Early days

In the house where I was a small child there were always family photograph albums. What made them slightly different was that I knew most of them had been taken, developed and printed by my father. At maybe 7 or 8 years old I knew what an enlarger was and I knew the essential steps in getting from camera to print. Some of the pictures had been taken on the ubiquitous Box Brownie but the first camera I remember my father owning was a Pentax S3. This was not only a cut above the rest in terms of brand but it even had a light meter that could be attached to the pentaprism. It was a beautiful thing and sadly the best camera he ever owned as he later part exchanged it for the first of succession of Prakticas in order the archive through the lens metering. As his eyesight failed he finally invested in a modest Canon autofocus SLR.

His interest spawned my interest and so a lifelong fascination began.

Big Move

 Its been a while but at last its time to move from the old hand crafted website to a more modern looking responsive site based on the ubiquitous Wordpress. Having 'grown up' writing my sites by hand it is a challenge to have to bend and stretch an existing product into shape.Having spent a great deal of time and effort evaluating the free themes and dipping a toe into the paid theme arena I finally took the plunge and bought a copy of Oyster by GT3 Themes. there has been a steep learning curve and while some aspects are simple, others are proving to be all but insurmountable.

Style Guru

I was paid a very kind compliment today regarding a recently made photograph. The kind observation was that it was very much in the style of a very famous landscape photographer- a genuine household name. This got me thinking about a question that has vexed me for a very long time. What is my style? The sub question is inevitably, 'and should I have one?'There are many photographers including most (though not all) of the best who have an almost instantly recognisable style. You see the photograph and are at least half way to identifying the maker before reading the byline. For some it may be long exposures, monochrome, pinhole, heavy vignetting, compositional strategies or even colour palette. I think that many if not all of these individuals tend to impose their 'formula' onto the scene or alternatively choose only a subject and conditions that fit their concept. For me it seems to be a little different ( how many times have I said those words over the last 58 years...). The 'style' almost seems to be in the scene already. Sometimes I see it at the instant and sometimes it 'grows' during review or processing. For all of us, every photographic outcome is the result of everything that we have experienced in our lives, our resulting personality and mood. Each one contains somewhere, some aspect, echo or tiny ripple from every single photograph we have ever seen.I'm enjoying watching this develop and wondering what if any 'my style' will be. Comments made by others suggest that it may be something that others observe first, more or differently. Right now I continue to make pictures and they seem to have little in common and often form as much due to my state of mind at that moment as anything. Kelly Hall Tarn at Torver near Coniston in the English Lake District.

Goldilocks Tripod?

For some the search for the perfect tripod is like the search for the perfect camera bag - endless and unsatisfying. For the first time in many years I am no longer looking for a tripod and consider myself to be 'reasonably satisfied'. This has been achieved through the collection of a Goldilocks set of three tripods. These are:Gitzo GT3530S  Systematic with RRS BH-55 head - @2.8KgGitzo GT2531 Mountaineer (centre column removed) with Three Legged Thing Airhed 2 @ 1.79KgGiottos MT 8241 with XCSource KS-0 Head @1.33KgThe use for each is dependent upon which camera is being used, which lenses might be used, the total pack weight sustainable and the distance to be covered. It is also influenced by context such as wild country, urban, carry on required etc. The heaviest total combination would be a Nikon D800 with 70-200mm f4. At the lightest, probably a Fuji X-T1 with a 14mm.The Systematic Gitzo is the default option for all work that is within an hour from the car. It, combined with the RRS head, provides the very best in stability that I am prepared to carry. The head is absolutely stable with no sag even with the biggest lens. In operation it is perfect. I occasionally wonder about the longer leg variant but not sure I'd be prepared to accept the weight and bulk increases.The Mountaineer is now a couple of models old but does the job for me. It represents the best compromise between weight and stability that I could find. The TLT Airhed was a difficult choice as I was trying to get something under 400g to make a big enough weight saving. At 388g it seems to punch above it's weight. Only with the 55-200mm on X-T1 is there the slightest hint of sag and even then not always.The Giottos is of course made up of more compromises for the lighter weight. However at 1.3Kg it really is a 'carry just in case' or a 'carry when the rest of the pack is already too heavy' tripod. It is always better than no tripod at all and together with the rock bag I always carry it works well enough. The Ks-0 head exists under a range of manufacturer's names but as so often XCSource are the cheapest and this head works well above its weight and price point.At the time the photo was taken the Mountaineer did not have spikes fitted but these were included in the quoted weights. I buy medium length spikes off Ebay dramatically undercutting the original Gitzo versions. They are worth the slight increase in weight for the added stability.Update: April 2017The three series Gitzo has now been replaced by an almost itentical model but with the longer leg length. The original version required me to stoop even at full height and leading to back ache. The L version works perfectly.The TLT Airhed has been ditched and replaced by the RRS BH-40. While beautiful the Airhed couldn't support even the Fuji with 55-200mm without a sag as the head was locked off. There became no way of accurately framing without guesswork. It had to go.

Torridon Challenge

A week in Torridon has the potential to be a dream come true for a landscape photographer. Towering mountains, beautiful lochs and the ever present pine trees, all it needs is a suitable bit of weather. That of course means different things to different people. For some it means blue skies and sunshine, for other rich sunsets and for some of us weather that is a little more dramatic and atmospheric. I'm not sure if there is anyone for whole a week of rain is the ideal.There is of course the joy of the challenge. It rarely rains anywhere in the UK continuously for a week so the solution is to watch the weather, scan the forecasts and to make sure that in those fleeting moments we are in the right place."Good light is like a dragonfly. You can't chase it but need to wait patiently and let it come to you."It is fair to say that the past four days have not been particularly productive but may just have give one decent image per day at best. That will emerge when We're home and start sorting and editing. It is also the case that there have been none of those 'competition winning' breaks in the cloud' no lonesome pines isolated beautifully against the black skies. However there have been a few clear moments when photographs have been made and one particular incident where one starts to consider a force running within the universe. We often defer to the term 'recce' when circumstance or weather prevent the making of photographs - no pictures but we've sussed some locations out. This has been a good week for exploration; I haven't been to Torridon since my climbing days and this has effectively been a first visit. In between an occasional image we've been blown about, rained on, sandblasted and experienced various forms of equipment failure. However we've explored Loch Maree, Glen Torridon, Applecross, The Bealach na Ba road, Loch Clair and Mellon Udrigle. All places to which we shall return. Our house for the week at Gairloch looks straight over the sea and a compensation for the poor weather has been the pleasure of watching each phase move in across the sea.After four days I'm in love with Torridon but I fear it will take a number of visits before I start making the images I have in my head.

Printed Images

A new batch of prints have just arrived from Paul Grundy. There are those would would argue that you haven't created a photograph until you have printed it. I'm not sure I agree to that extreme view but I would argue that if you print your photograph to a high quality, there is a huge added dimension to it. I print small copies at home but for anything bigger that A4 I send them to Paul Grundy at UKV.

There is a wonderful tactile quality to the matt prints he produces. They are objects that make me want to hold them, touch them and they even smell good. The depth he achieves is breathtaking. It even seems at times a pity to put them behind glass, such is the surface finish. This is not High Street budget printing but it is without doubt worth every single penny.

Update May 2017: Sadly Paul Grundy is no longer making prints and is enormously missed by a great many photographers.

I now send my files to Loxley at https://www.loxleycolour.com They offer a high quality Giclee printing service on a range of papers including the marvellous Hahnemuhle range. Their quality and service are outstanding and whether by luck or good management, their colours match what I see on my monitor to perfection.

Living with the Fuji X-Pro 1

There are many influences that make people hand over cash for a Fuji X-Pro 1. There are those seeking lighter weight. Those looking for retro. Those perhaps even first time buyers seduced by good advertising. For a while in the media it was 'the second camera to have'. the world and his brother seemed to have bought one.

For a substantial proportion of the camera buying public, it was the nearest thing we might ever get to a Leica M series. There were similarities all over even down to the launch with just three primes. I think I was somewhere between all of these. I've owned an X-Pro 1 for about 18 months - there are positives and negatives. the size and weight allowed an entire kit to be carried in a small shoulder bag and a day in Venice was possible without shoulder pain or moaning. The quality of the results suggested no compromise was being made. It was a pleasure to use, feeling good in the hand. However there were some aspects that provided a bit more of a challenge given the way I work.

• I'm not certain of the order or priority but the following issues affected me in some way. The USP of a traditional cable release has the downside that there is then no way of using a timer for long exposures. You have to fire the shutter, lock the cable and watch the seconds on the screen and release manually. For most it doesn't matter a hoot but for those of us who make long exposures, it is an added complication.

• I do find the viewfinder most useful in RVF mode in order to allow precise composition but still feel it is difficult to assess accurately. No dioptre adjustment is certainly a factor in this.

• The Q menu button is REALLY easy to hit, real pain.

• The camera goes too far to sleep. The recovery is so slow that it becomes quicker to switch it off and back on again rather than wait for the wake up.

Even with these niggles it is a great camera and still a pleasure to use. Watching how the s/h price is dropping through the floor, it becomes an absolute steal on the used market.

DX to Mirrorless CSC

My 'main' camera is a Nikon D800. It is now outdated and superseded by the D810; I don't have any plan to update it in the next year and probably not the year after that. Along with the 16-35mm and the 70-200mm, I usually carry my 50mm lens. None of them heavyweight but together I know they are in the bag. For some years I carried a Nikon DX format camera when weight was critical. A D3200, 18-55mm and 55-200mm seemed to weight almost nothing in comparison. The image quality was beyond real criticism in my opinion. Of course (since they performed perfectly...) I allowed myself to be seduced into a change. I sold the DX stuff and invested in a Fuji X-Pro1 and a few lenses.Is there a dramatic leap in the quality of the pictures? No. Do I enjoy using it? Oh yes. There is a great feel to the camera and lenses. Increasingly even Nikon's top end lenses and camera seem to be covered in plastic. The Fuji stuff just feels good. As a lightweight kit it works really well and makes a huge difference if a very long day is planned. The optical quality is high, reliability so far is fine but there are, shall we say, some idiosyncrasies.

A good picture?

A wild and cold walk along the wall gave some time for thought and reflection.I thought a great deal about the concept of 'Value Added'. This (sadly) is a well worn path in my current line of work and while I hesitate to transfer over, it did, for me, allow a framework for thinking.

There are many ways to define a good picture; many are 'liked' on Facebook with a near instant, unconsidered gut reaction. This is a valid route in my opinion. In the 'real' world we may be seduced by the tactile aspects of the finished print or paper. The careful dissection with regard to rules of thirds, lead in lines, foreground interest etc may also provide a route to determine goodness or even greatness. The question that will be considered in a future post is 'Has the photographer added value in some way?' Have they been somewhere that the viewer cannot themselves go? Have they secured an image that would be technically too challenging for the average? Have they captured a unique and unrepeatable moment? What elevates this image above the ordinary?

Top Gloves

Santa brought some inspirational Christmas presents this year. I'd even suspect he might have looked at my Amazon wish list.....These gloves are made for the outdoor sporting community and offered the promise of resistance to rain, dexterity and ability to manage small controls despite being wet. In my experience all of these promises are fulfilled together with one obvious extra. Despite being thin, they also keep your hands warm, doing a  decent job of being wind proof.They are a slim fit and allow the cuff to be tightened in using velcro and once worn are soon forgotten. There haven't been many times that I've needed to take them off to gain dexterity. Removing one Lee Seven5 filter from the holder while leaving one in place was tricky but seemed to get easier.Too soon to comment on how hard wearing they are but so far they seem the ideal glove for photographers working in standard British conditions. I suspect that they may be slipped under large mitts in extreme cold conditions but no opportunity to try as yet.  

Lee Seven5 storage solution

 A quick Google of cases and storage solutions for the Lee Seven5 filter system swiftly reveals many people seeking in vain for a sensible way of keeping their filters safe when in the camera bag.This is particularly so when one owns a rare and valuable Lee Big Stopper which, being glass, is prone to emerging from the camera bag in pieces. Lee themselves have no sensible offering and the alternative manufacturers have yet to decided that the numbers warrant the design and investment in new products.It is easy to find a huge case and even easier to find something that lack the necessary protective qualities. However there seems to be not a  single advertised, usable solution.Enter the humble 2.5" external hard drive case, These are sold for a few pounds on the usual sites and to me seem to do the job very well until a more specialist item appears. One half of the clam shell holds adapter rings while the other holds at least three and perhaps as many as five Lee Seven5 filters. There is little wasted space and I think just about enough protection for the glass filters. I would prefer a specialised model that holds the filters separately and without their Lee wraps but for now this seems a great solution. if anyone has found a better solution, I'd be really keen to hear.

New Year, New Resolution, New Camera...

Just before the end of 2013, I bit the bullet and ditched all my Nikon DX kit in favour of a nice shiny Fuji X-Pro 1. This leaves me with the Nikon FX setup (back of cupboard in the really huge/heavy bag..) compact cameras and the Fuji. The Fuji has the 14mm/18mm/35mm and 18-55mm lenses. All seem good but I'm not yet sure which are functionally redundant or whether all will stay.There is an immediate joy in the small size and weight and for now I'm happy leaving the big stuff behind while I get used to the Fuji. There are already some minor annoyances of which only some seem to have cropped up elsewhere.Once the auto power off has cut in, it takes an age for recovery. It is quicker to just switch off and back on again.The shutter release is very recessed if wearing gloves. I've added soft shutter releases, they work, but fall out with disturbing regularity.I like the feel of the camera, the solid metal body inspires confidence and the generally retro feel is pleasant - there are always going to be echoes of the M series Leicas and in truth they are much better looking cameras. The functions are reasonably intuitive and most controls seem to fall naturally under the finger. I do occasionally find myself accidentally pressing rear buttons when wearing gloves but much less of a problem when not. I appreciate the live histogram while composing and selecting aperture shutter combinations and the newly arrived focus peaking is a joy.For my brand of photography I would have liked to be able either to use an electronic remote release with timer or to be able to set a longer ranger of speeds through the T setting. Offsetting this is the delightful counter that pops up automatically when the b setting is used. I can't believe this would be hard to fix with firmware and would make the whole long exposure process better. One final enhancement would be if the image on the review screen emerged gradually as with the Olympus cameras.Is the X-pro flawless? No. Do I enjoy using it? yes definitely.Am I positive about having let all Nikon DX go? Yes.

Post Processing

That superb landscape photographer Bruce Percy has written this week about Post Editing in his blog. This echoes a number of recent articles elsewhere across the web and on paper about the mess we are allowing ourselves to get into on the subject of what we do using software to the image we have captured with our camera.

Following the debacle of the landscape Photographer of the year competition last year I have been thinking hard about about the whole area of image manipulation.

There seem to be those who will only accept the 'pure' image. The original transparency perhaps, even though that may also have been manipulated by careful filtration. Others hark back to the good old days of the darkroom and will accept anything that could have been done manually through burning, dodging, differential development, contrast control etc. Many of these advocates cheerfully erase recollection of the enormous amount of manipulation that went on including spotting, scraping and even airbrushing.

I read another point of view this week suggesting that the time is here when it will soon be impossible for all but the most forensically inclined to ever determine how much processing has taken place. The writer's view was to have done and accept whatever appears based entirely on it's merits. A free for all, just look at the picture and decide whether you like it or not. The problem that such a strategy creates is that or pure fantasy images that have nothing to do with a camera. is that a problem? Should we perhaps discuss whether we want to appreciate art or just art created in a specific way?

I'm not certain that we can go much further than arriving at something which, on a purely personal level, 'feels' right. In the next post I'd like to explore what that personal view looks like.

Never say never

My previous post was more of a hopeless voice crying out in the wilderness. A lone individual arguing against the flawed wisdom of a huge multinational corporation. I was lamenting the unwillingness of the huge company to listen to the lone, insignificant customer. I now have to eat my words. Adobe have not just listened to me but have bent over backwards to resolve my issues. They made contact, apologised, offered a solution and made it happen. I take it all back. perhaps sometimes really huge companies do listen to individuals. Well done Adobe, greatly appreciated.

Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Programme

I am all but speechless. Adobe announced some time ago that Creative Cloud had arrived. This effectively means that you can no longer buy a piece of software but now we have to rent it forever and if we were rash enough to stop renting, our products / images could no longer be opened. The costs Adobe came up with we're getting on for £50 per month. Last month the penny began to drop that their customer base was voting with feet and giving a traditional doubled fingered sign of displeasure. This however is not the really clueless bit....The response was to launch a repriced offering under the guise of the Photography Programme to avoid having to admit the degree by which their initial estimations had been wrong. The revised offering as a loyalty reward to existing customers was $9.99 per month. If we swallow the perpetual rental, at least a manageable sum. Last night I tried to sign up but quickly discovered that Adobe were not offering this purchase opportunity to those who had taken advantage of their reduced prices for teachers and students. Let us remember that this pricing was not to reward us for all the valuable work we do for their children. This price structure was so that we might influence our students to use Adobe. There are many thousands of potential users of the new service who would be prepared to pay $9.99 per month but who could not and did not buy at the first quoted price.We have no choice but to walk away from Adobe. Over £100 per year, every year, no breaks, for as long as we live and make photographs. Adobe does not have the sense to take our money and add us to the list. They seem prepared to stick to a mistake rather than have the sound economic sense to take our money.I accept there is a huge personal impetus for me in this but cannot understand how Adobe can possibly feel that it makes more sense to turn us away that to take our monthly subscriptions. Their additional costs are NIL so it is all profit. Where is the flaw in this logic Adobe?

First frames with new camera

Just back from the Isle of Tiree with the results from my new Nikon D800 camera. All the 'objective' evidence suggests that not only is the additional quality not visible on the web but the huge files produced cause more trouble than they are worth. I love it!

The 36MP output is a delight allowing cropping of course but to my eye also producing images that are somehow 'smoother'. Maybe that's the result of an unconscious need to justify, who knows. It is a superbly made camera, good in the hand, efficient and enabling for the photographer. It is the first camera for 30 years that I have bought brand new, I've been a second-hand aficionado of habit but this particular camera was so plagued with manufacturing defects when launched that I wanted an item that I could process under warranty if need be.

As it happens there is no sign of the infamous left focusing issues and the supposedly green cast to the LCD is not present or not visible to my eye.

Running a Core i7 processor and 8 Mb of RAM I see a significant hit on speed and have already had to change my way of working to reduce the number of images open in Photoshop and to reboot on a more frequent basis.

Many have identified hard disk space as an issue and I suppose if one is firing off bursts at 6 frames per second over a sports event I can see how the storage requirements would become unsustainable. However my way of working is such that I may only take a dozen pictures in a day, so far storage has not been an issue.

Much has been written about the demands of this sensor on technique and lenses. Again my conservative use of lenses and almost unbroken use of a tripod seem to ensure that images are of high quality. I'm not asking any of the equipment to preform outside its optimum conditions. I suspect that a less steady tripod, more reliance on hand holding or use of lenses at less than optimum apertures may reveal more flaws.

So far the camera is a joy to use and the results beyond my ability or judgement to find flaw.

Flickr

First they change Flickr in a desperate attempt to make it 'cool'. The new photostream is an abomination. Now to cap it all, they seem to have broken it. That's not very 'cool' at all is it? http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeprincelandscapes/It is crawling along, presumably creaking under the weight of all the users trying to make their images look less awful.....

Long Exposure Solution

This week I yet again managed to drop a remote control into water . The tripod was set up mid stream to make  a long exposure image of some local waterfalls. One minute all is going well, the next I'm fishing delicate electronic equipment out of the beck. I decided I'd done this once too often and set about a solution. ('Just be more careful', I can almost hear my mother say...). For those of us who enjoy making very long exposures, often running into several minutes, a remote release with timer is essential. I carry two (one spare as I seem to keep breaking them), both of similar design.The solution was so simple, most photographers probably use it already (or they're just more careful than I). The answer has been to simply create a loop in the remote cable using a bit of sticky tape. Placing the loop near the control end allows the control to be hung from any suitable part of the tripod or head. This keeps the electronics up near the tripod head and not trailing in the water.

Problem solved.

Lowe Alpine Convert Mitts Review

Just finished a review of some excellent winter mitts for photographers. Here.

Pilgrimage

Over the Christmas vacation we made our way down to 'That London' to visit the Royal Maritime Museum. This was not the result of a sudden bout of naval curiosity but because in answer to prayer they were hosting an exhibition of prints by Ansel Adams. To many he is the grandfather of landscape photography and his pioneering work in the last century forms the bedrock of much that is great today. Until this week I had never seen an original print in the flesh and my knowledge was gleaned from books, calendars, posters and the internet.

Arriving after a delightful boat journey from Embankment, I wasn't sure what to expect. The collection was advertised as a selected view of those aspects of his work that were associated with water. I like water but was prepared for not seeing many of my particular favourites. I was also braced for a pretty limited selection.

Both fears proved to be spectacularly unfounded. The exhibition was HUGE and only compromised by the decision not to issue timed tickets but to allow a free for all. There was considerable jostling and it made the process more difficult than it should have been.

The prints were a joy and spanned pretty much his whole career. The ranged from the tiny (almost contact print sized) to the enormous as shown in the image at the top. As prints they were exceptional, as images there were many I liked and a few that aroused me less. Perhaps there were almost too many to take in during a single visit. I wove my way around the wall after wall of pictures enjoying the experience, revelling in the immersion but still moving nonetheless. Then quite by surprise I came across the image below.

I've never been a huge fan of Moonrise over Hernandez but this view of Yosemite is one of my favourite photographs of all time. To see it suddenly and unexpectedly stopped me in my tracks. I stood and stared, moved on, came back, stared again and again. I could feel myself falling into it. To me this is the absolute expression of Ansel Adams. The scene before our eyes is unbelievably grand, perfect. The print is a joy in itself, the tones, the gradations, the blacks, the shadow detail. All as perfect as I know how to determine. I could have stood there all day but in the end settled for buying a  print to frame. I left moved, inspired and determined to raise my own game in 2013.