Right place, right time: the argument for carrying a camera at all times.

7th October
Coming back from the British Museum, through Russel Square, I suddenly saw this and knew I had to take a picture in the low autumn afternoon light.

Once again, this was taken with my simple point and shoot Canon G12 with no preparation. It is a tribute to the quality of the processor that this was sorted out without my interference. All I did was a little cropping to get rid of unwanted foreground.

I like this picture for many reasons. It look good to me, and the light in the early Autumn leaves catches their living quality before they drop. The long shadows and the slight off-symmetry give a vanishing point pretty much in the middle but a bit off.. I still am a great advocate for the symmetrical picture, despite what the books might say. We can wonder about the people sat on the grass: what are they doing, and why do they have time to sit out in the late afternoon sun. If you can enlarge the picture, it is more complex than it seems.

The motto here is always carry a camera (other than the one in your phone).

Holga Again

Still experimenting with the Canon holga lens. I put it on my full fram EOS5D mk ii body, and it was a sunny day. I still have not got out of my back garden with it yet, but the results are interesting. Manual speed setting at 1/160 at ISO 640 More vignetting, but the colours are more intense.It's a bit like apply PS before you take the picture. Have a look at this rose

This has had zero post processing! It was taken fairly close up, using the focus ring for close up. Also check out my garden pond

Also no post processing. I took these as jpeg, and unlike the former pictures which are based on RAW, this is more indicative of what the simple output is. So on full frame there is a significant amount of vignetting, and this may have to be cropped if only the subject matter is of interest. Next step will be to take it out of the garden, and possibly some buildings and people.

Holga for Canon DSLR

I asked for the Holga lens for my Canons as a gift. I saw them on display at the Photographers' Gallery in SoHo, but with little information, but of course the Internet has lots of (not always correct) information. If you don't know, this is a take on a retro Russian camera with a plastic lens that gives crude slightly retro looking pictures, and whilst it seems that most of the world is looking for fidelity or changes in Photoshop, this does exactly the opposite, with built in vignetting, slightly blurred focus and lens artefacts.
The instructions are slightly misleading, as it tells you to put the Holga lens in your camera, and switch to manual. What is not clear is that the lens is fixed aperture, at F8 I think on a typical digital body, and the only things you can manipulate are shutter speed and ISO. Looking through the viewfinder gives a dim view in all but the brightest light, and it seems that this device should best be operated in bright light, like the good old days of box brownie type cameras.
I chose to shoot in RAW, so that I could manipulate the exposure afterwards, with an ISO of at least 400 and shutter speeds not less than 1/60. I need to play some more but here are some of my first shots taken in my garden at the beginning of Autumn.

This has had some manipulation in RAW to give it a bit more exposure and colour

Here is the same image converted to B and W.

It is all very flat, and looks like the sort of thing that was coming out of home camera's in the early 1950's

Did not like the look of this, so converted it to

And black and white

If you look on the Internet, there are some better examples, but this was a first outing, and will report back with more work. The good news is that it reduces the weight of DSLR. Do a google search on Holga.

Three card trick

Whilst camera phones are great for serendipitous moments, if you have a real camera ready to roll, then so much the better. I was taking photographs on the Southbank, when I came across this three card trick guy in front of Tate Modern. He was taking money from the tourists. I could see his plant, but not his look outs.
I shot this on the fully auto setting, into the sun, but in RAW. The original picture is ISO 400, 1/500th, F10. Fortunately I was able to take the original picture which was heavily shadowed by the early afternoon sun

and make something better of it. Note the shadows indicating the sun in front, which is always challenging.. Compositionwise, there is a triangle of attention between the gamer, his three boxes and the guy in the striped T shirt. Other members of the audience are suggested by their shadows. Strangely enough, everyone ignored me, as most of the time these guys do not like their picture taken. I tried this in Malta, and the locals definitely did not like it.

Black and white in Brixton

I found myself in Brixton Market, which is a wonderful place to take photographs. The stallholders must be quite used to it by now. The intent here was to take a picture of a rather dramatic fishmonger and meat shop. One of the assistants insisted in being in the picture. When I got to look at the picture afterwards, the assistant suddenly became the main feature. I decided to convert to monochrome because the original had some strange colours, which were possibly down to the lighting, and I could not correct for, and the mix of colours did not leave me with a feeling of satisfaction.. As I had shot in RAW, the conversion was problem free.The original jpeg is below. At least the fish look more like fish.

This was shot with a Canon G12 on the auto setting which produced F4 at ISO 80 at 1/80th. I am guessing that the exposure was calculated for the white coat and the fish at the front. A good case for manual control and bracketing, but the monochrome outcome was good for me. I am increasingly using monochrome conversions from RAW.

Serendipity: the only reason for using phone cameras

It constantly amazes me that users are not only putting up with pictures that they take with their phones, but actually regard their mobile phone as a camera. Yes, it will capture an image, and if you are lucky, it may be in focus, not blurred by motion, and may have caught what you think you caught. However, for me the only reason to use a phone camera is when there is no alternative. This may be when something out of the ordinary happens in front of your eyes. If you have to get it out of its case, enter the security code, find the camera app etc, it may all be over, but it may be as good as it gets. I find that in bright light, the screen may be difficult to see, and of course, there may be little that you can control at the moment of impact.
So, I am outside Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly, and a bunch of nearly naked men are running along Piccadilly. Fortunately they stopped for the traffic lights:

This is what it looked like off the phone camera. As you can see, it was taken into the sun, and was taken about 1300 BST on a sunny day. There is some flare. I did not get rid of the flare,but did some basic photoshop manipulation, and the results are acceptable for a serendipitous picture.

The message is don't expect great things off your phone. Carry a camera. I did but was not quick enough, so used my SIII galaxy for this.

Raw is interesting

I have been learning more about RAW processing in photoshop elements this week, and I have now been tempted to waste memory space by shooting both jpeg and raw files simultaneously. May be there is a case for this if you have the resources. Not everyone has the time to sit down and mess about with the RAW converter.
I went to Abney Park in Stoke Newington, and took pictures of memorials. This is how jpeg and raw conversion might compare.

What came out of the camera jpeg

After raw conversion and Lomo effect.

I think they are different beasts, and each has its merits.

Macro

7th July 2013 An acquaintance told me that he had enjoyed macrophotography shots, so remembering that I had a screw on +2 diopter lens attachment, I dug it out and had a trial in my garden. It is a tricky beast, and needs fine adjustment of focusing. I used f10 to try to get a greater depth of field, but even that was not easy.

I used my old eos 350D body with a Tamron Zoom Lens. 

I quite like this, and have moved the lens and adaptor over to my eos40d body so I can have more megapixels to crop.

I like this one also, but don't know the name of the flower.

This was taken with the same lens, but with the Eos 40d body.

gates and frames

I am always on the look out for frames. It is one of the things in the composition textbooks, and mainly to frame what is within, but this one was different. The frame is he gateway, and behind it is a palm, but the complexity of the gate draws one away from what is actually beyond. It was difficult to work out initially, and I exposed for the palm, making the gate a silhouette. Once I converted to black and white the palm became secondary and one would have to guess what was beyond the gate. I am getting the hang of b and w conversion in PSE 11. I like it. This was taken with my little G12 camera.

Cyclists in Lanzarote

We were on a tour of the vineyards of Lanzarote. Suddenly across the volcanic landscape, with the corralled vines in the background came what looked like a cycling club.There are many components to this vista, and unlike many where the foreground is bright and the distance more dim, the opposite is true here.

Winter light in a Paris Street.

On a cold day in Paris, the winter sun broke through late in the afternoon. The buildings were lit up. I wanted a passer-by in the picture, and noticed afterwards that the child and the school sign on the road gave me a context for the picture. This was shot using a my Canon G12 on the green setting, and a little autofix from PSE 11.

Asleep on the job.

I am a great believer in carrying a camera with me wherever I go, because you never know what you are going to find.

In a side street in Paris is a shop/workshop making violins/stringed instruments. I thought this would be a great subject, but on closer inspection, the craftsman was having 40 winks. Inspecting the picture later, I found there was a mirror in the back of the shop, and I can be seen taking the picture.