Recently I was gifted a Nikon FE, for those that don’t know the FE is a very nice film camera that Nikon used to make. The film wind-on was broken which meant I had to send it off to be repaired for 2 weeks leaving my pocket lighter and me without a toy for 2 weeks.

Since film is where I started getting into photography I thought it would be fun to revisit it. Being the cheapskate I am I raided the cupboards for some film, and came across some expired colour film and a roll of in date B&W film. The idea of using expired film may seem odd, but it has been getting more and more popular because of the unexpected effects you can achieve.

With only 24 or 36 exposures on a film you are not trying to take “a photo” you’re trying to take “the photo”. This meant that I spend a lot more time ensuring it was focused, the composition was what I wanted and getting a good exposure. To get “the photo” rather than some average ones, I decided that I would go to a small town called Dawlish just up the coast. The train from Plymouth to Dawlish runs along the coast with Dawlish’s train station being on the beach. This offered a pretty idyllic place to shoot some photos and at £4.45 for a return I wasn’t complaining.

I jumped on a train to Dawlish and headed there on an extraordinarily sunny weekend. After taking a few shots I realised how reliant I was on taking a photo, reviewing it, then re shooting with adjustments. With the B&W film I spent even more time trying to imagine the shot in B&W. It was a fun experience and one I think I will repeat. I learn’t loads about myself and the camera. I am hoping the results are good but you can never tell. I ended up shooting one of the expired rolls and the B&W roll. Unfortunately the B&W roll has to be sent away to get processed. I will wait till its return to post the results from my trip. However I did take some shots on my iPhone so you can get an idea of what Dawlish is like.

I took a weeks holiday to visit a friend in London. We spent almost all of the week going sight seeing. Since last time (December 2011) was a photographic success with some really nice photos; I took my camera around with me most of the time again. I am glad I did, I caught some really nice shots but not quite as many as last time. One of the things people tend to do is go for the generic tourist shot so I tried to avoid that at all costs, but I did do a classical Big Ben snap.

This again happens in wedding photography, but to a lesser extent. With weddings there are always the obligatory group shots where everyone poses in lines. For me this is less like photography and more like holiday snaps in that they serve a story telling purpose but the photos themselves have very little photographic merit.

When taking a photograph the first thing you need to think about is exposure and to adjust the exposure of a shot you have three options change the shutter speed, change the ISO or to open up the Aperture (decrease the f-stop). The aperture does not only help you do your exposure but it is your key to the shots depth of field. Depth of field means

The distance between the nearest and the furthest objects that give an image judged to be in focus in a camera. 

Source: Dictionary.app

Your depth of field can be used to give a shot a strong focus point or allow the user to see everything in focus. In a landscape shot usually a high f-stop is best meaning the foreground and background objects are in focus; while if you were to shoot macro shots often a low f-stop adds interest and emphasises the subject.

Depth of field is a vital tool in photography, it allows you to draw the users attention to where you want and can sometimes be used to exaggerate distances between objects. A side effect of having a shallow depth of field is bokeh. Bokeh occurs when using a shallow depth of field, essentially hot spots of light that are not in focus are distorted by the lens and form the shape of the aperture, they look like out of focus sparkles and again can make your photo more artistic.

I eventually got around to trying out some more long exposure traffic trails last weekend. The bridge I used is positioned over a dual carriage way, even then the traffic flow wasn’t as high as I had hoped for. The spot I choose had significantly less background light than that of the shots from Hong Kong. This allowed me to get more distinct trails from the cars light, however I find my preference is for the shots from Hong Kong  (seen here). The shots in Hong Kong have more interest due to the light pollution.

When shooting at night I find that it is even more important to consider the ambient light as it is often more focused and easier to spot flaws in.

Credit to: www.danheller.com

Long exposure photography can be quite time consuming because the longer you leave the shutter open the longer the camera needs to process it and you can never be certain that the shot is correct until you get it back. When shooting star trails it becomes even more difficult with the lack of light; meaning composition and focus can be very difficult to do, it is usually best to setup before dusk so you get it right.There are tons factors that can massively effect taking a star trail photo.

Composition

A shot of just the sky may be nice but it lacks a subject so often putting something in the foreground can add a point of reference making the image more interesting and give the shot scale.

Little or no Clouds

Clouds can add an interesting effect to the sky but they fog and diminish the brightness of the stars. Having a cloudless sky is a must and often star trails are clearest when you are high up (such as in the photo below).

Credit to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/velvet_pow

Dark skies

There maybe no clouds in the sky but that does not mean it is clear, try and pick a night where the sky is really dark and there are no wisps of a forming cloud and little air pollution. Another consideration to take into account is the ambient light from streets and cars near by, often this can wash out an image. It is better to get away from a city centre or a road.

The Setup

In order to take star trails you need a SLR camera with a Bulb mode (also called B). This allows the shutter to remain open until you let go of the shutter button (may work slightly differently on other cameras). Holding down the shutter button for over 30 minutes is a ridiculous idea so the purchase of a remote trigger is a necessity. I use a ML-L3 on my Nikon to take star trail photos, a remote tricker allows you to press its button once to star the shot and once to finish the shot. You will also need a stable tripod or a stand of some sorts that will hold the camera still. It can get very cold at night and the cold reduces battery life so go out fully charged up if you can.

Taking the shot

It is best to set this all up before darkness and make sure you are happy with your composition. Check you camera is firmly in place and your remote trigger works. When taking shots under bulb mode it is up to you to guess how long your shutter should be open so I advise that you start at 10 minutes (don’t be afraid to build up to over an hour) and build up until you get a clear shot. I would also suggest you take a notepad and pen and write down what time you started the shot and for how long for future reference.

Turn down the ISO to as low as it can go and put up the f stop this will reduce noise and let in as much light as possible. Another top tip is to check your cameras menu to see if it has an option for Long Exposure Noise Reduction if so turn this on and it will help remove noise you get from long exposures. Some cameras show the time the shutter has been open others however do not so a stop watch could be helpful. If it is still to light try and neutral density filter to darken the shot.

The method described here advocates taking one long exposure, however it is possible to do it by combining multiple shorter exposures in something like Photoshop.

This is the kind of shot that made me enjoy photography so much in the beginning. It’s one where everything comes together, you spot a scene, you compose it and finally it comes out better than you could hope for. I shot this while in Anglesey, the weather looks calm and peaceful but I can assure you it was far from that; the wind was raging and it was ruddy cold. Yet I still managed somehow to get the moving blades of grass in focus.

Here are couple photos from that trip to Anglesey.

There has always been one type of photography that I was never any good at, that being Urban/Street photography. I find it really awkward to walk around a town with a camera around my neck and take photos. You get really strange looks and some people get really protective and automatically assume your trying to take a photo of their child to use in a inappropriate manner. I would just like to point out to those people that if you let your child out in public dressed like that then why is a photo any worse than the people on the street seeing them like that?

Back to the topic in hand, one of the things I struggle with is having the confidence to take photos out on the street. What makes this odd is as a tourist I am happy to whack out my camera on the street and take some photos of people, but back home it just feels a tad odd. When I went to Hong Kong this summer I was very comfortable bringing my camera around with me, but when I went to London in December I felt a little silly. However I really wanted some shots of London and decided to take my camera with me almost everywhere. I am really glad I did, I got some really nice shots and it really boosted my confidence of getting out and taking photos of people.

The shot above is one of my favourites, mostly because the girl in the orange hat and red jacket pops out from the crowd of black and blue jackets. The lighting in from the Christmas display gives the background some interest too. I used this Cold Cream Preset as a starting point and then played with the curves, black point and saturation to achieve the final result.

This shot is from my holiday in Anglesey during October. I know the family that own the house and had been asked by one of them to take some photos of it. I had taken a couple, but they are best described as lacklustre. The place is beautiful, but when the sky is grey and your looking at a white house it just looks a little dull.

I had to come up with a plan to take some interesting shots with an overcast sky. I tried to think of way that I might get some really nice light on the house or something. It wasn’t until I went out to put the dogs out one evening that I realised that the house glowed from all the inside lights. By this time it was getting quite dark, I rushed upstairs and brought out my camera, tripod and remote trigger. Set the camera up and took some long exposures, experimenting with the timing. I also did some different angles, this is may favourite as you get the most windows.

It was seriously windy when I was taking these shots and keeping the tripod steady was quite a task especially when I was struggling to say still myself. That’s what makes a photo, the adventure in taking it.

When I first bought a canvas I was pretty hesitant, the cost can be quite steep and I had little to no idea of the quality I was going to get. After looking around I decided to go with Hello Canvas. I sent the photo off and a week later a magnificent canvas came through the post. A great ridged frame and the printing stayed true to the shades of the photo.

When I ordered my D7000 Jessops offered me a free canvas as part of the package. I chose my photo and got it printed, eagerly awaiting is arrival. It arrived and to my dismay it was set on a relatively thin whimsical frame and the colours just weren’t 100%; none the less it still had the magical canvas feel.

I have now accumulated another 4 canvas’s all varying sizes, all from Hello Canvas. Their superb print quality and thick robust frames put them heads above others and customer support is great. One of the prints I ordered arrived damaged during the shipping. I got in contact with the Hello Canvas team who sorted me out even though I was missing the order number (dad deleted the email with it in).

I would recommend to anyone with a half decent shot in their library to get it printed on canvas by Hello Canvas. Because HelloCanvas are super nice they have given me a 15% off code for you to use when you buy a canvas from them.

Coupon: “hellormasperofans”