As I walked through Whitechapel this morning I came across some street art which just called out to be photographed. This area is a haven for such paintings but sadly I didn't have enough time to explore some more. I almost missed the second painting as the characters stood no taller than knee height - miniature men at work!
11 January 2018 - Company on a quiet day
I had a very quiet shift at Hatfield Forest this morning but fortunately a couple of the local robins popped by to keep me company. Naturally, I'd taken my new camera and long lens into work with me so I whiled away some of the quiet moments taking photos of my companions. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get to use this lens in good light (I've had it three weeks and barely seen any sunshine!) but the pairing acquitted themselves well in today's gloom. Once again, the camera's image stabilisation worked a treat, especially when paired up with the long lens, where the two stabilisation systems work in tandem. Fingers crossed for some better weather soon so I can really have fun!
The interior of Gonville and Caius College Chapel
10 January 2018 - Taking a test drive
I took my new camera for a thorough test drive today, with a trip into Cambridge. I was interested to get to know what the G9 is capable of so I headed first to Gonville and Caius College Chapel for some architecture photography.
The low light levels in the chapel were the perfect for me to test the G9's in camera stabilisation and I found it, frankly, astonishing. I discovered I was able to take pictures at 1/5 of a second without camera shake - that's much slower than I've ever managed before! I also tried cranking up the ISO and found improvements over my GX8 there too. While it'll never be as good a full frame camera I'd be happy to shoot at ISO6400 if need be and that's plenty high enough for most situations.
I hand held this at 1/5 of a second - that shouldn't be possible!
One of the innovations I was particularly keen to try out was the G9's High Resolution mode. With this mode the camera's sensor moves inside the camera, shooting eight frames in quick succession, each slightly displaced by a small amount. The camera then glues all of these together, resulting in an 80 megapixel picture with much more detail. Not bad for a machine that's only got 20 megapixels to start with! Obviously the camera itself needs to be completely still so I grabbed my tripod and gave it a try. On importing the photos into Lightroom I wasn't wildly impressed. However, once I'd exported a JPG file it was possible to zoom further into the photo and maintain clear detail. I'm not convinced I've perfected my technique with this tool yet but I'm keen to try it again soon.
The level of detail in this High Res picture won't be obvious online but it's really quite impressive in person!
By the time I'd left the chapel I was pleased to see some really useful improvements over my two year old GX8. The additional stabilisation will be really useful when I'm shooting badly lit music events and should be really handy when shooting with long lenses.
Shopping for fruit
Phone calls in the rain
After some lunch and a good read of the user manual I set out onto the streets of Cambridge to try a little street photography. The light was deeply underwhelming but the camera acquitted itself well and I think I had more successes than usual in terms of accurate focus.
Looking through a myriad of posters on the railings for concerts of interest
Finally I wanted to try out the main feature I bought this camera for - tracking moving subjects. Obviously there were no sports cars or aircraft speeding through Cambridge so I had to make do with some more sedate cyclists instead! Again, the dreary light didn't do me any favours but I quickly realised the G9 is a huge improvement. I never got the focus tracking mode to work successfully on my GX8 but after a couple of minutes of practice I was already getting some keepers on the G9. There are many settings to be tweaked to perfect things but I can see it's likely to be a great tool for shooting moving subjects once I've learnt more.
Not the speediest of subjects but a handy way of trying out the focus tracking!
9 January 2018 - Less is more
The subject of camera sensor sizes is one that causes great debate among photographers. For years we were led to believe that the only way to go was a full frame sensor, although no doubt many medium and large format shooters would argue that their cameras are superior! I subscribed to this thought too and worked my way up to a full frame Canon camera, a 5D mk3. Then I bought my first mirrorless camera, a Panasonic GX7....
Using the GX7, with its tilting screen, electronic viewfinder and its smaller form factor I began to see there was an alternative. As many of you know, I spend a lot of my life travelling for work and I found the smaller size and weight suited me better when travelling on trains with lots of work gear. A couple of years ago I upgraded to the GX8 and absolutely loved it, so much so that I eventually realised I was using it much more than my Canon.
Yes, there can be a small impact on image quality in certain conditions but these are easily worked around and I found I was taking better pictures on my mirrorless as it enabled me to be more creative. Finally, last March, I decided to sell my full frame camera, although I kept a crop sensor body (the Canon 7D mk2) and a few lenses for wildlife and action photography.
Selling my 5D freed up some cash to buy a long lens and a standard zoom for my mirrorless kit. Over the months I've used these to expand the sort of photographic work I do with the GX8 and I've experimented with motorsport, aviation and wildlife with a good degree of success. All the while I knew the GX8 wasn't really quite up to the task so I held onto my remaining Canon gear until something better came along....
Back in November Panasonic launched the G9, a new body aimed squarely at wildlife and sports shooters and my hopes were raised. I grabbed an opportunity to try the camera later that month and was very impressed - it's a big step up from the rangefinder style GX8. While the camera wasn't available until this week there have been pre-production copies out in the hands of working pros and it was the amazing work of Ian Cook that really got me thinking about buying one. When I made contact with Ian he described the camera as 'a beast' and his action photos show it really does the job when it comes to complicated action photography.
One of my first photos with my new camera - fortunately Lucy was feeling relaxed!
I've used my remaining DSLR less and less in recent months so on Christmas Day, instead of watching the Queen's speech, I ordered my G9 and began the wait for it to be released. It finally arrived today and I'm itching to give it a really good workout. Of course, the delivery man came late in the day, after dark, so I had to make do with photographing the cat again until I could get outside in daylight. I thought I'd also share a photo of the camera itself. It looks more DSLR-like than my GX8 but it's only a little larger and much lighter than the Canon. My plan for tomorrow is to visit Cambridge and try it out on a variety of subjects. Testing its action skills may have to wait a little longer but I'm going to make sure I've completely made friends with the focus tracking before my next visit to Goodwood for some motor racing.
So what's happened to my Canon, I hear you ask? Well, it's gone to a good home - my Dad to be precise! The sale of the lenses has more than covered the cost of the new camera (and the 100-400mm lens I bought last month) so I am now fully mirrorless and loving it! No more headaches and aching shoulders from lugging heavy gear around and I genuinely love the creative options my smaller gear offers. Who knows, I'll never say never about returning to full frame but I can't see it happening any time soon while I'm getting results that please me.
8 January 2018 - From the dinner table to art
One of the things I love most about photography is the fact that it's made me see the world in a different way. I now look at the world around me and notice the way objects are sculpted by light, be it a shaft of sunshine or the way light can create a three dimensional effect. For many years I've admired the still life images of Edward Weston. Here is a man who could create art from something as mundane as a pepper or a piece of cabbage, simply by the use of light. I recently came across the story of how he lit his iconic Pepper No.30, with an astonishing four hour exposure and this inspired me to have another attempt to create my own interpretation. I didn't feel the need for an exposure this long, largely because I don't have a lens with an aperture as small as f240. However, my exposure did run into several seconds, allowing me to paint some light in with a torch. To increase the sculptural effect I've done quite a lot of dodging and burning too - more than I normally would. I'm sure Edward Weston would laugh at my low budget effort but I'm pleased with the end result and wouldn't mind hanging it on my wall - after I've eaten the evidence, of course!
7 January 2018 - Sunday afternoon abstract
Sometimes the only thing I want to do when I get home from work is to thaw out in the warm with a cuppa and today, with its biting wind, was just such a day. Eventually though, having warmed up a little, I steeled myself to spring into action and find a photo for my blog. The light had gone, meaning outdoors photography was out of the question so I raided my 'bits and bobs' tin for inspiration. Over the years I've picked up dozens of pebbles on beach walks so I gathered together all the ones of a similar hue and set about creating an abstract design with them. I've also got a good number of pebbles with pink tones but they can wait for another day - I wouldn't want to use up all my 'rainy day' subjects at once!
6 January 2018 - A miracle of modern technology
There are times when my inspiration to go outdoors to take photos evaporates and the only alternative is to photograph the cat. Of course, being black, Lucy always chooses the darkest corners in which to sit, creating some technical challenges. Over the years I've become quite adept at handling these and the modern technology in today's cameras certainly helps! This afternoon Lucy decided to sit in the middle of our living room to have a quick wash and brush up, presenting a handy photo opportunity.
My little mirrorless camera came in really handy with its articulated screen - great for capturing low angle shots without lying on the floor. My favourite lens, a little Leica-Panasonic f1.4 gem, and the ability to shoot at high ISO allowed me to collect enough light and in a few minutes I had a collection of cute feline portraits. Thank goodness for modern technology - I suspect even Henri Cartier-Bresson might have struggled to photograph a black cat in a dark spot with his Leica film camera!
The first car design to feature the Ferrari prancing horse on its badge
5 January 2018 - Under the skin of Ferrari
As most of you will know, I love anything to do with cars so the Design Museum's latest exhibition was right up my street. Kevin and I went there today to see 'Ferrari: Under the skin', an exhibition all about Enzo Ferrari and his iconic cars. The exhibition took us from Ferrari's first designs through to the present day and the brand's efforts to introduce hybrid technologies into their cars. Interestingly, because Enzo Ferrari previously worked for Alfa Romeo he had an agreement which prevented him from using his name when he first went solo - it was his second design which eventually took on the Ferrari name.
The wooden former at the bottom of this picture would have been used to shape the bodywork of the Ferrari above
As we walked around I took photos of whatever attracted my eye. With so much to see there were lots of distracting backgrounds to try and avoid and I found a number of my photos worked better in monochrome to minimise these.
Surely this must be one of the prettiest Ferrari designs....
Sammy Davis Jr and Miles Davis were both Ferrari owners, pictured here at a Ferrari dealership with an order form for one of their cars
If you're in London and fancy seeing the exhibition before it ends in April I can thoroughly recommend it.
This beautiful car was raced at Goodwood by none other than Stirling Moss
I couldn't visit the Design Museum without photographing its clean architectural lines again. I spotted this lone visitor and managed to include him in my composition by leaning round a corner on the stairs!
4 January 2018 - Keeping it simple
After my rather overcomplicated attempt at focus stacking yesterday I thought I'd create a much simpler photo today to share how I did it for those who may be interested. I decided to use my little Lego photographer and allow him to take his own picture of an acorn I picked up somewhere. Instead of requiring lots of pictures to capture the entire scene in view I used a smaller aperture and shot just two photos. In one I focused on the acorn and the second one concentrated on the Lego figure. You can see in these two pictures that the second subject in each one is blurred because it's outside the depth of field.
Using Photoshop I was then able to combine them, using layer masks to reveal the in focus areas, to create a picture where everything is sharp. Of course, having only two files to deal with, my computer complained much less and didn't crash once!
3 January 2018 - Pulling focus
The Photoblog theme this week is 'New Inspirations', intended to get everyone out trying new techniques. I decided to try my hand at focus stacking, although that choice did bring some frustrations as well as inspirations!
The idea behind focus stacking is to use it when you have a situation where you want everything in your photos in focus but the laws of physics prevent you managing this in one picture. Macro photography is a case in point so I picked this feather and framed up my camera on a tripod. I then took multiple pictures, shifting the focus a little further back through the frame with each one. The next step was to stack these images in Photoshop and let some computer wizardry figure out which bits of each picture. Of course, my somewhat elderly computer found this a huge challenge as it's inevitably lost some of its computing power over the years. Eventually I found a way round this (stacking smaller JPG files rather than the original large RAW files) and the end result has proved to be more successful than I expected for a first try!
If you'd like to join in the weekly theme and see what everyone else has created for it do pop over to the Photoblog forum to take a look. You can find it here.