One of my favourite online galleries

I found this ages ago and it's just gotten better and better. The domain is very easy to remember and this site must have been around for a very long time to get a two letter domain name.

http://1x.com/

There's even humourous photos for those in need of a laugh.

http://1x.com/photos/humour/34829/

Flower

This was shot in daylight in someone's front garden near where I live.

This image is nice because the shallow depth of field works. The muted
colours is done by turning the original image black and white then
overlaying a colour version. I've blurred the colour version using
simple Guassian blur to give a diffuse quality. I'd prefer to have used
a wider focal length. a 50mm lens becomes a 80mm lens on the cropped
camera sensor.

This is an image effect I couldn't seem to get from Adobe Lightroom.
Lightroom's still the better choice for the professional photographer.
The digital noise reduction on Lightroom is considerably better than
with UFRaw though I've not searched extensively for open source
alternatives. It may be hard to find one however the latest version of
UFRaw (my personal favourite open source RAW converter) has built-in
lens correction algorithms for many Canon lenses (albeit not very easy
to use ones and probably nothing like as good as Dx0). I still feel the
quality from UFRaw and Gimp is astounding and they're both free.

I think Adobe have been careful to leave out features that are available
in Adobe Photoshop. Lightroom is carefully marketed as a photographer's
product. It lacks basic tools many photographers are used to, for
example layers, and this omission is to maintain the price and value of
the more expensive and versatile Adobe Photoshop. It's a shame because
if it ha all the features integrated the £230 price tag for Lightroom
would be an bargain. It's still a bargain with the high ISO noise
reduction and much, much faster workflow which is in part due to it's
dual processor-optimisation which is something that, alas, Gimp doesn't
have.

To put the price into perspective, some photographers value wide
apertures and fast film/sensors. A Canon 50mm f1.8 Mk II costs £100. The
next model up which eschews the exotic L-series glass of the top of the
range 50mm is the Canon 50mm f1.4 and this is around 3 times the price
of the cheapest lens, which is what I use. It's almost a license for
Lightroom on its own. In terms of light sensitivity and quality, the
same difference is visible in the difference between the entry level
500D and next model up which I use (the 550D is the very latest entry
level camera and the Canon 60D will be released this year) as is the
doubling in price for the higher quality at higher ISO camera - from
around £500 to £1000.

Learning to use the software is as important as taking the picture. The
RAW image is just the beginning just like the unexposed negative was the
start of the journey to the final print or electronic display.

--

Canon 50D & Canon 50mm f1.8
edited with Gimp and UFRaw

Ain't nothing but the blues

Some images from a Blues bar in central London.

I've written about blues music and how it may have been a coping mechanism for misery. It ain't called the Blues for no reason.

--

Canon 50D & Canon 50mm f1.8
edited with Gimp and UFRaw

Versions

This is what I mean about versions.

Shot in the markets near Angel Station.

Canon 40D

A lesson for me

I've been concerned my photography has got worse over the last 6 months. That may or may not be true.

I took this about a year and a half ago. It's a significant photo. I took it on the night I got together with an amazing person. Oh how I miss you my love. Whenever I see this image I'll always think of you.

I wondered if it was my equipment. The lens I used to use was a professional Canon lens and since it broke I've had to make do without a replacement.

I used to take a lot longer with my images. This is one of two versions of this image. Some images I'd do several version of then choose the best through a lengthy process. I'd take time to correct a shot carefully and do the fine detail work. This image took about an hours work and I hope the work that's gone into it can't be seen.

I think it's the latter and not the former. Good work takes time.

--

Canon 40D and Canon 28-70mm f2.8 L

Aperture and Depth of Field (DoF)

An alternative to the information on this page can be found here:

http://www.shortcourses.com/use/using1-9.html

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Three elements affect exposure: aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

Aperture

Aperture is the size of one of the basic elements of a lens that controls the amount of light getting through and the amount of the scene that is in focus (Depth of Field). There's an element of every lens that controls the size of a circle that lets light through the lens onto the film or sensor.

Depth of Field

The aperture controls the Depth of Field. This is the amount of the scene that is in focus. This is the most important effect of aperture and its worth understanding because its a useful creative tool. Often portraits are shot with a shallow or thin depth of field so the subject (the person being shot) is in focus and the background is out of focus. Often landscape photographs are shot with a large depth of field to get everything pin sharp (the photographer's expression for "very sharp") from a rock in the foreground to the clouds in the background. Closeup shots of flowers want a medium depth of field for reasons I'll explain later.

F-numbers

Aperture is measured in f-numbers, like f2.8 (a shallow depth of field), f11 (a medium DoF) or f22 (a large DoF). The easy way to remember the relationship between aperture number and DoF is the smaller the f-number the less of the scene is in focus.

F-number's aren't measured like 1, 2, 3. The numbers used in camera are:

1.0 1.4 1.8 2.8 4 5.6 8 11 16 22 32

Each relates to a bigger DoF going from left to right (----->)

Each is also a step smaller aperture, i.e. the aperture is smaller and less light gets through. This won't affect the image quality because the camera will automatically adjust the shutter speed to let in more light.

Wiki has a useful page if you want to get into some of the science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number

A quick note on terminology

Between each f-stop is a "stop", so there's two stops between f1.0 and f1.8. One stop is half or twice as much light getting through, so there's a quarter less light getting through between f1.8 and f1.0 or four times as much light at f1.0 or two stops difference. This also applies to shutter speeds so there's two stops between 1/15 second and 1/90 of a second (which go up and down in a linear way). Half a stop is the difference between f6.3 and f8.

"Stopping down" is the jargon used for reducing the aperture or closing it down to get more DoF. Shooting "wide open" is the lens used at its widest aperture or smallest f-number (e.g. f2.8) to let in the most light for high shutter speeds in low light.

These are the basic. Read more once I write the creative aperture page.

Taking photos without a camera

This is a technique for learning photography. It can be done anywhere. Its partly about learning to see differently and partly about practicing thinking.

Look for photographs. See the beauty around you. Think how you would capture it. Think how it would come out. Imagine what might work and not work.

This can be done while waiting for a bus, walking to work, walking around in a park, at a wedding. Just take a moment to look around for a photograph. Think about how you would compose the shot. Think about the focal length, the aperture and shutter speed. Think about how the light is working. Think about what you might have to do to compensate for the camera's light meter getting it wrong. Look for the angle to capture the shot: is it best shot close up or portrait format.