Keeping all your photos in sync

Whenever we go on holiday, I often have to change two things when we return: the date and time on the photos.

"Darling, I need a camera to take pictures of my camera..."

Little holiday tip: when you're on the plane, sync the clock on your camera with your phone - invariably, your phone will be most accurate, as your network sets this for you.

Why is this useful?  For me, it's useful for chronologically displaying photos from the holiday, so that if you're shooting with a DSLR, smartphone and point-and-shoot (as is the case when we go away), you can chuck them all into the same folder and your photo editing software will show them in the right order.

Then when you export them or upload them to a site (I use the Lightroom templates), they'll all be in the right order.

It's also a handy tip for wedding or event photographers if you have more than one camera or shooter.  I recently shot a wedding party with another tog and needed to shift all of our photos back an hour because our cameras were both still on British Summer Time.  They're just being hopeful...

Shooting the Supermoon

The so-called 'supermoon' was incredibly clear last night, so as my wife was heading off to bed and Cinderella's carriage was turning back into a pumpkin, I decided to grab my camera, zoom lens and tripod and venture out into the garden.

I thought it was going to be pretty straight forward - after all, with my Sigma 50-500mm last time, it was simple. But not with a shorter zoom lens - a 70-200mm lens with a 1.4x extender, giving me a 280mm reach.

When I first set up, got the tripod in the right place, lens at the right angle and the moon in focus, a massive band of thick cloud strafed in front of the moon, completely blocking it from view, and I thought the photo shoot would come to an abrupt end, but thankfully the cloud was moving pretty quickly.

I knew I had to consider a few things:
1.) The moon is really far away and I have only 280mm to play with, so whack the resolution up as far as it can go (22-ish megapixels on the 5D Mk III).  I can crop later on to see the detail.
2.) I need maximum clarity, so high ISOs are a no-no.  ISO50, 100, 200 are fine.  Stay away from 3200...
3.) Lock the tripod everywhere.  If this camera and lens tip over on the concrete patio, I will actually cry.
4.) Use a lens hood to stop streetlight, erm, light getting into the lens and creating weird and wonderful effects.
5.) Use mirror lockup and the 2-second timer facility to minimise any shaking, which would blur the moon.

The issue with shooting the moon is exposure.  Camera sensors are in no way as sophisticated as our eyes, so it's incredibly difficult in extreme lighting circumstances to capture what your eyes see.  The sensors in cameras try to pull colours towards middle grey, meaning that cameras try to overexpose for black (turning them grey) and underexpose for white (turning them grey).

(With that in mind, consider for a second what it is like to shoot a wedding, when many grooms choose black suits and most brides choose white dresses.  Nightmare.)

So when I pointed the lens at a mainly black sky with a moon the size of a pea, the camera just wanted to overexpose the entire shot.  This means that I might as well have created a black image and put a round circle of white in it somewhere, as the moon just goes completely saturated with no detail at all.

The answer to this dilemma is pretty simple - you underexpose the shot by about 3-4 stops or more to bring out the detail in the moon.  Don't worry about the sky being underexposed - it's black to start with!

There was a nice effect when light cloud around the moon was being illuminated, but it was almost impossible to get the moon correctly exposed while showing these clouds (and they were moving pretty quickly too, so the 0.4" shutter speed just blurred them across the frame):

Summary:
1.) Ignore the camera's settings - it will give you a dark grey sky with a pure white moon.
2.) Underexpose by anywhere between 3 and 5 stops (or take a wild stab in the dark at the settings and go from there).
3.) Use a low ISO setting - high ISOs will prevent a really clear image.
4.) For stability, use a tripod, use the mirror lockup feature and set the 2-second timer.
5.) Set the camera to the highest resolution you have - then crop to see the detail.

1/60" at f/6.3, ISO50 at 280mm, cropped to a fraction of the original size

Finishing off 2012

Reviewing my New Year's Resolutions on this blog,  I think I've managed to stick to them.  Just about.

1.) Project SGR 366 is complete - we managed to get a photo of Samuel every day of his first year.  On ONE day, we relied on Emma, his childminder, to take a photo of the wee man, but other than that, either Lou or I took a pic, either with the DSLR or with a camera phone.

2.) Take more film - I have shot off a few rolls this year, but not enough.  Being that I work in the Wharf now, I intend to take more in 2013.

3.) Carry on writing this blog - well, since the Resolution post, I've posted three times more.  That'll do. More next year, I hope.  If anyone's interested.

4.) Learn more about Photoshop/Lightroom - Project SGR 366 has helped me to be a lot quicker when using Lightroom, but I haven't had the time to sit and learn more about Photoshop.

5.) Print more photos - when I get a little time (probably tomorrow, when I'm off work again), I'll put together a few albums of SGR...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

D

SGR, wondering why Daddy has a huge white flashing umbrella next to him.

Instagram: Commercial FAIL

I'm really disappointed in Instagram.  And Facebook.  But it gives a second bite of the cherry to Flickr, if they're smart about it.

Sunset on the Isle of Wight, taken from my Instagram photo stream

Flickr was started as a small photo-sharing community in 2004 and was bought by Yahoo in 2005.  But Yahoo missed a trick in my opinion - with the backing of the then biggest search engine, it should've been what Facebook became.  But Yahoo didn't pour enough money and effort into it and it trundled along with other photo- and video-sharing websites popping up around it stealing their market share.

The recent news about Instagram changing their terms and conditions so that companies can use your photos without paying you a penny has rattled a number of photo-sharers.  It's annoying, but it's not unreasonable by Instagram - after all, you're using their server space and service for free, potentially showcasing your work to millions around the world.

But it doesn't seem right that Instagram (Facebook) can make money from YOUR photos and YOUR effort without acknowledging that you are the artist.

They could have been a lot smarter about how they use people's photographs.  Perhaps Instagram could've said that they would act as an intermediary on your behalf with companies who want to pay to use your photos in their adverts.  The model could have been that Instagram assess what a fair price would be for your photo to appear in an ad campaign that could reach a few million people, get your agreement to use the photo in the first place, then turn around and give you a percentage.  They make money; you make money; you get the kudos for your photo appearing in an ad campaign; and the company uses the photo in the knowledge that it has all been done in agreement with all parties concerned.  Job done.

Instead, they've damaged their reputation by saying "ner ner - we've got your photos and you won't get ANYTHING."

So I hope people move away from Instagram - or that Instagram revokes these new terms of use and thinks about a win-win situation for the people who have basically given them a business.

Off-camera flashing

For a few years now, I've been a fan of Strobist.com, David Hobby's web site dedicated to using a flash off-camera as opposed to mounted on top of it.  I'd highly recommend it if you're thinking of getting into the world of semi-pro lighting.

This week, I bought my first proper shoot-thru umbrella and stand.  Although it takes a few minutes to set up, it's an amazing piece of equipment.  It wasn't particularly expensive (£54 delivered) and I know I'm going to get a load of use out of it.

I've been taking pics of our son Samuel for months with a flash now (when he was a very small baby, I used a high ISO and fast lens, the latter of which he is too quick for nowadays), but I've wanted to get into using a shoot-thru umbrella with a speedlight - a Canon 430EX - for a while.  I don't have the space, budget or inclination to buy expensive studio lights at the moment, so the speedlight is fine.

A few years ago I bought some Yongnuo wireless triggers, so I can control the flash when it's not on top of the camera and with a very simple set up, I took the shot of Samuel, above.

At first glance, you might say that it just looks like a shot taken with a flash or with good room lighting, but I think it looks so much better than the flash-on-camera shots I've been taking recently.  The light it balanced across the shot, there aren't any harsh shadows and the quality of the shot overall is much more pleasing.

This was shot #1 taken with the umbrella set-up.  After reading the Strobist Lighting 101 series I was able to set up the shot and get this result (well, an incorrectly white-balanced version of it, until I fixed it in Lightroom).

The next challenge is doing all of this with the Mamiya medium format film camera...

Step back in time... again.

It's mad - I've got a Canon 5D mk II and several fancy lenses, but for some reason, when my Dad gave me his Pentax K1000 which he bought in Boston in 1977, I got more excited than ever.

As a boy, I remember my Dad having this mechanical, complicated looking contraption, snapping away with a shutter which let out a satisfactory 'clunk' when it fired and wind-on crank which now brings back memories of a happy childhood.

He told me that it cost him $25 for the kit, which included a 55mm f/2 lens and a case.  It's still in perfect condition and after I got the light meter working again (it required a 357 battery, whatever that is), I loaded it with a film and started shooting away.  Cautiously.  (I say cautiously because with only 36 frames, you don't want to 'waste' any, right?).

I know that shooting film these days is slightly pointless - the Canon can reproduce shots which look much better than the Pentax results in a matter of seconds.  In fact, in just about the time it takes to shoot off a reel of 35mm film, I can take a shot on the Canon, process it on the computer and print it off on my parents' printer 400 miles away using Google CloudPrint.

But wanting to dip into a piece of nostalgia, I've bridged the gap - our old scanner (which I bought YEARS ago) isn't compatible with Mac OS 10.6 so I've bought a new one which can scan film.  Instead of getting prints, I'm going to get films processed only, then scan them in to be edited digitally.

Watch this space.

Sometimes a DSLR is a burden

I'd LOVE to have the 5D2 with me just now.  Behind me (I really should face the window) is a fabulous view of Paris.


While I'm sitting here waiting for the other people to arrive for the meeting (I arrived an hour early owing to a timezone FAIL), I'd love to be snapping away, taking in the scene which stretches from the Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye to Monmartre and Sacre Coeur.  The iPhone doesn't quite cut it.  The Blackberry certainly won't be good enough.  The scale of the scene deserves something like the 17-40mm or - if you have the cash - the 16-35mm.


The sun is out.  Not something I've said in the UK much this year.  Mind you, a colleague here at Logica in France told me earlier on that it was terrible weather yesterday in Paris, so perhaps I've just chosen the right day to visit.


But while I lugged my laptop, notepad, shoes, charger, iPad, mouse and pencil case (!) to Paris, I couldn't quite squeeze the 5D2 into the bag.

Shame - I'd love to have shot off a few frames if the meeting gets boring.

New Year's (Photography) Resolutions

Well, not really. Just a load of things I'd like to achieve in 2012, photographically.

I'm not really into resolutions - they are proven to fail - but apparently they do focus the mind a little bit more and make you more likely to achieve personal goals.

So I've decided to set myself some photographic goals for 2012:

1.) Take a picture of our son, Samuel, every day.

- I started this the day he was born and have posted a photo from every day of his life on Flickr (you'll need to be one of my Friends of Family members to see the photos from this set).  I intend to keep it going until 3rd December 2012 at the very least.

Samuel, taken from the set, SGR on Flickr (permission required to view pics of Samuel)

2.) Take more film

- Last year, for some reason, I decided to invest in medium format and bought a Mamiya 645 Pro TL on eBay.  It's a great piece of kit, but I've put one film through it and that's it (mainly because it's pretty expensive to develop medium format film).  I also bought a Canon EOS 1V-HS, their final 'analog' SLR, but again, I only used it for one film and the results were superb.  I want to use the cameras a bit more, even though with a child, it's simpler to use a digital camera and delete all the blurry ones.  I like a challenge...

- A friend of mine (Rumbers!) asked me why I wanted to buy film cameras when I had a state-of-the-art digital camera.  It's a good question.  The answer is: because I can.

3.) Carry on writing this blog

- Sure, I get about 6 people reading this blog each time I post something new, but it keeps my writing skills fresh.  Writing is part of what I do for a living and I enjoy it.  I hope you enjoy reading it as much.

4.) Learn more about Photoshop/Lightroom

- Photography is one (very important) part of producing a picture; processing the photos is another part, just as darkroom techniques once were.  I use the same techniques in Photoshop/Lightroom most of the time - I'd like to do something more snazzy.

5.) Print more photos

- My Mum likes looking at photos on a computer, but LOVES holding them in her hand and actually seeing them printed out.  So do I.  Whether it's in a photobook or on individually printed photographs, I want to make sure I print more often.

So - any photography resolutions from you six??

THE Hairpin

Hairpin II, originally uploaded by David Romanis.


One of our last holidays before the arrival of our son or daughter was to Cannes. This included an evening trip to Monaco.

There aren't many famous roads in the world, but given that the most famous Grand Prix happens on these streets, this hairpin has its own unique place in history: it's the slowest corner in F1 and requires the teams to have a special steering rack so the cars can get round without having to whack it in reverse and ... oh yeh, that's right, they don't have a reverse gear. Honestly - all that money for a Formula 1 car and it can't go backwards? Rubbish.

The one downside to the evening trip was that by the time we arrived in Monaco, it was already dark (Lou and I went for dinner on the road between Casino and Mirabeau Haute as it was about 8.30pm) so we could only take pictures at about 10.30pm. The only available light was coming from the streetlights.

There's only one thing for it: open the aperture as wide as it'll go and whack the ISO up. Not too far, mind - I haven't got a Nikon, you know...

Yep, high ISO and a steady(ish) hand, a bit of creative tilt and this was the result. I deliberately caught the guys crossing the road to get a bit of context and something other than a kerb, then shot wide open at about 1/15th of a second. This is the result.

I only shot a couple, but this was the best one - I've done very little with it apart from a little bit of a push of contrast.

Colour Space exporting

It's hardly a sexy subject - and nothing to do with actual photography - but it's an important part of showcasing photography: which colour space should I use when exporting photos from Lightroom?

Ladybird II, originally uploaded by David Romanis.

Annoyingly, I've discovered that I've been using the 'wrong' colour space (or "color space" as Lightroom calls it) - AdobeRGB strips the photo of some of its vibrance and saturation and the picture becomes a little duller.

I performed a simple experiment earlier on, exporting the original RAW file from Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software to create a JPG, dropping it into Lightroom, then after a few tweaks, exporting using different colour spaces.

In order of closeness to the original shot, from closest to furthest away, sRGB was best, then AdobeRGB, the ProPhoto RGB.

sRGB is pretty much the same as the shot I opened in DPP; the AdobeRGB shot desaturates slightly; the ProPhoto RGB export might as well be black and white. Almost.

So, note to self: export from Lightroom using sRGB. Glad I found that out after having only exported 16,000 pictures...

Time flies, but not for La Sagrada Família

I really can't believe (nor apologise enough) for getting to May without having posted anything in 2011. How time has flown by. I can't really tell you where the time has gone and don't know what I've been up to, but a quick review of my photo folders tells me that there has been some photography going on, at least.

During the Bank Holiday Limbo week, Lou and I went to Barcelona, a city neither of us had visited before except for on business (Lou went there for a conference last year).

With most cities Lou and I visit, we tend to take more than a modicum of photos, but this place, La Sagrada Família, got a large chunk of our snapping. You only need to walk around the cathedral to see the detail and appreciate the work which has already gone into creating it.

And it's not finished. Not even close.

The two main facades viewable at the moment are the Nativity and Passion facades. The main entrance is still hidden behind tarpaulin sheets and scaffolding. The cathedral itself won't be complete until 2040. That's 29 years away. I'll be 62. That's scary.

However, it also depends on the number of visitors to the cathedral who pay around €15 to get in and wander around - it could be sooner or it could be later.

All I know is that when it's finished, it will be an incredible sight to behold.

Inside, as the picture above shows, it is unlike any other cathedral I've ever visited. The columns split out at the top and bottom to make them look like trunks of trees, the windows in some areas represent honeycombs and there are many tips of the cap to nature in Gaudí's design.

As a photographer, I often walk into these places thinking "hmmmm, ISO 400 or 800?", but I just tilted my head backwards and gawped at the majesty of the place.

I guess today's photography thought from me is to look around before pointing the camera. Take in the craftsmanship, enormity, detail and splendour of one of Europe's most amazing works of art.

Also, try not to pose in front of the altar and have your picture taken doing a peace sign. Tacky tourists.

[Click here for more pictures from Barcelona on Flickr]

Ornithologist required

When we told people that we were heading to Borneo, a few of them asked what the weather would be like.  Being that we were in a rainforest, it should've come as no surprise - either to them or us - that it would rain.  Heavily.

"Balance" as seen in my Flickr Photostream.

During an apocalyptic-like rainstorm on Day 3 of our holiday, we sat in the Rainforest Lodge and watched it lash down outside.  Of course, we were fortunate to have shelter - this fella was not so lucky, but for some reason, he decided to balance himself on the (very flimsy) branch of a tree about 100 feet from the Lodge.  The 24-105mm wasn't quite long enough, so I switched to the Bigma and started shooting away.  This is the result.

If anyone knows what kind of bird this is, I'd be interested in finding out!


Technical shooting info...

Being in the lodge meant that I had a few ways of taming the Bigma, i.e. keeping it steady.  At 500mm and as wide open as it goes (f/6.3), I needed to set the camera's ISO quite high to maintain a fast enough shutter speed, in this case, a 1/1250th on ISO 1600.  The bird didn't stick around for too long, but I managed to shoot off half a dozen or so decent shots.

I rested my left foot on a chair and balanced the Bigma on my knee as a sort of makeshift monopod, then carefully squeezed the trigger for each shot.  Manual focus was vital, of course, as autofocus was doing its best to try and focus on the rain falling down around the subject and not the subject itself.

The rest of Day 3's photos are here.

 
 

Capturing moments

There are photos that require little explanation, but sometimes there are pictures which tell a story, and that story needs to be told.

Capturing moments: the hands of the mother and father of the bride.

This shot is one of my favourites from the day; there are quite a few favourites, which I posted to Flickr recently - out of the 1,000 or so I took, about 200 were good enough to process and send to the bride and groom, and out of those, just under 50 are what I'd consider to be my favourites.  This one is in the top 5.

Jos, the father of the bride, sat to the right of Mish (photo-right) and Margs, mother of the bride, sat to the left of my brother, Andy (photo-left), are the owners of the hands.  As Andy and his new mother-in-law were having a chat, she was holding hands with her extremely proud husband, having just given the speech at his daughter's wedding and welcomed a son-in-law into the family.  I thought it was a great moment and couldn't help but take the shot.

I love taking photos at weddings.  I've only been the official photographer at one wedding, which was back in May.  Nerve-racking doesn't even come close.  Thankfully, it all turned out well and the happy couple were pleased with the results *wipes beads of sweat off brow*.

From an enjoyability point of view, I really prefer to be a candid photographer-guest at weddings, as you can relax and take the shots you REALLY want to.  Not saying that you can't take the photos you want to when you're the official photographer, but you know what I mean - there's no pressure on you as a guest photographer.

Andy and Mish's wedding was a fabulous day (and night, and early next-morning for some people) and was enjoyed by all.  I didn't get the camera out until we got to the reception venue for a couple of reasons (being an usher and coordinating a few things tend to take priority).

Camera-geekery bit...

 

When I did grab the 5D Mk II, I wanted to shoot as much using ambient light as possible, and with Project Black and White in full swing, I set the Picture Style on the camera to mono (or sepia-toned) and shot on relatively high ISO and wide open aperture, so that the shutter speed was fast enough to freeze the action.

I decided to use the 50mm f/1.4 as much as possible so that I could shoot using wider apertures and get the faster shutter speeds.  Sure, the grain is quite pronounced in many of the shots I took (some at ISO3200), but I love grain in black and white photos, as it reminds me of when I used to load the old Pentax with Ilford Delta 3200 and get some lovely grainy shots.  You just need to remember to underexpose slightly so as not to overexpose the low light areas, i.e. to bring out the black.

The shot above was taken at 1/160th on f/1.4 with the camera's ISO set to 1600.  Minimal Photoshopping took place - I think I just tweaked the contrast to bring out the darker areas.

Back to blog-like writing...

Removing the technical aspects of the day's photography, I wanted to post this photograph to talk about capturing moments, whether they're at weddings, family gatherings, days out, reunions, gigs, or whatever.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that photographs are created, not just taken.  Anyone can pick up an expensive camera and take a snap; the real skill is in creating photographs, capturing that once-in-a-lifetime moment on film (ahem, sensor) and giving people something that makes them stop and take notice and, if possible, generate some sort of emotion.  I loved flicking through the pictures from Andy and Mish's wedding day as there were so many that made me smile, as I remembered the fun we had.  

Technically, some of them weren't brilliant, like this one here, but I can remember the laughter that accompanied the shot, even though I've forgotten what the joke was.

And that's what the title of this blog post is all about: creating and crafting pictures, and capturing the moments.

Forcing yourself to avoid Photoshop

For quite a few months now, I've been trying to minimise the amount of time I spend on photos in Photoshop or Lightroom. When I take hundreds of photos, I immediately get a sense of dread that I have to trawl through them all to select and process the best ones.


Aux Vieux de la Vieille, originally uploaded by Dave Romanis.

Recently, I set up a C-setting on the 5D2 for aperture priority (as I shoot 95% of the time), JPEG (as opposed to Raw) and black and white. The Picture Style settings using C3 are variations on black and white with contrast pushes, some sharpening and a tint, e.g. sepia.

Lou and I went to Lille for our first anniversary and I carried on Project Black and White, which uses this setting specifically so that I am forced down the route of black and white (note: if you set up Picture Style on Raw as Black and White, you can still revert to colour if you choose, something Henri Cartier Bresson and Ansel Adams would be turning in their graves over, I'm sure).

I used a 17-40mm for this shot at open-wide 17mm. I also focused on the menu at the bottom of the picture to make it a bit more interesting - the obvious focal point was probably the plate or the champagne bottle.

I'll return to the Borneo blog soon, but thought I'd chuck this one in a) to introduce the project, b) to highlight one of the sepia Jpegs, and c) to moan a little bit about having to process FAR too many photos!

I am trigger-happy, but I am also photo-happy!

Borneo Reflections: Part One - The Bigma

Before we went to Borneo, I decided to invest in a long lens. After considering focal length, speed and cost, I bought a Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3, a.k.a The Bigma. It's a beast.

Back in July and August, Lou and I ventured off to Warren Gorge, a wildlife centre in the middle of Chafford Hundred, to practise using our new kit - Lou with her Canon 7D and me with the Bigma.

One thing came quickly to light: the Bigma requires muscles and a steady hand.

The model I bought was the one without OS, optical stabilisation (the OS model hadn't been released at the time and the non-OS version was about 2/3rds the price). With a full-frame sensor on the 5D Mk II, I became aware that I needed to use the rule of "shoot faster than 1 over your focal length", i.e. 1/500th of a second at 500mm (or faster), 1/300th or faster at 300mm, and so on. I knew that I wasn't going to take a tripod to Borneo so shooting hand-held was going to be the only option.

During our first day at the Borneo Rainforest Lodge in the Danum Valley, we encountered some long- and pigmy-tailed macaque monkeys high in the trees. Although the sun was bright, most of the light was obscured by the trees, so shooting at high speed was hampered, even wide open, which is f/6.3 at 500mm on the Bigma, unless you bump up the ISO. I didn't want to have to shoot at high ISOs, because Canon haven't managed to develop low noise at high ISOs as Nikon have. Reluctantly, I was shooting at ISO 6400, meaning the images would need cleaning up quite a bit in Photoshop/Lightroom back home.

Here's a crop of the original version of one of the macaque pictures:

Photo 1: Macaques fighting in the trees, cropped.  (1/500th @ f/6.3, ISO 6400.)

... and here's the cleaned-up version:

Photo 2: Cleaned-up version of Photo 1.

Reviewing the photos of the macaques, I've learned that ISO 6400 is just too high for the 5D2 to handle properly.  The pictures are passable, but certainly not the high quality you'd expect from one of the top cameras on the market.

Later on in the holiday, I decided to make use of a function I've hardly used before on a camera: Tv, Time Value, or, in English, shutter priority.  Usually, I use Av (Aperture Value/priority) so that I can control depth of field as a priority, but with a long lens, I found that the importance was on selecting a fast enough shutter speed to avoid lens blur.

With the camera set to Tv, I chose 1/500th at first, then 1/640th later on (and even faster when on the boat cruise around the Kinabatangan River - up to a 1/1000th).

I also set the ISO to Auto, again, something I had never done before.  I got the idea from a lady at the Borneo Rainforest Lodge who had a Canon but had set it to Custom Auto, which pretty much works as a point-and-shoot (I've always thought this was a pointless setting, but nevermind).  Thankfully, when set to automatic ISO, the 5D2 only goes as high as 3200.  Anything higher than that - it goes up to 25600 - and the noise is too pronounced, as I mentioned above.

Finally, I switched between Auto and Manual Focus, as I found it to need a slight tweak here and there.

Photostream

Here are the photos so far: Borneo Days 1 & 2.

Summary

The Bigma is a beast!  Apart from being 1.65kg in weight (58.2oz, for those in old money), it's also quite a tricky lens to get working nicely with the 5D2.  Of course, I'd love a Canon 100-400mm with Image Stabilisation, but at £1,270, it's a tad pricey for now.

The secret to using the Bigma was to set the camera to Tv and choose auto ISO.  I made sure that Custom Function 3 (C3 on the dial) was set up for the Bigma for low light conditions and Tv/Av were used when light wasn't an issue.

Borneo Reflections: Part Zero

Having just returned from Borneo, I thought I'd record my thoughts about photography in one of the best places I've ever been to.

I'm going to start at the end, simply because I'm typing this during a six-hour wait at Kota Kinabalu airport using the iPhone and the only photos I have available are ones I've taken with it. (In fact, just looking at the options available to me on this site, I don't think I can upload from the phone anyway, so I'll just tease you and tell you what's coming soon).

So actually, this is Part Zero: Introduction. In subsequent posts, I'll write about the challenges of shooting in 90% humidity while carrying a 3-kilo camera kit, the most useful settings on an EOS 5D Mk II in jungle and low-light conditions, the advantage of having a wife with a 7D and how to be REALLY geeky with total strangers and by the end have them asking questions like "so what is this ISO setting business on my point-and-shoot camera?". I'll also share the "Black and White Borneo" photo project with you. Bet you can't wait...

There are photos of rare birds, monkeys, apes, elephants, insects, turtles, sunsets and sunrises, night photography, underwater films and more. I want to share the photos with you and give a bit of commentary as well. Hope you enjoy it as much as I/we did taking the shots while experiencing some amazing sights.

I fell in love with Borneo during the two weeks we were there and I hope that some of the pics (to follow, after spending hours and hours in Lightroom sorting them all out) convey that feeling.

Step back in time

Lou's getting a haircut this morning so I thought I'd do the same and take the camera along to kill the other 2 hours until she has finished.

The Pentax MZ-M: Small but mighty.

But I'm not just taking any camera; I've got the Pentax MZ-M. Film camera. Fasten your seatbelts.

I dug it out a while ago when I gave the case it was in to a friend while he borrowed the old 10D and I always threaten to shoot off a few frames for old times' sake.

The first problem was that the battery indicator was flashing - having sat for a few years with no action, the CR2s had slowly died. First stop - WHSmith or somewhere similar to buy some new ones.

More easily said than done, evidently: AA, AAA, square 9v, CR123 and CR2032 but no CR2 in the Wickford branch. In Rayleigh, Martin's only had 'normal' batteries but thankfully there is a Boots nearby with a photographic section. £9.99 later, the MZ-M was alive.

I went to get my hair cut first then ventured into the woodland area of Rayleigh Mount, just off the high street. With a ISO400 film loaded, I knew I didn't need direct, bright sunshine for fast enough shutter speeds.

There were a number of things which struck me as I was shooting off a few (9) shots: the lack of control over ISO (fixed at 400 like I say), manual focus, which takes a bit of getting used to, and no screen on the back. Yes, after just about every photo I looked in vain at the blank back of the MZ-M, muttering "idiot" to myself each time.

A good exercise. Photos? Yeh, I'll get them developed eventually...

Photo project

I've always been impressed by people who put together really well thought-out photo projects. For example, Rick Nunn, a photographer from Lincolnshire, recently completed Fifty of Fifty, a project which saw him take 50 photos over 50 consecutive days using a 50mm lens.

I'd like to do something similar, but don't want to plagiarise the idea (much). I also cannot stick to things too easily, especially when the nights are starting to get darker, so by the time I get home, it'll soon be dark and taking a photo is mainly restricted to indoors, flash photography or long exposures under street lights.

I'm thinking of doing a black and white project, as I've always loved shooting in mono. Perhaps I'll give that a go.

Any suggestions/ideas?

Something I see every day

Iron, originally uploaded by Dave Romanis.

A while ago, the Chaffstoke group had a weekly challenge called "Something you see every day."

I have a bit of a morning routine, where I iron the shirt for the day as I'm watching breakfast TV and before I have a bowl of cereal. It's something I've done for years and although I love the idea of ironing 5 (or even 10, if you're REALLY enthusiastic) shirts on a Sunday to avoid having to rush around each morning. In fact, I think I may have talked myself into ironing 4 shirts this evening (I'm not in the office on Wednesday).

There's another photo in my photostream which I'd LOVE to blog here, but I know my wife will probably kill me. The link is here. I love the sentiment of the photo and the concentration on her face as she does her hair - not something she can do 5 times on a Sunday and avoid having to do for the rest of the week, of course...

The technical bit

I set the camera to monochrome for the shot above and the one of Lou drying her hair - I've recently discovered the amazing C-settings on the 5D2 and have set up C1 to be my black and white configuration. It also uses ISO 800 and f/4 as default.

When I loaded the CR2 (RAW) files onto the computer, I went through the usual steps and converted the CR2s to DNG before then importing them into Photoshop and exporting as JPGs.

This is where I came across a little problem; the 5D2 obviously records the picture in colour and applies the B&W setting separately, because when I converted the shots to JPG, they were all in colour! I had to go through Digital Photo Professional to get the B&W versions.

And some say that you can't convert black and white shots into colour, eh?

Master of light

I was so pleased to read that TIME had included my favourite photography web site in its top 100 blogs of the year. Congratulations to David Hobby at Strobist.

If you haven't already been there, check it out. Personally, I've learned just about everything I know about flash photography from his Lighting 101 and 102 sections and the way in which he explains how to use off-camera flash is chatty, simple and informative.