silhouettes for back-lit subjects, or with a strong contrast between subject and background with a front-lit setup.

The sun this afternoon was glorious, but I hadn’t really prepared to go out away from the house; it was more a spur-of-the-moment thing, so I was left in the back garden. Unfortunately, there’s very little in our back garden where there is a clear, uncluttered background. The best background I could have is the clear blue sky, but I live in a housing estate, and roof lines or flue pipes are not the best subjects.

Having pretty much abandoned the project before starting it today, I decided that one good candidate for photography styles in these conditions is macro work: the bright light allows a small aperture, while still retaining reasonably short shutter speeds. So armed with my wonderful Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens, I started hunting out small details in things.

First to catch my eye was a dandelion. There’s plenty of weeds scattered about the garden and the grassy bit is no exception. After a couple of “nearly” pictures, I ended up with this one (all photos are clickable for their large versions).

I then spotted something which is relatively new around our house – next door’s netball hoop, which was put up on their wall last weekend. After a quick bit of impromptu hedge-trimming, I managed to pick out this shot, which I think nearly matches the brief of “shape”. A fairly simple, uncluttered image with the triangular-shaped net and the oval of the hoop.

I then shifted my attention to some of the ants which were frantically scurrying around the patio area. Unfortunately, these are a pain to photograph, simply because they’re extremely small and also because they move so quickly. I tried and rattled-off about a dozen shots before turning my attention elsewhere: I’d spotted a ladybird!

Ladybirds are slightly more sedate creatures, and arguably much more interesting to look at. From over 30 shots taken, the best one seemed to be this:

The large version clearly shows a range of features I’ve never seen before on a ladybird. There’s the hairs on the end of the front legs and the antennae, the texture of the shell (which folds together much more tightly than I’d imagined), plus the way the ladybird’s “spots” are really badly-defined smudges dotted on its back.

Staying with the insect theme, I managed to capture this spider sitting on the nylon barbeque cover, which was pretty good going. He obligingly stayed still for quite a while as I got the tripod positioned correctly.

The final bit of the afternoon ended up being a bit of “reading ahead” to the texture workshop which will be arriving in a few weeks time. I started looking closely at the patterns, textures and saw-marks of the fence panel timber.

Overall, this afternoon hasn’t been a great success for “shape”, so next week will be more of the same.

]]> http://www.ianburnett.com/2008/04/17/photography-project-shape/feed/ 0 http://www.ianburnett.com/2008/04/10/photography-projects/ http://www.ianburnett.com/2008/04/10/photography-projects/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:33:11 +0000 Ian http://blog.ianburnett.com/2008/04/10/photography-projects/ Like all photographers (should be), I am constantly trying to improve my picture-taking. As expected, however, the introduction of Lucy has made time with the camera more a matter of point-and-shoot at friends and family, rather than an exercise in good image composition.

As light reading material, I bought John Hedgecoe’s The Art of Digital Photography a while back and have decided to try and spend one afternoon or evening a week on a photo project of my own. The main difficulty in starting out taking pictures is “what should I take a picture of?”. I’m going to follow the various sections in the book and keep working on each one until I have at least one image that I’m really proud of, before moving on to the next.

The book is broken down into sections as follows:

1. Elements of an Image (shape, form and tone, pattern, texture)
2. Colour (impact and power of colour, colour harmony, colour temperature, shooting in black and white)
3. Depth (using perspective, aerial perspective, depth of field, scale, high and low viewpoints)
4. Organising the Frame (simplifying the scene, leading the eye, exploring angle of view, balance and proportion, framing, choosing backgrounds)
5. Direction of Light (direct and indirect light, frontal lighting, sidelighting, backlighting)
6. Changing Light (dawn to dusk, the impact of silhouettes, seasonal changes, photographing in low light, dramatic light, using shadows, snow and ice, high and low key)
7. People (striking a pose, isolating faces, people in their environment, candid camera, children and babies, group portraits, studio portraits, human form)
8. Still Life (simple setups, abstracts all around)
9. Architecture (gallery of doors, buildings in their surroundings, night lights in the city, abstracts and patterns, tackling interiors)
10. Landscapes (capturing the seasons, skyscapes, panoramas, monochromatic moods, parks and gardens)
11. Nature (plants, birds, bugs, pets, animals)
12. Sport (freezing the action, prefocusing, burst rates, capturing the spirit)

In total, that’s about 60 different topics to cover and even at a phenomenally-fast learning success rate of one great image every week, that’s well-over a year to cover.

I’ll post both my successes and failures here as a blog entry, which should make for a good history trail, if nothing else.

I wonder if there’s any old-wives tales about being born under a total eclipse? Time to consult my nearest mother-in-law…

You can go to their website for NASA’s view on the proceedings – for reference, the UK is 5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time (EST). They’ve also produced this spangly diagram for those who are interested (click for full-size version).

This was a branch, which I think had been shredded by one of those mechanical hedge-cutters that’s like a giant cylindrical lawnmower.

An old security camera on a remote Southern Water building near Hedge End station.

The sunlight across an electricity supply pole.

The texture of barbed-wire against a steel post.

The texture of barbed-wire against a wooden post.

Pushing manual focus abilities to the limit (and it shows!) trying to catch midges backlit in the sunset.

Some ivy on a gatepost.

A nicely-textured steel gate, with some welding detail.

More textures of chains around wooden posts.

Gratuitous shot of a sunset-lit moon.

That was the exclamation from Baldrick in Blackadder the Third: Ink and Incapability. They’d accidentally destroyed Samuel Johnson’s first-ever copy of the dictionary and they needed to rewrite it in 48 hours.

Edmund Blackadder: Very well, sir, as you wish. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? First: ‘A’. How would you define ‘a’?

Baldrick: Ohh…’a’ (continues this in background)

Prince George: Oh, I love this! I love this: quizzies… Errmmm, hang on, it’s coming… ooohh, crikey, errmm, oh yes, I’ve got it!

E: What?

G: Well, it doesn’t really mean anything, does it?

E: Good. So we’re well on the way, then.” ‘a’; impersonal pronoun; doesn’t really mean anything.” Right! Next: `A’… `A-B’.

(Baldrick and Prince ponder over this)

B: Well, it’s a buzzing thing, isn’t it. “A buzzing thing.”

E: Baldrick, I mean something that starts with ‘A-B’.

B: Honey? Honey starts with a bee.

(taken from Phil Taylor’s website that I just found on the web)

Anyway, thought I would post a picture of a bee which has been wandering v…e…r…y… s…l…o…w…l…y… round the garden for the past few days. It’s still far too cold for bees and he’s struggling to move with the lack of his own central heating system. It was taken tonight and despite focusing in almost pitch-black conditions and using a shutter of 1/10s at a focal length of 100mm (35mm effective of 160mm), it’s not a bad effort.