A few quick ramblings

I read Dave's D4 article yesterday with interest. See here for details of the UK press release.

Certainly looks very interesting, and at a £500 lower launch price in the UK, it certainly offers a number of advantages.

If I were in the market for a camera body at this sort of price bracket this year, it would now be a very serious proposition to make the switch. However, I still have a number of rooms in my house to refurbish so priorites are set. That and a remaining unsettled economy eans prudence has to rule the day for now.

Looking bnack at the press releases from Nikon and Canon, I sometimes wonder why they are made so far in advance of the goodies actually being available. Remember all the song and dance about tweleve months ago on the Canon 200-400 f4 with built in 1.4, and the mark 2 500's and 600's - not a sign of them!! Before the Canon fan boyz get all mardy with me - yes I do know there was an earthquake in Japan.

Hey ho - I guess it gives forum folks a good chance to have a whinge though :-)

A quick link I can recommend that you pop over and have a look at when you get a few minutes is that of Oscar Dewhurst. He has started up a new blog, so give him your support too. He is a young lad and turning out some great work. In keeping with our support for some of the younger stars as we did with Ashley Hugo, I hope that Oscar will do a guest slot for us this year.

By the way Ash, you need to get blogging again!!

I took a couple of trips recently to one of my Short Eared Owl sites - sadly on both occasions, the light and the wind direction were just perfect - which is why I chose to drive there. Sadly, with this site being fairly exposed to the strong wind, it proved too much for the birds to fly - an experience have had there before.

However, I will perevere with this site, as it is not overrun with birders and photographers and in particular that seemingly increasing band of photographers who appear to have no clue about wildlife and its needs, and seem solely motivated by photographic greed.

Right time to get ready to get out for some live music tonight at my local patch.

Have a good weekend

Martin

Nikon D4 Announced

Finally-Nikon start the new year with a bang, The D4 has finally been announced after lots of speculation, I am sitting here like a geek at midnight waiting for the final details,
A few nice features are that the base iso is now 100 and can be set at 50 and go up to an insane 204000,
AF is said to be faster along with a new sensor with 91000 pixels, The D3s has something like 2000 pixels and the 51 AF points has 11 points that focus at F8-Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Canon who do not even offer 1 AF point at F8 on the 1DX
The styling is a little Canon 1 series with the smaller swoopy prism
Lots to read and take in and the real test will be when its in the hands of people we know and trust, Will i be getting one-nope certainly not yet and not this year unless its something super special, 16.2MP is not a substantial increase over the D3s and i doubt in the real world you will see much IQ improvement-we will see, I have read that the MP has been kept low for the video speed but who knows, Its looks nice on paper albut expensive but still around $2000 cheaper than the Canon 1DX-Who would have thought that,

Nikon also spat out a new lens in the 85mm F1.8 which should be a nice portrait lens

I would imagine that although its slated to be available in Feb (again ahead of the new Canon) they will be like hens teeth due to the Olympics
I look forward to seeing the first reviews

Off to bed

Dave

EV and Flash output

Its always good to learn something new and i guess we cant know everything, I have mentioned before that i got a Joe McNally DVD for Xmas and i have watched it a couple of times and its great, Very well made, Easy to understand and full of tips, The main thing that i learned was that if you use your flashguns in TTL and use EV compensation on your camera it will affect your flash output even if your camera is set to manual, I have noticed this before but the penny has never dropped, When i shoot in my garden at night i set my camera to manual and say 1/125@F8 i set my flashguns to TTL and adjust the flash output by adjusting the (Flash) EV on my SU800 transmitter-easy but i have noticed that sometimes the flashguns seem low and need extra EV to light the scene, I now realise that the camera had a minus EV set, This has no effect on the exposure as it was set in stone in manual mode but the camera had adjusted the flash output because the camera had minus EV set, So say you shoot in AV and have the flashguns set to TTL, You have both camera and flashguns set to 0 EV and take a test shot, The scene is bright so you dial in minus 1 EV and retake a shot, What has happened is that you have reduced the brightness of the scene but you have also reduced the flash output by minus 1 so to get a flash output of 0 you have to add +1 to the flashgun-simple-well yes once you know and understand whats going on, The good thing is that if you have your camera set to manual and are using multi flash you can increase of decrease all the guns output at the same time by adding + or - EV, This applies to Nikon flashguns so i would like confirmation if this also applies to Canon guns, Most people if asked say that flash is their most understood photographic skill and i am the same, My flash use and understanding has increased 10 fold since using the Nikon system and i feel that i am starting to get to grips with it, It doesnt matter if you are learning from a portrait or wedding photographer the basics are the same, The Joe McNally DVD is expensive but you will learn so has to be worth every penny, Its especially good if you use a Nikon D700 as it shows how to set up a flash system using the built in flash commander which my friend who was visiting had on them so i could play whilst watching the DVD, When i first went over to Nikon a little over 4 years ago i spent a day just playing with the flash, I set up in my living room, I put a vase with flowers on a table and set 4 flashguns around it, I set two to the front to light the flowers and two to the back to light the background, Group A was front right, Group B was front left and Group C was the 2 flashguns at the back, I just turned on the front right, I had the camera set to 1/125@F8 which is what i would use at night, The lights were off and shutters closed so the whole room was dark, Any light in the image would be from the flashguns, I took a shot which lit the right side of the vase, I added or took away light from the flash by adjusting the EV on the SU800, Once i was happy i turned the gun off and turned on the left gun and did the same then turned that one off and turned on the 2 at the back (the SU800 can only have 3 groups) and again took a shot and adjusted the output, Once i was happy i turned on all the guns and took a shot and viola an image that looked like it had been shot in daylight, All the guns being adjustable without even moving from the camera, I now know that if i wanted to add or take away light from ALL the guns at the same time i could just adjust the EV on the camera

Dave

Dave

Last Part of Last Daytrip - final images from 2011

Following from my earlier posts from the Forest of Dean and the Cotswolds, I promised you a few more images, so here they are. These delightful little birds were on a feeding area in the Forest and were quite accommodating.

It was particularly pleasing to get the Nuthatch as these have been pretty elusive for me photographically for a few years, and have still yet to see one in my garden in Stratford after 4 1/2 years.

All with 7D, 500f4 + 1.4 EFTC, on Gitzo 5541 tripod, Gitzo Self levelling tripod base, Arca Swiss Z1 ballhead and Wimberley Sidekick for those interested in my support system. Expensive, heavy but oh so stable, easy to set up quickly, accurately and level when in a hurry.

Martin

Florida day 4

Going back to my pre Xmas Florida trip, As we were now in Sarasota which was a place i havent been before and unlike me i had not investigated the place on line but knew from others that i had spoken to that its a very beautiful place it was time to get to know the place, Its a lot more than just great beaches and restaurants, There's a back roads to the place that took us to Myakka River State Park, Its a pretty big park that offers boats trips and bus trips both were tried and really i would say save your money and time and spend it around the beautiful lake that was teaming with wildlife from Gators to a variety of birds, My froends went off on a 1 hour boat trip so i grabbed the 600 and D7000 and headed to the water, I shot little blue heron, Stilt, Ibis, Vulture, Sandhill Crane,Osprey, Lesser Sandpiper and Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs to name but a few, The sun was high when we got there so the conditions were less than favorable but it was still very enjoyable, Its certainly a place that i would revisit and would advise anybody in the area to go to, One thing that was very noticable in Florida was the huge number of Vultures where ever you go, Both Turkey and Black vultures on the ground, In the trees and flying, I have not ever seen to many, At Myakka i was told that theres 100+ and one day we must have had 500+ flying over head, It was quite a spectical as they are such large birds, The D7000 with 600 combo certainly delivers the goods both with static birds and those flying










Not bad for an hour or so's photography in less than ideal conditions, Florida really is an amazing wildlife area, Where ever you go not only is there an abundance of wildlife but its all so relaxed and willing and a great place if you are holiday with friends or family where you can only spend a limited amount of time behind the camera

Dave

More fave images of last year - Part 7

It was my first day back to work today after a long Christmas and New Year break, so at the end of a tiring day, it is just a quickie tonight. But one that on looking back brings me a lot of pleasure, as all of the images below were taken in my back garden last year during the months of july, August and September

So no driving around, no spending lots of money on expensive fuel, just the peace and tranquillity of my 'own patch'.

After the horrendous gales of last night, a bit of quiet reflection is just the tonic...oh yes and a glass of Jura Malt Whisky helps too

I still have some more images from my last trip out to bring, but they need processing so will have to wait a little longer.

martin

Thoughts for 2012

Following on from Martins last post it too was a very lean year for me photographically, The year started with a bang with a fantastic trip to Japan which was made extra special in that i shared the experience with a great friend, It really was the best and most enjoyable trip i have had and i have had a lot, I also had a great trip to California, I have been many times before but this time everything came together from the weather, The amount of wildlife and spring flowers, I am back to California in a couple of weeks and this will be the first time that i have been there at this time of year,My hopes are that the elephant bull seals are still there and that i can spend some time with them, A new species for me so my hopes are high, Last year we sold our house and thats when things tended to come to a grinding halt as did my photography, Getting into our new home was like a breathe of fresh air, A good size garden gives me room for creativity so my photography will only be limited by my imagination, I have lots of ideas but it will take time to get the animals coming into the garden on a very regular basis, I am currently writing an article on my garden photography so its apt to talk about it here,, I am currently siiting in my living room writing this and watching the Joe McNally DVD that santa dropped down the chimney, I have to say that if you like to shoot portraits and just use a normal flashgun it will help tremendously, This year i will be concentrating on my local area, I live fairly rural so theres plenty of opportunities close by, I will have 1 or 2 trips to California and hope to get down to Florida at least once,
This is THE time to get a plan together for the coming year and stick by it, Work hard now if you are looking for fox and badger setts, The trees are bare so there is plenty of light in the woodland, The ferns have yet to grow and the foliage is low so with some wet weather you have a great opportunity to do some tracking and follow the animals footprints back to the sett or den or just to find and area where they are feeding or criss crossing,
I hope you all have a great year with your photography, To get success think all the time about what you want and how to go about getting it, Once you have some images in the bag start to experiment with slow shutter speeds etc to get something original but most of all have fun, If you are not having fun then whats the point??
If you need any help we are here so just post a question or send a mail and we will do our best to help

Dave

Happy New Year to our readers

Just a short blog to wish all of you a very happy New Year, and hope that all your hopes and aspirations work out for you all.

Looking quickly back at the blog, as we enter our fourth year of blogging. We posted a total of 426 times in 2012, so as well as maintaining our 100% daily post record, we managed to squeeze in an extra 75 or so posts as well.

Photographically for me, it was by my usual standards quite a lean year as other life priorities got in the way.

Dave will not doubt fill you in with his thoughts, but I absolutely loved all of his posts from his Japanese trip in the early part of 2011. Fantastic subjects and fantastic images from a great photographer, and seeing those posts made me feel privileged to share this blog platform with him.

It would be good to have some feedback from our readers to see if tere are any areas that you would like us to cover, if we can, as it is always worthwhile being able to share things that are of use.

Look forward to hearing from you all.

Best wishes for 2012

Martin