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).

Do you see what I did there?

Yeah...sorry, I'll not do it again.

I mentioned about Dermot's tirade on the power of over-exposing by two stops when taking night pictures a few posts ago. Whilst I think he quite enjoyed being painted as some form of manic overlord (a position we all know is held by Louise - lets face it, anyone who can con her hubby into carrying her camera kit around like some sort of bag boy deserves the title...), I thought it was worth sharing some of my over-exposed examples with you to show what he means.

Now before I go on, I'm still not sure if its as black and white as I make him out to be. Yes a lot of pictures benefit from it, but sometimes the opposite is true. I mentioned white balance changing the look of the image and being a nice way to add warmth of flavour, well I think the exposure tweaking is the same. Over exposing certainly brightens things up, but sometimes a little darkness can leave it a bit more sinister.

Here, look at these rather formulaic (look mama - big words!) shots of Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin.

(8secs, f/8, focal length - 18mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 21:52)

(2secs, f/8, focal length - 18mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 21:52)

The first image is a nice, bright, welcoming shot of the bridge at night. The second is much more somber. I haven't changed anything about these. (Though they may get doctored real soon...)

I guess it's all about what you want from the picture at the end of the day.

Oh, Dermot put his photos of Dublin here. Colour me jealous. (I'm assuming he's happy for me to link to them?)

I took this shot while wandering through Grafton Street with Dermot last week.

Nothing really to detailed to say about it. It suffered from the tilted tripod problem and the white balance issues I posted about before, but I liked the blurred crowds.

I straightened the image and tweaked the white balance a little. I have a feeling the image straightening is what's given the building on the right that odd tilt. That's just a little frustrating.

Nothing says Christmas like panicking shoppers....

...which reminds me, I should really go and buy some Christmas presents...

 

(5secs, f/20, focal length - 31mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 20:35)

Oh, for those of you who might be interesting, I'm going to try and get out to shoot the Belfast Christmas frenzy on Friday 21st. Same drill as last time, no real leadership just meet and wander and see what we find. Let me know if you're interested.

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....

When I originally kitted out for my adventures in photo I bought 2 memory cards. Mostly because I reckoned I'd be slow to upload them to computer and as a result alwys end up with one card full at any one time. when it turned out that I was in fact obsessed with getting them off (the card and onto a computer), I kind of thought the second card was maybe a bit of a waste.

Until Tuesday night in Dublin

I'd taken  maybe 20 photos in Stephens Green Shopping Centre and then either the card or the camera failed and locked into some sort of permanent write cycle. Turning the camera off and on made no difference and I ended up pulling the card to get the thing to reset. I reseeded the card and it seemed to work ok again, but just in case I changed to my never used spare card. A nights good photo followed.

I'm going to use a little time this weekend to test out the suspect card again, but to be honest I think its now going to gather dust and only be a point of absolute last resort.

So, here's my questions for today. How long should a memory card last, and if it is broke will Jessops (its a Jessops brand card) change it if I complain?

Oh, and just in case in case, I ordered 2 new Sandisk cards last night.

Lesson for today - always carry spare memory cards and batteries. And make sure they work...

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!

I was never planning on posting this, but Geoff's post about the Belfast Ale festival (somewhere I've yet to manage to get to) put me in mind of a picture I took last week while out and about.

A few weeks back, I decided to start carrying my camera as much as possible. My rationale simply being I'm trying to learn how to take a picture and a lot of that is the ability to spot one. If I have the camera, I have no excuse but to play with it...

Anyway, last Monday I got coerced into a 'single' pint after work and before my train. Well.... several pints and missed trains later... I give you

Beer, Nectar of the Gods.

 (0.6 secs, f/1.8, focal length - 50mm, ISO - 100, 26/11/07 18:36)

Before you ask, yes I may have tweaked it a little. Essentially I reduced the colour thresholds to intensify the colour of the beer before using that selective colourisation trick to mask it through onto a black and white foreground.

The edging of the beer isn't great, it really was just me messing for five minutes. But, as I said, Geoff's beer post made me decide it was enough of a brew to put up.

Oh, and in case you're interested, mines a pint of Stella...

I'd big plans this weekend. Initially it looked like a trip to Donegal was on the cards and that meant some good opportunity to shoot coastal scenery. Then when baba got sick, it looked like a weekend in the house and a chance to shoot local scenery...

Then the weather happened. Maybe I'm a fair weather photographer, but I don't do cold or rain. I especially don't do cold and rain. So I stayed home and lit the fire instead.

 

(1/13, f/5, focal length - 44mm, ISO - 400, 01/12/07 21:43)

 

The challenge here was to get the shot before the lens started to heat up. I've no idea what the tolerance on these things are and I wasn't about to find out.

The shot hasn't been cropped, but has had some 'burning' (I know, I know) performed to intensify the coals and glow under the log.

For those of you who're interested. I'm hoping to do get out on a Christmas in Belfast jaunt sometime after the 14th. Let me know if you're up for it.

 

(Oh, this was posted with Live Writer, sorry if the fonts and things are different than normal...)

"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?