A slippery slope

It all started when I bought my macro lens. I'd been well pleased with the cheap Sigma 70-300 for my dragonfly photography and for bird and landscape shots too. The images were sharp and clear. However the focusing was slow and the lens a bit clunky so I lashed out on the Sigma 150mm/f2.8. The very first time I tried it out there was a noticeable difference in the contrast of the images. A case of getting what you pay for. Build quality was improved too.

My next lens purchase was a Nikon 70-300 as the agricultural nature of the Sigma was getting me down. This time the images weren't as markedly improved, but the lens handled much better and was much more nicely built. Another case of buy cheap buy twice - or three times in the case of the cheap Siggy!

Then I made my big mistake. Walking into a camera shop to purchase a UV filter for the new 70-300 I looked in the secondhand cabinet and spotted a 17-55mm/f2.8 Nikkor. Unwisely, having a camera with me, I asked to try it. Apart from it being big and heavy compared to the 18-200 I had bought with the camera it was faster to focus and felt far more robust. Chimping a few pics snapped outside the shop it looked pretty good, but you can never really tell on the LCD screen. I handed the lens back and went home where I popped the pics up on the PC. Oh dear. They looked rather good at f2.8. After lunch I returned and handed over my debit card. Now I wish all my lenses were fast and equally well made.

Forsaking the geese for a while, having just an hour or so spare at dusk I've been trying to shoot starlings coming in to roost. I guess I was hoping for some shots of them in swirling misty clouds, but I've not seen that happening to the degree you see on the wildlife programmes. However I have got some ideas for capturing rather different images to the now clichéd ones. As roosting time is fairly predictable and short-lived I should be able to sneak out whenever there is suitable light. Fast lenses would help keep the ISO lower. Which is just the excuse I need to splash some cash!

My first attempts were against a nice sunset but the 150-500 was too long to get the masses of birds in the frame, and I wasn't in the best position.

 Early arrivals

Second time out I got better views but the 70-300 was still too long but the 10-24 I had on the second body was too short and I had to crop. The first wave of birds settled in the same reedbed I was using for cover. That's how close they came. They don't half make a racket before they get their heads down!

 The flocks merge

I swapped for the 150 macro (f2.8)  and grabbed a blurry, but atmospheric, shot of a small flock joining the roost.

Coming in to land

Third time lucky? They give rain for tomorrow.

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Using what you've got

I had to catch the last post today but I slipped a camera in the car just in case. Not least because there promised to be a sunset again. Not having time to get organised for another swan shoot I took the body with the 17-55 on it intending to try some landscapes/skyscapes in the little time I would have available.

By the time I was out on the mere the sunset was well underway. A few attempts were made, but there was no point of interest in them despite trying some shots of the huge round bales, with and without various degrees of fill flash. So I gave up when the sun had finally sunk below the horizon.

A few pink-foots had flown over while I was there and I made a stab at them. There's something there to work with using this lens.

 As I headed back down the lane I realised there were more geese in the stubble than I'd thought, and  quite close to the car - for pink-foots! I slowed down, stopped and watched. A jogger came towards me and the geese got restless. All of a sudden the majority of them burst skywards as only geese can do in a honking flurry of wings. Two shots were taken in the gloom and this letterbox crop was the best and works better at a large enough size to see the geese on the ground in slightly more detail.

Again it gives me ideas to use this lens again. If I can get in the right position with geese in the right location and the right light I might be able to work something out.

The lesson here is that you can work with what you've got in terms of lenses to make images. In fact I think, and may have mentioned it before, that restricting yourself to one lens for a while can help you see in a different way. Even better if it's a non-zoom. The same goes for trying a long lens for landscape or, as in this case, a very short one for wildlife. Have a look at Eric Weight's site for more on this sort of thinking.

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Trial and error

The level of ignorance exhibited by some enthusiats in most hobbies manifests itself on the internet. On a photography forum some goon asked where the skill was in taking lots of shots in the hope one will work well. Henri Cartier-Bresson, no mug with a Leica, reckoned he took one good photo a year if he was lucky. I bet he didn't take just the one. In fact when you read up on him and see the shots he took before and after one of his iconic images you'll see some pretty ordinary stuff. Photography is, and always has been, about making selections. from selecting what to shoot to the final crop. Selecting one frame from many is one of the steps along the way.

If you don't take lots of shots, trying lots of different approaches to the various elements - framing, point of view, exposure and so forth - you will keep on taking the same old photos time and again. Tom Hogan extols the benefits of 'playing' on his site today. A telling phrase being to "Examine the results and see if there isn't something potentially useful in what you just discovered." Making selections again.

Making rubbish images, or images that nearly work, is all part of the creative process. Painters do it all the time. If they aren't making preparatory sketches they are scraping paint off canvas and starting again. No image emerges fully formed and perfect without a few mishaps along the way. Omlettes and eggs spring to mind.

And so it is that I'm trying to pull off a couple of images that satisfy me about the winter migrants that have moved in locally. I don't want the pin sharp close up, I want to give some feeling of place and time of year setting the birds in context and, if I'm lucky, creating an atmosphere. So far all I have managed are what I think of as photographic sketches. I don't have particular images in mind that I am trying to capture, but I know what elements will be involved.

The two species are pink-footed geese and whooper swans. With the geese I want to put across the huge flocks that fill the skies, the watchfulness of the birds on the ground, the openness of the landscape and the chill of the air. For the swans I have a more specific image in mind, a group flying to roost against a setting wintry sun.

These are two of my better sketches so far.

Having too many distant birds in the sky adds clutter and they become cyphers. Too few and they don't put across the sheer number of birds. Getting flocks in the frame with no birds chopped in two is a major problem!

When dealing with smaller groups of birds in flight you still have problems with composition. Each one needs space around it. Each one must be in an pose expressing motion. And you don't want stray birds of other species in the shot either, unless they add something to the overall image. The sky has to make a complimentary background too. When making images with paint you can move elements around to suit. When working with a camera you have to wait for things to move into place of their own accord. Sure is tricky - and frustrating!

Luckily the swans are flying to roost at an easily accessible spot a few minutes from home at the moment, so an hour at dusk when the sky might be suitable is an easy option. If I take enough shots one might turn out well enough eventually.

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Luddite!

"If you consider a Automatic 'P&S' to be a a camera to use for a pro or to do a job with other than back up... If that is so, then it is a SAD SAD out look.

Anything on auto does not Warrent the 'PRO' title. Give my Gran a Point and shoot and hey presto!!!!!!
You need skill in use of equipement and more Skill in compasition and people skills.

Please !!!!!

Had to laugh at those who use I-Phone for shots. What is the world coming to????

It just dilutes and de values the 'REAL' photographer!!!

Angry? Yes I am!!!! Tired of wanna be's play acting , under cutting and cheaperning this Fantastic and superb industry that is Photography." - LINK

When I read stuff like that it makes me love the internet! It sounds remarkably like a journeyman painter of the 19th Century moaning about the advent of photography and the imminent demise of his craft!

Many industries have grown out of amateurs and hobbyists selling their creations as a sideline and expanding the operation to eventually make a living wage. There is high irony in the concept of the photography industry being undermined by amateurs for it was started by amateurs setting themselves up to make family portraits available to the masses and not just those in a financial position to engage the services of the aforementioned journeyman painters! 

The fact is that since the invention of the small, cheap, portable camera photography has democratised image making. Anyone with a Box Brownie (I have one somewhere!) was in a position to take an iconic image just as anyone with a camera-phone today has.

The only difference is that there are more people with camera-phones than there were with Box Brownies, and they have them on their person more of the time. So the chances of a truly globaly recognised image being taken with a camera-phone are increasing daily. The image may not score highly on technical merit, or even compositional style, but it has every chance of becoming as iconic as the Zapruder footage.

Today's point-and-shoot pocket cameras, and the better camera-phones, are as capable of turning out better exposed and focused results with less input from the operator than has ever been the case. The processing done by the chips becomes more and more 'intelligent' with each generation of camera. They may never come to read the photographer's mind, but they do a darned good job of making images that look the way we see them.

Photography is an industry, but it is also an art form, and increasingly importantly a means of self expression and communication. It has always been far more complex a medium than other visual media , not least because it has always had the potential for mass distribution, to an even great extent than art print techniques have (all of which degrade the image as more are reproduced). Photographic prints on paper were/are easily carried and displayed. Reproduction in newspapers, magazines and books enhance distribution. Now digitised images and the wonderweb take the distribution beyond the originator's control and to an almost infinite audience. And anyone can set the train in motion with a simple press of a shutter button.

The only difference between a happy snapper and a pro is that the pro has to turn out images that please other people.

With that in mind, here's a recent image I like (for reasons I'm unsure of). If you don't like it, tough!

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Indian summer

It's amazing the things you see. Out for a wander with the camera I saw a kestrel go down on the ground and start squabbling with another one when a pair of pheasant's emerge from the grass and the hen joins in the fight!

The pheasant gave up but the kestrels carried on until one won out.

The next time I was out and about I found some late dragonflies that a mate had spotted the week before. There were plenty of common darters around, many paired up and some were seen ovipositing. I managed to creep up on one pair coupled on the ground in a 'wheel'. Unfortunately the sun was behind them and I wasn't able to get around to benefit from its light. Still, the camera's built in flash made a reasonable job of a fill light.

I also tracked one of the migrant hawkers that were on the wing to its landing place where I was able to get in close, in an awkward position on a sloping ditch bank, and spend some time getting shots. Some of which I am pleased with.

Undeterred by wandering round with lenses of varying longish focal lengths I have been trying a few landscapes in the autumn sun. I'm not sure this one really came off, but the contrast of light between near and far was what caught my eye. It also shows man's impact on the landscape, which is something that interests me.

Winter Hill from Bretherton Eyes

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