Missing photographs

I'm afraid you will find a number of photographs missing from older posts on this blog. I managed to delete them without realising what I was actually deleting and it will take a while to sort out what images I actually posted.

The reason they got deleted is that I was thinking about starting a new online gallery and was going to try Picasa and found that I already had an account. In that account were photos which appeared on the blog. I couldn't remember opening this account but assumed I had at sometime and so I deleted all the photos only to find that apparently thats where the photos are stored that appear on the blog. All to do with Google owing everything and linking everything I suppose but it seems you have to be very careful what you are posting where as its likely to turn up all over the place.

I may well try to start a blog with Wordpress and get away from Google but thats in the future. I'll keep posting here for the moment and will try over time to repost the missing photos.

Wither the weather..

Its dire isn't it? I don't mind it being cold if its snowy or bright, plenty of opportunities to take photographs then but when the wind is this bitter and its dull and grey I have to say I don't have the inclination to go and stand around to try and take photographs.

So, what to do? Well, last week was not a good week for photography - or much else come to that. Monday was fairly normal but then on Tuesday I had to go to the dentist for a repair to a filling, Wednesday I had to go to the hospital for my 6 monthly check up - good news, Thursday I had to take Sarah to the hospital for a check up on her eyes - bad news - Friday I had to go to the hospital for an injection into my back - provisionally good news - Saturday, well no more hospital but then Sarah goes down with the flu and we were supposed to be going to the boat today to move it back to the marina but what with the weather and........ No must stop this, if anyone is still reading lets get back to photography!

Anyway what do do when the weather is foul. How about self portraits? No one really likes having their photograph taken but if you are photographing yourself at least you don't need to listen to the sitters moans. As something different I thought I'd do one as a reflection in something other than a mirror so here's a little teapot -

Not on film, just on my little point and shoot. Anyone fancy doing the same and posting some examples, must be loads of different surfaces you could choose from.

In taking those pictures I discovered I had a  few shots on the P & S that I hadn't downloaded. Nothing to write home about but one I took of a sunlit path could have been quite nice except for the fact that it was over exposed and given that it was only in jpg I had no way of recovering the detail but by some cropping and converting into B & W it makes a passable shot. So its always worth thinking about what you can do to a photo if at first glance it doesn't look that good. Here it is:

 

Thoughts on Tripods

What is a tripod? Well we all know its a device on three legs for keeping a camera steady - don't we? The thing is do they keep your camera steady and is there any difference between the many different models available?

The answer no to the first and yes there is a huge difference in the various models and you really do to a large extent get what you pay for. With prices ranging from around £16 to over £600 there should be some difference too! If you are thinking of buying a tripod you have to consider various options to decide which is right for you:

1 What height do you need it to extend to.
2 What is the minimum height you need? If for example you do macro work you might want to get very close to the ground and then a model where the legs splay out almost horizontally is a great boon.
3 What type of head do you need, a ball and socket or pan and tilt? Both have their advantages and disadvantages and it again depends on what sort of shooting you are going to be doing.
4 Is weight important? If you are going hiking with it you obviously want it to be as light as possible but all other things being equal a lighter tripod is less stable especially in windy conditions.

The best plan is to actually go along to a shop and see and try the tripod with your own gear so that you can check that it will take the camera and any heavy lens and will do what you need of it.

One of the major faults of cheaper tripods is that they are not stable and will vibrate when the shutter is released which although perhaps not being as bad as a hand held shot is not really what you need. Its amazing how much vibration can be caused by just the shutter and especially if you have a DSLR the mirror flipping up. A good way to see what effect this has if you already have a tripod or if you are buying one and they will let you so this in the shop is to half fill an eggcup with water, balance it on the camera and look for the ripples on the water surface when you fire the shutter. Try this also with the mirror locked up -see your instruction book on how to do this if you don't know, it will be in the menu's somewhere - and see what the difference is.

Its also an idea to just flick your finger against a leg of the tripod and see if that creates any movement in the water and that will give you an idea of how stable the tripod is likely to be in windy conditions.

So lots to think about when buying a tripod and it is worth paying a bit more for a really good one. At the end of the day your pictures will be a lot sharper and probably for a lower cost than buying a new quality lens.

If you need any advice on this drop me a mail.

Comparing results

Since starting to use different film cameras and looking at the individual results I've not really been able to make up my mind as to whether there is a great difference in the image quality or not. When comparing two different subjects its hard to be totally sure so I decided to shoot the same picture with all three of my medium format cameras and see if that would give me a conclusive answer to the question.

I chose an old dilapidated barn on the edge of town and set each camera in turn up on a tripod so as to avoid any possible camera shake (although that's another blog subject).

The results are here:

Bronica

Kodak

Solida

I'd be interested to hear if you have a preference or can see any major difference in quality on the web but looking at the printed results I think in third place is the Solida where the brickwork is not quite as sharply defined but the other two are very evenly matched which, when you consider that the Kodak camera is about 80 years old and over half a century older than the Bronica is quite amazing. Obviously this is hardly a scientific experiment and it may well have been influenced by my scanning but it hasn't helped in my decision as to which camera to use this summer!