New Saturday training courses from Phototuition

Due to public demand we have finally agreed  to give up our Saturdays and offer weekend training courses for very small groups (maximum of three people) of similar experience and with similar cameras.

Courses will be run at Our dedicated training room at Ealing on most Saturdays starting at 11am and running for  6.5 hours (depending on our shooting excursion which may be to a local park or even Portobello Road for street shooting).  

Refreshments will be provided along with lifts  to and from Ealing Broadway station.

The fees are £159.00 per student and courses will be run with a minimum of 2 participants (maximum of 3) Canon and Nikon DSLRs and lenses are available on loan.

Each student will be provided with their own computer for editing and take home their images on a DVD.

Call John Perkins on 07976 978 180 to discuss your
photography training.

All students will have the option of one or more one-to-one two hour follow-up sessions during weekday evenings at any time after the course. These run for 2 hours and cost £55.00.

Saturday 18^th February – Digital SLR – Canon

Saturday 25^th February – Digital SLR – Nikon

Saturday 3^rd March  – Compact system cameras

Saturday 10^th March – Digital DLR – any brand

Saturday 17^th March – Digital SLR – Canon

Saturday  24^th March – Digital SLR – Nikon

Saturday  31^st March – digital SLR – Canon

Saturday  7^th March – Compact system cameras

Saturday  14^th March – Digital SLR – any brand

Photoshop Elements 9-10 upgrade? The big Adobe ripoff.

No way!  I’ve had a few messages about the upgrade recommendation appearing on the Elements 9 welcome screen, Adobe effectively wanting us to dump the £50 or so we spent on elements 9 and purchase Elements 10.

Elements 9 automatically goes on line so we can expect more of this kind of thing.

This is totally unnecessary. There are no improvements that I can see in 10 that will benefit the serious photographer, a few gimmicks perhaps but otherwise nothing of note. Elements 9 automatically updates the raw converter if you go to “help” then “updates” and this is only necessary for the owner of very new cameras.

It does seem that they are holding back with the Fuji x10 (and Sony Nex7 among others)  Adobe camera Raw update (ACR 6.6) which is already available in Elements 10 but I expect pressure from the Adobe users forum will eventually remedy this.

Fujifilm x10 Sample images from a busy weekend

Over this past weekend I carried the X10 around with me most of the time, either in the glovebox of the car, in my jacket pocket or, while on my bike, around my neck (quite comfortable too).

This post is by necessity a little loaded with jargon all of which will make a great deal of sense after a short training session!

100 iso

Adobe Camera Raw won’t decode the X10 raw files until the next update in a few months time and the bundled Silkypix is truly horrible. So they were all saved as jpegs, with all their limitations.

400 iso 1/800 at f2.2 (I Know!)

The lens cap still annoys me.  I can’t wander around with the camera on standby with the lens cap on. It only fits when the camera is fully turned off. Perhaps I need to source a pinch style  cap that fits into the tiny approx 40mm filter threads. Another option would be a slimline MC UV filter of a size to fit the threaded recess.

Image quality is consistently even with the  extended dynamic range mode (DR200) really helping with many of the pictures below including the portraits which include sunlit areas. Low-iso sharpness is not as good as I’d hoped, noticeably less sharp than the Canon G10 but then again the lens is 1-2 stops faster and corner to corner sharpness is more consistent on the X10.

Images are from a cycle ride along the Thames and a brief visit to the old dears!  The camera always responded quickly and in true sub-Cartier-Bresson style, the moment was captured.

400 iso 1/150 at f2.5

I spent little or no time fussing with the controls, the images being shot on P for the most part and at ISOs 200, 400 and 800 as required. The pictures although not raw files were put through Adobe Camera Raw to adjust tones and colour followed by a little cropping and editing as required.

100 iso 1/1000 at f2.8

200 iso 1/120 at f2.5

"Granny" (200 iso 1/25 at f2.5)

Fujifilm X10 – my first impressions

Here at Phototuition photography courses we’re noticing an increasing number of people, people who want to become seriously good at taking pictures, turn up with lighter, more compact equipment. Up to now the compact system cameras from Panasonic and Olympus have been the most popular choice for those wishing to avoid the bulk and weight of the DSLR but now, for the first time, there is  perhaps a truly compact option for serious photographers working in certain areas.

Once I’ve mastered the X10 I’ll offer it as a loan camera for advanced compact training.

I’ve read so much about this darned camera over the last 6 weeks that when I finally picked it up today and switched it on it felt like an old friend. I just knew how to use it! There’s loads on the web about this newest and most exiting arrival in the compact(ish) area of recent years so I’m going to do little more than make a few comments and post a few full-size pictures I snapped in the hour or so after collecting the camera.

These pictures are just snapshots, unedited full size jpegs fresh from the camera with sharpness set to default. I’ve not yet had time to experiment with dynamic range, background blur or panorama settings, all of which are getting good reports elsewhere.

200 iso at f2.2 with a close subject and background blur. Double click for full size.

Overall I’m honestly rather pleased. In the X10 Fuji have truly struck the perfect balance between portability, Image quality and performance. It’s a little bulky because the lens protrudes a fair bit even when retracted but is fine in a baggy jacket pocket. Build quality appears to be first class, proper knurled aluminium control wheels on the top plate unlike the nasty plastic one on the Panny LX5 - do they put that plastic knob on the Leica version?

Performance, after a fast  start-up (in quick mode) is almost consumer DSLR speed, autofocus is near instant even in lower light and shutter lag is not noticeable - I even managed to crack off a couple of panning shots (using the smallish but optically excellent optical viewfinder) something I’ve never found possible with a compact in the past – apart from the Canon G12 with its awful little plasticky optics viewfinder.

Fast enough perhaps, but the zoom is inevitably limited.

As for image quality, I’m shooting jpegs at the moment until Adobe update the raw converter – wish the Fuji used DNG for raw, so much simpler. Sharpness is corner to corner even at full aperture (f2 to f2.8 at full telephoto). Colour appears great, which is what you expect from Fuji, and metering, white balance and dynamic range are all par for the course.

The slightly larger than normal sensor and slightly longer lens focal lengths does enable a little background blur with close subjects, this is, of course helped by the large aperture optics. I’m looking forward to trying the X10 for Daylight portraits, I suspect it might do the job rather well.

Panning is possible with the viewfinder, not perfect but with practice.... 1/60 at f2 100 iso

A few initial minor negative observations -  Risk of metal lens cap damaging lens front element if used clumsily. Lens cap cannot be used while powered up and lens extended. Thumb wheel turns too easily by accident changing aperture or shutter speed setting. 40mm multicoated UV filter would be ideal but appears to be unobtainable. 

I noticed the occasional imperfect focus on distance shots. This one is spot on, great dynamic range and a touch of flare which I missed due to using viewfinder.

All in all the X10 appears to be a well balanced camera with it’s fast performance, optical viewfinder, 28-112mm (35mm equivalent) zoom lens (24mm would be nice but a great challenge to Fuji to achieve the same quality /aperture combination). The X10 might just turn out to be  to be the ideal camera for my personal photography. If travel, street, family, landscape, or fine art is your style of shooting  you may well find that in many instances the immediacy and portability of the x10 will keep the DSLR in the cupboard in many instances.

Everything was shot and written immediately after picking up the camera and without reading the instructions so please excuse any E and Os!!

Why are you carting a DSLR and a bunch of lenses around? (when the Fuji X10 is arriving any day now)

Working as a professional photographer and carrying around heavy bags of cameras and lenses I sometimes wonder why the enthusiastic amateur photographer, the person who pursues the craft for the sheer love of it, so closely mimics the likes of myself.

Like me, most enthusiasts tote a DSLR, OK it’s often a lot less durable but so far as sheer performance is concerned it isn’t so different.  It also has a tendency to be expensive, big and heavy especially when bagged up with assorted lenses so it’s not suprising that like my pro gear, it only gets taken out on specfic “photography days”.

“Today I’m going to take photographs”  Load up the 7D, a couple of prime lenses and a zoom or two and hit the road. All this is very well when we have a well defined subject or event in mind but aren’t many of the best photographs taken on the hoof when we just happen to capture an event or observe a situation? And aren’t some of the worst images the result of an overladen enthusiast hunting here there and everywhere on his chosen “photography day” for suitable fodder for the 5D mk2 and 24-105mmL?  Check out the forums on a Monday and you’ll see no end of garbage from some of the finest cameras around.

Nowadays Photography training has become my mainstay and  shooting pictures for fun has become something I really enjoy unlike in the past when my entire living was derived from shooting. This enjoyment however does not extend to carting a DSLR and a bag of heavy lenses around on the weekend.  I know that this is where I’m a little at odds with many of my trainees with whom, in other ways I have great deal in common.

So I guess it’s no suprise then that the impending arrival of the much heralded Fujifim X10 is, at least for me, the most exciting camera developement of the last 10 years. Brief flirtations with the canon G series, the Panasonic GF series, and finally the Panasonic LX5 have been fun but ultimately only increased my frustration with compact, semi compact and micro system carry everywhere cameras. Many of them have been great, some brilliant , but all have had their pitfalls.

 The Canon G10 offered deathly slow performance and apalling image noise in low light. The Panasonic Gf1 lacked an integrated viewfinder (I hate plastic clip-ons) and earlier this year in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris the bright reflections from the white stones on the groung made the LCD all but unusable. I suppose the LX5 came the closest, pocketable and although lacking a viewfinder the superb LCD is viewable in almost all conditions, a reasonably fast performer ultimately let down perhaps by it’s image quality.

Enter the Fujifilm X10, hopefully in early November. Mine’s reserved but I won’t hold my breath. So, what’s different?

A 2/3 inch image sensor – twice the area of the LX5, promising better low light performance with it’s carefully judged 12 mega pixels.

There are some quick loading full size image samples here which appear to show excellent image quality up to Iso 400 and perhaps even 800. Background blur (bokeh) is also noticable with middle distance subjects thanks to the larger sensor and longer focal length of the lens combined with the large maximum aperture. (large apertures have small numbers and give blurry backgrounds!)

Lots of external controls on a beautifully engineered metal body.

A manual zoom ring - as on a DSLR lens – with a direct mechanical link enabling instantaneous change of zoom level within the near ideal 28-112mm range (in 35mm camera terms).

A very large maximum aperture (from f2 to f2.8 at full zoom) throughout the zoom range enabling lower light shooting and perhaps just a little background blur previously only available on cameras with much larger sensors.

An optical viewfinder, a little  small and covering only 85% of the scene but indespensible on a sunny day and unlike the canon G series, decent optics.

For my personal photography the X10 looks very promising and having played with the truely excellent X100 I feel confident that, for the first time since the old Leica CL film camera I will shortly be in posession of a camera I can take with me wherever I happen to be going and and capture a great image under almost all conditions. It won’t suit everyone, Sports and wildlife enthusiasts and Image quality fiends are still going to be best served by the DSLR systems.

Here’s my latest bash at the “best camera” list, a little frivolous and completely ignoring cost in some cases, it’s based on cameras That have been brought along to training sessions and what I’ve read and seen at shows.

Best entry level DSLR – Nikon D3100 (£350) – a Brilliant fast all rounder.

Best advanced amateur sports and action DSLR – Canon 7D (£1100) – as above but more so.

Best portrait camera – Canon 5d (£1500) Lovely image quality but requires expensive lenses.

Best  landscape camera   - leica M9 (£5000) Sensational build and image quality in an almost compact body.

Best advanced compact(ish) camera (at the moment!!) - Canon G12 (£370) Terrific image quality in good light, very versatile, a lovely lightweight landscaper.

Update – I’ve had a decent play with the X10 and it seems very much to be living up to the hype. It’s fast, much faster than the Canon G12, and first impressions indicate lower noise levels at the critical 400-800 iso levels.  A friend is bringing me one back from the States in mid November so I’ll get down to some serious testing and post full size images towards the end of the month.

The new forest in Autumn

The foul-smelling Stinkhorn

The New Forest is the South of England’s great wilderness  with around 150 square miles of woodland and forest lawns among which you can walk for hours and see no one (90% of visitors stay within 100 metres of their car!). That said, the forest draws a lot of day trippers and it’s essential to avoid the major centre of Lyndhurst and the nearby areas if you want to miss the hordes on a sunny weekend.

The objective of the trip was to pick wild Porcini  mushrooms for the pot  but in addition I took along a DSLR camera, a Canon Eos 50d with a Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 zoom lens, a great affordable mid range zoom with some macro ability and good low-light performance but sadly no image stabilizer for reducing the effects of camera shake when using slower shutter speeds.

the delectable Chanterelle

As this was a family day out I didn’t encumber myself with a tripod, which would have allowed slower shutter speeds enabling me to use smaller apertures (larger f numbers) and increase the depth of field or range of distance over which things are in focus, something that’s aways somewhat restricted when you get in close. 

The low light levels in the forest were far from ideal but the metallic surface on the small folding reflector in my camera bag was really useful for diverting the odd ray of sunshine towards the subjects.

Sulphur Tuft

Talking of tripods, perhaps the ideal product for the close up shots of  wild mushrooms would be the Gorillapod, we’ve used them many times at Phototuition and the more rugged DSLR and Pro models would have been fabulous for these very low-level shots. 

We eventually found  our beloved Porcini mushrooms, lying in short grass underneath young oak trees and only a little nibbled by squirrels. Just a few, nothing like the regular finds of ten or so years ago when foraging was a far less popular occupation, but enough for a tasty starter.

Porcini

Macro, or close-up photography does not require a DSLR type camera, in fact most pocket cameras have a macro function – normally signified with a flower icon – and it’s an area in which these cameras can produce some stunning results.

White Gills, a basal bulb and veil on the stem can be indicative of the most deadly species.

If you are considering collecting wild fungi for food it’s absolutely essential to get some proper guidance. A small number of fungi are deadly poisonous, some having no known antidote and they can easily be mistaken for edible species.

Guided walks are available in the forest during the season (late summer and Autumn) where you will learn how to spot the small number  of good edible species and a similar number of lethal ones. Our last fungus is perhaps the Amanta Rubescens or “blusher” considered edible by some but so very similar in appearance to the lethal Amanita Phalloides or Death Cap, a fungus which can vary so much in both colour and shape.

A Starlit Landscape

Well almost!  The main light source for this shot was in fact  residual sunlight from a sun that had set a couple of hours previously. Moonlight alone can provide sufficient light for photography,  shadows are clearly visible and exposure times can be as short as a second or so. Starlight, however, offers a much lower level of light and is much too weak to provide light for normal photography.

Yet another shot taken with the Panasonic LX5 when I wish I’d taken a decent DSLR along!

We spent three nights on a boat on the Norfolk Broads earlier this month and our first night spent in rural surroundings near Horning was one of the clearest I can remember. The Milky Way was clearly visible along with planets, the occasional shooting star and, once They were pointed out to me, several orbiting satellites.

I set the LX5 to manual exposure mode and started with an expoure of  30 seconds at f8. The first shot came out a little dark but opening the aperture to f2.8 gave a much better exposure. Unfortunately long exposures like 30 seconds create an awful lot of digital noise even with a low iso.  A digital SLR has a much larger sensor and would have minimised this and created a  more usable image.

The Earth continued moving during the 30 second exposure and as a result the stars and planets look a little elongated.

Camerabox goes bust

Camerabox,  one of Britain’s leading discounters of cameras and lenses has gone into administration with no possibility of orders being fulfilled.

Unfulfilled credit card purchases would, I expect be refunded by the card companies under the consumer credit act.

 

Warranties are another issue,  Camerabox was a major grey or unofficial importer and in many cases the purchaser’s warranty will be with Camerabox and unless this is underwritten by a third-party I would expect them to be worthless.

 

Perhaps the manufacturers might assist as a gesture of goodwill.

 

Although any distributor can go bust purchasing official UK imports (warranted by Canon or Nikon Uk for example) and using a credit card to make your purchases is still the safest bet.

 

A simple window-light portrait

Photo by Astrid

As soon as I arrived for our training session at Maurits and Astrid’s flat in North Kensington I was struck by the lovely light coming through the living room window. Window light is a great way of lighting natural portraits and Astrid utilised the diffused sunlight beautifully in this shot.

Astrid used a Nikon D3000 with the standard kit lens and shot the image with the camera set on raw to enable accurate control of both colour and light and shade in Photoshop Elements 9 later in the session. Maurits is looking thoughtfully into the distance in this shot, often a better option than looking straight into the camera when the   shadows are dark.

Even on the dullest day window light will provide a very useable light source with the walls and ceiling of the room providing a little “fill light” on the opposite side.  Darker walls and larger rooms will provide less fill light and result in darker shadows.

It’s essential to check your exposure on the camera’s LCD for this kind of shot, the illuminated part of the face can easily burn out (become completely white with no detail) and you may need to adjust the exposure manually.

The Canon EF-S 55-250mm telephoto zoom is something else altogether!

The biggest surprise anyone gets when they come along to Phototuition photography courses is when they remove the boring old kit lens (normally and 18 to 55mm) from their camera and try out one of our telephoto zooms.  Wildlife, candid street photography and super blurred backgrounds are all par for the course with these lightweight, compact and affordable lenses which are designed to take over where the standard lens leaves off.

Telephoto zooms are available on loan  for Canon, Nikon and Panasonic at phototuition, but be warned, once tried you won’t be able to go without.

I’m taking the Canon lens out on a cycle ride today along the Thames Path between Kew Gardens and Teddington. The light is a little harsh, direct sunshine a lot of the time but some thin cloud cover is heading our way so hopefully the light will soften a little. It’s fitted to the good old Canon 450d, a plastic classic which is a great learning tool and shoots superb images.

All of these lenses have a built-in image stabilizer, a mechanism that very effectively reduces the blurring effect of hand movement (camera shake) when the camera is not on a tripod.

A close-up shot with the lens zoomed to 250mm

 Telephoto lenses increase the effect of this movement and blur will be much more obvious than with the standard 18-55mm lens if  no stabilizer is fitted. Nikon lenses call it VR and Panasonic use the term Mega OIS, by the way.

The grey Heron is a common sight along the river but this superb example struck a lovely pose with a fully extended neck. The soft sunlight defined his shape beautifully as he waited for fish in the long lagoon which runs parallel to the Thames by Kew gardens.

Converted to black and white then tinted in Photoshop Elements 9

After crossing Richmond Bridge I headed along the river path towards Twickenham. Two fisherman stood in a small boat beneath the elegant architecture of Richmond bridge, the riverside buildings reminding me of France perhaps, the rivers and towns of the Dordogne. It’s a timeless image which, if you ignore the fibreglass boat and outboard could have been taken 150 years ago (yes, photography was around then).  Shooting from a distance and zooming- in effectively brought the background forward (compressing the perspective) thereby creating a busy and interesting area above the bridge.

My last shot of the day, taken at Twickenham by the Eel Pie Island footbridge also evokes times gone by.

The 55-250 mm lens set at almost full zoom enabled me to shoot the ice cream van from about 70 yards away. The lens has a very narrow angle of view at this setting which I chose in order to have control of what’s in the background.

If  I’d used the standard kit lens even at the full 55mm zoom the angle of view would have been so wide as to capture the boat shed and power lines on the Island behind.  Not what was wanted. I set the camera on “P” mode for these shots. In this mode, unlike full auto setting all the manual controls function while the camera sets a reasonable aperture/shutter speed combination. 

The 55-250mm lens performed well on this trip. I didn’t come across any fast-moving subjects to test the continuous autofocus but in general the focussing was fast and the Image stabilizer allowed me to use shutter speeds of around 100th of a second when fully zoomed in.

 The maximum aperture of f5.6 (when fully zoomed-in) does need to be used quite often when shooting in lower light levels and as with most affordable lenses it isn’t totally sharp at this setting.  Things do improve, however below f8  and considering that  it costs less than £200, can be carried in a baggy pocket and extends the capabilities of your DSLR massively, it’s got to be a bargain.