This year has been a good year for developing my photography skills, so what better way to finish it off than showing a few night shots I’ve just take around Peckham. Off to The Gowlett shortly but had to nip out to get my fix with the tripod especially now the weather is warmer.
Happy New Year!
My first foray into photography was abandoned halfway through an A-level at City of Bath College, around ’96 time. I was using a manual Pentax SLR with a bunch of prime lots of B+W film which I didn’t really appreciate or learn enough about at the time. Silly me, I could have been a lot further ahead now if I had but never mind.
My second attempt at Photography has been more successful and this was started with the purchase of a little FujiFilm F31fd in 2006 which was a great little camera which got me interested in the subject again. Lovely and compact and went with me everywhere. It still does actually but I rarely use it. I did use it a lot on the 365 project at first when it was more about snaps.
Since then I’ve been on the upgrade path which started with my first digital SLR, a D70, through to my current D700 (with a D300 in between). The trouble is with all of this is that they’ve all gradually been getting bigger and bigger which makes taking them with you all the time a right pain in the bum. Having said that it’s also worth taking them due to the incredible results that are possible with this format – think high ISO, depth of field control, instant reactions from the shutter, 12 megapixel RAW file formats, amazing ergonomics for changing aperture on the fly etc. So with all of this using a compact again feels like a complete exercise in frustration, shutter lag and lack of RAW being my biggest complaint, the lack of a hot shoe to allow off camera flash is also annoying. The other problem is that the settings are mostly menu driven so changing aperture is a real pain. It would be nice to be able to have some of these features but available in a smaller form. Another reason is that I want to take great shots on bike rides but lugging a D700 around + lens + flash isn’t much fun. It’s also a lot of cash that could get damaged with a nasty prang on the bike.
For a while I’ve been looking around at different types of more compact camera that might fulfil some of these criteria. One that did almost satisfy was the Canon G11 / 12 which has RAW format, hot shoe, external controls but fails for me on two points. It has a fixed (as in attached) zoom lens and is pretty ropey about 800 ISO or above in terms of sensor noise. They do seem to be popular with pros as travel cameras but I’m not convinced. There is a similar offering from Nikon but it seems to be a exact copy of the G11 style with nothing else to set it apart.
The next interesting development has been this area has been the Micro 4/3rds standard which was developed between Olympus and Panasonic. The Olympus EP-1 being the first to capture my interest with a removable lens, smart little ƒ1.7 prime, RAW format and pretty compact form, retro styling etc. The only let down being the lack of viewfinder. I tried one out the other day and it didn’t feel as good in the hand as I had expected. It felt much more plasticky than I had imagined which is a real shame.
The other new contender is the Sony NEX 5. Looks amazing and has a larger sensor than the EP-1 (APS-C sized) as well as a slimmer profile. The main thing that rules it out is that it is overly reliant on menus, something I’m keen to avoid. I like dials and manual controls.
So in the end this only leaves one contender – the Panasonic GF-1. I’ve tried this one too and it feels much more solid (more metal, less plastic), has a RAW format, hotshoe for remote flash, a nice ƒ1.7 prime lens as well as an electronic viewfinder option (not ideal but bearable). It seems to tick all of the boxes for a camera you could carry around with you all the time and get decent shots out of. Seems perfect for cycling too. Take this, some wireless triggers and an old external flash and you’d be golden. The other thing with all of these is that with a cheap adaptor I can use all my existing Nikon lenses (different crop factor but still potentially useful).
So if the books all balance up at the end of Jan then I think I’ll be grabbing myself one of these. Can’t wait.
Yesterday I went out to West London to do a shoot for a firm of Engineers I work with a fair bit at the office. They’ve been working on a large house that is having a sizeable basement being dug underneath it – about nine metres down or around two and a half storeys. They’ve essentially supported the whole house on columns (piles which have become columns) as they’ve excavated. Seriously impressive stuff and quite a feat to see in the flesh (or metal and concrete rather). I love a good bit if engineering and this really satisfies. Incredible what we can do and seriously impressive stuff.
After this I headed back into town to get a few shots of The Shard and see whether I had enough shift on the lens to be able to capture the top of it. I’ve been seeing quite a few shots of it on Flickr recently and thought I should really go and get some myself. Turns out I did have enough reach on the lens and I spent a few hours waiting on London Bridge freezing my arse off to get the following shot. Well worth it I think for that final one and just go the timing of the clouds right to get the moon in too. Also tried out using a Universal White Balance setting to get more dynamic range out of the D700. Seemed to work pretty well although the previews on the back of the camera come out all green, kind of cross processed.
Like seeing your life flashing before your eyes. Link to http://pummelvision.com/ (where you can create your own) Via @vaughan
Whilst browsing Flickr late last night, being nosey, going from contact to contact, looking at who was friends with who and exploring favourites, I found a set of photos by Alex Bamford. He has a set of night photos taken just under moonlight which are pretty impressive. It Takes a big level of commitment to go out late at night and get these. Most are 30mins plus exposure times which again is pretty impressive. A few of my favourites below. Some also have a series of glow sticks going through the images which are good fun too.
Or rather trying to do night shots without getting mugged with £4k’s worth of photo kit on you or freeze to death in the cold. Still, I think it was worth it.
After collecting Liz from Paddington on Friday we headed straight down to the National Portrait Gallery after quickly getting her to pose for a few pics in Trafalgar Square. I’ve been meaning to see the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize this year. Last years was really good and Emma and I even emailed one of the photographers to see how much a print was, turned out it was a little over our budget but never mind. I love portraits and quite how much you can read into someone or the situation they’re in. I find them fascinating and could look at some of them for ages. As usual it was a mixture of headshots, full length, posed, and natural etc, but as usual the standard was very high. Apparently there’s a bit of a joke that the prize is always won by a ginger and this year was no exception. Although it’s a very worthy winner I prefer some of the other shots. One of my favourites was the shot of Charlie Watts, drummer with the Rolling Stones. My other favourite was Merel which seemed to convey such serenity that it felt as though a photographer wasn’t involved at all. The tones and quality of the image are incredible.
It’s incredible to see full size prints like this with such clarity and sharpness as well as the awesome detail in the images. The other favourite part of the exhibition is that it’s only £2 to get in which is a bargain and that they produce a beautiful exhibition catalogue which is only £12 so a good value trip all round really.
Looking forward to the 2011 exhibition.
Charlie Watts, © Michael Donald 2009
Merel, © Clare Shilland
Finally got round to doing something with the new Nikkor 24mm PC-E aka the shift lens I’ve wanted to get for so long. Didn’t stray too far from the house after dinner tonight so all fairly local. Bit too cold to be hanging out on street corners with a tripod at the moment.
Pretty incredible set of time lapse images in this. Not sure how they did all the panning shots but simply amazing.
