When is enough enough?

I never know when to finish with the post processing of an image and when to just call it a day step back from Photoshop or GIMP or any of the other tools I've used recently.

Here's a good example.

(F/4, 1/200sec, 70mm, ISO-400, 03/05/2008)

 

This shot has been pushed through the Photoshop mill a reasonable amount. Curves, a slight cooling filter and a few other tweaks have been applied to make give it a bit more life. The original isn't worth posting, it's very dull and lifeless (to be honest I wouldn't even have looked twice at this if it wasn't for my weird emotional connection to this boat).

Now, I quite liked this shot and figured it was as close to OK as I could make it...

 

Then I loaded it into Dynamic Photo-HDR (the tool I use for all my HDR shots) and ended up with this.

 

So, here's the thing. Was it a step too far?

 

I like the water, I like the colours. I know it breaks my own opinion on HDR needing to look 'real' to look 'good', but apart from that I'm damned if I can decide which I prefer.

 

Maybe they both suck.

A friend passed me the link to an interesting article on the bbc news website discussing photographers rights.

For as long as I've been trying to learn photography I've been encountering stories about people being stopped, searched, bullied and even arrested for taking photographs. Now, I'm long enough in the tooth to know that "just because it's on the web doesn't mean it's true" but there's so many of these stories it does seem to be a real issue.

Fortunately I've never been stopped, but I would like a solid bullet point list of my rights just in case.

The best I've came up with so far is this article and this one.

It's hardly legal advice, but I would suggest you take down peoples/police officers names as well as the date and time of the incident. Also, think long and hard before you hand over your gear or delete pictures - someone forcing you to do this can be construed as harassment or criminal damage. Remember though, sometimes it's better to smile, comply and walk away.... Then slag them off in your blog.

 

Oh, and just to be sure to be sure. None of the information posted here should be regarded as legal advice. If you require legal advice, I would advise you to speak to a solicitor or other official legal representative.

I'd been saying to Dermot for ages about coming up north for a day so I could return the favour from those times when he took me out round Dublin. Well, since he's gone and got a job in Holland, the some time quickly became a time and that time was yesterday.

We met around 10 in Belfast and headed off in search of the Antrim Coast Road and the Giants Causeway. Being a native of the North, I off course knew exactly where the coast road was - beside the sea, somewhere to the right of the country. I'm not sure I impressed Dermot with my geographical ability, but trusty steed and I found it eventually while I regaled my Dublin friend with tales and folklore about the land we passed through.

Tales like...

"These houses are really expensive!"

"That's our power station" (I may have got the name wrong though...)

"This is Carrickfergus, it has a castle. Look that old building, that must be it"

"The Causeway coast is most of the best coastal roads in the world" - I may have made this up. But I was sure I heard this on TV somewhere....

And so continued a day to the North. A day that promised rain and wind, but brought only sun and warmth. I'll start posting photographs over the next while. But for now...

 

A typical view from just off the Causeway Coastal Route.

(F20, 1/30sec, 10mm, ISO-100, HDR - +1/-1ev*) - Some levels adjustments.

 

 

Hopefully Dermot enjoyed the day. I know I enjoyed it right up until 10 minutes after he left for Dublin when my attempt to get a burger was rudely interrupted by someone driving into the car while I was parked. They didn't even have the decency to hit the same side as my neighbour a few weeks earlier. My mechanic is going to love me...

 

 

 

* I've added a little bit more information to my usual image settings line. The HDR numbers here refer to the exposure differences used to create the HDR base for the finished image - typically the camera seems to change the shutter speed, but that may be just because I'm shooting in Aperture mode.

Sorry it’s been so quiet lately. A few different things had cropped up and… well, you know how it is.

I’m always keen to try different types of photography and over the last few months have been lucky enough to try a lot of different things (portraits, street shots, landscapes, night photography, HDR, the list goes on). A lot of the opportunities have come about by talking with people about their hobbies, telling them about mine and generally trying to be a good bloke. It’s always worth asking friends with interesting hobbies if you can tag along, you might get a great photo or even a great new hobby too.

 

A few weeks back, I was lucky enough to be invited by a work friend to a local rifle club to take some pictures. It was an excellent experience and I’ll share some of those pictures here over the next few days. In the meantime, he has my thanks!

This is a cropped close up of the barrel of a rifle – I don’t have the details of the weapon to hand – they’re not really important in this context.

It’s a good example of the ‘beauty in the eye’ type thing. I like the shot for the shallow depth of field, the reflections and the little marks showing the gun has had some use. The friend who owns the gun immediately commented on the hexagonal pattern around the barrel. Where I saw a nice image, he saw abrasions proving the rifling is pretty accurate apart from maybe a small throw to one side.

(Oh, for those of you scanning my images for signs of sensor dirt – keep it up! But you’re wasting your time here (I hope!), this image would have had the dirty marks cropped out).

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?)

For those of you not in the know, The NIPA 2008 exhibition starts on Monday night 3rd March. It runs until the 20th March.

You can find out more details here.

I'm planning on attending on Monday night, all being well. Maybe I'll see some of you there?

In January I posted 'Workflow Woes' the first of what will probably be some sort of semi regular mentions of the workflow I use for taking pictures and the problems it's given me.

Time for an update...

I said I wasn't going to delete any photos. Well, today I started. I just uploaded a set from last night and today and there were a few blurred and just generally crud (yes, I take pictures that are more crud than the ones I let you people see!). I deleted them. I expected to break out into a cold sweat, to find hives over my body, but nope. Nothing. Not even a twinge of guilt.

I expect I'll have a sleepless night.

On another note. My Ubuntu server now works. My KVM switch is installed. The machines can 'see' each other. Sadly I haven't had the time to solve the file sharing madness yet. I still dance the knife edge that is infrequent backups.

If you believe in deities, pray for me. I hope the sacrifice of photos appeases the god of backups and hard drive failure...

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…

One of the biggest problems I have right now is Workflow.

I feel I'm growing in confidence taking pictures and I'm a lot more comfortable with my camera than a few months ago. But, when it comes to prost processing, image storage and general workflow I'm in a world of pain.

It turns out some of the images I've posted on the web now exist only in that 800*600 format at something silly like 250Kb - 350Kb in size - After making modifications, I've gone and resized them without keeping a full size backup.

I've also got a hard drive which is starting to overflow with images and image folders. I tried to show the missus the Christmas photos and had to spool through something like 50 photos of waves in the middle of them!

So, I need to resolve my Workflow in two different ways. I need to rationalise how I go from a photo on the camera to a final picture and I need to make damn sure I don't lost the thing during the process!

I'm going to approach this in two parts.

Workflow Woes - Part 1

Storage and Backup Plans.

The plan is simple. Keep all images (I hate the thought of deleting any) in some form of master folder structure. Keep a copy of that master folder structure on a separate drive as backup.

Thanks to John who pointed out that DVD's can make lousy backup mechanisms and to Geoff who suggested I should make use of some form of separate drive environment, I sit here downloading Ubuntu and reconditioning an old machine...

I'll let you all know how I get on.

Merry Christmas folks.
May Santa give good toy.

It's been 5 months since I started this adventure. It's been a fun 5 months.

One thing I've noticed though, is the willingness of other photographers to help, give advice and share tips. Whether it's been the guys in Belfast, Geoff with the blog space or Dermot in Dublin, every single person has stepped up when asked or volunteered when they've seen me struggle. I thought I should take a moment and say thanks.

So, thanks.

Today was another example of the willingness of photographers to help. John (a friend of a friend) was shown my blog through the week and contacted me by email to give me his number for a chat. I gave him a call and spent an excellent hour or more chatting through the basics of photography, with him giving me lots of tips and advice based on the things I'd posted so far. His experience was obvious in the stuff of his I've seen and I look forward to trying out a lot of the things he suggested. The conversation has left me thinking I need to get involved in this hobby at a more social level, not just in books and the occasional walkabout.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you've stumbled across this blog and have some comments, please make them. I'm pretty new to this stuff and I'm keen to try and learn as much as I can.

Anyway...

On another note, with the Christmas festivities round the corner, I wanted to close off the Dublin walkabout pictures with a few more of my favourites.

In no particular order.

The Lights Under Ha'Penny Bridge

(2.5secs, f/8, focal length - 96mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 21:38)

O'Connell Bridge Ornament

(0.8secs, f/1.8, focal length - 50mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 21:27)

The Liffey Upstream

(10secs, f/8, focal length - 18mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 21:23)

(Turns out my over use of f/8 is probably a bad thing. I did know the depth of field effect of larger and smaller apertures, but had really only been applying it in shots like the bridge ornament above to educe the background visibility. Expect to see more use of aperture ranges for landscapes going forward).

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!

Just got an interesting comment from Gordon submitted against a post from a few weeks back when this site went live:

"Ok - Let's see if Paul is up to the challenge...

I'd like to get a new desktop image - I'm currently using Ascent but something more personable would be good. So here is the challenge to the man with the new site.

For my Christmas present I'd like a new image to replace Ascent as my desktop.
Key requirement: soothing on the eye and not garish apart from that it's up to you.
It can be manipulated / polarised or whatever I don't care about that.

I'm hard to please so it'll be interesting to see what you come up with.
A variety to choose from would be good.
Consider it your first commissioned piece."

This does seem like to good an opportunity to miss, and I like a challenge.

So, what do people think?

"Soothing to the eye and not too garish" is the key. That would make me think of landscapes or water or something quite abstract. I guess the danger with a landscape is making it seasonal (who wants to look at frost in June?). Water and sunsets or sunrises might work quite well I guess.

Another option would be to follow up Gordon's interests and see if there is anything he does which would make good picture?

Anyone any thoughts?

Firstly, thanks to Geoff for all the work put in to getting this site and blog ready.

Moving to my own website was something I'd intended on doing at some point over the next year. I've nothing against wordpress (indeed I'd recommend them to a new blogger), but I was keen to get a total solution which would allow me to (slowly) make changes the way I wanted things done. Those of you who know me will know IT is not my thing (I'm a Software Consultant after all), so without Geoff and Jon none of this would ever have happened!

OK, so there you have it. I know nothing about photography and nothing about IT. Next time on learningtosnap, my admission to knowing nothing about cars, football, nuclear physics and the works of Elvis Presley...

On a slightly different note, the "Only Go Out at Night" post has generated some interest and a gang of us are going to brave the October evening tomorrow night. So if you're in Belfast and see a gang of hopelessly confused people with cameras, come and say hi!

I was out last night for dinner with a friend from England I'd never met before. After the meal I got talking with Darrell (not the fried from England I'd never met before, he was someone else) about the projects idea. We then got chatting about night pictures and my lack of luck with some I'd taken earlier in the week. That led us onto the all important public safety aspect of walking round a city at night with £500+ of camera gear and how we'd love to do it, but well, you know..... the whole rob, murder, death, kill, thing might get in the way*

Well, suffice to say that gave birth to the "Night Project". So, who's interested in a group of us meeting in the evening for a couple of hours in the centre of Belfast to go take photos of some of the nice things there are round there? I'd suggest waiting a few weeks yet until the early evening is properly night like (where do I find out sunset times for the next few weeks people!?). The plan would be we go take photos for an hour or two, then head to a local pub/coffee shop/pizza place and have some beer/coffee/pizza and upload some photos onto a handy laptop thingy for a squizz.

Film people could of course come along and grumble about technology and the importance of a good dark room and such.

Hell, given my ability with my dSLR I reckon people with disposable cameras will get as much out of it as me, but it could be a giggle!

So, you interested?

*Note, for perspective tourists Belfast is a lovely city (seriously) and it's quite safe. Certainly safer than a lot of other major cities in the world. After all we tend not to annoy foreigners, being too busy having a go at the people from the estate across the road.

Nope no pictures, but Darrel mentioned wanting to take a photo of a specific brand/breed/species/thingmabobber of mushroom in a comment recently, so when I saw this I thought of him.

The Ulster Wildlife Trust are having a Marvelous Mushroom Meander at Slievenacloy Nature Reserve in Belfast on the 27th October from 12 until 2.30

Event details are here.

More information on the Ulster Wildlife Trust can be found here.

OK, since Stuart asked about it and it turned out to be a widget option thing, you should now find an RSS widget doofer thingmabob on the little pane to one side.

Sorry to get all technical there.

Yup, I had spent last night taking some photos of another odd object from around the house and I had spent hours trying to decide which I preferred. In the end I decided to montage them all and let people decide for themselves.

Course, that would all be great if I'd actually put the right images online wouldn't it?

One of the biggest challenges I seem to encounter when playing with my camera is finding a subject to snap. With the exception of Donegal where the picture is set up for you (and I mess it up), it's hard to find something to snap.

So, I've decided to try and identify some projects or challenges for the coming weeks. Ideally each project will allow me to try something different with the camera or look into a trick or technique a little more. Most importantly, it will allow me to keep practising and playing.

So, here's a couple of projects I'm considering.

Dice - I have a selection of many sided dice from my role-playing, some gems, some solid, most pretty. I'm going to try and get a few nice photos of them. The idea is to let me play with light using an inanimate object, solid backgrounds. That sort of thing.

Traffic - For a while now I've wanted to go and take some photos of traffic on my local motorway. I really like evening and night shots of car headlights and tail lights. The aim will be to play a little with shutter speed and low light exposures

Self Portrait - I have a tripod and remote and since nobody else ever wants published I may as well try this. I think I'll try something obscure here, but it's on my list.

Anyone any other ideas?

Oh, and I know a few people who read this are also photographers, so how about a bit of fun? We can pick a project and all try it for a week or two, then post up the results and see what we think. Kind of a fujimugs type game. Anyone interested?

Yeah, I been busy.

Ironically I took some time off work to  do some stuff, including camera things....

And the one thing I haven't done? Yup, the camera things....

That said, I was away at the weekend and did get it out (so to speak) so I'll try to post something tomorrow.

Geoff asked me a question the other day and I thought I should share the answer.

What'd he ask I hear you cry.

He asked why there were no pictures of people on this blog.

 Well....

 The simple answer is I don't want to put pictures of people online without their explicit permission. To date the only people I've even tried to take a proper photograph of have been my wife and baba, and to be honest they appear in most of the E550 pictures I've taken of people as well. Anyway, given the nature of the web and the fact that once a picture is online it's in the public domain forever we're both reluctant to put pictures of the baba online where anyone can find them. So, that leaves the missus or me....

 She said no. I didn't argue.

That leaves me.  Maybe VanGough(?) did self portraits, but not me. No siree.

 So, until one of you lot volunteer or I convince the wife that paying for a model is all about photography and not being a letch, all you're likely to see here is pictures of things and places.

Hope you all understand.

Gak.

I've been linked. And in being linked, it's been pointed out that I never actually reveal my name here.

 This wasn't on purpose. I actually thought it was on the bit about me thing.

 So it is now, or it will be just as soon as I've typed this.

Thanks Geoff for pointing that out.

Or, as my wife asked me earlier this evening

Why are you taking photos of the clothes line in the rain?

I'd mentioned earlier in the week about being so unhappy with the results of my weekends snapping. One of the problems I had was that I was trying to learn a bit more about Aperture and when I reviewed my results I couldn't see what went wrong.

Here, let me show you....

(1/160, f/8, metering - matrix, focal length - 47.0mm, 12/08/07 15:56)

(1/8, f/36, metering - matrix, focal length - 47.0mm, 12/08/07 15:56)

Now, apart from the image on the right (or above - damn you blog editor thingy!) being a little darker. Changing the aperture appeared to do squat.

But, the theory I'd been told/read/guessed was this -

Aperture is the size of the hole in the lens that light can get through.

The amount of light hitting the lens can be controlled in two ways

1. By opening or closing the aperture


2. By increasing or decreasing the length of time the shutter is open (shutter speed)

You achieve a level of brightness within the image by complementing aperture and shutter speed. A smaller hole will require more exposure time

Aperture is measured in stops, typically fractions of how much of the lens is open and is referred to as a F number. F/2, F/4….

• F/2 effectively means the lens is half open ie: 1/2


• F/32 effectively means the lens is open to 1/32

OK, so far? Yeah so was I.

Now, apparently a large hole (small number) like F/2 would mean that the depth of field would be reduced. Something to do with less exposure time and beams of light and Star Trek stuff I think….

So, why did my two images with vastly different apertures look basically the same?

I asked a friend in work today (thanks friend!), who didn’t point and laugh and didn’t just mutter under his breath (thanks again friend!), but explained my mistake. Put simply…

The focal point in the shots above is basically infinity (not beyond it Mr Lightyear, no siree) and getting a shallow depth of field on something that far away is always going to be a problem.

He suggested I try to “focus” on something instead.

So, I did.

And here’s the results. Ignore the pictures, or rather ignore the content of the pictures, its just an example.

(0.6s, f/32, metering - matrix, focal length - 55.0mm, 16/08/07 19:19)

(1/5, f/18, metering - matrix, focal length - 55.0mm, 16/08/07 19:19)

(1/50, f/5.6, metering - matrix, focal length - 55.0mm, 16/08/07 19:19)

So, hopefully what you can see here is that as the aperture changed (opened - the number got smaller and the hole got bigger!), the background became more blurry and the shutter speed increased.

So, what are the lessons learned tonight?

1. Big holes have small numbers (Aperture is effectively 1 over the number)


2. Increasing the hole size reduces the shutter speed


3. Little numbers give shallow depth of field (blurry backgrounds)


4. Standing in the rain taking photos of a clothes line may confuse your wife and make you look like a twonk

 

Lord, I hope that’s right.

Well, I got back from Donegal.

I had the camera out both days.

I got zip.

Nothing.

Nada.

Zilch.

OK, I took maybe 100 photographs. Mostly repetition of the same couple of scenes and people to see what slight (and sometimes quite drastic) settings changes would do. I uploaded them tonight and there isn't a single photo I looked at and went wow.

As I've said before, you'll see more tripe here than treacle, so I'll post some of the better ones over the next few days. I'll also provide some commentary on what I was trying to do at the time.

If I'd thought I could just pick this up before the weekend, my mind is set on needing a course now.

No pictures to post today. Probably just as well.

Thought I'd try to formalise my plans for the weekend instead.

As I mentioned, I'm off to Donegal again and (assuming the weather is OK and the missus lets me out) I'm going to try to have a play with the following things.

1. Aperture priority on the camera


2. Shooting in RAW mode (apparently it's not anything to do with the way you cook steak...)


3. Composition - I'm going to try to actively follow a magazine article I read


4. Polarizing lens - Yup, part of that buying frenzy

It'll probably be another week of waste paper not wallpaper. but sure, what else are you going to do?

Any last minute words of advice, please share?

Learning To Snap