Canada Geese (Three Photographs)
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Two Canada Geese were wailing and flying close to where I was and I thought it might be fun to get them in flight. They moved fast and I could not get both in the frame, then they handed hard with great splashes of water and I kept shooting only to see what you see in the last shot. It certainly was not a fight, I left them alone and walked away.
The Auto Show (Two Photographs)
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An Auto Show was held simultaneously with a Doors Open day, where many buildings gave tours, including the National radio station, and buildings of parliament, all bordering the Auto Show. It was a bit crowded and getting shots with the fewest people and other distractions proved interesting. The cars were plastered with posters. Cars at one time, had really distinctive style, and I wanted to emphasize that. In this case I prefer the B&W version as I think it shows the car off best.
Inventive Risk (Three Photographs)
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These photographs have nothing in common except my desire to take some liberties in processing. In the first, the forced perspective (unusual juxtaposition) of the live subjects and the memorial to 1815 just caught my fancy and the B&W added some drama. The second photo in color reminded me of old-time double exposures with date expired film. In facts it’s a reflection in a window. The B&W reminds me of the old high contrast Tri-X film. Sometimes it’s worth going beyond the boundaries and taking an inventive risk for the hell of it.
Manual (Two Photographs)
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I have been trying Auto-ISO with my camera in manual exposure mode, thus whatever aperture or shutter speed I choose; the camera adjusts the ISO. This allows me to more quickly and easily shift to a high shutter speed for birds in flight or a smaller aperture for insects. In practice exposure compensation still needs fiddling with as the cameras exposure meter is still only a guide to exposure. So far manual exposure with auto ISO seems to me to be increasingly workable.
Taking Things for Granted (Two Photographs)
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I was testing some new settings on my camera and saw this robin on the grass, and took the shot as a test. I probably would not have taken the shot had I not wanted to try something new. When I got home I realized how few Robins I have actually shot. I think their being common made me take them for granted. Also being for the most part ground birds it’s not easy to get good backgrounds. The defiant stance caught my attention and hence the publication of this photo.
Photographing Ladybugs (or Ladybirds if you prefer)
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There are several types of Ladybugs; all of them are beetles not true bugs. They can move fast, not as fast as ants but fast. I have only once in many shoots have them fly away but they do run and hide. When flying they look flies and their red shells are hard to see. The shell divides to allow the wings to emerge. The shell is also reflective as you can see in the photo; this means you can get reflections from sunlight and flash. If you do not use flash, a high shutter speed of at least 1/500th of a second is essential to get sharp photos. The closer you are the more depth of field you will need to capture the insect. Getting a photograph where you can see the eyes is not easy as they are almost always partially covered by the shell. That said these are interesting creatures to photograph, if only because of the contrast in color between the insects and their habitual surroundings.
A Quirk of Aperture (Three Photographs)
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Shooting with a cropped sensor (e.g. one that is one half the size of a full frame camera) has a few implications, one of which is that you need to think about apertures multiplied by the crop factor. This means that small sensors have greater depth of field at the stated aperture than a full frame camera would at the same aperture. Now if you look at the second and the third photograph, they were taken at F5.6 and F5.0 and the difference should be quite noticeable as it’s a full stop difference in full-frame terms. I hear someone say “why compare it to full frame if I am not using a full frame camera?” Because for close-up and macro photography you have the kind of flexibility that full frame cameras do not offer (and it’s a myth that you lose out on great out of focus backgrounds).
