I’ve been indulging in quite a lot of long exposure photography, which is always fun to revisit every now and then. Getting the B+W 10 stop filer out and waiting for the image to display on the screen after a few minutes is always fun, anyone who has tried long exposure photography will probably agree.

Discovering lens/camera calibration

Some time ago I read Frank Doorhof’s article titled “Lens calibration yes or no ?” where he discussed calibrating cameras and lenses using AF Micro Adjustments to get the most from whichever combination you use.  I can remember looking at a device called a SpyderLensCal after reading the article and thinking that I may get one at some point – but I forgot all about it. Then, on Saturday morning, my photographer friend Julie Fraser sent me a link to a piece of software called Reikan FoCal. It had very positive reviews in most of the reviews I read about it, so I thought “what the hell” and bought it (£40). It promised automation!

I printed out the targets required for the calibration, connected my camera to the laptop and hit the button to start the calibration. 3 minutes later it told me my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 was out by +3, and automatically set the Micro Adjustments via the software. It then showed me a before and after image. WOW!

I’ve never really used the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 at  less than f/2.8 for anything serious, but after calibrating it with my Canon 5D MKII things seem much sharper wide-open – not amazingly sharp, but a massive improvement. You can see some of the photos taken after calibration below. The Bluebell and Campion photos are both wide aperture images taken after I calibrated the lens/camera with FoCal.

There’s not a load of difference in price between SpyderLensCal and FoCal, it just depends on whether you like to do things manually, or allow software to do it for you. For me, I’ll continue with FoCal – I’m impressed so far, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who likes to make sure everything is “right”, and particularly if you think all your images are a bit soft after you’ve tried everything else!

The photos

These are my efforts for the week…

The week started with the bank holiday and a quick wander round the town in the morning, which resulted in a small handful of photos I was quite happy with! Bank holidays are nice, but unfortunately Kirsty doesn’t get them… the joys of working in the retail industry!

Photography-wise I have rediscovered long exposure photography. It’s great fun waiting for a 200+ second exposure to complete so you can see how your slow-baked image turns out. Finding stationary objects in water is quite simple around Wick, we are right on the coast with a fantastic harbour, which never fails to give me something worth shooting.

Other places in the vicinity are also ideal for long exposures and I was out at Keiss Harbour twice last week, on one trip I managed to photograph a Great Northern Diver, not a great photo by any means, but nice to see the bird!

Saturday was a fairly lazy affair – some wine, some TV, some more photos… normal and nice :)

Dieter

Dieter Tuerlinckx [1974 - 2012]

Sunday was the day for our friend Dieter’s memorial event. Dieter died back in December of a heart attack, aged 38. He was a much-loved Countryside Ranger whose work put him in touch with a great many children and adults in Caithness, including Kirsty and I.

Dieter was from Belgium, he moved to Scotland with his partner, Kune. They lived in Aberdeenshire for some time and then moved to Caithness and built their own house, where they lived with their two children, Arden and Frodi.

We have been on a few memorable walks with Dieter. The most memorable one was a very wet slog from Dunbeath to Berriedale along the tops of the cliffs. Dieter believed the best and most memorable walks  were the ones where you got soaked – people always remembered those :) I definitely remember that one – it was an assault course of barbed wire fences slippery dry stone dykes and amazing coastal scenery!

Dieter’s popularity was reflected in the huge turnout of friends who attended his memorial day at Dunnet Beach and Forest yesterday. It wasn’t a sombre affair at all, it was a celebration of Dieter’s life, and an opportunity for his friends in Scotland to pay their respects.

The afternoon started with a seashore sculpture event, which everyone seemed to enjoy – adults and children alike! Then there was a Humanist Service on the beach and refreshments. The celebration ended with storytelling/music provided by Bob Pegg in Dunnet Forest’s new log cabin.

It was amazing!

Finally, the photos

After a lot of walking around, and some frustration directed at a stupid dog walker who was letting his Dachshund run around in a field full of cattle, I remembered the Canon Lens Extension Tube EF 12 II I had in my bag, and decided to attach it to my 70-200mm lens. Whilst this isn’t the ideal lens for use with the extension tube it allowed me to get some decent close-up shots at a reasonable distance from the subject. I started shooting away, and ended up with a ton of shots! Some of them even looked quite nice!

A small lesson learned

When in doubt, change focal length or go to macro.

Sometimes it’s easy to get into the habit of using the same lens and sticking to similar focal lengths and apertures. For me, of late  this has predominantly been in the 70-200mm range at f/4, and that shift came about because of a prior lens habit – 50mm f/1.4 over-usage.

I live in a small town and take most of my photos there, sometimes I run out of interesting subjects (that’s more to do with me than the town), but it’s going to take a while to run out of focal lengths.

Anyway, here are some of the photos I took. I hope you like them.

Hope you enjoy them!

Jay Maisel is a man who has a very direct approach to photography. Essentially, he doesn’t believe in letting anything get in the way of the shot. This means he uses his camera set at ISO 1600 most of the time. The higher ISO allows him to achieve the fastest possible shutter speeds in Aperture Priority mode. He also shoots bracketed exposures, then decides which looks best.

While his technical ideology is uncomplicated and interesting, the real education comes from Jay imparting his observations and insights about photography as an art. These are the snippets of wisdom I appreciated most…

“There is nothing neutral in your photograph. Everything in the image is either working for you or against you”

Jay believes that the part in the centre of the image is what attracts the photographer first, therefor you don’t need to think about it – it will take care of itself. What you need to be mindful of are the other parts of your frame, check the edges, check everything – “if it looks crap in the viewfinder it’s not going to look any better on the computer” (his words).

“Photography is not replication, but revelation”

Showing people something they’ve not seen before is what makes a photograph more interesting to the non-photographer.

“The hardest part about going out to shoot is not to plan”

Going out with a preconception of what you’d like to shoot is limiting… but most of the time I’m wondering what the hell I’m going to take a photo of, so this isn’t an issue for me most of the time. I thought it was smart though.

“If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it”

The part I have to remember most with this 365 challenge :)