Still being a bit obsessed with my recently purchased car (don’t think I’ve ever cleaned a car so much!) and wanting to try out some new photography techniques, I got in touch with my friend, Rob Pepe from Shutter Life.
I asked Rob if he would be OK with lending me his car rig and a bit of his time to go through the basics with me so I can have a go on my own car and perhaps a few friends I knew wouldn’t pay for such photos, but wouldn’t mind some all the same.
We set off for the Butterfield industrial estate in Luton as I knew it would be fairly quiet, and hopefully we wouldn’t be ejected by security as we wouldn’t be doing much more than 10mph (think it was less than that in the end) to get the motion required for the rig shots.
Equipment wise, the rig consisted of various clamps, two heavy duty suction pads with a clamp each to hold the pole, 3 lengths of aluminium tubing and various connections to ensure the camera was held on safely via a Manfrotto tripod mount. I used my Canon 5D classic with my Canon 17-40 F4 L lens (the wide angle when mounted on the 5D can make for some interesting shots) a 0.9 ND filter and a remote trigger.
We started of with a shot of the rear of the car, one suction cup on the rear screen, one on the drivers side window, once everything was attached we set a suitable shutter speed and Rob operated the camera with the remote trigger whilst I drove as smoothly as possible between 5 and 10 mph.
We then moved on to do the above the wheel shot (one pad on the rear screen one on the passenger side window) then a shot to show the car driving forward from the front left (one pad on windscreen, one on the front passenger side of the bonnet) the same steps to get the shots were repeated as above, but with me trying different combos of moving the wheels etc..
That was then that! The hard part was then yet to come… the editing, I’d like to think I was pretty handy with Photoshop, but this was a real challenge for me, basically adding in parts of the car that just Werner there! I got a few tips on how Rob has done this in the past and persevered. The results can be seen below. I plan to do some more in the next couple of weeks with my Brothers MX-5 (he’s a hairdresser, you can let him off) and my friend Marc’s BMW M3 Convertible, I’ll update this post once that happens!
For now, enjoy the photos I took, feel free to leave any comments or ask any questions.
Dave.
Following my previous entry about the Sony NEX-5 vs Canon G12 vs Olympus XZ-1, I actually took back the demo unit on Friday and purchased my own XZ-1 in white, I’ve not been messing about with it as much as I’d hoped so far, but I want to get a half decent case for it to save it getting bashed about etc.. before I start taking it everywhere with me.
So, in the safety of my own home and garden, I’ve been messing about with the macro mode. I don’t own any kind of macro lens for my Canon 5D mk2 or 5D classic so it’s been good fun to mess about with this feature.
First thing to do is set the camera in A (Aperture) mode, then press down on the menu wheel and click through to the focus option, to get really close in use macro s mode (picture of the macro flower with an s next to it.
I went out to the garden, set the aperture to F1.8 and took a couple of snaps. A nail in the felt on the roof of my shed, a knot in the wood of the shed, a poppy pod and another flower (my wife planted all this stuff, no idea sorry!). I didn’t quite hit the focus I planned for on the nail, but very happy with the other two!
I then went indoors and decided to have a go at a couple of close up photos of a pound coin, was really impressed with the performance straight away, the only thing I did was prop the camera up to reduce shake and used a torch to get a bit more light on the coin to stop the image underexposing (could have adjusted the ISO I guess, but thought this would be better).
You can see these images in the gallery below (click to enlarge), on the coin shots I added a 100% crop from the original image just to give you an idea on the detail this excellent little camera can pick up (the coin shots were at F5, ISO 200).
Still very glad I chose this camera, I’ll post up some more picture samples, reviews etc.. once I’ve used it some more.
Dave.
After buying my Canon 5D Mkii in April 2010, I knew I’d never be happy with my 50D, or another crop body again! I’d never really understood the reason for full frame when I first started getting into photography, with my then trusty Canon 400D, all I really knew back then, was that the full frame Canon’s wouldn’t be able to use some of the lenses I had / might buy (EF-S). A few years on, and after learning about the crop factor etc.. looking at various images taken, reading tonnes of reviews I decided to make the leap and ordered the camera from Amazon.
I’m so glad I did, the IQ (Image Quality) difference between the 50D and the 5D mk2 was night and day, the full frame sensor handles noise with ease, no longer am I scared to push the ISO beyond 800, the sharpness, the colours, how much nicer it is to use my Canon 50mm F1.4 lens on a full frame, I was (and still am) smitten.
I’d been putting it off replacing my 50D out of sheer laziness to be quite honest, I’d asked my friend Stuart at Digital Depot to keep any eye out for an original 5D for me, almost to force me into sorting things out, well last weekend he did exactly that. He’d had a 5D ‘Classic’ traded in so gave me a shout.
The camera was what can only be described as ‘mint’ condition, on the original 5D, the hot shoe is black and has a tendency to wear down to the silver (of course there is nothing wrong with that), but this didn’t even have any wear on that! Even the strap had never been used and was supplied in it’s wrapper.
It was the push I needed, my Canon 50D went up for sale on the Talk Photography forums and had interest almost straight away, a day later I’d agreed a price with the new owner, he’d bank transferred the money to me and I was at the Post Office the next day sending the camera special delivery!
That was that!. I now have two Canon 5D’s, 1x Classic, 1x Mk2, my lens ‘collection’ is pretty much complete for day to day stuff too:
Canon EF 17-40 mm f/4.0 L USM
Canon EF 50 mm f/1.4 USM
Canon EF 24-70 mm f/2.8 L USM
Canon EF 70-200 mm f/4.0 L IS USM
Even though I don’t want to do much photography at the moment, it’s nice to know that for the job’s I’ve got booked up, I’ve got the full frame backup or the option to just keep the 17-40L on the 5D classic to take in some of the wide shots!
The other cheeky bonus to this camera replacement is that I now qualify for Canon’s CPS Gold membership instead of the silver I had previously 
Dave.
I’ve been thinking about purchasing a smaller compact or ‘microsystem’ camera now for some time, as much as I love the results I can get with my 5DmkII, carrying around a bag of gear with me everywhere is just not practical and it’s that reason alone I rarely have anything other than my iPhone 4 with me to take any photos whilst out and about.
I emailed my friend Stuart at Digital Depot to ask if I could try out a couple of cameras with the view to buying the one that suited me. I ended up borrowing 3 for one week each, here’s how I got on.
Sony NEX-5
The Sony Nex-5 seemed like a fantastic idea, basically a mini DSLR.
First thoughts were what a sturdy camera, although very small in my hands it felt like what you’d expect from a £500+ camera. To access the basic menus was very straight forward, you basically get a digital version of the top dial of an SLR camera, for me though thats where the intuitiveness ended. I noticed in certain modes I seemed to be stuck taking HDR photos with no obvious way of turning this off (I did eventually find this option, but still it *should* be straight forward).
After playing with the camera for a week, I decided this wasn’t for me. I was underwhelmed with the results. The focus seemed completely hit and miss, the colour saturation left a lot to be desired (I couldn’t help but feel the images came out very flat), using the camera indoors resulted in very noisy images and the sharpness of the images did not live up to my expectations. The only feature I’ll miss from the camera was the sweep panorama. A lot of the issues mentioned above could be corrected in photoshop or similar, but I want most of it right in the camera!
From what I understand, there have been a few firmware updates to the camera which do improve some functions and add some new features, maybe this would have helped?
Canon G12
It feels like it’s made out of old tanks! A rock solid ‘little’ camera. The first thing I liked about the G12 was the dials on the top, unlike the Sony this had the physical controls that I’m used to using, with the added bonus of the exposure and ISO settings available on the top of the camera in the same dial format.
The other menu options were very straight forward to use, I purposely haven’t read the manuals on any of these cameras but didn’t have any issues here.
The images the camera took outside were great, the colour and saturation was exactly what I was used to from the Canon DSLR’s I own and use, also very sharp in camera. Inside however the story is fairly similar to the NEX-5 unless you want to use flash, which if I can, I avoid.
The reason I gave this camera back in the end came down to the lack of flexibility around Depth of Field. Although the canon would offer F2.8 when not zoomed in, I was hard pushed to tell the difference between F2.8 and the minimum F8 that was available, the level of detail was very similar at both ends!
If however DOF effects aren’t an issue to you and you have no problem using the flash indoors then I would still recommend this camera, it’s a great addition if you’re a DSLR user, although a little bulky I could forgive that for how solid it felt.
Olympus XZ-1
I’d never really considered buying an Olympus camera before, I know they used to be big in the SLR market, but I hadn’t really heard much about them lately, but after reading some reviews on this little camera I had to have a go!
The reason I was so keen to get my hands on this camera initially was because of it’s maximum aperture value of F1.8, this is what I was missing with the Canon G12 (you could produce some fairly decent DOF with the Sony at f2.8). F1.8 on this camera has not left me disappointed!
The camera looks fantastic in white (I am a bit of a sucker for white things, including my Alpine White Les Paul Custom, yumm!) with it’s top panel and buttons in black, feels very solid to use and a good size, if not a tiny bit bulky with the protruding lens.
So, how is it to use? Well, you have the PASM menu options, Art functions, Auto etc.. in physical dial format so very easy to get started. The first thing I did was jump to aperture mode, the ring on the front which doubles up as the lens housing is used as the selector, and I dialled straight up to F1.8.
The first thing I noticed when using A mode, was unlike the Canon and Sony, on auto ISO it actually kept the value very low! Using all three in my front room the most it went to on the Olympus was ISO 200! The others leapt way above that, with the Sony even hitting over 1600 at one point! The fast glass obviously helps with this, but even at F2.8 it beat the other two on keeping the ISO down.
For me, it’s low light performance is the reason I’m going to give my bank account some pain. As mentioned above, I always try and avoid using flash if possible, people look a lot more natural when not frozen in time and a lot better without the harsh shadows (don’t get me wrong, flash has it’s place but if I can avoid it for people / animal shots I will). It’s colour saturation is a lot like the Canon, it’s as sharp as the G12 and even it’s macro performance is impressive!
Conclusion
For me, the Olympus ended up being the clear winner, the Sony just didn’t live up to my expectations, I don’t mind editing the shots I take with the DSLR, I want a more portable camera to be a bit of fun, something to take some interesting shots with without the hassle of needing to deal with RAW images etc.. The Canon was very good, but all I could really do with it was take nice ‘snapshots’ because the DOF just didn’t seem to alter no matter what aperture it was set at! The Olympus does what the Canon did, just better, F1.8 in a camera this size is fantastic and works wonderfully.
Some examples from the Olympus
Shot of the dog showing how nice and sharp a shot can be indoors without the flash, Macro (with 100% crop of detail included) and F1.8 at work with a shot of my fingers!
I used to really enjoy photography, both as a hobby and as a second income.
Lately, I’ve really lost some enthusiasm for it. To save what was once a fun hobby, I’ve decided to have a little break from the paid side of it.
I’ll complete any arrangements already made (got several weddings booked up), but other than that, I’ll only be doing projects I chose instead of seeing what google chucks at me!
I’m currently borrowing a Canon G12 to carry about with me, instead of lugging a rucksack full of camera gear everywhere! Expect a review soon
Back in January this year I did the second shoot with my friend and musician of Audio Justice fame, Dan Furr. I didn’t really promote the work at the time as the previous website wasn’t really setup for blogging or anything else, so here we are with a backdated bit of information about the shoot and a few sample pictures.
The first photo shoot we did was done with proper studio lighting, back drops, props and even a stuffed polecat (although the jury is out on that one, both myself and Dan maintain it’s a ferret), for some information and some photos, checkout the entry on audiojustice.com: Picture Show – Audio Justice
Whereas the first shoot was very heavily themed around the album title (House of cards) the second shoot was to be a bit more subtle and shot outside of a studio environment. Myself and Dan talked about a few ideas we had for the shoot (and decided on Cambridge), mainly about the kind of locations we should try and use and a few different posed ideas. In the end though due to lack of time on both of our parts we decided to mainly wing it! Dan bought a boot load of props he’d grabbed on the way out of the door and we set about trying to find some of the locations we’d briefly discussed and to go out and get some extra props in the form of magazines (a copy of the Beano, Chap and some Kung Fu magazine).
We wandered around the streets and parks looking for interesting spots, this ranged from logs, bridges, textured walls and doors. We found various stone walls, nicely worn wooden doors and even a stepped down doorway, all perfect some moodily lit shots!
Ater finishing the walking around part of the day, we returned to the car park where we wanted to do the most ‘posed’ shots of the day with a load of props, unfortunately we’d rather underestimated how busy the car park would be on a Sunday and were forced to use the roof of the car park, dodging the Vectramundanoes we hogged two spaces in the car park, and setup the strobist style lighting I’d bought with me, laid out the props and got snapping. Dan did well posing for the shots given the amount of FREEZING wind that was whipping around the roof, even managing a costume change (having cold hands didn’t seem too bad after that).
Mid way through a security guard turned up to advise us that taking photos in the car park or in the shopping centre wasn’t legal, but we might as well finish up! (for this, we didn’t mention him smoking whilst on duty )
That was that! We got a bunch of very different images to use, for Dan’s verdict on the shoot check out the page on audiojustice.com: Postcard from Cambridge – Audio Justice
Here’s 4 images taken on the day:
For more information about Audio Justice:
