Andrew Macpherson

Just spent an hour going through an excellent HDR Tutorial from the travel photography blog Stuck in Customs by Trey Ratcliff.  It merges nicely in one spot the various tips I’ve been picking up round the net, and adds in some new to me packages (Topaz Art springs to mind) to help finish the pictures.

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.

I was much touched to be invited to Mark and Megan’s wedding, and to some of the festivities leading up to the blessing in St Cecelia’s in Little Hadham, and the reception in Bury Green.  Great fun, and I also got to meet Greg and Teri Harris.  Teri is proprietor of Ladybug Photography a wedding specialist, and Greg has an enormous range to his photographic experience and qualification.

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?

Ever had that horrible sinking feeling when you look at a piece of really expensive equipment and see something that  might behave more optimally?  One that has suddenly acquired symptoms to make you believe that a hefty bill is coming?

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.

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I already know from experience that I can’t cope with long dark days in winter, but visiting northern latitudes in summer is a real treat.  Particularly when the scenery is spectacular enough to attract a World Heritage site designation.

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 factor 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 (continue reading…)

So it’s all about getting ‘Tack Sharp’ in the important areas of your photos.   It’s also about keeping the ISO low to avoid nose, ruling out the very fast shutter speeds.  Beginning to sound expensive…

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.

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been learning on-line from hundreds of free podcasts, and related video blogs.  I would particularly like to thank:

• 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.