For a long time now, I’ve been intending to start a photography blog, but as made the move to a digital workflow, my photography is inevitably becoming more technology-focused and I’ve decided to post the occasional photographic item here (those who are interested in just the photographic items can point their browser/feed reader to the Digital Photography tag).

Four years ago, I got to meet one of my photography heros – Charlie Waite – who gave a very interesting presentation at the Talking Pictures ’03 event in London. Last night, I found my notes from that talk and whilst they are far from clear now (so I’ve missed out whole chunks that I no longer understand completely), I thought it might be worthwhile posting them here.

Charlie Waite makes the distinction between taking photographs and making photographs – to make a photograph, it is necessary to “place oneself in the midst of the photographic experience”

When I used to take photos on film, I used to think myself lucky if I got 3-5 images that were good enough to keep from a roll of film. Of course, a professional’s idea of “good enough to keep” would be different to mine (my photos consist of family snapshots, holiday memories and the odd landscape – if I made photographic images for a living then my standards would need to be much higher). It is said that the renowned American photographer Ansel Adams used to reckon on 12 good photographs a year. Indeed, Charlie Waite compared a professional photographer to a top chef who thinks that nothing is ever perfect. The chef’s guests love the meal but he thinks the beans are not quite al dente!

So what makes a good image?

Firstly, being photogenic is nothing to do with good looks – it’s about “letting you in” to the the subject. Think about a travel photographer’s image of a wizened old man – he is rarely attractive in terms of beauty and yet there is something interesting about his face, his expression, or the situation. Similarly for landscapes, industrial scenes can make great images, although they would rarely be referred to as attractive.

Most people have the artistic view that is required to take good pictures. If something is less than ideal, think about compromises. What if it was composed differently? Perhaps change the point of view? (Charlie Waite recommends using a ladder to look over the foreground and reveal more focal planes) Or try cropping the image (preferably in-camera, not in Photoshop afterwards).

Lighting can be used to create an atmosphere – for example, using side lighting instead on one main light. Personally, I love the warm glow on the landscape from a low sunlight at the end of the day – particularly combined with dark clouds after a rainstorm!

To some extent, the camera used is not what makes a great photo (a good photographer will think about a number of compositional elements whether they use an expensive medium-format camera or a mobile phone) but it can make a huge difference. Charlie Waite described the process as “making a sacred image that you are proud of” and the choice of film/filter/camera can make a huge difference. As a photographer, the subjective and creative endeavour is all yours – you are the lighting director, the producer, responsible for props, etc. and it’s your role to make it all work.

Charlie Waite summed up his talk by commenting that “landscapes are about engaging with the natural world through photography” and his talk certainly opened my eyes to a new perspective on making photographs.

Blogging may be a bit sporadic for a while as I’m trying to spend some time with my family (I’ve been far too busy at work over the last few weeks and they have been losing out); however I did find 5 minutes to blog about the new toys that Santa (okay, it was Mrs. Wilson) left on our fireplace/under the Christmas tree a couple of days ago…

The first was a Wacom Graphire 4 Classic A6 tablet – I’ve never used a pen for digital work before but I figured it must be far more intuitive than a mouse and whilst I’ve not had much time to play (no more than the basic setup process) this could open up a whole new world of possibilities for digital image creation. Installing it on my Mac Mini (under both Mac OS X and Windows XP) was easy – although I was a bit perplexed when the product registration screen started asking me questions about how I’d found the product’s usability (duh… I’ve just bought it and am registering it as part of the software installation – I haven’t used it yet!). Slightly annoyingly, as I’m writing this, I see that there is a white version available now; however as my Mac, monitor, external hard disk are all aluminium and my scanners are silver-painted plastic, the silver version doesn’t look out of place on my desktop.

Tech present number 2 was a 2GB 133x Lexar Professional CompactFlash memory card – now I have room on my camera for either many more JPEGs, or for the long-awaited switch to raw format photography.

So, what exactly is the point of this rambling? Well, like much of the rambling on this blog, bear with me – normal service will be resumed soon (I have a lot of half-written blog posts to finish writing) and in the meantime, enjoy the Christmas holidays – I’ll be playing with my children, my camera and my computer (in that order).

Last week, I experienced a photographic crisis… five minutes before leaving home to visit my wife and newborn son, Ben, in hospital (on the day that my two children would meet one another for the first time – a significant family event worth photographing) I had a problem with the Lexar Pro 512MB 80x CF memory card that I use in my Nikon D70 camera (and I couldn’t find a spare card).

Normally, after making copies of my photos (to an external hard disk, backed up to another disk, with occasional DVD backup), I delete all but the most recent file from the card using the computer and the camera recognises the free space, picking up with the file numbering where it left off previously; however this time I deleted all of the photos using the computer and then copied back the most recent one (I also used a Mac instead of a Windows PC but am not sure that is relevant), after which the camera refused to recognise the free space.

With time at a premium, reformatting the memory card seemed like the easiest option so I tried to do this in-camera; however despite appearing to do the job, the camera still reported itself as full and old pictures were still visible. Luckily, some frantic googling turned up a Tom’s hardware guide forum post on the subject – it seems that using the camera’s menu to reformat the card instead of the format buttons works as intended – this method certainly did the trick for me (Nikon D70 firmware revision A and B2.00).

Ever since I started taking photos digitally, I’ve been meaning to investigate the use of raw image capture as it offers much more flexibility for off-camera editing. Basically, a raw image is the unprocessed data from the camera sensor which most cameras then process to produce a JPEG image; however because image sensors vary, so do raw image formats. Thankfully, Nikon’s .NEF format is one of the common ones.

I wrote a post last year about the Microsoft raw image thumbnailer and viewer for Windows XP but I’m still shooting JPEGs as most of my photography these days is family snapshots. Meanwhile, I encouraged Stuart to buy a Nikon D50 digital SLR and he recently posted some information about digital camera raw support for .NEF files in Adobe Photoshop CS 2 that may come in handy one day.

Although this is mostly an IT blog, one of my hobbies is photography and the two fields are getting ever-closer to one another.

I’ve just picked up my latest toy – an AF-S Zoom Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 IF-ED lens for my Nikon cameras. It’s second hand, but it’s a really good lens, bought from a professional photographer friend who has switched from Nikon to Canon.

Actually, for the last few weeks I’ve been getting very excited by a new DSLR camera body from Nikon that I’d really like – the D200.

Like all Nikon DSLRs, the D200 uses an APS-sized (DX) sensor, as Nikon do not produce a body with a full-frame image sensor and seem to be relying on us all upgrading to DX lenses to make the most of the tiny image sensor (it seems to me that more professionals are defecting to Canon, leaving Nikon with just consumers and prosumers like myself); however the D200 offers a number of improvements over the D70 that I bought just over a year ago with a 10.2 million pixel image sensor, ISO range from 100-3200, improved autofocus, remote cable release and a massive 2.5″ LCD display.

Sadly, I’ll have to wait a while for this as, at about £1299 for the body only, I’d need to sell both my F90x and my D70 – and secondhand values are really not very good at all.

Oh well, I’ve finally managed to upgrade my most-used lenses to Nikkor models, the D200 body will just have to go on my wishlist.

Last September, I bought myself a digital SLR camera – a Nikon D70. Whilst the D70 has been an excellent camera (on which I’ve taken over 4000 photos in the last year – that would have been more than 108 rolls of film at about £3.50 and, after taking processing costs of around £4 a roll into account, the camera has pretty much paid for itself), it does have some drawbacks compared with my film body – a Nikon F90x:

• Firstly, in common with all Nikon DSLRs, it uses an APS-sized (23.7×15.6mm) sensor, meaning that all lens focal lengths effectively increase by about 1.5 – great for distance work (my 170mm-500mm lens becomes a 255-750mm) but putting extra demands on the quality of the glass at the centre of the lens, and a pain for wide-angle work. I’d much rather have a full-frame sensor, although even Canon (who seem to be the market leaders for DSLRs) only have full-frame sensors on their professional models.
• Secondly, the auto-focus seems slow in comparison to my film body and doesn’t have a continuous evaluation mode (although I must confess I hardly use the F90x now, so it may just be the way that I remember things).
• Thirdly, the D70’s slowest ISO setting is 200.
• Finally, the D70 doesn’t have a remote cable release socket, so I can’t use my MC-30 remote cord to reduce camera shake on slow exposures (one workaround is to use the self timer).

Then a few months back, Nikon launched a new budget DSLR – the D50 – and upgraded the D70 to the D70s, adding improved auto-focus, new menus, a 10% larger screen (up from 1.8″ to 2.0″), flash support for wide angle lenses and a remote cable release socket. I was really annoyed as many of these were the features I had lost when I moved from the F90x to the D70. It will come as no surprise then, that I was pleased to find out it is possible to upgrade the firmware on the D70 to a similar level to the D70s and a few days back I did exactly that.

The firmware is upgraded in two parts (A and B) and is available from the Nikon European Support Centre. Nikon do require registration to download the update but the instructions are clear and concise and I had no problems in to taking my D70 from A1.01 and B1.02 to A and B2.00.

It won’t help out with the hardware-related constraints, but does give me a much clearer menu layout and (allegedly) improved auto-focus (the jury is still out on that one but it’s certainly no worse).