here and there photography

We Are Moving

2009-01-05T04:12:00.001-08:00

Hey there guys,

I know I am a little late but Happy New Year!

I wanted to go over a few things about the blog. We moved from blogger to wordpress and also changed the URL a little bit. I basically joined Hatphoto with Nomagicpill so that I can keep it on my own server and URL we there are no additional costs and also without having to suffer the crap with free services not being as flexible as I like it to be.

So http://hatphoto.nomagicpill.org is the new URL

Also Victor from the flickr forums will be joining the writing team. He has happily offered help out with his vast knowledge of photography. From Rob and The Lassie and myself we welcome you to the blog!

We also have finally set up a flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/hatphoto/ so please sign up and enter your photos in the pool. Soon we will be setting up competitions every month.

After that its going to be business as usual.

Enjoy!

Watch out for the BBC

2008-12-05T01:24:00.001-08:00

Today on the BBC.co.uk I saw an ad that said "your pictures, your world. Send us your photos"

It caught my interest as I always look over the "your images" section in each region of the UK because it can give me some insperation.

The basic idea is that you just send in your pictures, you can match the monthly themes or just take pictures of current events.

No competition so you win nothing. But you can get bragging rights!

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7746570.stm

So now to the terms and conditions ON THAT PAGE!

Terms and conditions

If you submit an image, you do so in accordance with the BBC's

Terms and Conditions.

In contributing to BBC News you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way that we want, and in any media worldwide. This may include the transmission of the material by our overseas partners; these are all reputable foreign news broadcasters who are prohibited from altering the material in any way or making it available to other UK broadcasters or to the print media. (See the Terms and Conditions for the full terms of our rights.)

It's important to note, however, that you still own the copyright to everything you contribute to BBC News and that if your image and/or video is accepted, we will endeavour to publish your name alongside it on the BBC News website. Please note that due to operational reasons this accreditation will probably not be possible with video. The BBC cannot guarantee that all pictures and/or video will be used and we reserve the right to edit your comments.

At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.

You can choose any subject to photograph, but don't forget to ask permission from parents or guardians if the subject is under 16.

These rules are governed by the laws of England and Wales.

Now although I hate the "In contributing to BBC News you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way that we want, and in any media worldwide." part, it still means you hold some rights to the image. Later they explain you still hold copywrite.

So we move on to the next part. "This may include the transmission of the material by our overseas partners; these are all reputable foreign news broadcasters who are prohibited from altering the material in any way or making it available to other UK broadcasters or to the print media. (See the Terms and Conditions for the full terms of our rights.)" Meaning that they wont change what you submit in any way and they wont give or sell to any other media group or publication but see T&C for full terms...............

Notice my long pause.... I read the FULL T&C link they provided!

www.bbc.co.uk/terms/

Contributions to the BBC

6. By sharing any contribution (including any text, photographs, graphics, video or audio) with the BBC you agree to grant to the BBC, free of charge, permission to use the material in any way it wants (including modifying and adapting it for operational and editorial reasons) for BBC services in any media worldwide (including on the BBC's site accessed by international users). In certain circumstance the BBC may also share your contribution with trusted third parties*.

That means they do in fact get to change your material... I mean cropping I get if the image does not fit but what is "editorial reasons"? Reading on again, "in certain circumstance the BBC may also share your contribution with trusted third parties" They just told us before that they wont share with third parties? But in the full terms they say with can if they want too...

I clicked the link to submit a photo and looked for the T&C agreement details... "By sending your content, you agree to our
Terms and Conditions" the link goes to www.bbc.co.uk/terms/ meaning they can do what they want except sell the images.

Your not agreeing to the bull in the first page but rather the more open terms I have an issue with...

BAD BBC! BAD!

Grey Day In The Grey City

2008-12-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

I went out for a Photowalk around Portsmouth, UK, on Saturday. It was overcast and raining - a perfect backdrop for the '70s style concrete buildings, Battleship Grey Warships, and the economic mood at the moment.

Grabbed this one between rain showers - an old Multi-Storey Car Park, well past its prime. Did concrete ever look good?

The light was bad - I had to use High Iso's to maintain a decent shutter speed when shooting hand-held, so lots of these shots were grainy and a bit soft.

This was taken near one of the University buildings, on my way back to the ferry. I didn't realise it, but as I was lining up the composition in my viewfinder a queue of pedestrians had stopped while I took the picture - I jumped a mile when I looked away from my camera and saw them all patiently waiting!

The main reason for Portsmouth's existence - The Royal Navy Dockyard. This is Ark Royal and Illustrious, two small carriers designed to carry Harrier Jump Jets, as seen by the Ski-Jumps on the bows of both vessels.

You can catch up with the rest of the set on my blog, and I'm planning to return to Portsmouth soon, maybe on a day with some well-defined clouds in the sky for dramatic effect...

Cheers, Rob.

Lighting - Constant source pros and cons

2008-11-26T02:19:00.000-08:00

Hey there, it’s been a while since I last posted so I am sorry for the delay.

In the effort to learn how to control light I thought I would start with the easiest: constant light source.

An example would lamps, torches and hell you could even use your monitor (but the monitor thing is another post).

I took a little trip to Ikea and bought the following items for my shoot:

RIAN - Small white table with metal legs
LAGRA - Super cheap and small lamps (I got 3)
POLARVIDE - White blanket for background.

I then put them together into the following setup

Using the table I attached the lamps and blanket to it to make a miniature studio. I then used a Canon 450D I had on loan from a friend to make some pretty cool product shots of the cameras I own.

After just before I packed up, it dawned on me that I could try something else. I turned the lamps so they pointed upward and then put a figurine in the middle... This created an excluding effect where only the figurine where in view and the background was not in view. Remember I did this in a dark room in the first place.

As you can see the effect is remarkable. Even the white table with the glare from the table looks like fog.

Cons

Some bulbs give off a tinted light so that you might get a yellow tint on everything you take.
It is messy with all the cables around. Defiantly a heath hazard
The lamps/bulbs are not so strong so you always need them near your subject
It will never be a bright as flash.
Not combatable with store bought filters and diffusers.
Outdoor photography is almost not possible.

Pros

Instead of taking shots all the time to see if you got the setup correct, you can just look up from the camera and decide if you need to move something. Everything is just instant.
A much cheaper solution than using flash all the time.
If you buy the lamps you can clamp then you have an almost unlimited range to where you can put the lights.
When it brakes its easy and cheap to replace.

In conclusion I found this system very effective in lighting product and macro shots. But I still think that flash should be used for portrait photos using the correct setup.

The Return of HDR (To My Work-Flow At Least...)

2008-11-22T03:15:00.000-08:00

I have to admit I've been avoiding HDR recently due to two reasons. Firstly my main computer died a few months ago, and my back-up PC is very slow, so it's a pain to process and work on the images. Secondly I was getting tired of the "HDR Look", you know, over-processed false looking images.

I'm not saying that my HDR's look natural, but I've tried to reign in my enthusiasm and use a bit of subtlety - mainly by converting strong HDR's to black and white!

Yesterday I also had the opportunity to shoot inside a church, The Holy Trinity in Gosport, but I didn't have much time, so shot hand-held and relied on my S5700's auto-bracketing:

I use Photomatix to process the three images - one just right, and an under and over-exposed shot, usually by + / - 1ev. I'd have liked to shoot a wider range of bracketed exposures to get deeper images, but I was too pushed for time.

After fiddling with the settings in Photomatix Detail Enhance I save the Tone Mapped image as an 8 bit TIFF, then use my usual processing techniques in Elements. It's laborious on my old PC, but I think I'll start doing it more often....

Cheers, Rob.

Build Your Own Beach Macro Set

2008-11-13T23:39:00.000-08:00

The weathers bad, it's pouring down outside, you're not feeling too well anyway, so what do you do? Build your own indoor beach set!

I was still feeling the effects of a bout of 'flu yesterday, but after watching Andreas Feiningers Video on Youtube, I fancied having a go at a similar macro type shot.

If you'd like to recreate the look too, you'll need an old baking tray, some sand (or pebbles), something to brush the sand, a subject (in my case a piece of potpourri), a printed out back-drop (it's a strange colour in my set because my printer was running out of ink) and a tripod:

I used my camera in macro mode, with a large aperture (f3.5) to reduce the depth of field - I specifically wanted the background out of focus. I wasn't worried about the white-balance because I knew I'd be converting to black and white.

In Photoshop Elements I stripped out the colour, played with the levels, then applied a Gaussian blur to the foreground and background, masking out the subject.

Next time I'll try and get more texture into the sand, try a different background, and play around with light more.

Here's my first go:

Cheers, Rob.

An Hour With Joe McNally

2008-11-09T00:59:00.000-08:00

Joe McNally, professional Photographer with National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Life, and many more, recently gave a talk as part of the "Authors at Google Series".

Joe talks about his career, what inspires him, and how he keeps his enthusiasm in an ever more competitive arena.

A versatile Photographer, shooting from the top of the Empire State Buildings Radio Antennae, the deserts of Africa, and using the worlds largest Polaroid Camera to record the heroes of 9/11, this is a man well worth listening to. Enjoy.

Check out Joe's Blog, and his main website.

If you fancy watching more videos with photographers, check out these interviews.

Cheers, Rob.

Look Up, Look Down, Look All Around

2008-11-05T03:17:00.000-08:00

As photographers we all have at least one thing in common. We tend to take photographs of what we would normally be looking at as we're walking around, standing up and usually parallel to the ground.

It can be fun to break out of this habit and look at things from a different angle, and this can often produce some unusual images. I'm talking about kneeling down, lying on the floor, pointing the camera up, down, at angles, etc, anything that we would normally not see on a photowalk.

Of course to capture these types of photographs, you've constantly got to be scanning your environment - that's where the "Look Up, Look Down... etc" bit comes in. As you're walking along, try and constantly be searching for unusual angles, shapes and subjects.

When you find something that catches your eye, obviously use different focal lengths, change your physical distance from your subject. Maybe try shooting at from below, pointing up, or the opposite. Look for interesting vantage points that will give you an unusual perspective.

Don't worry about getting to close - make your subject abstract.

Turn the camera on it's side to really confuse your viewers.

When you've finished, and are walking to the next location, look over your shoulder and see if you've missed an angle, or come back later (maybe when the light's different) to get a fresh view.

Any subject can be shot an infinite number of ways, so just remember -

"Look up, look down, look all around!"

Cheers, Rob.

Before You Go Out Shooting - Check Your Wife!

2008-10-29T02:45:00.000-07:00

Following on from The Laddies excellent post about never missing a shot, I thought I'd share the acronym I use to make sure I don't go out with the wrong settings in my camera - WIFE..

W = White Balance. Go into your camera's settings menu and make sure you're set to Auto, so you don't end up trying to take landscape photo's with an incandescent setting....

I = ISO. Make sure the ISO setting in your camera is nice and low, preferably at the lowest level your camera will allow, maybe 64, 100 or 200. There's nothing worse than coming back from a shoot to find all your pics are noisy because you shot them at ISO 800.

F = Focus. I always check that my camera is in auto-focus mode, single focus (rather than continuous, which reduces battery life), and centre focus, rather than multi or area.

E = Exposure. This is all about checking how your camera "meters" the scene for light. I like to use "Multi", and knock down the exposure by 1/3 ev using Exposure Compensation. I also make sure my camera's in its "Fuji-Chrome" colour mode. You've got to check your photometry because if you're in spot metering, you'll find that lots of your photos will be over / under exposed and you won't know why.

I hope this helps in your pre-shoot camera checks, and if you'd like to hear a little more about my shooting routine, check out Podcast 17 on robnunnphoto.com.

Cheers, Rob.

Stuck For Ideas? Simplify!

2008-10-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it can be quite a challenge to come with ideas of new things to shoot, but a technique that I've started to use recently is to really simplify some of my subjects.

I try to get in close, use a longer focal length, or change my framing to come up with some almost abstract photographs.

It's often a case of looking around for subjects that can be isolated from surrounding distractions, to remove the context and be just left with an idea.

Another option is to look for shapes and colours, and make them the subject of your photograph, you'll be surprised at what you start to "see" when you forget about the "big picture" and concentrate on the details.

Old buildings are great subjects for this - I love windows, doors, brickwork and the textures and colours you can discover.

Cheers, Rob.

Laddies Guide to Never Missing A Shot

2008-10-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

Makes you cringe just to look at it doesn't it! photographers worst nightmare is to just be a second off capturing a perfect shot. Wildlife photographers especially know this feeling with how unpredictable the animal kingdom can be.

I want to share a few tips for you to use when your out for a shoot.

Keep your camera on at all times from the start to finish of your shoot. Most cameras have a auto turn off setting which I normally avoid by zooming in and back out ever now and again to make the camera think its still in use.
Take two extra sets of batteries. Assuming your in a day shoot (no flash) and your out for an hour you will likely not need the spare set but you can't be too careful. Generally though its good practice.
Clear memory cards. Again generally a good idea.
Set to Aperture priority mode so that you don't need to fuss too much with the settings but still have a level of control (this is personal preference, you might like Shutter priority mode or even still want Full Manual mode instead).
Keep the camera on a strap and around your neck or in hand. Nothing worse than seeing something zoom pass and your fumbling in your camera bag.
Decide on your lens and keep your second choice close to hand if you want to switch.
If you need a tripod then remember to keep the attaching plate on the camera at all times and the tripod out of the case (maybe extended but thats again personal preference).
If you have continuous mode on your camera then keep it set to that. This is there you can hold the shutter release button down and you just keep taking pictures until you release the button.

Now if your going to your local store for a bag of crisps and you happen to have your camera with you then don't worry about these tips. This is for only when you are going out for a photo walk or an actual shoot somewhere.

Then I hope that with these tips you don't cut the head off a swan like I did.

Happy shooting ;-)

Places I Like To Shoot - From Monks Walk To The Forton Lake Bridge

2008-10-17T00:03:00.000-07:00

If I want to go out for a quick, local photowalk, one of my favourite places has to be the part of Gosport that backs onto Portsmouth Harbour.

About a quarter of a mile from my front door the area called monks walk starts - that includes a wooded area that runs adjacent to the Royal Navy's armament depot, only frequented by dog walkers and the local wildlife.

As I head east, towards the harbour, the trees thin out and you get the first views of Priddys Hard, home of numerous yachts, The Hardway Sailing Club, and a few old Royal Navy Warships awaiting the scrap yard.

I've then got to take a short cut through a small industrial estate, through Hardway Village, then down the slip-way to Priddys Hard, where there's a better view of the destroyers.

A little bit further up, past the Sailing Club, you can get a better view of Priddys Hard, and it makes a great scene for photographs, especially if there's some dramatic clouds around.

Sadly one of the biggest scrap ships, an old Assault Ship, either HMS fearless or Intrepid, has been moved, but it always used to be one of may favourite subjects.

About five minutes further is the Explosion! Museum, dedicated to the weapons used by the Royal Navy through the ages.

The end point for my walk, unless I want to carry on into Gosport Town itself, is the Forton Lake Bridge, a great vantage point for watching warships being moved around the harbour, and a nice subject itself.

So, that's one of my favourite photowalks - no matter how often I go back, I always notice something new, or the light / weather are different - I never tire of it.

Cheers, Rob.

Light & Dark

2008-10-15T05:34:00.000-07:00

In an effort to understand flash photography more I wanted to return to the basics with lighting and how it works in different situations.

So today I went out for my lunch brake and took some shots focusing on side light.

I set the camera to ISO 100 Shutter to about 120 and my Aperture to 3.5.

It was very badly overcast and getting solid contrasting shots of light and dark was going to be tricky.

What happens when it is overcast is the clouds diffuse the light and send it all over the place almost deleting the shadows of everything. Try it go out side in a overcast day and you will see that you have almost no shadow (or non at all). When there are little or no clouds the sun is like a spot light focusing light into one point or rather direction.

Then I came across a door at the Dom. It is 2 to 3 meters high and has made of some sort of metal. It is sculpted into several images of birds and angels. In the center there are 2 men facing each other and there expressions really speak for them selfs.

Using the door itself as a shield to the light I was able to get the light and dark effect I wanted.

If I where to recreate this with flash it would be known as a side light. This is where the flash would be placed to one side of the subject and thus creating a stark contrast of light and dark.

I have only really seen this used in Portrait photos but I think that if it works for other things then go ahead and try it.

My "Go To" Photowalk - Priddys Hard, Gosport

2008-10-14T13:13:00.000-07:00

To be honest I'm a creature of habit, especially if the light is bad (as it was today, grey and bland), so if I want to get out and get some exercise, and maybe take some photographs too, I often walk along Priddys Hard, Gosport.

If you install Google Earth, you can download the .kmz file I created today with my Qstarz GPS Photo Tagger, follow my track, and have a look at some photos I took too.

Download my .kmz track file for Priddys Hard, Gosport.

Cheers, Rob.

Flash: Blow out

2008-10-13T01:44:00.000-07:00

I wanted to try something new one night with the S5700 and use the inbuilt flash to take a interesting picture I had found.

My walk home from the train station takes me past a supermarket that was built there not too long ago. They kept a wall from the old building in order to protect the local residents from the cars and the people making noises with their karts. Well they left the doorway in the wall and it was just ripe for the picking.

As you can see I used flash to bring the doorway into view and thats where the problem lies. The flash had made the doorway too bright.

I have a major issue with controlling light for pictures... Its one thing to accept what you are given in terms of daylight but a whole new ball game to control your own light using flash.

As I hunt for a solution I will share with you my findings and what I have learned.

Digital Fujifilm S5700 vs Film Minolta SRT101

2008-10-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

Following on from The Laddies excellent comparison between his Fujifilm S5700 and the Canon 450d, I thought readers may be interested in a comparison between my S5700 and an old Minolta SRT101 Film SLR.

I took the photographs during part of the same photowalk, albeit at slightly different times and with slightly different compositions.

All the film shots were taken with my 50mm F1.4 MC Rokkor lens on the front of my SRT101.

This first one was taken with the Minolta Film SLR:

Here's the Digital version taken with my S5700:

This is another Film Version from my Minolta:

Then a similar Digital Photograph from my S5700:

Film:

Digital:

Film:

Digital:

You may wonder why I bought a 1970's Film SLR. The reason was price - it cost £10 from our local car boot sale, so I wasn't going to pass up that bargain, and its the only way I'm going to get the chance to play with SLR lenses for a while.

I may have only put one roll of film through my SRT101 (I've got new film in the SRT101 and a X300s, but haven't finished them yet!), but those 24 exposures were a great learning experience in themselves.

The Minolta SRT 101 is a fully manual camera. You have to choose the aperture, shutter speed (the ISO depends on the film you use), and focus it manually too. This means you spend more time on each exposure, the whole process slows you down, giving you the time to think about composition and light. The fact that you've only got 24 exposures makes you really scan the viewfinder, reviewing your choice of scene, forcing you to think about your photography so much more.

This is a complete opposite to what most people say about digital - where you can click away, taking hundreds of shots and simply picking out "the keepers" and throwing away the rest. You just can't afford to do that with film.

Which do I prefer? My Fujifilm S5700 digital camera. I love digital, I love the immediacy, the possibilities of post-processing and the ease of sharing.

The Film SLR is a learning tool, something that I'm so glad to have tried (and to still use), and the £10 I spent on the Minolta, and the £7 I spent on processing, are probably the best money I've spent to improve my photography. And nothing beats looking at your images as nice glossy prints.

Cheers, Rob.

Festival of lights!

2008-10-10T02:31:00.001-07:00

Coming soon to Berlin is the festival of lights. Starting on the 14th of October and finishing on the 26th.

The Idea is that they use lights to color in the different landmarks and buildings. Also they use lights for more arty things like the picture with this post.

I just happen to work where they press center is for the FOL and they used overhead projectors to project moving lights onto these glass tiles. I'll be honest it so impressively simple.

Anyways check out at http://www.festival-of-lights.de/

Light weight vs. heavy weight

2008-10-09T04:15:00.000-07:00

Hey there I am the Laddie all the way in Berlin. Just like Rob I too have a Fuji s5700 but recently I had a opportunity to use a Canon 450D with a Sigma 50mm 1.4 lens.

I wanted to make a little comparison between the cameras more to show my wife that I must have the canon but also to see for myself how well the Canon does.

S5700 -

Canon 450D -

S5700 -

Canon 450D -

S5700 -

Canon 450D -

Of course its not a fair test as the Canon pictures where taken at a better looking day and also I had the sigma lens... I could not possibly hope to get the same results with the S5700.

A Morning Photowalk From Rob

2008-10-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've been renovating our bathroom for the last couple of days, you know the score, grouting the tiles, sealing the tub, working on the floor, so it was about time I got out and took some photographs.

Scrubbing the silicone sealant off my hands, I grabbed my trusty Fujifilm S5700 and headed off out into the Autumn Sunlight...

Lamplight

I'm a creature of habit when it comes to my morning strolls, I like to walk along Priddys Hard, which is the part of Gosport that backs onto Portsmouth Harbour.

It's usually quiet during the week, and I can bop along listening to my ipod, grabbing shots of anything that catches my eye.

Communication

Its always a little tricky to get started - I almost have to force myself to get my camera out of its bag and start shooting, but once I've fired off a few frames I'm into the groove and looking for the next scene.

Spot

For the Black and Whites I strip the colour out using a Hue / Saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop Elements, and play around with colour channels to darken or lighten different parts of the photo. I also apply a levels adjustment layer to add more contrast, and experiment with different blend modes for that layer, usually Overlay or Multiply.

Clouds

As we add more posts you'll see The Laddie and I using Geotagging, where we use GPS Photo Taggers to log the lat / long of our shots, so you can see them on a map, and even follow the paths we took when we create Google Earth .kmz files.

Slipway

It was a nice little photowalk this morning, I enjoyed the exercise, and hope there's some more sunshine tomorrow!

Cheers, Rob.

And Its Hello From Me!

2008-10-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

My name's Rob, the other half of hatphoto. I live in Gosport, Hants, on the South Coast of the UK, a mere 753 miles from Berlin, the home of my partner in crime, The Laddie.

We've started this blog to share our photographic experiences - our different surroundings, approaches to photography, and the techniques we use.

Over the next few months you'll see photowalks from our respective cities, shared photo assignments, DIY Photo Tips (The Laddies Speciality - you've got to try his on-camera flash diffuser, it's great), and hopefully get a taste for our passion for photography and our quest to become better photographers.

You can see more of my stuff on my photoblog, robnunnphoto.com, on flickr, and to keep up with my latest stuff you could always follow me on twitter.

Cheers, Rob (aka scalespeeder).