When should I use my flash?

When should I use my flash? Seems like a simple question, but it's not. If there is enough light, I favour available light photography. If my flash is a micro unit built into my point-and-shoot camera, I will push my luck, and my ISO, and stay with available light photography as long as possible. I prefer noisy pictures to flatly lit ones, but that is a person preference.

Handheld umbrella bounce.

When I worked at a paper, the answer was different. Back then, I had a powerful strobe with a swivel head and I always carried a small umbrella. Holding my umbrella behind and off to one side, I bounced the flash into the middle of the umbrella. Using the centre pole of the umbrella as a pointer indicating the path of the bounced light, I would aim the umbrella at my subject. (Check the dressing room picture of a model shot prior to hitting the stage at a local fashion show.)

In white painted rooms with white walls and ceiling, one can forgo the umbrella and simply bounce the flash into a ceiling/two wall corner. Either the corner trick or the handheld umbrella approach will allow one to shoot with at a much smaller f/stop and thus get cleaner, sharper images. This is so important when striving for the best images for publication.

Yesterday was my granddaughter's first birthday. She was one-year-old. To shoot with flash or not was the question. I went without and I'll show you one of my images and let you decide if I make the right decision.

First, I shot the image with my Canon P90 set to available light photography. This automatically ups the ISO and changes the way the camera treats the sensor pixels. At the available light setting, the camera marries adjacent pixels for lower noise at high ISO settings. This cuts the image size form 10MB to 5MB but I can put up with that.

Original Image

Cropped and enhanced

I took the resulting images into Photoshop Elements and enhanced the images using the automatic colour correction feature. I am testing Elements at the moment and that is why I used this program.

Next, I selected parts of the image that I felt still needed some colour correction and made some gross corrections using Photoshop and Curves. I always give my selections a bold amount of feathering. Bold approaches worked in the old wet darkroom and so I use this same approach in the new electronic darkroom.

With the image looking quite good colour wise, I set the endpoints in Photoshop Levels. Hold the Alt key down while moving the endpoint triangles. When moving the white point the image will go white and only the areas with blown out whites will be shown; When moving the black point the image will go black and only the areas with plugged blacks will be shown. With Mac running Photoshop, hold the Option key.

When done, I gave it a small amount of Saturation (8), resized the image for the Net (7 inches deep at 72 dpi) and lastly I sharpened it using Unsharp Mask. (Amount: 160%, Radius: 2 pixels, Threshold: 3 levels)

I confess, I tweaked the overall contrast with one last visit to Photoshop Curves. I grabbed the curve at the shadow end and therefore put a bit more weight to opening up the shadows but it not a big deal for most of us. The resulting image looks good on screen and will make fine prints for the family scrapbook.

Macro Photography

All the rules you follow to achieve your usual shooting style should be applied when shooting macro-photography. Watch your background and keep clutter to a minimum. Try and work with contrast in tone and colour in order to make your subject pop. And try for the maximum sized image while keeping the subject absolutely sharp.

That is where this image suffers - it is a little small and a tad lacking in ultimate detail because of this. But the copper toned top of the Japanese Beetle contrasts nicely with the green foliage and the rich colours make for a strong image.

The really nice thing about macro-photography is that you can make images that are real grabbers without so much as leaving your backyard. And most point-and-shoots today offer macro photography as one of the myriad of shooting options. So, get out there and have some fun --- and get some great pictures, too.

Telling a story with your pictures.

Pictures should always tell a story. The story can be simple or complex but there should be a clarity of thought evident in all your shots.

Years of working as a news photographer taught me the importance of paying attention to the story telling being delivered by each picture.

Seeing some young people unloading kayaks for an afternoon run down the local river, I immediately thought of my other blog --- London Daily Photo.

I shot images of the unloading, the launching and the paddling. The first two images are rich with lots of action. I am especially fond of the composition of the unloading picture with the curved jogging trail adding a wonderful sense of energy to the image.

These images just didn't happen, but I didn't set them up either. I scouted each scene, found the angle that held the most promise and then shot the action using the best frame capture mode of my Fuji Finepix HS10.

Some mention should be made of Photoshop. All images were enhanced using Photoshop. Each picture had the endpoints adjusted with Levels and the overall brightness of each image was modified using Curves. After hitting the images with a little Saturation, each picture was sharpened using Unsharp Mask.

This is the approach that one should strive for when shooting such stuff as vacation pictures. The holiday photo album will be far more interesting, if you do.

A fine camera for reporters

Strong pictures to illustrate a story are now in reach of reporter two-way folk.

The line separating reporters and photographers is becoming blurred. When a good camera kit with a big selection of lenses cost a small fortune, it was impossible to offer reporters the toys given photographers at the same newspaper. This is no longer true.

The news shooters may have faster lenses but there is no longer any reason for reporters acting as two-way folk to be given a complete losing hand when it comes to camera gear. I would highly advise any paper to give super zoom cameras like the Fuji FinePix HS10 serious consideration.

These cameras may not capture the ultimate in image quality but then newspapers don't require such high quality. My Fuji shoots images that would look just fine printed on newsprint with an 80 line halftone screen.

Reporters are bright people and many are very image literate. With a good super zoom these talented reporters could report both verbally and pictorially and they could do so easily and quickly.

Last night I had to post a response to a feature that ran in my local paper. I made a loop through the suburban area that was discussed, quickly took a lot of pictures to illustrate my points, and within hours of deciding to write my piece I had it online, complete with art.

See: Rockin' On: the blog --- 21st Century Suburbia. You don't have to read the piece, this isn't trolling. Just check out the images taken with the lens on my HS10 set anywhere from 24mm to 720mm. The exposures were set by the camera and saved as simple jpegs. I did nothing fancy. I did nothing that a reporter could not be expected to master.

For another example of what a reporter could do with simple equipment and enthusiasm, see:
Canoeing the Thames (in Ontario). Reporters could do this. They are quite bright people. Honest.

Now, about photographers also writing articles . . .

Best Frame Capture Mode

According to Fuji, "With this mode, you can half-press the shutter button and the HS10 will start to record photos. Then, when the special moment happens, all you have to do is fully press the shutter button and the camera will capture that shot and the 7 previous shots, ensuring that you will have every moment of the action recorded, and giving you the opportunity to select whichever was the best shot!"

A big weakness of point-and-shoot cameras vs. DSLRs is the shutter lag from which point-and-shoots suffer and DSLR cameras don't. The HS10's Best Frame Capture mode delivers images that slipped by during the camera lag moment.

For today's picture the HS10 delivered seven images, taken in quick succession, from which I selected the best. The downside is that the Fuji camera takes more than ten seconds to write all seven images to the SD card. Until the camera is done, no more picture taking is possible. Win some, lose some.

Since I cannot afford the alternative, nor do I want to tote about the weight of a DSLR plus a number of lenses, I'm happy. I think I'm winning more than I'm losing shooting with my HS10.

Now for a note on composition:

I believe with images like the above it is important to have the lines of the stairs perfectly parallel to the top and bottom of the picture. If you've got Photoshop, you can Select -> All and go Edit -> Transform -> Skew to correct the little compositional errors. Don't try to correct too much with skew, do most of the work in-camera while shooting. This keeps the distortions introduced by Photoshop from becoming obvious.

For another post on Best Frame Capture, check out: Best Frame Capture_A Detailed Look.

The benefit of a long lens

Most often a long lens, like the 720mm zoom on the Fuji FinePix HS10, is used to get "close" to a distant subject. When I saw today's picture I wanted to put distance, real distance, between me and the subject. The pavement dust would be bad enough on my camera but, unlike the man operating the cutter, I didn't have a face mask. The HS10 allowed me to get quite a ways away and still capture a fine photo. You just have to love that 720mm zoom.

Another use for continuous shooting

Continuous shooting at 10 fps guaranteed a sharp image.

The thistle looked like a picture but it was waving sporadically in the light breeze. Trying to time the shot to the lull in the wind was near impossible. The shutter lag kept messing up my timing. So, I set my Fuji HS10 to continuous and soon had an image. Don't just think sports action when considering the value of the continuous shooting feature.

Fuji FinePix HS10 Meets Bruce Cockburn

Tonight was a big test of my Fuji FinePix HS10; I took it to a concert.

Remember, I'm a retired newspaper shooter. I once used top of the line Canon EOS cameras. I often shot concerts with an f/1.8 200mm prime lens. I was never concerned about the light; With an f/1.8 there is always enough light. And with such a massive, large f/stop, I could use any shutter speed necessary to stop the action on stage. As for the ISO setting, I always went lightly, no big boosts here; I wanted to minimize noise.

Tonight I had none of that. I had a lens which when zoomed got progressively slower. I'd be lucky to shoot at f/5.6, I thought.

So, I gambled with the shutter speed; I picked 1/320 second. I gambled with the ISO; I set it to 6400. And, I truly threw the dice with the f/stop; I used Auto!

And I won my bets! Or at least I think I did. What's your opinion? Feel free to comment. (This was written quickly last night on returning from the concert. Read on to get the in-depth scoop.)

Everything I've read about the Fuji HS10 made worry about trying to capture a singer on stage with this camera. I read that the lens was incredibly slow when zoomed, the pictures were soft and smudged looking when shot at anything faster than ISO800 and the camera was impossible to use without a tripod when zoomed all the way to 720mm.

Now, one rule of photography is not to decide you cannot get a picture before pushing the shutter button. Photography is not about equipment; Photography is about photographers. Clearly there are limitations imposed by equipment. But more often the limitations are imposed by the shooter. You can't do much about the equipment problems but you control the photographer --- you.

Before leaving for the concert, I brushed up on my knowledge of the camera. The HS10 is one complex piece of equipment for a fellow who places the Canon SD10 in the Parthenon of point-and-shoot. I confess, I still have not truly mastered this hi-tech tool.

Getting to the concert early, I sat down close to the stage and began preparing the camera for the concert. First I set it to Sports Action figuring this would force the camera to make decision based on stopping action. I shot a few quick pictures of the audience and immediately learned that this would not work. The shutter speed chosen by the camera was simply too slow.

I set the camera to shutter priority. If you don't understand shutter priority read the entry posted on Digital Photography School. I set the shutter to 1/500th thinking that was a good starting point and I shot some more pictures. I assumed that the stage lighting would remain fairly constant. Not enough light.

I then started playing with the ISO setting. Remember all major full settings make changes of one full stop (to be technical step not stop but let's not be silly). So, change the ISO from 100 to 200 and it is similar to opening the lens another f/stop.

I moved the ISO from 100 to 6400: A change of 5 stops! And I shot some quick preliminary pix. They looked good exposure wise but they suffered from camera movement. I'd have to brace the HS10 somehow, I thought.

Lastly, I increased the dynamic range of the camera one increment. I'll confess I don't know exactly what this does but it sounds good. I had read the extreme setting resulted in increased noise and I didn't want that and the factory setting, I read, allowed highlights to burn out. I picked the in-between setting.

Immediately before the concert I walked to the front of the stage, squatted down and staked out my position --- not quite in front of the mic. I didn't want every picture marred by a mic blocking my view of Cockburn. The really fine thing about my "seat" was the wooden barrier. I could shoot under it while pushing the top of the camera firmly against the wood. This steadied the camera.

After Cockburn appeared I realized that I didn't need to shoot at 1/500th second. I moved the shutter speed setting down to 1/320th. The camera was picking f/stops in the f/5.0 range --- sometimes a little faster and sometimes a little slower. This looked good to me.

I pushed the high speed continuous shooting button and I was ready to rock.

So, you want to be a better photograher. . .

Yes, this was taken with my simple Canon SD10. Cool, eh?

. . . and you've come here looking for information on the best camera. Forget it. Stop the search. Unless you are a pro or a truly advanced amateur, the camera is not the big deciding factor in whether or not you shoot good stuff. It's you!

I googled "photo club London Ontario." Found the local photo club and checked out the images. Wow! These shooters are good.

This does not come as a total surprise as years ago I wrote a photography column for the local paper. One column dealt with the The London Camera Club. I interviewed the then president and featured some of his work in my column.

Canon has released a new camera. This would hardly be worth mentioning except it has one feature that puts it apart from the crowd: An f/2.0 lens. I'm talking about the Canon SD4000 IS.

With my Canon SD10 I found pictures just outside my door.

For seven years I played with the first camera in the now long series of SD cameras, the SD10. It was laughably small --- I was used to big DSLRs with giant, heavy lenses as I worked at a newspaper. But I soon learned, or should I say rediscovered, that once one learns to work within the limits imposed by one's camera, the joy of photography is there to discover.

I loved that little SD10. With only an f/2.8 prime lens, it taught me to see the picture in the overall scene. No zooming in to crop out unwanted stuff. Make a composition or move was the demand. I got a lot of exercise running about taking pictures with that camera. And it was worth it.

Go to my site Rockin' on: the Blog and scroll down while looking on the right side of the screen. You'll fine a little slide show of images almost 100% of which were shot with my ultra-compact SD10.

Don't get hung-up on equipment. Get hung-up on photography. Get hung-up on you. Go google "photo club" and add your own hometown. Find some like-minded keeners. Document your world and enjoy.

Once you can shoot successfully within the confines of a simple camera, you are a photographer ready to take advantage of the almost unlimited world of high-end DSLR photography.

My SD10 taught me the importance of composition and light.

My look at the Fuji FinePix HS10

Since posting my personal thoughts on the Fuji FinePix HS10 I have been directed by readers to a number of Internet sites carrying full reviews of this Fuji superzoom.

Many of these had serious reservations about the camera. Pictures of playing cards taken under poor lighting were shown to be grainy. Action shots, poorly composed and rather uninteresting, were shown to be poor. (I don't take pictures of playing cards in the dark. Not my thing. So, I really wasn't all that interested.)

One reads these reviews, looks at the pictures, and it is clear that these folk are shooting for fun. I am and I like the HS10. Straight from the box, set to the no-brainer Auto setting, I got some great pictures. Were they too noisy? Too soft? Oh, please . . .

Full post: Rockin' On: Photography.

The first thing that is important in any photograph is the photograph. A camera is nothing more than a tool for taking and making pictures. The HS10 is not only a good tool straight out of the box, it has features that allow it to grow with the photographer. Using the HS10 can be a challenge but that is not a bad thing if rising to the challenge delivers great images while making you a better shooter.

The HS10 is not for everyone. A newspaper photographer would be driven wild by its infuriatingly long shutter lag. And I can see some parents be ticked off when they miss a shot of their child because the camera is busy writing the last picture to disc and is not ready for more action. To these people I say, break down, spend the money, buy a DSLR. There really is no other answer.

But if you're like me and what you want is a serendipitous camera, one that you can have with you almost all the time --- I don't recommend taking the HS10 into the shower --- then this Fuji offering is worth considering.

Enlarge the image below. It was a chance moment. Driving along the Pacific Coastal Highway, I chanced to see some kite-surfers. I stopped and fired off some quick pictures. It was fun to do and it was even more fun to see the fine moments I captured.

For a more detailed look at the ultra-fast continuous shooting capabilities of the HS10 please check out my post discussing the Best Frame Capture mode.

Click on this image and examine the slightly cropped file. I'm impressed.

Fuji HS10 Unretouched Image

This is an untouched, downloaded straight-from-the-camera, image. This Fuji HS10 image of a hare is not even cropped. I took this at the Hacienda at Fort Hunter Liggett in California while on holidays. The image is not perfect but it suffers from nothing that cannot be corrected in almost any image enhancement program: Photoshop, ACDSee, etc.

One reads a lot about the noise problems, etc., of the Fuji HS10. Double-click this image and take a close look at the quality. It is a perfectly fine image file in my book.

Cheers,
Rockinon.

Serendipitous Cameras_Fuji HS10, Canon S90

Taken with a Canon SD10 Digital ELPH.

I call point-and-shoots "serendipitous cameras" compared to the professional DSLR cameras that I used while working for the local newspaper, The London Free Press. Truth be told, all photography has an element of the fortuitous, of chance, of luck.

It is this reliance on luck in photography that has many refusing to accept photographic images as art. This shows a lack of understanding of what many believe constitutes art. There is art and there is craft. Point-and-shoot photographers, especially those with their cameras permanently set to "Auto", are the purest of artists. These shooters keep the intrusion of craft into their art to a minimum.

I've always knows that there was a certain amount of chance involved in getting a fine photo. But it wasn't until my wife bought me a Canon SD10 Digital ELPH that I began to truly appreciate what removing the craft decisions from photography really meant.

The little Canon SD10 fit into the watch pocket of my jeans. It had no zoom lens, it could not be manually focused, nor could one change the f/stops or shutter speeds. On the plus side, it had an f/2.8 prime lens; This isn't fast but it isn't slow either.

Dinner: opportunity to make/capture art.

Always with me, because of its size, I began to see beauty worthy of a picture everywhere. I could fill a photo album with shots of my dinner plates alone. My wife's a good cook, and like all good cooks, she mixes the craft of cooking with the art of presentation.

My little SD10 lasted more than seven years and it taught me a lot. When I retired, read hit by a layoff at the newspaper, The London Free Press took "my" cameras. You see, "my" cameras were "their" cameras. I was left with three lenses: a Canon 200mm f/1.8 and two smaller prime lenses. I was also left a little short of money.

I sold my lenses and replaced all my newspaper gear with what I hoped would do the job on a shoestring: a Canon S90, a Fuji HS10 and a Dell Studio XPS notebook. Of course, I also added a big helping of serendipity to my camera bag. These are cameras that thrive on luck.

One big drawback of almost all point-and-shoots is shutter lag. The little SD10 prepared me for this nonsense. I now anticipate and for this I am rewarded. Check out the kite-surfer pictures captured on vacation in California.

The Fuji HS10 has a sophisticated "Best Frame Capture" setting, but at the time I shot the surfers I wasn't as sophisticated as the camera. I simply set it to point-and-shoot and shot. And was pleasantly surprised.

Action is good but an overall shot is a must --- must show a surfer and a kite.

So, why two cameras? They serve two different purposes, that's why.

The Canon P90 is a small camera, the expected point-and-shoot shape and size, making it is easy to carry at all times. But, where the P90 shines is when used for available light photography.

It actually has a specific low light setting that changes the way the camera treats the scene and the picture file it creates. First, the S90 has an f/2.0 lens which lets in twice the light of an f/2.8 lens.

Available light makes this shot work in a way a flash would not.

Next, when shooting on the low light setting the Canon marries adjacent pixels, treating two smallish pixels as one large pixel. This, of course, ups the sensitivity of the chip while cutting the noise. The f/2.0 lens allows shooting in low light without pushing the chip into the realm of the ridiculously high ISO numbers. Although, that said, I believe the Canon is more than willing to shoot at speeds as high as ISO 12,500 if pressed! I'm not sure I'd be willing to accept the resulting pictures.

In a pinch, the Fuji will also shoot in low light. In fact, it has a trick or two up its menu-sleeve but I still prefer the Canon. In a future post I'll discuss the Fuji solution.

Without a flash, there's context. Don't you hate a black background in flash pictures.

Where the Fuji HS10 shines is . . . uh, everywhere else. The 24mm wide angle lens with the zoom retracted is very handy as this is a true wide angle and not a wimpy 35mm setting as is so common. But the real mind-blower of the HS10 is its 720mm telephoto with zoom extended to its fullest.

Tweaking the endpoints of the Crazy Horse bust would improve image.

On vacation in South Dakota, I climbed the Crazy Horse Memorial. This is only possible one weekend a year. I thought I'd like to post a news report in the Digital Journal on the event and for that I needed some good art. The Fuji HS10 came through in spades.

The two biggest disappoints I have with both the Canon S90 and the Fuji HS10 are:

1. I just don't think either consistently delivers the bright, rich colours that my old Canon SD10 produced. Neither camera has the latitude that I expected. But, if you have Photoshop, or a program like ACDSee, this problem is easily corrected. Also, the Fuji has a DR (dynamic range) setting. This may help solve this problem. We'll see in a future post.

2. Both cameras suffer from shutter lag but in the case of the Fuji it can be exceedingly frustrating. The Fuji promises a shooting speed of ten frames per second and delivers - but that is it. You don't line up shooting bursts, one after another as one does with a highend DSLR. One lives with a blank monitor a lot of the time.

I have taken some action shots with the HS10, the kite-surfing pictures for instance, but I found that I had to choose my moments carefully. Grab a shot and then wait for the image to be processed.

I talked with another owner of an HS10 and was told that I should be shooting with an SD card with a speed rating of 10. My card, a Lexus 32GB Platinum II card, is only rated a four. But folk on many photography forums say the HS10 itself does not take advantage of the faster speed cards. These "experts" are quite certain that my card is more than adequate.

A fine car, my Morgan took us to California and returned us home.

As for the many complaints I have read in online reviews of this camera about image noise, etc., I can't complain. On my holiday when push came to shove, both cameras delivered the goods. Neither the light-gathering abilities of the Canon nor the incredible zoom of the Fuji ever let me down. I filed pictures and a story from my almost six week adventure across North America in a 42-year-old Morgan roadster to the Digital Journal almost daily. Only the lack of an Internet connection stopped me. For instance, there is no Internet in Yellowstone National Park at the moment.

I'm going to try and have some of the work from my Morgan trip published and that will be the kicker. How will these images look on a printed page after setting the tonal endpoints and colour values in Photoshop?

My money says that they will look stupendous.
_______________________________________________

For a very good and very complete look at the Fuji Finepix HS10 check out the review on "imaging resource." The review gives a good overall view of the camera plus some indepth technical stuff. The article is very nicely done.

The same site has a review of the Canon S90. The reviewer writes, ". . . the good news is that the Canon S90 does deliver better performance in low light, and its optical quality is impressive relative to the camera's size." Personally, I found myself more in agreement with the review in the New York Times by David Pogue. If you have the time, read both.

The compact Canon S90 is always handy and it gives great results in available light.

Complementary Colours Make Pictures Pop

Shot with my Canon PowerShot S90.

While trimming a yew at my front entry, I noticed this flowering plant hiding under the dense, green foliage. It wasn't there last year and neither my wife nor I planted it. So, what is it? It sure is pretty.

Note how the reds and greens really pop. This is because they are complementary colours which means they are opposite each other on the colour wheel. The use of complementary colours is intrinsically a high-contrast approach.

This was shot after the sun had moved to behind my home. In order to dig into the deep shadows under the yew, waiting until the front entry was in deep shade really helps. I always like it when colour and not brightness is the defining feature.

Note: This was shot with my little Canon point and shoot. I carry this little camera at all times. It is in a small LowePro case hanging from my belt.

A splash of colour, a drop of rain

This blog is on hiatus. See my previous post for an explanation on why I won't be posting again until sometime in July.

But today I took Fiona out to inspect the garden foliage and flowers after the rain stopped. I had to return with my camera to share some of the images.

Now, what was I saying about taking a much needed break?

An important link

My nephew sent me this link to National Geographic Photo Tips.

I'm about to head off on an extended holiday and I am finding it impossible to devote the necessary time to this blog. Please allow me to share this link with you.

Enjoy. Shoot some pictures. Have a good summer.
Cheers!

Two cameras and one is almost a ten

Taken with a Canon S90.

The testing of my two new cameras continues. The Canon S90 still amazes me. I love it. Small, always with me, this is an important feature. An f/2.0 lens and relatively noise-free high ISO images make this camera a keeper. (There is, of course, noise at higher ISO settings but far less than I am used to having to endure. And as a former news shooter, I am more impressed with the moment captured than the little bit of noise.) The baby picture was taken with the Canon S90.

With this little camera, it fits in my shirt pocket, it is see a picture, take a picture.

Taken with a Fuji HS10.

Also, taken with a Fuji HS10.

The Fuji HS10 is solidly built. (I tested it by dropping it.) I love the true zoom lens which zooms not when driven by a motor but when twisted by hand. Nice. And the quality of the images its excellent in my book. Both the images of the geese at Springbank Park with taken with the HS10.

Fuji Finepix HS10

When I worked at the paper, I loved my long lenses. When Fuji announced the HS10 point and shoot with a 24mm to 720mm (equivalent) zoom lens, I knew that I had to have one --- and now I do. It is an amazing piece of equipment. I'm in awe. (Although I must admit that there is another 30Xs zoom, the other is from Panasonic and it too has gotten good reviews.)

Today I noticed a Jay at the bird feeder, grabbed my HS10 and with the lens cranked all the way out, I shot the bird through the dirty, kitchen window. I have cropped the image but not resized it. I saved it as a medium quality jpeg but I did not apply any sharpening. Oh, and I tweaked the levels in Photoshop and hit the image with a little saturation. These are bad habits left from my years of enhancing image files for their eventual printing on newsprint.

I can't wait to shoot some stuff without a dirty kitchen window in front of the lens.

Fujifilm HS10 hits the stores in London

Shot with lens zoomed to a setting comparable to 720mm on a 35 DSLR.

It's here. The Fujifilm FinePix HS10 is in London stores. I don't want this to be an ad but it sure may seem like one. After more than four decades shooting pictures for a daily newspaper and carrying two camera bodies and up to five lenses, I have replaced everything with two point and shoot cameras: a Canon PowerShot S90 and a Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

With all those years of professional shooting, this may come as a surprise but I don't believe in anything but automatic when it comes to cameras --- not completely true but close enough to be true. Auto can fail big time, but generally you're pretty safe sticking with the automatic settings. If you're shooting for fun, that decides it --- shoot automatic.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a Canon S90; Yesterday, I picked up a Fujifilm HS10.

Today's London Daily Photo picture is this chipmunk. This is just the third image shot with my new Fuji. It has a 30-times zoom and it is working at its max here. The camera was hand-held but braced against my kitchen door frame.

Years ago one of Canada's top newspaper shooters told me he always kept his  cameras on automatic in order to be ready to shoot in an instant. Oh, he  might use manual when shooting something that allowed time  for finagling and fine tuning --- a fashion shoot for instance --- but  for a sudden moment it was auto for this prize-winning shooter.

I think the image of my chipmunk, shot on automatic right from the box, says he was right.

Can't shoot it? Direct it!

When my granddaughter fell asleep in my arms, I thought picture. But I couldn't shoot the picture while holding the baby. The solution was to ask my daughter to shoot the picture. She has a good eye and so I had confidence. I coached her along, telling her where to stand, and I told her what to include and what to crop. Still she was holding the camera and made the final visual decisions. The resulting image is a merging of my original vision and her talents.


In photography always remember the most important thing is to get the picture --- even if you can't shoot it.

My instructions? I wanted the sleeping baby's serene face to be featured along with my large arm and hand which are cradling and protecting the child. I wanted a clean, simple picture --- one that makes a "quick read."

Shoot what's there, not what you wish was there.

A common complaint among photographers is that the photograph just didn't happen. If only they had had this or that, or this had happened or that, they would have gotten a great picture. The picture they wanted just wasn't there.

News photographers know one must shoot what is there and not worry about what isn't. News shooters know that photographers make pictures. 

In the summer this is a merry-go-round and it makes an easy picture. Colourful carousel horses and sometimes laughing children, you can't go wrong. But horses or no horses, I needed a picture and I got one. It was posted on London Daily Photo and it got some good comments.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Colour, Texture, Composition

You may have noticed that the companion blog to this one is titled London Daily Photo. Every day a new photo is posted to that blog. It does not have to be shot the day it is posted but it must be shot in London. There are hundreds of sites worldwide with bloggers pulling the same stunt. Some are quite remarkable. Having only a Canon SD10 Digital ELPH, I have limits but I try.

As we have discussed, colour can make a picture. Green leaves or red roses are obvious but if you keep an alert eye you will see more --- lot's more. Now add shapes to your image and strong lines. Often texture will also enter the equation as it is almost impossible to eliminate texture from an image.

These bolts of fabric are actually horizontal but holding the camera at an angle added dynamic diagonals to the picture. The highlight reflections mated with the soft shadows give the diagonal stripes volume and the loose fabric breaks the striped pattern and softens the overall effect. A small burst of fill-in flash makes the highlights pop while cleaning the colours of the fluorescent green of the store lighting. The fabrics all have a similar texture and this helps to tie the image together into one smooth presentation.

Lastly, in Photoshop the highlights and the shadows were placed at the extreme ends of the Levels histogram and the image given a small amount of saturation --- 16.

Always be aware of these ideas when you are shooting any picture. Colour, texture, composition --- compose in camera if possible. If you do, you will have winning images; Trust me.

f/2 and a digital SLR would've been better

Forgive me. I know; I know. It's another baby picture.

Yet, I love the way this little girl is so obviously interested in the puzzle on which her grandmother is working. The little girl went to the doctor for her check-up earlier in the day and the doctor said, "This kid is bright." I'd say he was a bright doctor, very observant.

Note: If you have a SLR digital camera, or any camera that allows the setting of the f/stop and has a large image sensor, use a large f/stop. Something like f/2 or f/2.8 would be good with a 28mm lens. This will help to throw the background out of focus.

I am using a simple, old point and shoot with a small, 4 MB, sensor and so do not have this control. I must take what the camera gives me and that is far too much depth of field. (Note: when I say large sensor, I am talking about its size in area. For instance, 35mm cameras have more depth of field than 120 cameras at the same f/stop.)

Before shooting this picture I turned off the incandescent ceiling light to prevent having a yellow cast staining the image and made sure that the curtains were completely open. I also wiped the little girl's mouth; She is quite into bubble blowing and it does not add to her carefully managed image.

Cheers,
Ken (Rockinon)