Landscape photography made simple

Landscape photography might be an appropriate header for just a few of the images in this post but it is the very nature of the landscape at Dungeness in Kent that makes these images work. There are abandoned fishing boats and old tarred huts all around our coast but rarely can the be observed in such a sparse and open environment as at Dungeness.

Photography here is simple and rewarding.  A large area of shingle not far from the Prospect Cottage where the late Derek Jarman built his exquisite garden provides a great backdrop with items of interest broadly scattered in a Sea Cabbage strewn shingle waste land.

The day of the visit, which was a one-to-one training session was set some weeks ago so we had to go with whatever weather and light prevailed and the  brilliant unbroken sunshine that covered most of Britain on our scheduled day was far from ideal for photography but we did have the benefit of clear blue skies which, with their relatively low luminance  (brightness) tend not to blow out and become pure white thereby requiring tedious work on the computer adding stock skies.

We walked the area extensively before getting the cameras out and unusually on this occasion at my client’s request I was shooting as well. We set our cameras to shoot raw images thereby ensuring the highest possible image quality with a view to converting most of our pictures to black and white – often a good move when shooting under harsh sunlight.

It’s essential to spend plenty of time planning your shots, the juxtaposition of items within the landscape, the foreground and the distant horizon all need to be considered carefully before shooting just one or two shots of your chosen scene and then perhaps repeating the operation from adifferent perspective.  I used a Fuji X100 fixed lens rangefinder style camera which was set at 200 iso and f8 for a good depth of focus and optimal lens performance. The camera was a joy to use, exposures and focusing were spot on in every shot.

The colours of Dungeness are muted and heavily weathered, with often several layers of paint in random colours. Under better light they would have come across beautifully in the main images but on this occasion I used colour in just a few semi-abstract shots.

As we progressed along the shingle towards the lighthouse and power station we entered an area where fishing was still going on. It was cluttered, messy and unbelievably rubbish strewn – mainly discarded nets, and provided little in the way of interesting subjects.

The images were processed in Adobe Lightroom, a fast and accurate piece of software that is sparing on computer resources and although not as versatile as Photoshop enabled us to do everything required to our images.  I’ve been playing with the Fuji X100 off and on for around a year now,  it takes incredible quality images and with the latest firmware update its performance has improved substantially, fast enough now for street photography perhaps? The fixed semi wide-angle lens is probably close to ideal for that kind of shooting.

Every picture tells the story

A recent review from the SWPP of the Impending Canon compact killer, the G1X revealed that it had totally failed to capture the actions of a hyperactive dog frolicking in the park (apart from a prolonged mud bath). It’s something I’ve long been aware of with the G series cameras, superb lightweight gear for landscapers but if it’s action you’re after the camera is just too slow to respond in every way.

So when I walked in on a pizza making session involving three generations of the Perkins family, plus a friend I couldn’t resist grabbing the Fuji X10 from the glove compartment to see  how it would measure up to the task.

For the amateur photographer who may well find himself short on subjects, no impending Eastern Europe city breaks or traction engine rallies, creating a picture story may well be an interesting project.

The light was bright for an interior with  harsh raw sunlight occasionally bursting through the window. I set the camera to shoot Raw files, set the mode dial to P – programme auto – where the camera sets both the aperture and the shutter speed (with small sensor cameras large apertures tend to be chosen automatically) and the iso was set to 400.

A hurried and bad choice of settings, With shutter speeds of around a 200th of a second and apertures of around f2.8 I could have certainly worked at 200 Iso and possibly even 160 either of which would have reduced the image noise or digital grain with a risk of a little subject motion blur which, in my opinion often brings life to an Image.

I’m  immensely fond of the X10.  During the pizza shoot  its response times were fantastic, pretty well up to entry-level DSLR speed, in fact I don’t recall missing a shot. But Image noise is a real issue and shooting raw has produced some unpleasant surprises. The early test images from the x10 were all based on Jpeg images, not surprisingly because Adobe had not then updated the Raw converters to read the Fuji files for Photoshop and Lightroom, and they were impressive, right up to 1600 iso. The raw images at 400 iso are sadly very noisy and even applying noise reduction in Lightroom I was unable to achieve a decent noise level without playing havoc with the skin tones, at full size it looks like everyone in the pizza party has stage makeup smeared on their faces.

So next time I’ll shoot at a lower ISO and  place more reliance on the x10’s superb image stabilizer. I’ll choose Aperture priority on the mode dial and set the largest aperture, no problem with the superb Fujinon lens. I’ll also try a few Jpegs as well as raw – Lightroom treats them just the same so it will be easy to see how things compare. I believe that lowering the sensor’s resolution to 6 mega pixels is also an option at higher isos ( Don’t know the details as I haven’t explored this are yet) and according to some reviews this creates a massive reduction of noise.

The x10 is certainly producing the best out of  compact camera jpegs I’ve seen and perhaps this is the way ahead, as a raw shooter it’s certainly counter intuitive but in Lightroom at least, image processing is just as fast for jpegs as raw so this may well be the way ahead.

I muted the colour a little in Lightroom by the way just to give the snaps a little more of a Mama’s kitchen feel.

There’s a massive X10 thread on talkphotography at the moment and I’ve just posted a question about the X10 raw image quality there.  Having had little time this winter to dabble with the camera  it will be interesting to hear what the more experienced users have to say.

Update 11th March. According to Duncan from talkphotography, probably the most experienced x10 user around, I may have been a little harsh with my criticism of the Image quality of this set (Duncan examined full size images) and I think he’s probably right.

Experimenting recently I achieved Nikon D40 quality images by setting the image size at M, (6 mega pixels), and shooting jpegs at 1000 iso. So I shall persist when time permits, perhaps using the sweep panorama mode at 120  or 180 degrees and sweeping with the camera held vertically to give the images a greater vertical pixel count.

Urban panoramas perhaps, panoramas providing a new perspective on our decaying High Streets. Essential ingredient – NO CARS. They are the greatest of all image pollutants and very difficult to remove in Photoshop. I guess I need to hunt down Red Routes!

Sublime images of the unfreezing north

Ragnar Axelsson is one of those photographers who make me wonder why I bother to take pictures at all.

Iceland’s best known photojournalist  , Axelsson generally known as Rax has recently published  The Last Days Of The Arctic a photographic essay which documents the changes he’s observed in the polar region over the last 25 years years. The images are, however far from being just documentary record shots, as works of art alone the images are outstanding, sparse and understated, monochromatic almost by necessity they are the absolute antithesis of fads like HDR  (High dynamic range photography).

My favourite image from the book is the storm scene, it’s individual elements beautifully juxtaposed within the landscape it is quite one of the most beautiful photographic images I’ve ever seen.  Lens flare from the Arctic sun Leads our eye into the picture.

Axelsson is a truly remarkable photographer but he does have an advantage. The bleak, wide open landscapes within which he works do provide a clean often beautifully graded structure in which his subjects lie.  And it’s uncluttered structure that lends his  images a wonderful clarity.  As a city dweller and worker, I’m very envious.

Axelsson’s superb images are on display at the Proud Galleries Chelsea at the moment, and if you do invest, make sure it’s a silver gelatin print produced by the man himself rather than an inkjet or so called “gyclee fine art” print. More about that another time.

One final note.  As far as I’m aware Rax shoots film rather than digital using Leicas primarily. Why? Well there’s the sheer quality and feel of film, after all I actually bought software (Silver Efex Pro) to try to create film-like images from digital – I guess it goes back to my formative years shooting on Kodak (R.I.P) Tri-X.  But not least, working in cold battery-killing temperatures the lightweight and compact Leica  M6  takes beautiful pictures and is almost entirely manual  using just two non-essential button batteries to power the exposure meter.

Brilliant software deals from Amazon

Adobe Lightroom 3 is probably the best available photo editing software out there so far as photographers are concerned, short on gimmicks but fast, intuitive and sparing with your computer resources it provides all the enthusiastic amateur or busy pro requires.

If you want to download your images, correct the tones and colours, make local adjustments and perhaps convert to black and white or tone your images Lightroom has all the tools you need plus a host of image cataloguing, viewing  and resizing options all of which can normally be carried out in a fraction of the time you’d spend in Photoshop.

Unlike Photoshop and Elements Lightroom does not save the full file of an edited image but just the edit settings thereby reducing the amount of disk space required.

Amazon are currently offering Lightroom 3 (which will upgrade to 3.6 when you update free online) for an amazing £95.00.  The educational version for students etc (check out the licence requirements before buying) is £40  from what I remember.

Lightroom 4 is on the way but don’t hesitate with this offer, 3.6 is truly the bees knees, I use it for my work and I’ve just bought another licence (you can use it on 2 machines) for Phototuition photography courses .

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 – Fully booked

Saturday 25^th February – Fully booked

Saturday 3^rd March

Saturday 17^th March

Saturday  31^st March

Saturday  7^th March

Saturday  14^th March

Update – These sessions have now been discontinued. Ultimately I’m primarily a one-to-one teacher and teaching 3 people with very varied experience, equipment and personal objectives proved not to be ideal.

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.