Three strikes and out

The weather forecast for yesterday was both horrible and accurate. The day started cold and wet and got cold, wet and windy.My original intention had been to go toa rare breed auction in teh morning and call in at a sheep dog trial on my way home via the tackle shop I wanted to photograph to complete the project started before they moved. Part one of the plan went well. As far as getting there and taking photos was concerned. Today I took the 'toy' camera to the auction auction knowing that the light there would be reasonable enough for the camera to cope at fairly low ISOs. I still felt like taking a hammer to it when I got home!

I don't know if I'm unusual, but I often use a camera's ability to select the focus point for me. I work on the assumption that it will focus on whatever is closest to the lens. If I'm photographing a group of sheep then the sheep nearest the camera is the one I want in focus. Saves me moving the focus point around. The camera does this just fine. Except... Whatever focus mode it's in if you touch the screen it switches to single point. Either my thumb is too big or the camera is too small but it was forever going into single focus point mode when I didn't want it to. It also defaults to 1/60th when in aperture priority and auto ISO. Once I realised this (after far too many shaky shots) I stuck it in shutter priority and stopped the motion blur. High ISO noise wasn't too bad lifting detail out of shadows at higher ISOs is not a good idea.

The tilty screen does make lamb-level shots easier, and using a camera with no viewfinder can be useful for candid shots of people. Although I prefer using a viewfinder even close up.

Playing with a couple of frames which didn't stack up in colour I found that black and white conversions worked OK as the noise isn't as distracting as it is in colour, and I think there's a perception that detail can be lost acceptably in black and white as it is using grainy film.

With enough light the high ISO shots are fine in colour. It's dingy environments where things start to go down hill. I'll give the camera a go at an agricultural show and see how it fares there. For indoor work it's back to the search for a tilty screen camera.

The sale itself didn't hold my attention for long. It had stopped raining too so I set off to stage two. Having got rid of my very-ultrawide lens I was going to be restricted to 18mm at the widest to take some indoor shots. I tried using available light, but ended up shoving the dreaded flashgun in the hotshoe and bouncing it off the white ceiling. It helped even though the space was  quite large. I'm not sure how the toy camera would have coped.

On the road again and no sooner had I arrived at the sheep dog trial than the rain came back. With the strong wind blowing it looked like it would soon blow over. When it did I got out of the car. Took two snaps and got back in teh car. It was bloody freezing! With all the dog people huddled up in their vehicles there wasn't much to photograph anyway, so I buggered off home.

Apart from wrapping up the shop pictures it felt like a bit of a wasted effort. Although learning the limits of gear is helpful as it stops me trying it in situations where I might have a chance of some different pictures. The ones I got wouldn't have been any better as pictures no matter which camera I'd used.

Back home and the culling was easy. Half the auction pics were blurred beyond my level of acceptability. A load more got dumped because I'd been shooting in burst mode and they were no more than duplicates. Then I finished off the Blurb book and ordered a copy as a proof before the latest discount code ran out. With that done I searched around for a way to reduce the size of a PDF file I'd made for a trial A4 booklet/zine and with that done uploaded it to an online PDF print service. Making hard copies is something I'm trying to do more of. Either book/zine things or plain old prints now I've found an album which makes it easy to change the contents as a sort of portfolio.

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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.