Just along the coast from The Giants Causeway is the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. Originally built by fishermen to allow them to check their Salmon nets, these days it's a good walk and 5 minutes of terror.

To be fair, it's probably less likely to collapse than any of the millennium foot bridges that do that horrible bouncy thing when people walk on them. That said, when you're in the middle of it, you tend to forget the giant steel pins and metal cables holding it in place.

And as it bounces, I dare you not to hum the Indiana Jones theme music.

(F5.6. 1/200, 55mm ISO-100, 12/04/08)

(Yes - another of those shutter speed shots....)

By the time I got taking this picture I'd once again fallen foul of dirt in the camera. This time, it was on the mirror rather than the lens. A good blast with the Rocket Air Blower sorted it out when I got home. I've been trying to work out a better way to change lenses. One which doesn't involve carrying a sterile tent. So far, best I can come up with is:

• Change lenses somewhere sheltered (no wind or rain or sea spray)
• Change them efficiently (not quickly - you risk dropping them, but don't stand chatting as you do it)
• Have the right lens caps to hand for the job (remember Canon cameras take both EF and EF-S lenses, one size might not fit all)
• Try to hold the body pointing down (dirt tends not to fall up)
• Accept that it's part of life and will happen sooner or later.

Failing that, you could always carry two or more bodies. I mean, if Canon are reading and want me to try that option all they have to do is ask..... Hello?....Hello, anybody there?

Ah well, worth a try.

During the trip up north I noticed Dermot was making a lot of use of his macro lens. I mean, I took him to see some of the best coast line in the island and he stands on a beach with a macro lens taking photos of rocks!

He did get me thinking though. Maybe there is something to looking at the little things, even when the big thing is so pretty.

Now, I've tried ad-hoc Macro stuff out and about before. Never with much success. The only macro lens I own is also my telephoto lens and at 200mm it's probably not the best option out there for this sort of thing. Certainly, every freehand shot I'd ever tried didn't work up until now.

While shooting in Carnlough, I noticed one of the old trailers had a lot of rust and some odd paint splashes so I decided to give a real close up on this stuff one more go. but this time I tried something a little different.

Instead of sticking to my trusty aperture priority, I switched to shutter priority and set it to 1/200. A lot of the books and websites I'd read talk about reciprocal values for focal length and shutter speed and use mumbo jumbo, but in English I figure it means...

 

To avoid shake, your shutter speed needs to be at least 1 over the focal length of the lens.

50mm needs at least 1/50

200mm needs at least 1/200

etc.

Yeah, I guess you all knew that. (And you probably all know what reciprocal means as well). I'm slightly embarrassed it took so long for me to realise an answer to my shaky hand syndrome was to change modes on the camera.

Anyway, on with the rust.

(1/200sec, F/5, 181mm, ISO-100, 12/04/08)

OK, so it’s been quiet all week after the flurry of photos from Easter. The plain and simple reason for this is that I spent several hours on Sunday trying to clean my camera.

Darrell noticed these odd spots in a photograph I’d published last week and correctly identified them as sensor dirt.



This sent me into a whole self loathing spiral.
I mean, I’m a good boy. I don’t fool around with other cameras, I don’t go into those sorts of shops, I always use protection and try to avoid exposing my sensitive bits in public…

But still, I’d picked something up.

Seems at some point when I’d been changing lenses a bit of pollutant had managed to sneak into the camera and that it was pretty well stuck as the sensor cleaning (some electro-static charge thing on my camera) wasn’t shifting it.

I asked Darrell some further questions about the issue and he pointed me here as well as providing me some good advice. It seems I could either clean it myself or pay someone to do it professionally.

Well, that sent me off to my local chain camera store to look for solutions. Whilst I’d prefer to have it done properly, the thought that it was something I could learn made me give it a go (that and I’m cheap. Hey! Nobody is sponsoring my camera madness and the amount I’ve spent recently…).

Firstly I purchased a Rocket Air Blower and tried that. The trick with using one of these is to set the sensor to manual clean then hold the camera upside down and blast air into the sensor area. This seemed to life a few little flecks which were sitting in the mount area – I’m guessing these had been kept of the lens by the electro-static sensor clean. But the artefacts on the lens lived on…

So, I resorted to a lens cleaning pen.

Now most photographers I spoke with went a bit green at this stage, you’ve been warned.

Basically you rub the lens pen around the sensor, making sure to get all the corners. Don’t rub too firmly, but at the same time make sure it’s not like getting touched by a rainbow. It’s best to make sure the camera is upside down to encourage the dirt to fall out.  Yep, that bit they say don't touch...

Well, it took a few attempts, but suffice to say I think I got the most of it. Do me a favour. If you disagree, don’t tell me!*

So, today’s lesson. To clean a camera.
1.    Hold or mount the camera upside down
2.    Set the camera to manual cleaning mode
3.    Realise the batteries are nearly flat and the camera will close the mirror before shutting down, so change the batteries and start again
4.    Try using an air blower first
5.    Try using a sensor pen, but be gentle!

Or

1.    Pay someone who knows what they're doing

I found the best way to test if the lens was clean was to take photographs of the white tiles in the bathroom. By looking closely I was able to track the marks and see when they were removed. Best bet is to set the camera to focus at infinity and make sure the picture is over exposed. A good uniform colour is what you need.

I’m almost frightened to post in case it’s not fixed. I'll post over the weekend and we can have a debate.

*Actually do tell me. Please.

I just received the first copy of my new subscription to Digital Photo.

The few times I’ve picked this magazine up I’ve been very impressed by the quality of the articles and the accompanying CD is brilliant for tips and tricks.Having already subscribed to Digital SLR Photography (which I’m really happy with), I was in two minds about paying out another £60 for a different magazine.Then Geoff turned up with some interesting information.

Did you know that you can subscribe to Digital Photo using Tesco Clubcard Vouchers? No, neither did I.

Well, it seems you can. What’s more, an annual subscription costs £16.22. Yes, sixteen pounds, not sixty. OK, you don’t get the Lowepro bag, but if you’re actually into photography you probably have a bag alreaddy.

Only issue I have with it thus far is that it took a while for the first issue to arrive.

So, if you’re looking to expand your reading, and you have clubcard vouchers going spare, this might be the deal for you.

Oh, and on a related note. What’s the cover story on this months magazine? Landscapes and HDR. If only I’d had that handy over Easter. Still, every little helps… (do you see what I did there?)

I just recieved an interesting post from Stuart. He took the image of the posts in the water and changed the crop in it to remove the quay/pier thing, but at the same time he adjusted the aspect ratio.

Here, let me show you....





and the new cut




As he points out, he's moved the horizon to the lower third of the picture, rather than the middle. This gives more emphasis to the sky. The width of the picture also gives it a more 'landscape' feel - you know wide open spaces etc. His post has reminded me that I need to be a bit more planned in composition. I have a tendancy to always put the horizon about halfway, but that's not always the best is it?

From what I've been picking up, there are probably a few rules I should try to apply more often in landscape shots.

1. Always have something to give interest, draw your eye in and give a sense of scale.

2. Make use of the rule of thirds in the composition, placing things a third of the way horizontally and vertically in the picture will give it a sense of proportion and balance

3. Give your eye something to follow - a line of rocks, a path  - leading you into the picture

4. Consider what you're presenting in the image. If it's the sky, it probably needs the majority of the picture


I'm sure there are other rules or tricks. I know someone mentioned trying to include a bit of red...


In terms of cropping, I've always used roughly the aspect ratio of the camera for shots I've posted. Stuart has different opinions (as can be seen here in some examples). I'll have to try this out a little more myself.

Like I said yesterday, I went out over Easter with the attitude that I would try some new things and experiment with some stuff I'd heard of over the past few months.

One of the things I did was to set my camera to do some auto exposure bracketing (AEB)*. For those that don't know, or got bored before that part of the manual (and who can blame you), AEB on your camera sets it up to take three photographs. The first is at the exposure you select, the second is under exposed and the third is over exposed. The amount of over and under exposure is up to you.

It's a useful facility for shooting landscapes and other static scenes and allows you to do things in post processing like tweak some levels or replace an over exposed sky (kind of the same way you might use an ND filter I guess). Whilst not a great example, the picture I took of the Rock of Cashel used the effect - basically the sky was cloned from an under-exposed version of the shot.

Anyhow, I took a range of pictures of a life buoy on Dungloe pier as I really liked the colour against the stormy sky.

The image I got was OK.

(1/15, F/4.5, 22mm, ISO - 100, 23/03/2008)

In itself, I guess the image isn't bad. It's probably better than stuff I took 6 months ago, and I'm happy enough with it. But as usual, I got to playing around and remembered a technique a bluegrass loving bloke I work with told me about called HDR.

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is a process which allows more tones in an image than would be usual. Essentially shadows are reduced and highlights less blown out... or something like that... Essentially it takes a range of exposures of the same image and mixes them up to produce an interesting composite. Here, let wikipedia explain....

Well, I pushed my three exposures of the life buoy through an HDR engine and got what I think is an interesting result. I'm actually kind of taken with it, so expect more HDR type images soon!

 

 

*For those of you with Canon 400D's and who can't be bothered reading the manual, the AEB setting is on the second menu tab. It's worth noting it resets every time you power off the camera, change a lens, etc etc etc... Also, it behaves differently when using remote or timed release of the shutter. It is worth playing with though...

 

Oh, and the astute will notice that the HDR image is number 1 and the original number 2. Nothing sneaky, just the sequence number that was added when I exported the pictures for upload..... Honest!

If you've read this months Digital SLR Photography, you'll have seen the challenge is for water pictures. Now I'm not generally into entering competitions where I have to "be creative", but I liked some of the pictures of the water drops. So, being off work and having camera, flash, lights, tripods and a kitchen sink (yes, finally I can say I used everything including the kitchen sink!) I gave it a go.

(1/200, F/11. ISO-400, 21/03/08)

This image is still a little shallow (water, shallow! Geddit?), though I think it's probably due to it being shot at F/11 on the macro end of a 200mm lens, instead of something more F/16 or F/22. I'm also not totally convinced I like the yellowish highlights caused by the flash and the spotlight I was using.

 

(1/200, F/11, ISO-100, 21/03/08)

This second shot also has the same shallow depth of field issue, but it's a lot more noticeable due to the size of the splash. Looking back over the magazine article I see it does say that the aperture needs to be pretty wide due to the macro aspect of the shots.

Both pictures have had some tweaks made, most noticeably the second one which had the exposure increased to kill of some of the shadow problems I was having. It's left it a little flat.

 

As an experiment, it was useful. It's shown me a couple of things I either didn't know or did know but wasn't paying attention to.

1. At the macro end of a zoom lens, you need a really small aperture (big number, little hole)

2. you need to find a way to manage flash reflections

3. Don't pack up all your kit before reviewing the photo's on a big screen. Seeing the shallow depth of field, it would have been the work of seconds to try again if I hadn't already put the camera stuff away

Ah well, we live and learn...

I'm not the sort of person who learns things by reading them in a book or magazine. It doesn't matter how many times you tell me something or I read about other peoples experiences. I just need to go and do it myself. It seems this applies both to learning how to do something and to learning how NOT to do something...

Which is why today I found myself out in Donegal with only my ice cold fingers bluer than the language I was using as I discovered I hadn't cleared my now full memory card after my last picture frenzy. Of course, I carry 4 memory cards don't I. Well, no. it seems I don't. I'd left those in the car along with some other kit I deemed to heavy to bother with for the 20 minutes I was out and about.

So, todays lessons?

1. When you're finished uploading photographs from the memory card. Remember to reformat it!

2. Buy a pair of gloves!

It was 6 months ago today that I bought my digital SLR. In that time I've taken over 1800 photographs and tried a number of different techniques and tools.
I guess some have worked better than others.

So, what have I learned?

Aperture Priority.
Probably the first thing I learned when I turned the camera from its seductive automatic mode was the aperture setting. Controlling the amount of light that gets through the lens it has a major effect on the length of time needed for the exposure and the depth of field in focus in the image. I also learned photographing a washing line in the rain will get you some strange looks from your wife...

Shutter Priority
If aperture controls the amount of light, then shutter priority controls the shutter time. Useful when taking pictures of fast moving objects or for intentional blurring effects and maybe something to remember when taking pictures of remote control racing cars (my brothers one comment on 100 photos I took one Sunday - "Why are they all so blurred?")

Shutter Priority versus Aperture Priority
These work together. The smaller the aperture, the longer the exposure time needed. Simple as that. Except it's not is it? Basically you seem to trade these off against each other to get the effect you want. Want a large depth of field (for some panoramic stuff), then you'll need a long exposure. When working in one of these modes, the camera will always manipulate the other setting. you can use a little under exposure or over exposure to help get the effect you want.

When in manual mode, you're on your own kid...

ISO Speeds
Basically how sensitive the sensor will be to the light presented. The higher the ISO, the less light needed. But, the higher the ISO the more potential for noisey pictures (unwanted grain). Mostly I learned it's important to reset it to 100 after you've been using it on a higher setting or you can end up in a pickle.

Tripods
The value of a good tripod is becoming more and more apparent. something sturdy, quick to erect and stable is essential for all but the most simple of snaps. And something you can trust is good too. The tripod I have is fit for purpose, but will probably be the first piece of kit I change as I find it impossible to get level.

Post Processing
When I started out on this, I'd feared I would be a purest in terms of post processing, demanding all photos were as is out of the camera. But image manipulation is a seductive mistress. (I'll try to show you in the next post I make).
It starts simple a little cropping, maybe some straightening and then before you know it you're in there burning shadows, cloning out annoying artefacts and generally making all manner of changes. Fair enough I say. Go for it.

I'm sure there are other technical things I've picked up over the past 6 months but what’s amazed me is the emotional or artistic side to it.

I don't want to come across like one of those "no one understands my pain, here's a poem" people*, but...

I’ve also started to appreciate the impact of properly framing a picture. Using things like the rule of thirds and perspective (which I’ll try to explain when I understand it a bit better myself) to make a landscape jump out at you. Or making sure a persons eyes are in focus to improve a portrait.

The thought process that goes into a single photograph amazes me. When I'd looked at a finished picture in a magazine I'd never considered that the photographer had maybe spent hours waiting for the perfect light, moving around to get the perfect line and spent hours puzzling out the perfect settings. Even one of those things wrong and a great photo ends up just a good one. (and if I could even get a good one I'd be delighted).

These days I've a habit of finding myself walking along framing things in my head, spotting abstracts and pictures and wondering if they'd work. I also find I never quite manage to capture what I thought I was capturing, either emotionally or artistically. Still, it's a learning experience.

Hopefully I'm improving. I guess as long as I'm having fun, that's all that matters.


*I have nothing against artistic people or poets. I quite like a good poem. I just can’t handle teenage angst very well. Oh, and Goths. I tried to be a Goth once, but it was so depressing…. And being ginger meant I could never quite pull off the look…

I mentioned Dermot's tirade on the evils of post processing last night. Well in an effort to appease him during the Dublin walkabout I started playing with white balance a little. I've shown some of this before back during the Belfast walk around, but I don't think I ever got beyond the 'Look - Post Processing...cool' part.

Now, what I know about white balance would probably fit on a postage stamp, but since I don't have one handy I'll put it all here (and use a font you can read...(bot not comic sans, Geoff gets cross about that)) (look double closing brackets - I used to be able to program computers once!).

Anyway, white balance....

White Balance dates back to the days of film and it's something most of us never encountered as we bought rolls of film from petrol stations, newsagents and the like. The reason being, like ISO, it was the preserve of the 'proper' photographer and people like me who had a point and click camera were given by default (and probably rightly so) a generic white balance mode. 'Proper' photographers would buy rolls for indoor shooting, studio shooting, outdoors etc or use filters and such to change the cast (shade to us Neanderthals) of the light.

It's all to do with physics and different temperatures having different light emission properties...insert physics text here cunningly disguised as a link to wikipedia...

So, as you can see from the wikipedia link a candle would have quite an orange cast (because its not that hot), while a tungsten light will be much more blue (because in light terms its roasting).

... OK, physics (or my attempt at it) over. Basically the film guys had it tough and people like me with digital cameras have it easier. The camera sensor (CCD?) allows the user to decide in advance of each shot what sort of light it is and then make a decision. Fortunately for total amateurs like me, the camera also has an auto setting which looks at the conditions and picks a non-offensive white balance to use.

As Geoff pointed out in the response to some of the Belfast photography stuff the formula the camera uses may be different than another camera or a post processing package. And I guess, that's what Dermot was showing me as well. Sometimes changing it at the point of shooting will give you the best chance of getting the colour and emotion you desire.

Here, take a look at these two pictures of nubile young women* to see what I mean. They're both unedited from the original captures.

First the auto white balance...

Now with the camera set to shade...

(1/4sec, f/8, focal length - 31mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 21:45)

In the first picture the camera set the white balance, but in the second I chose shade (which according to my Canon is around a colour temperature of 7000K). Now, the first picture probably gives a much cleaner whiter feel, but the second picture helps (at least to my mind) add a seductive (ooooh look at you) charm and warmth to the images. It depends what you're after I guess.

My point (oh lord there was a point! Physics and a point in the same post, lord help us), is that sometimes its fun to play with camera settings and that things light white balance can be as much fun to play with when taking the photo as in graphics packages later.

If you're into this sort of stuff, it's probably worth reading Geoff's comment as he does give some good insights into it. Hell, I could have just re-posted his stuff here, but I needed to phrase it in my own words to let it sink in.

 

 

 

*Bet that generates a few hits from Google....

Nope, not the latest instalment of 'Vampire the SomethingorOther', but the next set of pictures I'll try to post over the weekend.

I'm in Dublin a lot at the moment and managed to get out last night with Camera and (more wonky than I realised) tripod. I was lucky enough to be joined by Dermot Greene, a mate, work colleague and general photography nice bloke who's just joined the digital dark side with a Nikon D80.

Dermot's been taking photo's for many years at this point and, as well as being a Dubliner by choice, was on hand to take me on a tour of Grafton Street, The Liffey and keep me safe from the odd little drunks who wanted us to "Hey mate, take our picture". You can see Dermot's work in both his website and his blog and all I ask is that you make 'ooooh' and 'aaaaah' noises, then remember that I'm still learning.

I picked up some good tips last night and it's definitely secured the social aspect of photography in my mind. I'll work through some of what I saw and learned in the next few posts. Suffice to say, Dermot's mantra of "Over expose by 2 stops" and "Post processing is work of the devil"* will feature heavily.

Anyway, like I said, photo will follow. For now, have come Grattan, wife says he was some political bloke she used words and dates... but I just take photos.

(15 secs, f/8, focal length - 18mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 20:59)

 

* Dermot probably didn't phrase it quite like this, probably more along the lines of "I prefer to get the picture right using the camera, not post processing software", but I felt some artistic license was allowed. And besides, I heard words like devil would up my google search results!

"Shoot for the moon and if you miss you'll be among the stars" - Les Brown

"Poetic, the stuff of romance and mystery. A bugger to capture on picture" - Learningtosnap

During the night shooting trip a few weeks back, one of the things I tried and failed to do was to include the moon in a picture. Now, you’d think a big, reasonably static lump of “space stuff” wouldn’t be that hard to picture, but damned if I could get it.

I tried again last night.

 

I still couldn’t get it.

 

In despair I used google and found an interesting web site talking about how to shoot the moon. Seems I’d been making a few simple mistakes.

1. Autofocus doesn’t. Because the moon is bright and the sky is dark the camera will over compensate and you’ll get that shiny nonsense.
2. Actually trying to zoom in on the moon using a lens is much better than trying to pull the detail out with crops later

 Sounds simple doesn’t it?

 

Well, I went outside and tried again. The results this time were much better.

The first shot is of an un-cropped, un-tampered moon and the second is post manipulation to tweak the crop and the colour thresholds etc.

 

(1/100, f/16, manual, focal length - 200mm, ISO - 100, 25/11/07 23:50)

 

 (1/100, f/16, manual, focal length - 200mm, ISO - 100, 25/11/07 23:50)

 
There are still a few issues with this, mostly because I couldn’t get the tripod to the angle I needed for the shot and so wasn’t stable as I would have liked. The image is also a little on the soft side I think (which might be down to the lens being at its outer end). I’ll try this again in weeks to come.

 

Anyone else tried this or have suggestions?

As well as being great fun, I did pick up a few really useful tips. Allow me to share...

Oh go on....

1. Tripod bags are great.... Except when you're using the tripod, then they're a pain in the bum. If you're planning a night of tripod dancing, then leave its bag at home or find a way of packing it out of harms way (I used Stuart for this. Louise can hire him out at a reasonable fee)

2. Remotes rock. Much better to line up the shot and press the remote button when it's ready than to hit the timer button on the camera mount.... and watch the bus appear just as the shutter opened (OK, so once is an accident, but how many buses Louise? How many buses????)

3. Never walk behind a man with a fully extended tripod. I have leg prong things and I don't know how to use em...

4. F/8 is your friend when using the kit lens. Actually this is a serious one. I'd been tending towards either the upper or lower extreme with the kit lens and Darrell pointed out that the sharpest pictures come from the F/8 or F/9 settings

5. Always be careful of unusually bright things in the shot (take a look at the learningtosnap google gallery and check out my Big Wheel shots to see what I mean - in some the wheel is great but the city hall sucks, in others the wheel is blinding and the city hall ok)

5. Remember, your camera probably has the ability to under expose or over expose by a couple of stops automatically. Try it out - mine made a lot of difference

6.  Use your camera lens cap to help shield annoying lights on the fringes of the shot.

7. Look around, sometimes the most fun snaps turn up in the weirdest places

I'm sure I learned much more than just this.

One other thing which happened on Wednesday night was finally passing the 1000 photos mark with the EOS 400D. By my reckoning thats 1000 photos in 3 months. Lets hope I learn as much from the next 1000.

...would be called something else.

A good weekends snapping this weekend. I took maybe 80 - 100 pictures. I have maybe 3 I'll post. Dear lord I'm glad I'm not paying for developing!

I spent Friday afternoon in the park with the nipper and got some nice shots of her and my missus on the swings (the child was on the swing, not the missus. She made me tell you that bit). These need a little post processing so expect them later in the week.

Yeah, post processing. How about that huh? Whats to say. I think it's growing on me as much as the actual photo bit. Even slight changes to an image make amazing differences to the finished product. I'm still undecided if it's cheating.

Anyway...

This rose bloomed in my back garden over the weekend, now anyone that's seen my back garden will know that it's probably as conductive to flowers as the central reactor in Chernobyl. Which just goes to prove that (to quote the guy from Jurassic Park) "Life will find a way"

The image has been cropped in to show just the flower and then I used a similar process of the dice to reduce the brightness of the background while keeping the rose bright.



(1/200, f/3.5, aperture priority, focal length - 24mm, ISO - 400, 07/10/07 13:10)

The only other change to the natural state of the rose (apart from some leaf pruning which doesn't count, does it?) was some gratuitous effect modeling. Yup, that's right, next stop Digital Light and Magic for me.

I used my latest toy (supplied by the repository of junk known as the cupboard under the sink) to add water to the flower. It was high tech as you'd expect...



Starting out in photography? I recommend a camera, a lens, a water spray.