50mm Nikkor f1.8

I picked up a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 a few weeks ago and although I haven't really used it much I love the shall DoF it provides and think I am going to enjoy using this lots over the next few months.

Here is just a quick 'messing around' shot I grabbed of my wife the other day.



One think I know that I will have to be more conscience of is selecting the point of focus as there is little room for error once you move into the higher apertures.

First 'Solo' Studio Session

After much deliberation I finally plucked up the courage to hire a studio for the day. I had the motivation of only having a few weeks until my first born is due to drive me on. I wanted an image that my wife and I could look at in years to come and cherish. The easy choice would have been to go to somewhere such as 'Venture' and pay through the nose for what would probably be a lovely photograph. The more difficult option but ultimately more rewarding would be to try and create my own photograph.

I hired the studio in Calumet Photographic (Manchester) due to the very reasonable cost of £50.00 per day for the studio & £25.00 per day for lighting (All prices do not include VAT). Not having seen the studio beforehand I didn't know what to expect. On arrival I have to admit I was disappointed. I was shown to a lecture room with studio rigging to one side but the room was cold and untidy. Ten minutes later I was greeted by the rental staff who were very apologetic and immediately offered to discount the cost of hire and get the place tidied immediately. There are a couple of pictures below showing the setup.

http://flickr.com/photos/7358451@N03/3077691333/
http://flickr.com/photos/7358451@N03/3078522622/

I had made it clear when I booked the studio that I wanted to be left to my own devices as much as possible. After a short run through of the two Bowens strobes and the smaller one providing hair light the staff left me to it.

600+ shots later (five hours in total) and I came away a happy man. After much trial and error I came away with a short list of about 40 photographs with about 6 that I would have bought had we have gone to a pro studio.

I went in with the intention of getting lots of Hi-Key images, and although we did do these I think the ones with the grey background (no back light) and the Lo-Key images (black material draped over paper stand) work better.

All in all I walked away from the day having thoroughly enjoyed the experience and with a new found career in mind!!!! Let me know what you think of some of the images below. This represents just a small selection of the images taken.

November Mold Camera Club Competition Results

Whilst felling very sorry for myself (man flu!!) earlier in the month I managed to submit my entries for this months Mold Camera Club Competition. Once again I hadn't managed to get anything mounted therefore all of my entries were into the projected amateur category.

The three images that I submitted where:

Belly Of The Beast
Life's a ball
Parisian Night

The judge was a lady from the Wrexham Camera Club, and she was a real 'detail' person, picking up on lack of sharpness, blacks not being true black, lack of tones etc. I wished that I had not bothered submitting anything!!

Belly of the beast received quite a good mark (15), apparently this is a fine example of tonal range within a B&W image. This image caused quite a bit of intrigue, nobody could quite figure out if it was a prison or a hospital of some sort. I didn't have the heart to tell them it was a hotel!!!

Life's a ball did not score well (13), the colours on the projector really did look dull. The judge likes the candid approach to the photograph. This again proved to me that if you want to know/control exactly how your image is going to look you have to print and mount. When I have printed this the colours have looked quite vivid.

Parisian Night received great remarks from the judge, apparently this was not the image of someone that should be in the amateur category!! This again grabbed me Third place in the amateur category.

Once again beaten to the top spot by an image from Jonathan Frings; in particular this image. It is a great image though!!

Try and try again.... Persistence pays off!!!

OK so I didn't get up at a godly hour again. This time I opted for the sunset rather than sunrise from West Shore, Llandudno. And I was rewarded greatly for my efforts!! At first the sunset didn't look anything too special but for a 20 minute period it was awesome.

Here is the first of many.. This is pretty much straight out of the camera. I have just slightly cropped the left hand side to improve the balance.



And another.... (17/11/08)

Early morning at pastures new!! (Llandudno)

Bright an early this morning I got up (04:45) to get to Llandudno nice and early to give me plenty of time to find a good photo spot. I was there for about 06:00 and things were not great. The met office had got it wrong (which is unusual as they are usually spot on). It was muggy and there was a constant drizzle falling!! Oh well as I was up I thought I would do the best I could.

By 08:15 I had decided that I was fighting a losing battle. It was already too late for a sunrise shot and it was too light for any slow exposures. I made my way back home...

I got two real shots out of about 60.....





There is however lessons to be learnt on all outings. Today I had a list of things I wanted to try.

1. Geo tagging using the iPhone (This worked very well and was extremely accurate - Click to see)
2. Exposure Bracketing (There wasn't really any need to try this out this morning
3. Location spotting (Not too bad found a couple of paths that I wasn't aware of previously)

The biggest lessons I learnt however are:

1. Make sure you always have a good cloth to clear the front of the lens in case of rain/drizzle
2. Always prepare your camera (filters) before stepping foot on a jetty. They are pretty treacherous places to stand!!!
3. Take lots of pebbles with you when trying to get a jetty shot to scare off the birds. Once you are on the jetty there is very little to pick up and throw!!

Oh well, I'll keep trying.....

Camera Club Competitions

Tonight I took place in my first judging evening at the Mold Camera Club. I really did not know what to expect from this. I wondered what the standard(s) would be like and just how critical the judge would be.

The judging was split into two classes (amateur and advanced) and two types of entry (mounted and electronic images or slides).

On the basis that I had just joined and never been a member of any club before I was placed in the amateur category for this year (fine by me!!).

The standard all throughout was very good, with a real bias towards particular types of images (interesting to see judges individual tastes coming into play).

I was over the moon to come out with a 3rd place in my first judging evening. This was for the image below which received a score of 18/20:



The other two entries that I put in are below:

Contemplate (16/20 I think)
Sun Sets over Lynnau Mymbyr (18/20)

A good friend of mine Eddie Miller (also new to Mold Camera Club) also grabbed 3rd place within the advanced category for his excellent image of Manchester Chinatown

I made some notes however on critical points to be aware of when submitting entries in future. I hope that these are of use to anyone submitting images to any club(s).

• If there is lots of sky within a landscape image, ensure that there are items of interest within the sky i.e colours, clouds
• Do not over sharpen
• No lettering on the print mount (Image title)
• Smaller images that are sharp are better than large images that have lost their crispness due to over enlarging
• In full body shots, do not cut off any limbs (keep feet in image)
• Pay particular attention to detail lost through blown highlights and pure blacks
• watch for colour cast
• Avoid strong lights in corner of compositions this detracts from the main subject.
  

Getting ND10 Exposures Right

After seeing some great shots by a Flickr photographer Ian Branham I was keen to attempt some similar slow shutter exposures during the day using an ND10 filter.

An example of Ian's great work is below:Upon reading the description I rushed down to my local camera shop to purchase the darkest Cokin P Series ND filter I could.

I was informed to stack an ND8 along with my current ND4 to produce a similar effect. This by no means produced the same results and gave a horrible artificial red tinge (OK I know the picture above is black and white but I am sure that it was correctly coloured from the offset). I scratched my head for ages and thought that it must be something that I was doing wrong.

It turns out that this is a common complaint and is summed up perfectly within the following thread/entry:

Cokins not so neutral density filter

I am therefore going to switch to either the B&W filters (as used by Ian, thanks for the info) or the Lee Filters, yet more cost!! Hopefully I will have some results to post soon and will be happy with the output from these.

A useful article that I found for determining the rating of these filters is:

Single Serving Photo - Neutral Density Filters

Chasing The Light - Day Three

My third day of 'Chasing the light', and I think last from this location. Unless I can get hold of a wide angle lense at some point I am farily limited to what shots I can get from the same place all the time. I need to find another good location, Any suggestions would be gratefully accepted.

It was a perfect morning to go down to the woodside Ferry Terminal as a)it was nice and dry and b) HMS Illustrious was docked in Liverpool.

Unfortunately HMS Illustrious is still in the shade quite a bit at this time. On some it obviously shows up better than others.

Flickr Explore - At Last!!!

I know that you shouldn't allow it to become an obsession but.... For a long time now I have been wondering what the hell you need to do to get your photos picked up by the Flickr 'supercomputer'. Well the answer is clearly, get up really early in the morning and go an catch the sunrise.

Unbeknown to me until I clicked the good old Big Huge Labs Flickr Scout my picture of the ferry at Seacombe front 'Sittin on the dock of the bay' made it to #449 on 8th October 2008. A momentous day!!!

I have found peace at last!!!

Prison Cell Block M......

....M for Malmaison that is!!!

I have just got back from a short stay with my wife in the Malmaison in Oxford Castle. This was previously a prison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Castle) and as such the camera had to come along.

The hotel can be found at http://www.malmaison-oxford.com/

I have started to put together a series of photographs that I took.

Chasing the light - Day Two

My second attempt at getting a good shot of the Liverpool waterfront. Another morning another early start (06.30 leaving the house).

Much happier with this one on the whole. I took it from a slightly different location and obviously the sky was far more active than the last image I got. The cloud cover seemed to be pretty low and therefore the clouds were moving quite quickly above me.

Took on the advice offered within Flickr and blog and modified the composition of the blog to change the feel of the photograph.

Very slight adjustment to the image just to add some slight grad to the sky otherwise this is straight out of the camera.

I have some others that I am quite happy with that I will try to get posted soon. This was probably my personal favourite though.



Flickr photo page with larger format image can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7358451@N03/2923227047/

Chasing the light

Yesterday whilst on my way to work there was an amazing sunrise over the Liverpool waterfront. Unfortunately as is alway the case I did not have my camera. It inspired me to get up nice and early and attempt to get the perfect capture of the sunrise behind the Liverpool waterfront, no matter how many attempts it takes. I have seen a book called 'Chasing the light' and to an extent I think that is what I am doing.

I will keep posting my attempts until I get the perfect capture. Please help me by commenting on how the image could be improved. Or by simply passing comment.

My first attempt was made this morning, just before 07:00 am (I had to get out of the house for 06:30 to get this). Unfortunately there was no dramtic sunrise just the gradual change in sky colour. I quite like the cool blues of the image, it is by no means the image I am after though. I actually think that the buildings aren't as sharp as they should be as the tripod took a bit of wind on the Seacombe front. I'll take a weight with me next time.

Watch this space, for more (hopefully better captures).

Marc

SB800 - First outside shot

Finally got out and about with my SB800 today and managed to start to play around with off camera flash.

I know that it isn't perfect, I would have like to have caught the top of my nieces hair as well but on the whole I am happy with the effect that a flash gives you on a sunny day.

Any tips of constructive criticism would be greatfully received.

New Purchase - Nikon SB-800

So after going along to a portrait workshop. I finally took the jump and purchased myself some lighting. It is only a hotshoe flash at the moment but along with the Nikon CLS system I am hoping that this will inspire me to become more creative with off camera lighting and understand light and its effects a little more.

Obvioulsy no venture into lighting is complete without many, many references to www.strobist.com. So thank you to everyone who has contribute to such a great resource.

Over the next few weeks I hope to establish enough of an understanding to be able to get a couple of good photographs of my mother in laws wedding in Cyprus (October) We will see......

If anyone has some good tips, other than the ones that are on Strobist for overpowering sunlight (in particular with an SB-800) then they would be gratefully received!!

Watch this space!!

Happy Couple and, at last a chance to use my camera!!!

It has been ages since I have properly ventured out with my camera, and this was by no means a photography outing.

Whilst perfomring the duties of best man at my friends wedding I managed to grab my camera out of the boot of my car and snap a couple of images of the happy couple coming out of the church.

This one I particularly liked

Jessops School of Photography - Making a start in portrait photography

I have been on the Introduction to Flash and Studio Portrait course today in Leicester at the Jessops School of Photography.

I have to say that for £75.00 I really did not know what to expect from the course however I am pleased to feedback that it was well worth it and money well spent.

I have been eager to get to play with some studio equipment for ages and this seemed like the ideal oppurtunity. After approx 2.5 hours of theory in the morning, with demonstrations of how to effectively light a model, eliminate shadow and soften the highlights we were let rip for the best part of 2 hours on two models. The models were both very easy to work with, and naturaly sprung into various poses without much prompting. Which was great as I was a little nervous (not sure why!!!).

I have come away from the course thinking that there is now a whole new genre of photography to delve into, and a whole new load of equipment to buy!!!

All in all I would thoroughly recommend the course.

I have posted one of the pictures I have quickly cleaned up to get an idea of the results.



If you would like to see any more images then please follow the link to my flickr set below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7358451@N03/sets/72157605609943544/

Magical Moments

Yesterday marked a momentous ocassion in my life. I could finally tell everyone that I was going to be a dad (for the first time).

Whilst messing around trying to get a photo of 'the test' I though of the following idea...

I know that it isn't to everyones taste but I like it because it captures three magical moments in my life in one photograph.

Lynnau Mymbyr

Went back to Wales on Thursday 8th May straight from work to make the most of the good weather we have been experiencing. I was determined to get out there and start taking some photos!!

Five of the best

So in the beginning, these are my most successful shots
Clicking on them will take you to a larger version of the image on my Flickr page.