He has discount codes for one to use on most of the software he’s promoting (Topaz, Photomatix, Nik and more), so the site is probably worth visiting just to check out his reviews if you’re considering buying one, and pick up the codes if you’re convinced to buy.

Nine walkers (of 22) entered the competition for one of Scott Kelby’s fine, fine volumes, and it was a revelation to me how difficult it is choosing a ‘best’ from a variety of styles and subjects.  John Pugh was a worthy winner.

We were lucky to have another prize to give away, and I asked Tony Auguste to help me choose which of the photos from the group should get the canvas treatment.  Our shortlist is here.

We finished the walk at the Rivermill Chinese Restaurant, and they put on a good selection of finger-food to go with everyone’s post-walk drink.  They also offered a spontaneous mini-competition for a Photo they could use in their advertising.  It was all a great afternoon, and just a shame that some walkers had to rush off to other engagements.  Thanks everyone for making it such a success.

The first thing I learned, and it made sense as soon as I stopped to think about it, was to take off the lens and fit a body cap when putting cameras in to one’s bag.  That way one doesn’t need to have a continuously varying lens space in front of the body, and a partially unsupported lens, but rather can have a properly sized space with correctly placed padded dividers for body and lenses.  So obvious, so entirely different from what the bag makers are addressing in their marketing.

Teri had a problem with this wedding, as she was the bridesmaid.   Makes taking photos a little difficult, especially as she was, by office, an essential part of many tableaux.  Once the reception got going though, she succumbed to the need to get back behind a lens.  In the meantime Greg had ben shooting at a tremendous rate.  So that was point number two, keep going till well after you’re sure you have a shot for each scene, there are no re-runs.

I was offered 2 pieces of general advice — firstly to learn to shoot manual — or is that go back to shooting manual?  I think E-TTL flash mode was permitted, but I’m not sure .  The other was to never use flash for flowers.

Thanks guys! There is still so much to learn, and isn’t that great?

Recently I’ve been looking at support systems — tripods, heads, L-brackets, lens foot plates as I’d got really fed up with tilt the tripod head 90° re-adjust the height and balance, take a couple of shots, reverse the sequence.  A better solution was needed, and the answer appeared to be an L-bracket allowing one to unclip the camera, swing it through 90° and use a second attachment point on the side.  This would mean that the eyepiece would stay roughly at the same hight, and the weight remain firmly centred above the intended support point on the tripod.  In fact it should work better with appropriate short lenses, than when one swings a long lens round  in its ring mount, as the eyepiece will not move so much.

So why did all the ads describe the L-brackets as Pro? It turns out that Pro means compatible with Arca-Swiss type fixings, and with no second 1/4-16 screw-hole.

Or to put that another way, Pro means

• Arca-Swiss / Arcatech
• Foba
• Giotto
• Induro
• Jobu
• Kirk
• Markins
• Really Right Stuff
• Wimberly

heads but not either Gitzo (though there is a converter), Manfrotto, Trek-Tech or Velbon who seem to dominate the tripod market.

Isn’t marketing-speak confusing?   But it does also point out that there is a quasi-standard that one might be well advised to go with.

We also had a visit from the town’s tourism officer who wants members to submit photos

Click to join the World Wide Photowalk in Bishops Stortford

for inclusion in the tourist calendar she is putting together for 2011.  She agreed to extend the deadline till after the photowalk so participants could enter too.  I’ll post that link when it’s available

The poster picture was taken when I was scouting the walk.  Canon 5D MkII, EF14mm f/2.8L II USM Auto bracketed HDR.  And yes I know the HDR is seriously OTT for normal viewing

In this case my EOS 5D MkII had suddenly acquired bad habits, viz shooting Large JPEGs vs RAW, beeping on autofocus, sRGB vs Adobe, brightness vs RGB histogram, blinkies off  etc. I spent ages trying to work out what was going on to make it power on in this perverse state, why my settings would not ‘take’ over a power cycle.

Who’s feeling smug and knows the answer?  Well done! Yes I had inadvertently set a custom mode, and once that mode dial was back in Av all was how it should be.

The panic search did point out that firmware 2.0.7 was now current, so to celebrate return to normal, I’ve upgraded.

Scott Kelby, prolific author, is offering a prize of one of his recent books on Lightroom 3 or Photoshop CS5 for the best local photograph, and we also hope to offer the author a fairly large print of their winning photograph locally.  The local winner also gets entered into the worldwide contest for a $1000 photo equipment worldwide first prize (and lots of runner up prizes too…).

The prize is great, but the main aim of the day is to get local photographers together to share their enjoyment and enthusiasm, maybe offer mutual help and encouragement…  All levels of photography experience are welcome, all equipment from camera phones through point-and-shoot cameras, DSLRs to stand cameras with sheet film backs will take pictures — bring what you’re happy with.  Any one of these might take a great photograph, guided by your imagination and eye as the photographer.

I look forward to seeing you on the day!

The run from Oslo to Bergen is pretty dramatic even on the fast route.  Once one decides to take the scenic trail (roads 7 and 50) the wow dactor goes into overload.  There we were at 1200m with a partially ftoven lake and snow fields coming down to the water’s edge a mere 10 days from the Summer Solstice, or the 500m switchback down a precipice with the turns dug into tunnels in the cliff face…

Anyway we stopped in Aurland, and the hotel manager waxed lyrical about various viewpoints, and a not to be missed ferry trip up the Nærøyfjord leaving from the jetty at 09:15.

The day was slightly hazy to start with, but rapidly improving

By the time one has set the polarising filter on the front of the lens the resulting raw files look like HDR processing — so much so that I though you might enjoy a comparison.

Nærøyfjord Photo 1

The other photo looks extremely simmilar

Nærøyfjord Photo 2

And finally a third offering of the same image.  Which do you rate?

Nærøyfjord Photo 3

The actual information is available when you click for the full story,  All files were processed full size then shrunk for the blog in Photoshop with “Nearest Neighbour” processing

Image 1 is the normal exposure from a group of 3 bracketed by 2ev for HDR processing

Image 2 is HDR processed with Photomatix

Image 3 is HDR processed with Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro

Both HDRs give better sky, better rendition of the dark mountainside, and the trees to the right, but the village is tack sharp in image 1, but there is distinct softness in image 2.  I’ll personally go with 1 or 3, after running this test, despite the way the CS5 stack batch processing does not behave quite how one might wish, and the significantly better sky from Photomatix.

Scott Kelby (in D-Town TV) suggests using Image Stabilisation (well Vibration Reduction as he’s a Nikon shooter) at exposures longer than 1/600 of a second when not on a tripod, and ‘fast glass.’ Now that’s really expensive.

Then I saw Joe McNally explain that he had a natural advantage because he’s left-eyed, and could brace his camera on his shoulder.  Hmm something wrong here — when I tried it there was a good 3cm gap between the bottom of my EOS 5D II and my shoulder.

Now Joe is perfectly normally proportioned, so I’m missing something…  Ah yes the vertical format battery grip!  Still I wasn’t going to shell out £230 at Warehouse Express for passive wires, switches, contacts and plastic moulding.  Fortunately E-Bay to the rescue, and a dealer (ukpartsdeal) had an after market model for £40, while other dealers seemed to have the identical unit for up to £90, with the majority at £50.

With this in place I can now stabilise the camera on my shoulder. Thanks Joe! good tip.

• Photoshop User Tv
• D-Town TV now that it’s not just Nikon
• Photoshop Killer Tips

All of which are available as free podcasts which you can subscribe through the  iTunes store, or follow the links above.  These ones are also all manifestations of the American National Association of Photoshop Professionals.  The obvious way to say thank you is to buy some of the related books, and to buy a year’s membership of NAPP (even if it is horrifically expensive in Europe)  I have done that, but publicly I’m saying “Thank You!” here too.