More mono

Despite pretty well exhausting the possibilities at the poultry auctions I was back again on Saturday. The aim being to once more evaluate approaches to gear. What the day proved was what I'd already worked out! The Fuji is okay, but clunky to use and that a 'big' camera doesn't necessarily make you any more obvious than a tiny one. At least not when you stick a small lens on it.

Possibly the most difficult sort of picture to pull off well is the candid group shot. It's bad enough trying to capture the look or gesture of one person, but to get a number of expressions which work together, in an arrangement of figures which works, when you can't control any of them, is like herding the proverbial cats!

I also had my felling that for most 'documentary' photography the 28mm and 50mm combination covers most of my requirements, with the 100mm in reserve. Why not use a 24-70mm zoom? Because it is true that using single focal length lenses makes you think about framing more critically. You have to move. Sometimes, though, all you need is a snapshot - when any lens will do!

As I've mentioned a time or two before, the light in the sale ring is bloody awful for colour photography with the mixture of lighting. It's also a bit gloomy. Using the Fuji in there showed yet again why I can't love it. At higher ISOs the way it renders skin is 'unusual' to my eyes. Less natural than the big cameras.

Outdoors, in good light, photographing anything other than people, the Fuji is fine. Where I am coming to appreciate it is when using it to make black and white pictures. In fact it's the reason I'm dabbling in that style at the moment. Black and white might be the way to approach photographing in the sale ring.

It's certainly proving its worth when I wander round the wood in late afternoon when the sun is bright and low. My previous attempts in colour always seemed too cluttered, but a monochromatic approach is simplifying things. There might be a project starting.

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Timing is everything

Once more the lure of poultry proved impossible to resist. Today's show was primarily an egg show, with a junior poultry section, which didn't fill me with confidence of getting anything new. But you have to be in it to won it as the cliché goes. Besides, the sausage and bacon barms are good, as is the tea. With there only being a few birds entered the show room was pretty much as it is when not in use. That allowed a couple of sort of behind the scenes shots of stuff in storage and some cleaning equipment.

Not expecting to have much new to photograph I was in trial mode. The intention was to use the Fujis to see how they coped. Or maybe to see how I coped with them. I had a real camera as back up, along with the dreaded 85mm lens. Not trusting that lens I had my faithful 100mm macro with me too.It proved to be a swings and roundabouts affair. Making a selection of 21 frames from the day 13 of them were shot on the small cameras. That's not really to say that they were the best tool for the job, or that I preferred using them. It was simply that all but one of those 13 frames was made using the 28mm equivalent lens. No surprise there!

As far as the big camera went the 85mm failed miserably. It simply won't focus close enough for my liking. Time to get rid. All bar one selected frame shot with the DSLR was at 100mm. The odd one out being taken with the 20mm lens I'd taken along for the ride.

With it being an egg show there was the usual contents judging, providing an opportunity for some 'cracking' shots. Why I insist on trying to time my action shots rather than setting the camera to burst mode, I don't know. It's nothing to do with believing that timing things to one frame is a more worthy approach, relying on skill. It's more like forgetfulness that there is the option for shooting a burst. I started out doing it the old school way and got lucky. I'd never seen a wooden egg cracking device before. How to show what it's for? I think having the egg a milimitre away from the pointy bit might do it. Pure luck that I managed the picture below.

After a couple of attempts at nailing an egg cracking picture I turned the dial to high speed. After one out of focus burst I tried again. Ten frames later I had a sequence which was in focus, and one picture that worked on its own. I even got the egg cracker in the shot.

I still don't find the X100T as fluid to use as a DSLR. This may be because of a familiarity difference. Probably the most annoying feature is how tired it gets. That's the inherent problem with cameras that use an electronic display. They have to go to sleep to save battery power. The drawback is that they don't like waking up. A DSLR, on the other hand, can be left switched on all day without much drain on the power source. I've missed a few shots now because of this.

On the plus side these new-fangled cameras are discreet. They can be operated completely silently, which means that up close with a wide-ish angle lens you can photograph very unobtrusively.

The files seem to lack something in the colour department to me, and I was finding exposure to be less sure than the DSLR. For stationary subjects this in't a big deal, it's easy to chimp and correct. But when timing is important it can be a let down.

Once again I paid for my cups of tea by photographing the prize winning birds. Well, three of them. The 'studio' had been enlarged and was much better. The lighting still isn't ideal, but it's improved. I also got spotted by the organiser of the poultry show at a local-ish agricultural show. Soft lad has agreed to go and take some photos for them... I would most likely have been going anyway. So no great hardship.

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More experimentation and decisions

A good feature about poultry shows and auctions is that they take place undercover. Which was handy today as it was yet another full day of rain. This gave me a chance to try out the new camera some more, in even more challenging light, and to make one final attempt to learn to love the 85mm lens. I also took along my huge, heavy and therefore neglected long zoom.

This time I was using the new camera with the wide angle adaptor attached. Unfortunately I had it's distortion correction set incorrectly at first. This is a feature of modern non-DSLR cameras with electronic viewfinders which compensates for less than perfect lens designs. Somehow or other the software manages to embed the corrections into raw files. The early shots from the day I took looked as if they'd been taken with a fisheye lens! I managed to correct the distortion in Lightroom without too much fuss. Luckily most of the pics were junked, but a couple were worth salvaging.

As can be seen in the picture above the quality of light at this auction mart is weird. There are at least two different sources everywhere, creating colour casts which can't be readily sorted on the computer. Black and white conversions remove this problem, and also cover up for the noise which is a result of the light also being dingy. This is the only time I don't mind making conversions. But they are no use to fit in to a project shot in colour. Ho hum.

Using the screen rather than the viewfinder made for taking lower level shots close up and discretely a doddle. But I find it a little sneaky.

Overall the camera did OK. But it was at its limit for low light handling. As soon as I started using a 'proper' camera everything got much easier. I was also reminded that a big camera isn't necessarily more obtrusive than a small one.

For the most part, when I switched to the longer zoom, I didn't use it to 'snipe' shots of characters. The main reason being that I don't like the perspective and 'look' that approach gives to the pictures. While most people love long lenses for the separation they provide between subject and background, it can also make the people look disconnected from their environment.I much prefer context.

My main reason for using the lens was to try to get a decent shot or two of the auctioneer in action. As well as using the neglected lens I also set the camera to it's highest frame rate to see if that would help catch a telling gesture. Although I rattled off plenty of shots (for me) I'm not sure I took enough.

I ended my day using the two focal lengths I seem to feel most comfortable with in situations like this. 28mm and 50mm. Why 28mm suits me I don't really know. It's something to do with having to get close to a subject to make it large in the frame, and when you do this there is a lot of background visible, and even at wide apertures it is in reasonable focus. All this without the perspective looking distorted. That is why I prefer to use the two lenses rather than a zoom which starts at 24mm - there's a tendency to use it at its widest when I need to go wide.

The 50mm feels almost like a telephoto (other people's 85mm lenses probably fill this role for them) and allows me to throw backgrounds out of focus a little. It focuses quite close too, which I like for shots such as the one below.

Although I might not have come away with many decent photographs, I have decided to get shut of the 85mm lens and use the zoom more often. I had thoughts getting another Fuji so I could use one with the 28mm equivalent adaptor and another with the 50mm adaptor, but for the sort of low light situations I tend to adopt that approach they are not a patch on proper cameras. Outdoors in summer they'd be fine, but then I'd probably have my superzoom in action! I'll be sticking with the Fuji for my 'street' camera I think. It's by far the best I've tried to date.

Gallery from the day here.

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Testing times

Summertime is filled with local events. Today was the village church's Rose Queen Coronation. Something else I've ignored for most of my life! Once more the brass band was in evidence, along with the usual amateurish PA announcements and performances by children that only their family and the terminally sentimental could enjoy. The man-sized teddy bear being raffled off was using last years label for a cuddly dog. Two great new attractions this year were bacon (?) and a poultry and water fowl display.

I felt sorry for the chickens. At least they wouldn't know what their transport boxes had previously contained. (Click the photo to get a better look...).

There weren't a lot of attractions, although the sponge throwing was popular and it was good to see that coconut shies are still going strong. Well, still going.

It's easy to see why these traditional, yet modernised, local events are so beloved of British photographers. It's the very amateurishness that somehow you don't associate with similar events in, say, the USA. I think it's the small scale that accounts for that. Where there is a large enough population to make a more professional event there isn't the same drive to run them. Where bigger events are organised they are a little more dull. England continues to live up to its reputation for eccentricity and bodging.

One thing that attending local events does bring home to me is how my natural shyness affects my lack of ability to do the kind of photography which is generally associated with this kind of day out. It's a problem I have with photographing people, although that's what I like to do. I know it's a confidence thing, and I'm always surprised that when I do point my camera at a stranger they usually let me photograph them. But that's one thing. Taking candid pictures is different. It feels more intrusive. I have no problem whatsoever doing it in the company of people I know well. A little more reticence with total strangers further from home. But when it comes to people who I know only by sight around the village there is a nervousness that holds me back. Of course, if they are having wet sponges thrown at them it's a different matter!

Timing action shots like this is difficult when you can't see when the thrower is ready and anticipate. Not even at many frames per second. Being left-eyed means I can't keep my right eye open to widen my field of view. I tried putting my right eye to the viewfinder, but it was like trying to write with my left hand!

If people are engrossed it's easy to snatch a candid. These days the mobile phone, especially when being used as a camera, consumes people's attention a lot of the time. That can make for reasonably interesting pictures, but I think sequences are more telling. Sequences, or at least pairs, of photographs are something I find tell more of a story than single shots in some instances. Not just sequential frames, but pictures taken over a longer space of time. More on this, perhaps, at a later date.

But is my inability to take the people pictures I'd like to take such a bad thing? If I could take photographs like a Martin Parr or a Tom Wood they would most likely be imitative. Instead I make pictures of bits of people, and continue to frame shots with large areas of nothingness. This latter stylistic tendency kind of annoys me because I know it breaks all the rules, and I'm not sure if it works. However, it is not simple laziness, it's a semi-conscious one. I frame the shot, think to myself that I shouldn't be doing it that way, yet do it regardless. I don't know why. It's something I seem always to have done.

After my dodgy lens experience I was using one which had functioning vibration reduction this time out. It didn't stop me taking blurry photographs, but as some managed to be sharp enough at full zoom I was satisfied to put the soft ones down to good old operator error. At least I managed to remember to pop the flash up for some fill when I photographed the lady wearing a broad brimmed hat. It's not often I remember technical things like that until I get home!

Continuing the technical theme I upgraded to Lightroom 6 the other day. The main reason being that it has a panorama stitching feature added. Quick trials with that seem to work okay. Apart from my old PC being dreadfully underpowered and it taking an age. One thing I did try was taking four shots in a grid, rather than a strip. The video tutorial said it stitches vertical panoramas, so I wanted to see if it would stitch vertically and horizontally at the same time. It does. Unfortunately that means it's creating a 96mp image if I use my latest camera! Nothing to show here, but I'll probably be playing with the feature in the future. The stitched image is saved as a DNG file, by the way. Plenty of scope for messing around. And if you are that way inclined there's an HDR merging feature too.

When I came to put together a gallery for today's pictures I found that LR6 no longer supports the Flash gallery I used to use. It does have a new gallery option which I must admit I like. I've uploaded it here to see if it works and embedded it below for similar reasons. Click on an individual picture to enlarge it, then scroll through either by clicking the arrows or using the keyboard left/right arrows. (Edit: to view the gallery in full screen it looks like you have to click the link, then the full screen icon which doesn't work in my browser from the embedded gallery.)

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Same old same old

I could have started this post with the first paragraph of the previous one. Time to get into some concentrated photography has been hard to find. There was a poultry show, a junior and egg event, which wasn't as busy as the usual shows. The lack of occupied cages got me one extra shot for the files.

The chap who is usually there to take pictures of the winning birds was absent, apparently he doesn't bother with the junior show. I almost got roped into doing the honours but someone else had a camera with them. A shame that the young fanciers won't have carefully lit pictures of their winning entries.

Daft as it sounds, and in a typical justification of extravagant expenditure, part of my plan to reduce my camera gear inventory has been another purchase which I tried out for the first time at the poultry show. It proved it's usefulness too. Every camera ought to have a flippy screen of some sort. They really do make it easier to get a different perspective on things - often without drawing attention to yourself. More poultry pics here.

Since then I've used the screen at the sandplant, which has changed dramatically since my last visit, to put the camera above my head. Future uses for the screen are sticking the camera on a monopod or pole to raise it higher still. Although given the ability to use a smartphone to view the screen's output and fire the shutter a flippy screen might not be necessary for that! More (slightly repetitive) sandplant pics here.

While the poultry visit fell back on my usual two fixed focal length lenses (28mm and 50mm) the sandplant saw me giving my cheapo wide zoom a work out along with the 85mm. These two make a useful combination. Sometimes a longer zoom would be handy, but as a weight saving venture it's good enough. As ever I remain convinced that there's no need to cover every focal length in order to make useful pictures. Just look for the pictures that suit whatever focal lengths you have with you. That way you don't even notice that you are 'missing' shots. Besides with a gazillion pixels available a bit of a crop still provides a usable file if pressed.

I also gave the wide zoom a whirl at the tackle shop. Given it's slow and variable aperture I wasn't too hopeful. But not only is that multitude of tiny dots excellent for rendering detail, it somehow manages to work in fairly low light at high ISOs (3200 below). Yet to be used in anger, I see a different approach to the tackle shop project - that flippy screen might be useful too!

The low light capabilities of modern cameras is lessening the need for fast aperture zoom lenses unless you want to use wide apertures for subject isolation. The two 'cheapo' zooms I have are plenty good enough for me (manufacturers might be making better lenses to work with higher resolution sensors), and subject isolation can be achieved by standing further away and using a longer focal length. All this means that it's possible to have a full frame set up that weighs next to nothing. As soon as I can offload some gear I'll be able to get my entire kit into one small shoulder bag.

It's a lot easier to write about gear than making pictures, particularly when it's a struggle to get out and do the latter. At least I can fit in some time for my local projects on my way to and from the Post Office. The church continues to be a challenge. Making pictures that seem to accidentally include the church is harder than I imagined it would be. Certainly without making different versions of the same picture.

Home Range is a more local version of Sandgrounding (which has reached it's 500th post) and has been added to recently. It has a more considered approach to subject matter and framing than Sandgrounding, although quite what either of these series are about I can't honestly say! I am clear what the 'big project' is about, and have made some preliminary progress on it in the limited time I've had available. As soon as work eases up I'll get some more done. Having clarity as to what a project is about helps provide an end to it. Open ended projects simply blunder on and on, never getting finished. Then again, if you have a date set as a conclusion point it can mean that you don't get all the pictures you'd like. At least with the sandplant I think a natural end will come when the restoration work is completed.

The worrying thing with long term projects is that when you come to review what you've got early pictures often look different to later ones. Your vision and aims change with time. What seemed like a good idea at the time might not fit in with later ideas.On the positive side some pictures which might have seemed pointless can, when set next to later views of the same scene, provide a useful comparison of change. There's more to project work than taking good pictures. Which make it interesting.