So I've been meaning to get round to doing a small video showing some of the basics of editing your Raw files in Lightroom and Photoshop for a few weeks and had a couple of questions about editing which coincided with some spare time. I've been editing in Lightroom for a good few months and thought it only fair I share with you what I've learnt.
I chose four different photographs to edit and reset all their settings in Lightroom, even dropping Lightrooms' default import adjustments (contrast, brightness, blacks) back to a zero value.
Hopefully this video will give you a starting place to continue to learn about editing.
Take the plunge, and then, of course, let me know how you got on!
Again, inspired (or rather gently nudged) by Jared Polin's weekend theme, my photographs over the last few days have been with a very strong fire fighting theme. Jared set, in my opinion, quite a tough theme – Fire Hydrants – for the weekend of February 4th and 5th. Now being in the UK, our fire hydrants are lame in comparison to the American's elaborate cast scultpures, the most exciting thing being... a sign that says H.
Clearly not something that's going to win any photography awards, BUT I did know of something that might. My dad was a fireman for 25 years and as such I knew a fair few of the firemen in my town. Or at least enough for me to ask very politely if they would let me take a few photographs inside here.
This is the Derbyshire Smoke Training House, where new recruits and firefighters regularly (twice a month) get kitted out in their breathing apparatus and train in controlled conditions to locate and rescue bodies, extinguish internal fires and just learn to cope in situations where you literally cannot see your own hand 6" infront of your breathing mask.
I was very excited to try to shoot some photographs inside the smoke house and had my camera bag ready to explore.
The interior is very very sooty, dirty and dusty as you'd imagine but surprisingly, unbelievably cramped. I yearned for a wide angle lens but had to try to squeeze some photos in with my 35-70mm variable aperture Nikon AF lens. That meant I had to pop my ISO up rather a lot as the widest I could get the aperture was f3.3. As such, these were captured at ISO 1600, which obviously leaned towards a black and white end image.
And all throughout the house are beds, sofas, televisions.
But no windows... at all! They're all covered with sheet metal, to hold in the synthetic smoke which regularly circulates through the narrow passageways.
All too quickly the tour around the interior was over and I was given free reign to take some photographs around the outside. Too many details and indeed, far too many photographs were taken. Here's just a few.
There's a set on my FlickR stream for the photographs I took at the Smoke Training House which you can have a look at here.
I actually had a very negative view of the photographs I came away with once I'd imported them into LightRoom. I was gutted I didn't have a wider angle lens to shoot inside with, and also that with hindsight I rushed through the interior photos just a little. After a nights sleep and several cups of tea I was feeling a little better about them and rather enjoyed editing the exposures and captures that I did have.
I think I have made the most of the situation but I can't help but itch to go back inside and maybe break out the tripod. The only issue there is that the interior is just so dusty and the air is noxious which means you have to wear a simple breathing mask.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the little tour of the smoke house nearby, and no I'm off to try to limit the photographs down to just five to link up on Jared's forum thread over at FroKnowsPhoto.
And next time you see the news about a fire, or hear about one from a friend, just remember this post and some of the photos and try to put yourself in the situation of braving the smoke and heat to rescue maybe just one body from a building you can't even see in to find a doorway... or a door handle... or a bed.
This weekends theme on the FroKnowsPhoto website was Time Waits for Noone and my original idea was to shoot my little nephew – who's now nearly 20months old – looking up at my father. I've been struggling with portraits and really wanted to get a good solid portrait for the contest so I stuck with it and got a few of just my nephew.
Directing a 20 month little boy is tough though. Lines like "where's the window", "whats in the sky?", and "show me the tree, Riley" seemed to definitely get the gazeful look I was after and I ended up with these photographs.
I'd passed him my watch to 'play' with to, although he did nearly throw it into the hearth a few times.
I think the photos were definitely helped by the subject, he looks so adorable in his little jumper.
And this is the one that actually made it through into the Top Five of the week from the FroKnowsPhoto website. So proud of the photograph and sticking with and persevering with the portrait idea has definitely helped.
If you'd like to know more about the photos, or the processing, please leave a comment below and I'll write a quick post about those too.
If I could take five more seconds of your time to vote for the photo on the FroKnowsPhoto website, then please follow this link here and vote for me, DNGRMS in the vote box half way down the page.
So I recently ordered a battery grip for my D90. It arrived yesterday and I managed to contain my excitement enough to set up my iPhone to do a quick unboxing and fitting video.
As I talk about in the video, the reason that I finally bit the biscuit and bought the battery grip (say that five times after ten pints!) was quite simply as I was getting frustrated with distorting my arms to get the camera solid in portrait... plus I wouldn't have to worry as much about battery power when I'm shooting at tennis tournaments.
One thing I've found out since I recorded the video...
There's a secret compartment! For the battery door which I clipped off.
So the battery door is now safely stored inside the battery grip.
Camera looks absolutely awesome with the grip on, and feels excellent in the hand. The weight does increase a fair whack, so for those of you with dainty hands, it may not be the most comfortable.
Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed the video... and yes, I do get excited about 'new' toys.
Since I've been doing a lot more tennis photography (and badminton to be fair) I've been trying to find something slightly more 'inventive' for the photos. Getting away from the stereotypical action shots. These which I took at last years end of season Masters Tournament at the O2 arena in London, for example. (Click the photo to see it full size in my FlickR stream)
These are the sort of photographs that you see regularly, and it seems to be about finding the right angle and getting your timing right. I am loving capturing these shots, though. Tennis is such a fabulously athletic sport you can come away with some amazingly dynamic photographs.
I want to capture something different though.
So while a friend of mine was having a quick practice while I had some time to pull out my trusty Nikon D90, I had a play.
My base settings which I started at didn't get changed much as I took more and more photographs. ISO 400 at f2.8. I started at 1/100th of a second and was playing around with the different angles and composition you can get on the tennis court.
The final photograph — which I was excited about as it confirmed to me that the idea I had is definitely possible and has potential — was shot at ISO 400, f2.8 and 1/60th second but only with my 50mm lens.
I definitely think there is potential to improve on this style of photograph. I'm going to get down to the courts again this coming week and try some more angles, and composition and also see how slow I can get the shutter speed to be and still keep some clarity in the important features (namely the face and tennis racket).
I'll also take my 80-300 Sigma lens to see how effective — if at all, with the high probability that the background will be all motion blurred anyway — a narrower depth of field will be to the photograph.
That's all for now, look out next week for a follow up post and if you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to comment here and I'll get back to you.
As promised in the last post where I talk about the Film vs Digital Challenge that myself and Ryan Conners are having, here is the walk around video for my weapon of choice for the challenge; the 1967 Nikkormat FTn 35mm SLR film camera.
Please enjoy the video, and if you have any comments or questions on the camera, the challenge, or anything else you see here, please feel free to leave a comment below and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
Until then, the last part of the puzzle have also been delivered to both of us... the film we will be using!
Here is my Kodak Ektar 100 Colour Negative Film. Three rolls to give a thankful nod towards Kodak who recently declared themselves bankrupt and with which I hope will give as accurate a photo as I can get to my current RAW processing style.
In a similar vein, here is Ryan's choice, two rolls of Agfaphoto Vista 100.
After seeing some of the photo results that have been posted with regard to this film, I can confidently say that it's development should match Ryans' editing style very closely as well.
This, my friend, should be a very interesting little challenge. I hope you can find or acquire a film SLR too, and join in the fun.
She already had her weapon of choice, a Canon T70 but I would be getting one over her already with my single lens reflex photographic equipment choice.
I had spent most of the weekend looking over a well known electronic auction website and have absolutely fallen in love with the original series of first ever SLR cameras from Nikon. The brilliant Nikon F range was released from 1969 and paved the way for one of the most successful camera companies in the world. The first professional camera they released was the Nikon F but following closely behind were various sister cameras with differing functions. For instance the Nikkormat FTn had centre weighted metering, whereas the Nikkormat EL which came along in 19 was the first SLR to come with an electronic shutter; so if you were doing a long exposure and the battery ran out... the shutter would close.
Back to the auctions and I was watching a fair few Nikkormat F series cameras and on Friday morning I was lucky enough to win one at a very fair price. Excitedly for the next couple of days I would hope for a parcel from the postman and on Monday...
I had to resist the urge to rip open the package and grabbed my D90 to take some snaps.
The camera I'd bought is a 1967 Nikkormat FTn SLR, widely recognised now as one of the finest and reliable cameras of its era, a title I quickly realised was likely to be very accurate when I picked the camera up out of the box; so heavy and weighty.
The camera feels very purposeful and weighty in your hand and has such a fantastic mechanical feel to all it's settings. For instance the shutter speed dial that you can just see around the brilliant Nikon F lens mount, has a very deliberate and reassured click to each shutter speed.
And that brings us to the Nikkormat's Pièce de résistance; it's lens mount.
The Nikon F series were named (probably anyway) after their lens mount. The F mount lens has been used by Nikon from the first Nikon SLR in 1969 until...
... the new Nikon D4 that was released a few weeks ago. Which means that all lenses that Nikon have ever made will fit every SLR they have ever made, the only downside being that some lenses won't be able to use the auto focus function on some of the later models or the use of the aperture to change the metering on the earlier cameras.
This is my secret weapon with which I will beat Ryan in our coming challenge. I will be able to use either my Nikon 50mm 1.8... or my Sigma 70-300mm super zoom... or even my little 35-70mm Macro. Oh the choice ;)
Coming up... a little walk around video (which is now up and you can see it here) and also I do a little cleaning and refurbishing of the camera to make it look as best I can.
Thanks for reading guys, and I shall see you anon ready for the next instalment.
