50/50 Project: #1/50 (by Cheshire photographer Jane Burkinshaw)

Day 1. Seedheads

50 days with a 50mm lens
Technical data: Canon 350D, 1/500, f/1.8, ISO 200 and manual exposure.

I really enjoyed taking the 350D out today - it felt like a little compact compared to the 5D mk II that I've been lugging around lately. And of course the 50mm f/1.8 mk II lens is very light too.

This was taken whilst we were out walking the dog at an area known locally as the Flashes and we chose a route along the river Weaver. I was spoilt for choice really but settled on this image because it was "cleaner" than some of the others - less clutter from stray grasses and leaves in the background and a nice contrast between the lighter seed heads and the darker background of ferns.

F/1.8 is a very shallow depth of field (most of the image is soft focus apart from the small focal area) but it does allow a faster shutter speed. I had to be really careful about picking the point of focus out and also waiting for the plant to stop swaying in the breeze.

I did a little processing afterwards to slightly emphasise the contrast between the foreground subject and the darker background.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

Should I buy an SLR camera?

I get asked this all the time when I’m teaching people with compact cameras, so I decided to try to write a blog that will help you make that decision before you part with your hard earned cash.

Firstly let’s take a quick look at the types of camera out there as it may be surprising to some that compact cameras and SLRs are not the only options available.

Compact camera: Often referred to as a “point and shoot” camera and is designed for ease of use and convenience. It does not offer interchangeable lenses, has a built in flash and has many automatic modes to make picture taking as simple as possible. Some do feature options for controlling aperture and shutter speed and there are some with extremely good lens or optic quality.

(I’ll do SLR next although really it should come last as you’ll see shortly).

SLR camera: stands for Single Lens Reflex but you don’t really need to know that! It uses a system of moving mirrors to allow the photographer to see exactly what they are going to capture (What You See Is What You Get – WYSIWYG). Non SLR cameras (the other three types discussed here) do not use this mirror system.  SLRs also allow you to use interchangeable lenses, have full control over aperture and shutter speed, use manual as well as auto focus and use additional filters and flashguns. Basically you get more control and can be much more creative than with a compact camera.

As I said earlier these are not the only two options and the alternatives are well worth taking into consideration.

Bridge Camera: bridges the gap between compact cameras and SLRs, hence the name. Bridge cameras are often a similar size to small or entry level SLRs and have common features. They do not have interchangeable lenses and usually have a lower ISO range (meaning that they won’t perform as well in low light). They have a fixed but very versatile lens which allows you to photograph close up and wide angle through to telephoto, with the zoom limit often being very high.

Compact System Camera: More recently manufacturers have brought out a fourth option designed to have interchangeable lenses and all of the flexibility of an SLR but in a much more compact body.

So now that you know about four options instead of just two, how on earth do you decide which is the right one for you?! I’ve used all except the newer compact system camera (if any of the manufacturers would like me to do a review of one, feel free to pop one in the post!) and they’ve all got their place in the market. It really comes down to what sort of photography you want to do,  how much money you want to spend and whether you like carrying and changing lenses or just prefer one that does it all.

Perhaps describing how I use my cameras will shed some light. I stick my compact camera in the bag whenever I’m going out with the kids and might want some quick snapshots. I know there’s quite a delay when I take pictures, I can’t get the nice soft focus background shots I love and I can’t capture close ups of faraway things. However, in good daylight conditions it delivers great quality snapshots. I have also done some really nice close ups with it. Shots taken with the flash aren’t great, but then I am used to using an SLR with external flash gun.

I use my bridge camera when I want to get better quality pictures than with my compact but don’t want to carry additional lenses. A good example of this was on a recent holiday to Cape Verde where I didn’t want to risk taking an SLR and all the lenses.  Sandy beaches and SLRs don’t mix well! My bridge camera has a 20X zoom so I knew I could get some good candid pictures of the kids playing in the pool and on the beach. It also does some great close ups with soft focus backgrounds and the image quality is better, sharper and crisper than the compact. It also has an optical viewfinder which I prefer to the LCD screen.

I bought this bridge camera as a natural step up from a compact, when I was still an amateur photographer stuck on AUTO.  I first started to see the limitations of it when I began an A Level evening course. I had my first play with an SLR and loved the quality both through the lens and in the final images. And of course there’s no delay when pressing the shutter (no more missed action shots!). Once I had tried a macro lens and an external flash gun I was hooked – there was no going back. However hard I tried I could not achieve the same quality of images or creative effects with my compact or bridge camera.

SLR cameras also allow you to shoot in RAW as well as JPEG. This gives you much more control when editing your pictures afterwards, a must for a professional photographer (some bridge cameras do offer this format as well).

If speed and image quality are important to you, if you’d like to enlarge your shots for display on the wall or enter them into competitions then you should probably go for an SLR. But only if you are prepared to spend money on additional lenses. The “kit” lens that usually comes with an SLR does not allow you to take real close up shots nor does it zoom very far, so you’ll soon find that you need at least one additional lens. You can buy lenses that have a similar wide range to bridge cameras (e.g. 18mm-200mm) but the quality is not as good as dedicated close up, wide angle or zoom lenses. I soon found that I needed a macro (close up) lens and a zoom lens. But then I’m selling my images. If I was an amateur photographer on a budget the one “Jack of all trades” lens is perfectly adequate, certainly when you first start out using an SLR. You can also save money by buying generic lenses such as Tamron or Sigma and by buying second hand.

For me, using an SLR feels like a “proper” camera – I can look through a view finder, it instantly takes the picture when I press the shutter button and has a real and satisfying feel, it’s fast and overall a more quality experience. If automatic modes fail to give the result I am looking for I can take control and make fine-tuned adjustments. A bridge camera can do this too but the quality is generally not as good, with more noise (speckled dark areas) on the final image and just not as crisp and punchy. I know that if I use a particular lens with my SLR I can achieve a particular result – it gives me much more control.

I can’t truly answer the question of SLR cameras versus the new compact system cameras as I’ve yet to use one and can only rely on the reviews I’ve read. They seem to have a place in the market, based predominantly on compact size and being light weight, but opinion seems to be that although very good, they don’t always perform as well as SLRs in the more challenging lighting conditions.

All my cameras have their place and role to play and I'm sure I could come up with an argument to add a new compact system camera to my kit bag! If I was forced to give them all up except one I would hang onto an SLR - and it would be my mighty Canon 5D - I'll blog on why it knocks the socks off my 350d and 40d another day!

Whatever you decide to do, make use of the internet and read lots of reviews. Stay away from manufacturers’ reviews initially as they will be biased and stick to web sites that offer independent reviews e.g. http://www.cameras.co.uk/ but there are many others

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

Are you making this basic mistake when taking photographs?

When I run courses and one to one sessions on Digital Photography I find that most people are making the same fundamental mistake. And don't get me wrong, I don't think they're idiots - in fact they are intelligent individuals who are keen to improve their photography skills. The blame lies with the people who write camera manuals that are laborious to read and full of jargon. I always advise people to put the manual away and  a) come on one of my workshops (of course!) and b) read some of the photography books I recommend. Once you've got some basics on board, then the manual starts to make a bit more sense, but is best used as a reference tool - look things up as you need to but don't try to read it from cover to cover.

If camera manuals were well written they would start with a few simple bits of information that would get you started on the right path, but this stuff is usually hidden deep in the manual and called something technical!

So, here's the "biggie" mistake you may be making with your point and shoot compact camera. When you just point your camera at your subject and press the shutter, the camera always focuses in the middle of the frame and that's what will be in focus. 8 times out of 10 that may well be absolutely fine. But what if you are photographing two people and there's a gap between them? Your camera will focus in between the people, making the background in focus and the people blurred. Go on, be honest, you've done this before haven't you!

Did you know that you can focus on one of the people, press the shutter halfway down until the green light comes on and the camera beeps, telling you that it has focused, then keeping the shutter button pressed halfway, move the camera to frame both people and then fully press the shutter down to take the picture. If you practise this a few times, it's really easy and then eventually becomes second nature.

And once you've got the hang of it, you can start to put people, objects etc to one side of your picture and not in the middle. Radical! An example of this might be if you're photographing someone with a lovely landscape behind them. Try putting the person to one side. This may also have the lovely effect of keeping the person in focus whilst the landscape is softly out of focus. In the example below it is our lovely Daisy sulking as she watches people playing on the beach below (no dogs allowed), with St Michael's Mount in the background.

This technique is called FOCUS LOCK - sounds scary doesn't it? But it's so simple and so important!Look it up in your manual now that you know what it is.You can then start to get creative and take pictures of all sorts of things with the point of focus wherever you want it to be. And practise it - after all you can just delete any that don't work.

And if you're taking close up pictures of people's faces ALWAYS makes sure you focus on the eyes. If the eyes aren't in focus your picture just won't work.


By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

Now, where did I put that lens / filter / bag....??

For the last few days I have been hunting high and low for my Lensbaby and its accessories. In the process of scouring drawers, cupboards and various camera bags (bags are a subject to which I could dedicate an entire blog...) I have uncovered all sorts of odds and ends that I had forgotten about. When you consider that all these “odds and ends” are bits of photographic related equipment, it is nothing short of scandalous that I don’t have them all organised and accessible in one safe location.

I can’t believe I have amassed all this kit – just eight years ago I was happy with my Olympus Trip and rather ungrateful when husband returned from a trip to the States with a Pentax compact digital camera as a present for me. “Didn’t they have the Clinique stuff I wanted? I’ve already got a camera!” was likely my response. However, I think I can now trace back my conversion to the religion of photography to this moment – or to a few weeks later when it dawned on me what a brave new world my first digital camera had opened up. Gone were the days of ending up with 35 awful pictures and 1 good one. The learning curve was still quite steep but so much shorter and cheaper. I don’t know what I would have done either, without Picasa, the free image editing software from Google. My digital image library was building, along with my family – two years on and I had a toddler and a new baby to experiment on (photographically that is!)

Husband then convinced me that I was ready to move onto a camera that allowed me to take more control and we bought the Panasonic Lumix FZ20. It was a great “inbetweeny” camera for me – I wasn’t ready at that time to upgrade to a full SLR, but this looked a bit more serious, had a larger LCD screen and produced really punchy sharp images. The 10X zoom was great, especially combined with the image stabiliser function. I’ve had this camera for 4 or 5 years now and I still use it a few times a week, as I take it on my dog walks and on general outings with the kids. I tend to think of it as expendable but I would be devastated if anything happened to it (well, at least for the few minutes that it would take for me to realise that I would have the perfect excuse to buy a newer model, with face, smile & blink recognition...).

I have to admit that I continued for quite some time to use it on the AUTO setting and didn’t make use of the manual focus option either. Husband kept egging me on to try a different shutter speed or change the depth of field and was rewarded with expletives. Just as you shouldn’t learn to drive with your dad, neither should you allow your spouse to teach you photography! It was only at the end of the first class of an A’Level course that I finally understood f-stops and shutter speeds and was finally able to move the dial off AUTO and on to “A” and “S” (or TV as it would become on my SLRs).

I upgraded to my first SLR – a Canon 350d – partway through the first term of the first year of the A’Level and so began my metamorphosis into photo gadget geek. Every Christmas / birthday / Mother’s Day there was something I was dropping hints about. And really there’s no item that I regret buying or haven’t made good use of. I would be bereft without my external flash gun & plastic diffuser. Although other factors also come into play to make a good portrait, soft bounced light can really make a shot look more professional. No more red eye or unflattering direct light. The first lens I bought was a 60mm prime lens, as I had started to do a lot of close up, abstract stuff, partly for the A’Level, but also to explore my passion for abstracts of flowers and plants. I sometimes wish I’d bought the 100mm lens instead for slightly less accessible subjects when I need to be at a greater distance, but I’ve still made great use of it. These days it is my main portrait lens – head & shoulders close ups or even tighter crops – the quality is fantastic and I can get such a shallow depth of field so that the focus really is on the subject. For more candid shots I’ve got a telephoto lens – 70-300mm f.4.5 – with image stabiliser – and it’s been a real work horse for me, particularly at nurseries when I’ve been able to capture lovely natural shots of children at play. My next big outlay could be for an upgrade to one with a lower f-stop but this will be serious money. The Lensbaby was a birthday present and I used it a lot for my A’Level projects. It’s been neglected of late, hence why it was lost, but I’ve got a hankering to have a play around with it again and get some more creative portraits.

Once I got to the point where I had got a reasonable amount of work on the books I started to panic about something happening to my 350d mid-shoot, so I had created an excuse to go shopping again. At the time, the most affordable upgrade option for me was the 40d, which is now my main work horse. At weddings or particularly fast paced jobs where I don’t have a lot of time to switch lenses, I have both cameras slung around my body, but don’t seem to control them as effortlessly as some photographers do. Also for weddings and large groups I bought my wide angle lens 17-40mm. This is a good quality lens and does the job, but I have yet to fall in love with it like I have done with the telephoto or macro lenses – I find it hard to be creative with it – more practise needed as I’m sure it’s possible to get some really good results with it.

I’ve also amassed lots of other “bits & bobs” – filters, polarisers, tripods, bags (don’t mention bags – I always think I need a new one!) but as this blog is already a novella, I’ll save commenting on those for another day!

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!