I shot all my early images on large format film, with a hand held light meter, so I can tell you there are a few big things that make digital cameras such a huge leap from film. Such as…
…Continuing on from this Previous Post
One of the main difficulties you will encounter when shooting into the light is that your light meter will almost certainly produce a dud result. Your camera’s light meter assumes a subject of mid tone grey, so to balance the tones with the intense bright light coming straight into the lens it will show your subjects as black silhouettes, usually with no detail information in the shadows.
Your image will usually turn out very dark…
I still remember reading the exposure guide pictograms on the Kodachrome 64 box when I was young. It showed in wonderfully simple graphics how you should always shoot portraits with the sun over your left or right shoulder so that the bright sunlight shines directly onto your subject, and never with the sun in front of you shining into your camera lens… This gave us many generations of family photos of people with screwed up faces as they squinted directly into the bright sun.
Regardless of what the old Kodak film box says, shooting into the light can produce some stunning results if you are careful with your exposure and practise a little.
It’s not going to be right for every subject, but there are many situations when an image shot into the light can add enormous drama to a scene, especially if you can create strong shapes and take advantage of the shadows produced.
The image to the right was taken at the Mongar Tshechu, a cultural festival in the far East of Bhutan, shooting into the light, deliberately.
Look at the shadow stretching out in front of the dancer, see how it’s adding so much to the narrative and the dynamic nature of the image?
You could even say that the subject of this image is the dancers shadow rather than the dancer himself.
This shadow also gives a real 3D depth to the image, something that can be difficult to achieve with a 2D medium like photography.
Travelling is back, bigger and better than ever. Well, the bills are bigger… better is all relative. Relative to not being able to travel at all it’s definitely better. Something nobody wants to think about when planning a big adventure is Travel Insurance… its expensive, and unless something actually goes wrong you never really know what you are getting.
The most common question I get asked regarding Photo tours is… “why do I need to pay with that currency (whichever “that” one is)?” This question I have answered more fully on an earlier post that you can find HERE>>
A recent question was more interesting… “Why don’t you use PayPal? (or stripe etc…), they accept multiple currencies…” Yes, they do but… I have extensively researched PayPal, Stripe and a bunch of other gateways…
The print was always the natural end product in the old film days, but now everything is digital so can’t we just look at our images on the monitor?
Of course you can, and that’s a great way to enjoy your photography. But a beautifully made print of a well crafted image is something special all by itself. It’s many steps beyond the image on the monitor, but it can be even more than that, it can also fast track your photography skills.
Read the rest of this entry »Camera Electronic’s Perth Photolive Expo is happening again in Perth this year. We missed a couple of years of Photolive due to COVID, but now it’s back, bigger and even better than before. Once again it’s on at the main conference room at the Novotel Langley Hotel in the Perth CBD, Sunday the 7th August 9am – 5pm.
We price all of our international tours in the currency that our suppliers invoice us in. So Japanese Yen (JPY) for our Japan photo tours, Euro (€) for our European photo tours and US dollars (US$) for many countries that use the US$ for business, such as the Bhutan photo tour and Cambodia photo tour. Tours within Australia, such as our Tasmania Photo tour, The Karijini photo tour (in the amazing Pilbara Region of West Australia) or the Kimberley photo tour (returning soon) we price in Australian dollars (AU$) for the same reason.
Read the rest of this entry »Continuing on from my earlier post about my camera insurance claim on a damaged Phase One IR Filter.
After months of wrangling, writing letters and answering spurious nonsense created by the WFI legal team (and passed to me for comment by the ombudsman), WFI offered to pay half the amount of the camera insurance claim. I considered carefully… for about 2 seconds, then told them (via the ombudsman) to bugger off! It was long past being about the money, it was about them doing the right thing, the thing I had been paying large amounts of money for in good faith.
Several more weeks of fluff and noise ensued, before WFI finally capitulated and agreed to pay the full amount. (I think they just got sick of me)… This was 25th March 2019, the initial claim was lodged 23rd July 2018… For a $3,600 claim on an item insured for around $60,000. All up I would estimate that rejecting my claim and fighting it for months used up several hundred hours of somebodies expensive time at WFI, which cost a hell of a lot more than than my initial claim.
Of course WFI cancelled my insurance (but only on my camera gear), and sent me a nasty letter that was an official refusal to renew my contract. This plays havoc with any future insurance applications as I have to disclose this in full when applying for a policy. I countered by cancelling my car insurance and my house insurance, which were also with WFI. Small things, but it felt good. And of course I tell everybody about it.
The moral of this story? It could be “don’t trust insurance companies” Or perhaps “always read the fine print…” or maybe a combination of both… “when dealing with insurance companies always read the fine print (and don’t trust them, especially WFI)”. Are you sure your camera gear is really insured?
A mirrorless camera, what is the point? I’m not doubting the validity of mirrorless, its a serious question. I love mirrorless technology and I think it’s clearly the future of camera manufacturing. But I also think many people seem to have missed or forgotten the reason a mirrorless camera was so attractive in the first place. Small and light… Remember that?
So you have your trusty DSLR setup with 4 reliable carefully chosen lenses, maybe a 16-35mm f2.8, or a 14-24mm f2.8… A 24-70 f2.8 and the quintessential 70-200mm f2.8. You are prepared for just about any photo opportunity. So you are ready to head out, you go to pick up your camera bag and… Read the rest of this entry »
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