Cool girl

 

I spotted this cool girl in the town today, (20/7/23) it would have been criminal not to get a portrait of her. She was just visiting from the Netherlands…I knew she wasn’t local…1 she had a good command of the English language, and 2 she was way too friendly. 😂 Taken with my Canon 7D and a wide zoom, a Canon efs 10-18mm (I just happen to have that particular lens on as I had some wide shots in mind) with the pop up flash popped up, something not available on full frame Canon dslr’s or the latest wonder of wonders mirrorless. I always shoot in raw for a variety of reasons, I end up with larger files for printing large if need be, and why not capture all the data possible from the sensor to give you more to work with, if need be. But I hardly needed to do much on this one, it looked great straight out the camera, the raw file! Apart from a bit of vignette I often like to apply (real photographers couldn’t care less about corner sharpness) a bit of contrast and a bit of colour vibrance. I never crop my images now, again I want the full benefit/resolution of the sensor, and I just love the discipline of not cropping, I would rather use the right lens, move backwards or forwards etc to get it right at the point of taking. Also even when not cropping your image…in a way you still are cropping, the camera and lens can only take a small frame of what’s available, the bigger picture…ergo the very nature of photography is all about cropping. Yeah, it does make sense if you think it through.

Get some light on the subject

 

I took this image recently, in a dimly lit bar, decided to use the pop up flash on my Canon 7D, (something not available on full frame, or the latest wonder of wonders mirrorless) and its pretty good…for a pop up flash. It got me thinking about shooting in low light and using high ISO, I hear photographers, and see online lots of chatter praising certain cameras high ISO performance…great for certain genres of photography. As a stills photographer mainly doing street/social documentary 99% of my images are taken in daylight. And I suspect most photographers who rave on about high ISO performance mostly shoot in good light anyway. The second image below, my old Mother on her tablet. Taken with a Sigma standard zoom lens at f2.8, ISO 800, I just used rudimentary noise control tools in lightroom, and it looks pretty okay to me, acceptable. I suppose I could always get the latest edition of lightroom with the dedicated denoise tab, or I could get one of the dedicated low noise plug ins. Tripods are also available, anyone remember those. 😆

The point I am making is all this chatter about high ISO performance is pretty irrelevant in the real world, definitely for me it is. Why would I want to spend a small fortune on a full frame DSLR, or mirrorless just for something I hardly use, to solve a problem I and most other photographers don’t really have! Obviously I appreciate people buy various systems for varied reasons but I’m just talking about low light photography here. If money was no issue I probably wouldn’t be making these blog posts on equipment? Maybe I would just be spending lots of money on equipment that the camera sellers, advertisers and the internet chattering classes tell me that I need?

(Update: Since writing this blog post, I got a Canon 6D which happens to be a low light beast! Should I need it. Main reason I got it was because they aren't making any more DSLR's apart from Pentax) 

I don’t want to sound like I am against new technology, but new technology is not always better IMO. I prefer the look and feel, handling of a DSLR with an optical 100% viewfinder, and that pop up flash on my ancient 7D often comes in very useful, even in daylight. I also use a Lumix LX100 compact camera if I want to travel light and fast, it’s a very capable camera too, and no slouch in low light with its f1.7 Leica lens.

LX100 specs

    

Interesting turn of events

 

I took this street portrait a few months ago in Leeds, actually in a shop. Her natural beauty caught my eye, thought she looked like a young Audrey Hepburn. And the background also caught my attention, gives it a surreal look, (HC Bresson was influenced by the surrealists in Paris, it shows in his work) I couldn’t resist getting a few portraits of her. It turns out she is the daughter of the actor Mark Jordon, Heartbeat, etc. He reached out to me on Instagram asking if he could buy a print, and praising my photography. We exchanged a few messages, obviously I didn’t know him before then but he sounds like a very generous, genuine, good guy…”a great eye you have, sir” he said. I love getting great comments/feedback from people who know what they are talking about, people who work in the visual arts, I often get really good comments from artists and good photographers saying things like “you have an amazing gallery” it means more to me than hundreds of likes. In fact Instagram is a bit of a mystery to me in that respect, I see some really great photographers who hardly get any attention, or likes and I also see some really mediocre, boring photography getting hundreds, thousands of likes! What’s all that about?

Back to basics

 

When I went (mostly) digital I sold all my high end film cameras, still got a few old film cameras though, and for some strange reason I often get the urge to shoot some film. Just put an old roll of film from my fridge (food stuffs are available too 😃) in this little gem, an Olympus OM1. The viewfinder looked a bit hazy, I was struggling to distinguish what I was trying to focus on, someone suggested it could be my eyesight, on the contrary…the reason I’m seeing what I’m seeing, or not seeing is because I have good eyesight. I took the focusing screen out and cleaned it with lighter fuel (it just evaporates without leaving any kind of residue) using a cotton bud, but you need to be careful tiny bits of hair can be left behind from the cotton bud, I gently blow on it afterwards to get rid of it. I also cleaned the mirror with a lens pen/brush, same thing you need to be careful as bits of hair can be left behind. The internal optics of the viewfinder is clear, it’s in great condition for its age, been looked after, used but not abused. Might replace the light seals when I get around to it. 

The viewfinder looks clear now and I can actually see what I want to focus on. I will share some images from it when I get around to it. Its interesting and fun to sometimes go back to basics, with an all mechanical, all manual film camera, I don’t bother with the meter, I like to guess the exposure when using old cameras like this, its easy to do, and modern film has a wide exposure latitude anyway. Once I scan the print to share online, from the negative or the print…it becomes a digital image! So just cut out the middle man and use a digital camera, which I do for the most part. I can understand the appeal if someone is really into film, the challenge of making prints in the darkroom etc, a skill in itself! But personally, I don’t miss messing around with chemicals and setting it all up, give me the digital dark/light room any day. 

 

Is it really FULL frame?

There must be tons of articles etc on the subject of full frame Vs other formats, but I’m coming at it from a different angle, as in real world usage. No doubt full frame is better in low light, and probably better image quality. However there are so many variables at play that will counteract this. But firstly, I can’t remember the last time I was struggling in the dark to get a low light image, if I wanted to do some low light photography I would use my Lumix LX100 and a tripod, leaving the camera on ISO 100. With my 7D I don’t like to go above ISO 800, though 1600 is usable. Using my Sigma f2.8 wide open I have done some low light portraits and managed to end up with good results at ISO 800. Most of the time I am shooting in daylight, or twilight.

People I know with full frame cameras tend to crop a lot, even when they show me images on their screens it’s zoomed in, cropped. Ergo, its not full frame! This practice also doesn’t make full use of various focal lengths...for example if you crop an image taken with a 28mm, it might end up looking like it was taken with a 50mm? One of the reasons I got a 7D was because of the 100% viewfinder, what you see is what you get. I have gone right off cropping, I love the discipline of getting it right at the time of taking, (right as in framing) and that way it isn’t losing anything from the image in terms of resolution/size. So it’s quite possible that images from my 7D are more “full frame” than some images taken by photographers with a “full frame” sensor camera? Do the math.

Lots of other variables at play too, the photographers skills, knowledge when it comes to processing, and the most important variable of all is the photographer themselves. What’s the point of having a perfectly exposed, sharp, top quality image of a boring, badly framed, uninteresting subject? And how exactly can image quality make said image any better?  And how much “image quality” is enough? Is there such thing as peak image quality? Probably yes, considering people don’t have perfect vision. A foggy, unsharp image may have more artistic merits, be more captivationg than something with excellent image quality…have you got the picture yet? (Pun intended 😂) “The photographer is the instrument not the camera”

Also most people these days simply share images online, and hardly ever make any actual prints! Making all of the above meaningless! My first dslr was a 6.3mp Canon 10D and the A3 size prints from it were beautiful in terms of image quality (it was just a slow camera to use in terms of its processing engine, especially compared to modern cameras) and I’m sure it would be capable of printing larger than A3.

I took the above screenshot from this guys Utube video on the subject, Manny Ortiz. Heres a link to it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFncHWMuWX0

Heres another good video on the subject by Joris Hermans...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOx3Y52EPNI 

I like this one even better, by Craig Roberts, e6Vlogs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJqtuf1VICw

London calling

   

Soho street shot

A couple of street shots from my last visit to London (Sept, 2022) I decided to take my Lumix LX100 compact just for the convenience of travelling light. It’s a very capable camera (though just a tool, the photographer is the real instrument) as long as you don’t start cropping. I’ve gone right off cropping, I love the discipline of getting it right at the moment of taking, which is in itself a form of cropping, you can only take a small frame of the complete scene with a camera. The cropping and creativity starts the moment you frame the image via the camera.

I only have one complaint about the LX100, the flash that comes with the camera seems flimsy, not built to last and they often don’t mine stopped working soon after I got it. After doing some research online I discovered it’s a common problem and people are using an Olympus flash unit as a replacement, the FL-LM3. But it needs modifying to fit and work on the camera, the part of the flash unit that slides onto the hot shoe is too long for the contacts to match up. There are some Utube vids of people using sandpaper to take it down a bit, I thought there must be a cleaner, simpler way of doing it. I used a sharp craft knife and simply scraped off layers until it was a good fit, using the original flash unit as a template.

It’s a lot better than the original flash, it also has tilt and swivel capability which the original one doesn’t. I often like a bit of flash for outdoor street portraits, as fill in light or just to make the colours pop. 

Oxford Street Reflections, taken with the Lumix LX100

                                                           

         Lumix LX100 with the Olympus FL-LM3 mounted on it, works a treat.