Brandy Flat Hut

This is the first excursion I've done (not as part of a group) where I've specifically gone somewhere to take photos. Everything else, so far, has been taking photos opportunistically :)



Hind and I drove to the Namadgi Visitors Centre and enquired about huts in Namadgi National Park. The ranger told us about a couple of huts, and we chose to visit Brandy Flat Hut. It was a short drive, and then a four hour walk. We walked in from the southern side, which I thought would be quicker because it looked like a shorter distance on the map, but it was very steep terrain and very hard walk. On the way back we took a shortcut through the bush and cut off about 40mins :)

The Hut is quite "modern" as it's been recently rebuilt (the original hut had decayed over time). There was a fireplace, matches, candles, visitors book and a sturdy table inside. There were some fairly tame kangaroos that were hopping around outside.

I took heaps of photos, but struggled with the light. It was late afternoon when we got to the hut (about 4pm, sun goes down at 6pm), and most of the shots were outside the dynamic range of the D300. I bracked most shots, but I haven't yet tried to HDR the images. The compositions I were happy with turned out not to bad colour and light wise once I had tweeked the photos quite a bit in Lightroom. At the time I was too concerned about burning out the sky so that it stayed blue, but I've come to realise that a white sky is generally more applealing than a blue one. I've printed two of the photos, and they look really good printed. This is my favourite shot - I especially like the sun coming through the trees:

Canberra Flickr Stobist Meet

The Canberra Flickr group had a "strobist" meet the other day. The idea is that you get to practice using strobes (flashes) by shooting models. The afternoon was a bit of a mixed bag - there were some positives and some negatives. It could have done with better organisation (at the venue - the pre-organisation was very good) and some kind of goals to work towards. Unfortunately the beginners were all lumped together, so there was really no-one to offer instruction or help - it was the blind leading the blind. I knew how to get the lighting right, but I really struggled with directing the models. I really didn't know what sort of pose I needed, so generally relied on others to get the model into an interesting pose.

I ended up with some shots I was happy with. Here's the flickr gallery.

First time assistant

I did my first photography assistant job the other day. It was interesting, and a little boring (!). It was boring because it was photos of a computer rack - even though I'm a geek, two hours of photographing computers does get a little tiresome. The good part was that I learnt a lot, mainly through watching how a professional works. I was surprised how long everything took and the volume of photos taken (the client only wanted 6 images). The lighting equipment used for this shoot was one reflective umbrella, one softbox, two strobes running off a battery pack. Everything was connected by PC cables. There were quite a few cables running around - I reckon my wireless setup would have worked quite well :) I also helped with the selection and post processing of the images.

So, hopefully this will be the first of many assistant jobs!

I've since emailed about 20 photographers in Canberra asking if they want an assistant. I've had quite a few responses, ranging from "I don't use assistants", "no thanks", to a meeting with someone :)

Nikon Zoom Lenses

Here's a fantastic article that compares the current range of Nikkor lenses:

Nikon Zoom Lenses by Thom Hogan (Part 1)

It really puts into perspective the range of lenses from Nikon, and even gives concise advice about which lenses to have in your kit (either if you're a consumer or pro).

I've currently got the 18-200 VR, and a 12-24 f4 on order (Tokina though, which, from what I've read is almost as good as the Nikon 12-24, but is half the price). I'm always watching auctions on eBay looking for a good long lens that goes up to 400mm, either the 80-400 or 200-400 would be great :) I'd also like a really good (preferably long) macro lens too...

I know the quality of the 18-200 is nothing to write home about, especially the softness in the middle of the zoom range, but it's such a versitile lens to carry around - the VR works well, fast focus, an effective range of 27-300mm on the D300.

Digital Printing

I had two 12"x18" prints done a month ago, and got them done at the local Harvey Norman store. As much as I hate Harvey's, they use Fujifilm digital printers with Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper. I was very happy with the quality. The prints were $24.95 each. I thought the price was good at the time, but now I've discovered that it's pretty steep.

So, for the next lot of photos I've done my research. It seems like the vast majority of online and bricks-and-mortar stores use the Fujifilm system (kiosk, priters, paper, etc). I'm assuming that the quality shouldn't vary too much between the places using similar equipment. Also, from reading online it seems like the Fujifilm system is one of the better ones. The (physical) places I know of that are using it are Harvey Norman, BigW, Powerhouse, Ted's. And then there's the online places: Harvey's, BigW, FujiFilm, Dell, BigPond, RGB Digital and a few others I can't remember right now.

I created a spreadsheet with all the options, and the one that has the best prices for larger prints (which is what I'm interested in) is RGB Digital. They claim a 24 hour turnaround time, with overnight delivery via Toll Priority.

Some prices for comparison:

10" x 15"
RGB Digital : $3.75
BigW Online : $9.84
BigW Store : $16.34
BigPond : $11.10
Dell : $10.45
FujiColor : $10.45
Harvey's : $14.95
Harvey's Store : not printed on Fujifilm equipment, "needs to be photoshopped" says the idiot in the store. Obviously someone forgot to check an option in the setup app.
Ted's don't list this size on their website

The other size I'm interested in is the 8" x 12", which RGB Digital do for $2. How good is that?!

So, armed with the RGB Digital Ad in Australian Photography mag, I visited a few stores at lunchtime (mainly because I'd rather get the photos printed locally if possible, and I need them within 2.5 business days...).

First up was BigW. The conversation went something like:
Me: "Hi, I want to get some 10x15's printed, do you pricematch?"
BigW: "Yes. Do you have the ad?"
Me: "Yes, here it is"
BigW: "Oh, those prices are cheap!" Duh! "I'll have to check"
BigW Manager: He studied the ad and magazine for quite some time, verified their price then "I'll have to check"... when he came back a few minutes later "Sorry Sir, we only price match 4x6's"
Me: *sigh*...

Then was Harvey's... it was much more black and white. No kidding, the conversation went like this:
Me: "Hi, do you price match printing prices?"
Harvey: "No"

Ouch...! So much for their price matching policy that they flaunt all over their advertising.

Next was Powerhouse. Yes, apparently they pricematch. I asked the attendant a few times to confirm, and she seemed quite confident but added they she'd have to check with her manager. But then the killer was that anything big (I assume greater than 4x6) needs to be sent to Sydney, with a turnaround time of 10 days. Geez, do they use a horse and kart to carry the photos to Sydney on a few hundred floppy disks?

After all that walking around, it was time to do some surfing :) I checked out the RGB Digital site in more detail and called them to discuss turnaround time. The person I spoke to was confident that I'd have prints by Tuesday (it's Friday afternoon). So, that was that then - RGB Digital it is. I tried the web app to submit photos, but it was dead slow... so I downloaded the Windows software and was pleasantly surprised [*1]. It allowed very good control over printing sizes, cropping and uploaded quickly (I hope it's not re-compressing the JPG's to a smaller size). Total order for 16 prints of varying sizes from 10x10 up to 12x18 came to $60 including delivery. Excellent price, and shits over all the other printing places in terms of price. I'll report back here when the prints arrive to make sure they are of good quality!

*1 - The online and downloadable software they use is developed by some mob in Tasmania. I've seen it on a few sites now. Most sites it on, the sites looks crap and the online form for uploading photos is very basic (and amazingly slow). The Windows software is really quite good. But where's the equivalent Mac version - don't tell me I have to use the crappy web software.

Lighting Equipment

For my current assignment I need some better lighting equipment. And I also want to get a makeshift studio setup in my garage for protrait photography. I want to use the TTL wireless capabilities of the SB-600, but shoot into an umbrella. It sounds quite simple, all I need is a silver or white reflective umbrella, an umbrella swivel, and a light stand. And two of everything...as I want at least two sources of light. It's really hard to find reasonable priced umbrellas and swivels in Australia. So far, the best I've found is from an eBay store, but the prices are at least double of what you can get from the US (and the US stores charge a lot of postage for international shipments). Most of the Australian based websites I've looked at only carry very expensive lighting kits, or no lighting gear at all. I still haven't decided which way to go (either from the Aussie eBay store, or from a US website). I need to make a decision soon...

On the Easter weekend we went camping. I got a couple of good photos (one of a butterfly, and a few cool light painting shots near the campfire), but I was quite dissapointed with how many of the shots turned out. The light was very poor for most of the weekend because it was overcase and raining most of the time and I didn't take enough care to correct the exposure. The photos I took in the cave were very bad... definitely need more practise there.

One strange thing I found (which I haven't yet had time to verify), was that the autofocus on the D300 didn't work at all when the AF assist lamp feature is turned off. The light was low, but it was still during daylight hours... it confused me for quite some time and I thought the lens/camera AF was broken! I'd turned off the AF assist lamp the night before because it was annoying people as I photographed them sitting infront of the fire during the dark.

Ideas

I'm currently tossing around a few ideas of what I can do in the field of photography to make money. One idea is to sell prints, either as posters or cards. I think this is a pretty difficult way to go because you need such a high volume to make any money. I have recently been accepted to the stock photography site PhotoShelter. You need to present them with some of your best photos and if they are good enough then they accept you to the site. Two of my photos were accepted, and I have since submitted more but they're waiting for approval (or not). You can set your price as either rights managed or royalty free (and three separate levels of royalty free). So far I've set my photos as royalty free, and will see if they sell :)

Some other ideas I'm thinking about are real-estate photography and freelance journalism for outdoor magazines (specifically 4WD Action for starters). Firstly, real estate photography might be able to get me some small money coming in, but it won't be fantastically interesting type of work (I assume). The freelance journalism will be fun, but quite challenging in the writing department! I'll be giving it a shot on the easter weekend when we head off for a camping trip to Deua National Park.

Some todo items for the next few weeks are to work on a business plan, and hopefully buy a wide angle zoom. Top of the list are the Tokina 12-24mm and the Nikon 12-24mm. The Nikon (from reading reviews) is slightly better, but it's twice as expensive as the Tokina. Hmmmm.... gotta think about that one!

Not much progress

With a work trip to the US and a couple of other things the following week, meant that little progress was made this fortnight. This afternoon I took some more product shots of Cocolo - I didn't feel too inspired, but some turned out fairly well. I also haven't had a chance to do the next assignment of the photography course.

Camera Bag

While in the US I decided to buy a camera bag. I've got an excellent Lowepro laptop backpack camera bag combined. It's pretty good, but too big for when you're wandering around with a camera. It's more for when you're traveling with the laptop and you want a single bag. When I went to the states I didn't bring any camera bag because I was trying to travel light - the camera was packed into my carry on luggage.




But, I needed a bag for wandering around San Francisco so I bought the Lowepro Nova 3 AW. As you'd expect, it's a great bag. Very well designed, and very well built and a reasonable price. I find it to be slightly too big, but the Nova 2 is much too small. And it's quite possible that I'll be carrying more stuff in it in the future anyway. Here's some shots of Fishermans Wharf and Market street in San Fran.

The below image turned out much better than I would have thought, but now I wish I could go back and recompose it a bit. I was too hasty taking the picture and didn't realise I'd stuffed up the composition. The lamp post should either not be in the photo or at least not infront of the building on the pier, and the boat is also a bit distracting. Next time I'm in San Fran I'll fix it up :)

Off to San Francisco

Off to San Francisco

Quick one today:

- I'm leaving for San Francisco on Monday for work, and my camera will travel with me. Hopefully I'll get some nice shots!

- At the Canberra Photographic Society meeting on Tuesday I watched a demo of Blurb. Blurb is a service that prints books (at any quantity!). They are very well priced, ship world wide, and the software (available for both Mac and PC) looks pretty good - I'll be definitely giving Blurb a go.

- I'm up to Module Five of the photography course - Light & Colour. I've packed it for reading on the plane. Results so far are: Module 1 = 9/10, Module 2 = 10/10 and Module 3 = 10/10 :)

- Really enjoying working in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, can't say enough good things about this software.

- I'm a bit pissed off that the copy of Nikon Capture NX that came with the camera is in Japanese... grrrr.

- After shooting many identical shots in both RAW (14bit) and best quality JPEG and comparing them, JPEG comes out the clear winner. The photos are equally sharp, but the JPEG photos contain almost no chromatic aberrations and I think the colour looks better. I'm sure the RAW file can be fixed to look better than the JPEG straight out of the camera, but that would be a considerable amount of work and I really doubt that the end result would be noticeably better. The burst rate for JPEG is much higher than RAW, and of course I can fit many more photos on the 4GB card.

Grey Card and Dynamic Range

A bit late with this blog post, oops!

I spent quite a bit of time trying to track down a grey card. I needed the grey card for my third assignment from "The Photography Institute" course I'm doing. Grey cards (or at least the one I bought) are a complete rip-off for what they are. But now I have one.

I used the grey card to measure the dynamic range of my camera - here's how: Fix the grey card to an object (outdoors in the shade) and then completely fill the viewfinder of the camera with the card. Set the camera to manual, manual focus, f8 exposure, and then change shutter speed to expose the scene correctly. Take a shot. Increase shutter speed by one stop and take another shot - repeat about 6 or 7 times. Then return to a correctly exposed photo and repeat in the opposite direction. After this is complete, import photos to your computer and you'll see a range of photos from completely black to completely white. Set up a little table of results and get an average RGB reading for each photo (but discard any duplicate completely black or completely white shots). Then count up the number and you have the dynamic range in stops.

Here's the results of this experiment that I did with the Nikon D300.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pJtsF7O3f1aq0Lho49IZQVg

I also repeated the exercise at different ISO's to see what difference they made, but as you can see from the chart, it made no appreciable difference. The shots for the ISO 200 were made about an hour before the other shots, and at a different part of the garden which might account for the slight differences.

I went along to a meeting of the Canberra Photographic Society on Tuesday evening. They had a competition night, which was quite interesting. Many people displayed their works around the room on a pinboard, and then a judge commented on each photo finally giving it a score out of 5. The night was very informative, and the judge very entertaining! Next month I'll be submitting some photos for some constructive criticism.