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It is winter in Cape Town, South Africa. We had a good share of heavy rain for the whole week. Yesterday, we were able to see blue sky again and today, I haven’t experienced any rain yet.
I took this image, after my training in the gym today. It shows the clouds over Cape Town from a southern view of the mountain. Taken with my Nikon D70s, f/11, 1/500
Over the last couple of months, I was focusing on my day to day activities of my business and did not have much time for adding content to this blog. I am still alive and working as photographer. In the meantime I discontinued working with iWeb to improve my websites. Rapidweaver 4 is so much more superior for my purposes that I decided to move all my sites to Rapidweaver. The only one remaining is my wedding site, which I will transfer in the next 2 months. I generally like the look of that site, but want to integrate it into t
he more unified look of my other sites. If you are considering using Rapidweaver, you really can tap into it’s capacities by adding components from yourhead software. I am pleased with the results and optimization for SEO is far easier than with iWeb. Having said that, I still like iWeb and find it’s useful to quickly setup a website with a certain level of sophistication. I just outgrew it. As much as I love working with the software that I u
se to create my websites, image editing, word processing and the choice of operating system, you need to understand that these are tools with its own limitations and advantages. A hammer is not better than a screwdriver. They work differently. You will find some focus on this in the future, as I am getting more and more tired of discussions, which camera is better: Canon vs. Nikon vs. Leica vs xyz.
It does not matter, what you use to take your pictures. It matters, how you create the images in your mind. A camera is only an extension of your mind. You express yourself with it. Many great photographs were not technially perfect. Look at famous images by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Ernst Haas, Henri Cartier Bresson etc and you will see that not all were perfectly in focus for example. These images are perfect in their composition and how they challenge you in your view of your world. Nikon brought out some really decent cameras over the last few months and of course, I am fascinated by the opportunities that these cameras offer. Will I be a better photographer by owning them? No! Will I be a better photographer, if I am able to express with these cameras something, I wasn’t in the past? Probably, as it will force me to think out of the box and go into new territory. On the other hand, I went back to Ken Rockwell’s page to read some of his technical articles. Ken Rockwell produces some really great images. What I like about his approach is that he puts the picture first. He has all the nice toys, but also emphasizes that one of his favourite cameras is a Nikon D40 (clearly an entry level camera). Have a look at his site and see, what he pulls off with that camera. He challenged me in my preference of my D200 over my D70. I decided on the following:
The last point is a real challenge for me. I believed that shooting raw brings better results. I read Ken’s article on that and did my own tests. The results were promising and straight from the camera I got the results faster, I was looking for. Not only was no raw conversion necessary, but also I did not need to do any manual adjustments other than maybe some sharpening to get the results, I was trying to achieve. There will be several blog entries coming during the next weeks.
Finally, I got a few questions in the comments, which I will respond to as well.
I took this photograph of Kgomotso at the beach in a session, where I played with some concepts that I learnt from Strobist. In the past, I would have just packed in my camera and worked with available light. On this occasion, I packed in light stand strobes and lots of courage. For a good part of the photo session, we were standing in water. Not only we, were standing in water, but also the lightstand with a strobe. It is amazing how powerful waves can be. One wave threw over the lightstand and with it my strobe. Thanks for insurance companies… The strobe died a heroic death in the seawater.
Nevertheless, we had lots of fun with the portraits and this image here was taken before the accident. One strobe was direct from the camera right from the bottom up towards the face.
Mike Colon reports on his blog that he is currently in Cupertino with “10 world’s top photographers.” Apple organised the advisory panel meeting to better understand photographer’s needs. Mike Colon says: “After spending this time behind closed doors with Apple’s top executives and engineers, I am so impressed with how forward thinking they are and how eager they are to make my life simpler, more efficient, and more effective as a professional photographer.”
It will be interesting to see, what comes out of that. For sure, Apple just showed how important photographer’s needs are for them and that might be an exciting future for photographers working with Apple products, like Apple Aperture and Apple Mac Computers. Read the rest of this entry »
Some time ago, I read on a webpage that digital cameras replaced tripods. Somewhere else I read that the quality of a photographer is measured by how often he/she uses a tripod. What do I think about these statements? Though both of them have truth in them, they are also incorrect.
Why? Similar to computer technology, you find people who promote their way as the only right way. Apple users might say that only Apple computers are real computers, while Windows users say that Apple computers are overpriced and only for designers and rich people. I prefer my Mac to any Windows PC, but also know that some applications are only available for Windows or vice versa. Will I sell my Mac for that reason? For sure not, but I also know, where I might experience disadvantages. Skype, for example develops their software faster for Windows users and I have to be patient to be on par with my wife and her computer in that area.
Let’s have a look at the issue with the tripod. What is my experience? I do use my tripod less since I work with my digital SLRs (Nikon D200 and D70s). It is amazing how little light I require to create beautiful pictures without using a flash or tripod. I don’t use my tripod for weddings or portraits in general. (The exception just proves the rule.) I am more flexible and can move faster. There is less to carry around. Even for a lot of my landscape photography, I don’t take my tripod with me. Hiking up Lion’s Head with a tripod would be quiet tough. I still get some great images out of that.
But…
there are occasions, where I want to concentrate on composition, work with long exposure or simply wait for a cloud to disappear out of the picture frame. In those moments I love my tripod and very often these are landscape shots. If I head for maximum sharpness, focus, depth of field, my tripod will be my companion. Or, if I work in my studio, I do very often use my tripod. It is so much more convenient, though I unmount it for portraits. I need the flexibility of moving around. The tripod might still serve a valuable service as secure spot to park my camera.
As so often, it is not about either or, but to know when to use the right piece of equipment. I love available light photography, but is it the answer to everything? No, not at all. Working with flashlight can create images, absolutely impossible with available light alone. Would I always use the flash? No, sometimes you can capture the right atmosphere with available light alone.
Believe me, I was a hardcore believer in only taking pictures in available light for a while. I learnt my lessons! There are also photographers, who’s work mostly consists of pictures taken in available light. Herni Cartier Bresson is one of the many examples. I don’t think that Ansel Adams took many pictures without tripod. Most of his camera were far too big to just hold in your hand.
There are some good exercises that you can assign yourself. Try for a week to take pictures only without a tripod. The next week, take pictures only with a tripod. Do the same for working with available light and flash light. Use only one focal length and change to another the next week. Your skill as photographer will grow as a result of this.
