Go With The Eye

So many times, something has caught my eye when I’m not really looking for a photo, but I do like to have a camera to hand when I can, so I reach for it and start shooting.

I start with what I saw.  Then I move left, move right, zoom in, pull out,  stop up, stop down… play for as long as time permits.

But so often it’s the first view that works the best.  The main exception is the aperture setting, as generally I leave it as wide as possible which isn’t always the best.  But what is often the best is that angle I first saw and wanted to capture.

So many times I’ve read that you must move around your subject.  And those writers are right, especially when you’re coming up to a well-photographed landmark or a common subject.  When you’re out specifically looking for a photo, then yes, move around, then move around some more.

But when something unexpected has leapt out at you and you’ve just HAD to stop and take that photo, even when your partner has disappeared into the crowd or you’re in danger of running late, then often that first image is the right one.  Time and time again I take a string of photos only to return to the first one, or first few, those with that exact composition that caught my eye in the first place.

Walk around, because there just might be something better, but don’t be afraid to trust your instinct either.  I had twenty-four photos of these ballet shoes hanging from the bar at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, snatched with a point’n'shoot in the final minutes before the performance started.  Guess which in the series this is.

Celebrating the Bolshoi Ballet in Brisbane, their first visit to Australia in 19 years.

On Printing

I’ve rarely printed any of my photos, and recently I had a lesson in why this is a habit I should get into, especially if I’m to continue selling my work through microstock, Redbubble, Zazzle, and Fine Art America.  I entered a local photo competition, which required an A4 size print of your work, framed, to display.  I entered two works, one which printed out just fine, and one which really just didn’t look right.  Darks were too dark, spot removals were obvious, weird halos in the sky around the foreground objects, lines too soft, bright colours not all that bright.  What I thought would take me five minutes took all afternoon as I tweaked and printed and tweaked and printed and tweaked (and printed and tweaked and printed and tweaked and printed and tweaked…).

Eventually I got an image I was happy with, but it cost me all my new magenta cartridge and a fair whack of photo paper.

Sandgate – Cliff St framed by the old Baptist church, opened in 1877, and the sculpture “Surge” by Davis-Thomas, installed in 2007

This weekend, I’ve been printing as many images as I can that I have on Redbubble, and now I sit surrounded by prints waiting their 24 hours to pass to I can see the final colour.  Already I’ve learnt that black and whites seem to have a yellow tinge when they first leave the printer but that has faded to true monochrome.  Otherwise, I’m pleased that so far, all of my prints look fine, although I haven’t yet gone over them with a fine toothcomb.  It has cost me another magenta cartridge, plus a blue and yellow this time, but it’s worth it for the peace of mind that anything anyone buys from me to print should work out just fine (and I’ve now found a cheaper shop online to buy toner!).

It’s also made me review some of my older images, and I’m finding I’m not so happy with them as I once was, but I guess that means I’m learning something.

If you’re curious about that photo competition, I didn’t win anything, but apparently I caused “a lot of discussion” with the photo above. Still wondering if that’s good or bad!

A First – A Win!

Every now and then I remember that the Brisbane newspaper “Courier-Mail” runs a weekly photo competition in their Saturday magazine, and I check out the topic, and send a in photo if I have something suitable, and promptly forget.  Imagine then my surprise when I received a letter on 25th February saying I had won!

Ladybird in Rose Petals

The topic was “Mini”, so I submitted this photo of a ladybird on a rose I took about two years back.  I found her on my stove, and in the absence of a yard of any kind, had moved her to the single rose I had growing in a pot on my balcony.  I’d started experimenting with macro photography so when I found this patient model I took the opportunity to take dozens of photos, most of which, on close inpection, weren’t really all that sharp, or there was something distracting in the background, or numerous other faults.  There was something distracting in the background of this image too, but a tight crop fixed that (admittedly at the cost of quality for a large print).

I’ve always been quite fond of this little lady, especially after the eureka moment I had when I finally managed to balance the colours right to bring out the red (red is always SO HARD to get looking natural).  Now she’s really paid back my good deed.

I have to add, I was quite taken with the first runner-up image in the competition as well. Check it out here – Uluru as you’ve never seen it before.

Long time no talk

It’s been a while and I have a backlog of stuff I want to post about in my head, that’s only growing longer.  I hardly know where to start, so I’m going to start with today.

Today I’ve been coming to grips with my new (to me) Canon 7D camera.  See, a while back now, this happened on my beloved Canon 550D

Uh-oh

Needless to say I tried turning the camera off and on again, and I tried re-installing the battery, and I tried any number of other suggestions found on the internet, but it wasn’t to be.  Err 30 turned out to be a terminal shutter error.  The shutter was not pining.  The shutter had died.

My camera is only about two and a half years old, but long out of warranty, and a reputable (I checked, the internet said so) repairer put the total repair cost up to nearly $400.  At that point, I began looking at other options.

My research led me to the Canon 7D.  I’ve been thinking about finding a camera the next step up for a while but wasn’t planning to jump yet.  Now I’d been pushed.  The timing was awkward though; ideally I’d be looking at a full frame, probably the Canon 5D Mark II or III, but most of my lenses won’t fit on a full frame camera, and I wasn’t prepared at that point to spend the time or the money selling them and buying new ones.  The 7D is the top of the range APS-C Canon, and is weather-resistent, has 19 autofocus points, fast shutter speeds and generally has a good reputation despite being over three years old (“ahead of its time”, says Canon, and general consensus agrees).

If full-frame versus APS-C is talking goobledegook to you, check out this great explanation.  It wasn’t that long ago that it was goobledegook to me too!

Given the age of the 7D and not having worked myself up to the idea of spending a huge amount of money, I hunted ebay and found a 7D with extended warranty and not too many shutter actuations (“you wot?” I would have said a few weeks ago.  Shutter actuations are how many times the shutter has been released.  In the case of my 550D, I suspect my love of continuous mode while shooting kittens may have led to its somewhat early death).  As a bonus, the seller lives one suburb north of me, so I had my new camera in my hot lil hands within days.

And now I’ve hit the 7D learning curve.  To say it’s steep is an understatement.

When I first picked it up, I couldn’t even work our how to turn it on.  The power button is on the opposite side of the camera to the 550D.  The back of the 7D is covered in buttons, and there’s a dial and a joystick.  There’s more buttons and two dials and a screen on the top.  Oh boy.

So I took the manual out of the box and put it somewhere safe to read later.  Can I find it now?  Of course not.  But I know where the box is.

But like so many new things, picking it up and having a go is usually much more fun than reading some tedious manual.  My first night of shots, the focus jumped around, it didn’t seem to want to focus in AI Servo mode and live view kept doing weird things.  Still, here is Taala, in her new favourite perch (a blanket hung to dry over the wine rack, of course)

This is what happens if you just pick up a 7D and press random buttons… and like a million monkeys on a million typewriters, take enough images

I still haven’t found the manual, but that’s what the internet is for.  A couple of interesting threads on the DP Review site (here and here) led me to some great links on the 7D’s autofocusing system (handy summary too) and the many custom functions.  I’m still reading both forum threads and I’m sure there’s more to learn besides, but the potential for this camera is quite exciting.

Practising focus on the centre of the gerbera. Viewing at 100% (pixel-peeping) shows these to not really be as sharp as I’d like.  More practise needed for me

 

 

 

All Change

If you own a cat and read nothing else in this post, please read this link on cat nutrition and consider what you’re feeding your furry friend.

I missed last week’s photo challenge “Changing Seasons”.  I had nothing and no time to even think of a good image for Brisbane’s slow slide into summer, as it’s been a week of change here of a different type.  My partner and I are moving into our first owned house tomorrow, which is exciting.  We also lost a beloved cat to diabetes, which is sad.  There’ll be plenty about the house to come in time, so for now, here’s a little gallery of boofhead Banderas.

Banderas wasn’t the brightest of cats, it has to be said.  But he was adorable with it.  He could purr like a steam train and his favourite trick was to headbutt you until he had your attention, particularly if you were talking on the phone or had a glass of something in your hand.  Despite his size he was a shy thing around strangers, but would eventually come out of hiding to headbutt them too.  An unusual technique but it worked; he charmed anyone fond of four-legged creatures.

We decided to leave Banderas in the UK when we moved to Australia last year, due to the stress of the long flights and quarantine.  Luckily for us and Banderas, my brother-in-law was able to take him in and when we visited earlier this year, it was easy to see that Banderas had not only settled in but had happily claimed brother-in-law as his own.  We all thought he had a few years left in him.

He was nine when he died, too early, but we’d fed him on Hills prescription dry food for five years, on the advice of a vet after he had a urinary tract problem.  His diabetes went into remission when we changed his diet to low-carb high-protein wet food, but there’s a reason it’s called “remission” and not “recovery”. He got in a couple more years of headbutting his favourite people though, and he was always loved.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

I love photographing reflections. The world as we know it… yet somehow not quite.  The challenge wasn’t just to photograph reflections, but to twist the world a little bit with them.  So, what do you make of these?

Reflections on London

Reflection of the London skyline against Number 1 London Bridge.  I like the melted London skyline on the hard sharp glass windows.

Spring in the French Alps

This was actually an idea suggested to me by a friend.  Turn that frown, upside-down… This was taken from the shore of Lac du Montriond, France, where the still icy waters were reflecting the surrounding mountains.  The image was then flipped.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Thankful

I’m thankful that circumstances and the weather were in my favour so I was able to experience totality during the solar eclipse two weeks ago.

The eclipse was occurring not long after sunrise, with the partial starting around 05:30, then totality starting about 06:34 and lasting barely over two minutes.  The second partial lasted another hour after that.

I’m not a morning person.  Really really not a morning person, especially on holiday.  As soon as I learnt there was a total solar eclipse only a couple of hours flight away from me, my partner and I booked our holiday within days.  It was weeks later that I learnt the eclipse was so early in the morning, and I must admit I grumbled a bit to myself.  But chances like this don’t come along very often so I just had to suck it up.

We stayed in a small apartment by the water in Cairns.  With the ocean just a minute’s walk away, in theory we could have an easy stroll to watch the eclipse.  We may have even been able to see it from our balcony. But just to the south is a large unnamed headland, dense bushland and just the place for clouds to form.  Having been warned by a friendly tourist info woman that there were clouds there most mornings, I resolved to get up before dawn two days before the eclipse to check it out.

Oh dear

Not getting any better

Is that rain?

Time to run inside!

As you can see, the Cairns esplanade was really a no-go.  So the following day, my helpful yet weary husband and I once again set the alarm before dawn, and drove about half an hour north, to Ellis Beach, to see what the view would be like from there.

Ellis Beach at sunrise

Better chance for a clear sky?

Ellis Beach is a long narrow stretch of sand, so we were a little concerned about high tide, but it looked like our best bet.  There are lots of small car parks dotted along the length of the beach, giving me hope that we’d be able to find space despite the predicted hordes of people who’d be descending on the coastline.

That night, north Cairns suffered a long power outage due to a downed power line.  All my careful preparations went out the window as we wondered if we’d even have enough battery power in either of our mobiles for an alarm to go off!  Thankfully, literally just as we were heading to bed, the power came back.

Then the day came.  The alarm went off at 03:30am.  We got ourselves ready and into the car, and drove north to the small dark road that winds up alongside Ellis Beach.  The dark made it hard to spot the unlit parking lots, but by chance we spotted a P sign in our headlights (mostly thanks to the person behind me with who either had a very high car or high beams on, so I pulled over to let them pass).  We parked easily, then we sat in the car protected from the wind until it was closer to sunrise.

There were already plenty of people there with more arriving every minute, but the beach had space for us all to spread out along it and not interfere (too much!) in each other’s photos.  A small group of serious photographers had set up right by the car park, huge lenses at the ready, large bags of kit by their sides.  I, on the other hand, was merely armed with:

• Canon 550D (Rebel t2i or Kiss 2)
• 70-300mm  f/4-5.6 IS USM lens – for that classic close-up
• 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens – for scenic shots as the light changed
• Tripod – acquired free with a magazine subscription several years ago, now falling apart and in dire need of replacement
• Usual paraphernalia – lens cleaner, remote button, extra sd cards, spare battery

You may note that I don’t have any big filters.  I did mean to use my polarising filter to provide a bit of protection but forgot.  Essentially, and this is NOT recommended, my research and experience led me to feel that my camera would be fine as long as I only used Live View (that is, the LCD screen rather than the view finder) to take the images, and I regularly either used the lens cap or turned Live View off when not photographing.  By turning off Live View regularly, the mirror that projects the image up to the view finder drops and protects the camera sensor.  I’ve taken many photos of sunsets, and the occasional sunrise, without any extra filters, and both my camera and I have been fine.   Thankfully, this tactic worked.  But, and I repeat, this is definitely NOT recommended by pretty much anyone sensible.  I did have eclipse glasses so I could stare at the partial eclipse safely, but not being a terribly sensible person, I didn’t use any filters on my camera.

We wandered down the beach a small way and set up.  The sky wasn’t looking great.

Eclipse morning

Well, it looked pretty, but not great for eclipse viewing.  The cloud was happy where it was.  But then, just over the horizon, we saw…

The sun!

Which then promptly hid behind the cloud.

Oh. Hello cloud

Then, what light through yonder cloud breaks…

Could it be

Do I see

Totality!

Corona

Diamond Ring and Shadow Bands

The moment passes

Cold light as the eclipse fades

What an experience.  As the clouds cleared the beach cheered, and during those strange moments of totality, we all stared at the sun, blotted by the moon, a crazy eye hanging in the sky.

For my own reference as much as anything, the things I wish I’d done better:

• Had two DSLRs, one to lock focus on the sun, one to capture the landscape around me.  The light during an eclipse is truly surreal
• Once I had the moon in my sights, lock focus.  I wasted too much time waiting for my camera to find focus again, and it wasn’t always very successful and entirely unnecessary
• Drop exposure at totality. Although I needed 1/4000 during the partial eclipse, the light levels drop significantly during totality.  I took a bunch of black photos and panicked, I couldn’t think why! Then I realised, of course there wasn’t enough light.  You can look at totality perfectly safely with your naked eye, so the camera needs a more normal exposure too
• Check and clean the lens regularly.  You have no idea how many spots I’ve removed from these photos.  I cleaned my lens when I put it on the camera, but of course standing on a sandy beach facing into the wind is not going to keep it that way.
• Bracket exposures.  I thought this was on, but it turned off when I turned off my camera to change the lens and as I was firing in continuous mode and jumping around going “yay eclipse!” I didn’t notice.  You can get much better details from the corona and other phenomena from a mildly HDR-ed image
• A longer lens wouldn’t hurt, but then neither would a better camera…

And what I would recommend:

• Preparation.  As much as I hated the idea of it, waking before dawn the two days beforehand was really worth it, and gave me much needed confidence and less panic that I’d miss out on the day.  As it happened, I was so excited that the early starts weren’t quite as painful as I thought they’d be.  I do wish I’d re-read some of the guides I found online before, but with the powercut I was a bit distracted. And for the record, the Cairns esplanade had cloud during totality, so taking the extra time to drive north worked perfectly
• Keep ISO at 100
• Tripod, even a poor one is better than nothing, and thankfully it wasn’t very windy
• Only use Live View
• Use a remote to take the photos, to keep any movement on the camera to a minimum.  Very necessary when focussing at the long end of a 70-300mm lens
• Take a willing and able photography assistant.  This took the form of my husband, who kept me company and helped me change lenses and is generally nice to have around
• Enjoy!  No matter what else, take a few precious seconds to just let the view sink in, without framing that view through the camera.  It’s truly amazing.