Image of the Week #2

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This week in image of the week I am looking at taking photographs of my surroundings. Everyday I have the opportunity to take what I pass on my daily journey, but they can be so easily overlooked in the day to day rush.

This old wooden gate is actually on the seafront near where I live, but you wouldn’t think it from the photo. I think it looks very mysterious with it’s large hinges and the battered wood, and it makes me want to find out what is behind it!

I try as much as possible to look around me to see what would make a good photo from day to day objects, and of course remember to always take my camera with me. There has been too many times when I have seen something great to take and not had my camera!

This was taken on my usual camera the Traveler DC-5080.

Thanks

Mandy

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Digital Photography Part 1

Following on from yesterdays post , this is the first in a three part series looking at how digital photography has changed the way we take photographs. Today I am looking at taking the image.

Taking the Image

I think the biggest change when taking photographs is being able to see what you have taken on the LCD screen on the back of the camera. You can instantly see if you’ve messed the shot up or not!

Having a digital camera gives you the ability to take a lot of photos depending on the size of your memory card or internal memory. It is not as constraining as film with either 24 or 36 exposures, my camera will take up to 1,000 images on the memory card. No more need to worry about running out of film!

It also means that cost is not as much of an issue anymore. I used to really think before taking a photograph, was it a good enough shot. Because the price of film and developing affected which shots I took, so as to get my moneys worth out of the film. The worst thing to happen would be a whole film of wasted shots, due to a limited budget. But now I tend to take anything and everything just to see what works.

Cons…

What could the down side be to all of this? Maybe hours spent sorting through 100’s of images.

For me it would have to be the amount of batteries or recharges that you go through. Digital cameras are power intensive which makes running them expensive, unless it’s a internal rechargable battery (mine came with the camera) then it’s just the recharge time. And remembering to do it, if I’m caught short then I’m stuffed!

Have I missed anything, what do you feel are the pros and cons of taking a digital photograph? Let me know in the comments. Next time I will be looking at editing the image.

Thanks

Mandy

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Taking, Editing, Sharing Digital Photography

Recently I looked at why digital photography has become so popular, in this post I am going to start to look at how digital photogrpahy has changed the way we take photographs.

Definition - Digital Camera

The Oxford dictionary describes a digital camera as ‘a camera that produces digital images that can be stored in a computer and displayed on a screen’.

Definition - Photography

It also describes photography as ‘the art or practice of taking and processing photographs’.

It doesn’t sound very exciting when you put it like that!

But I think digital photography is exciting, it gives us new ways to share and enjoy images like never before. It’s the biggest change to photography in over 100 years. So I thought I would take a closer look at how digital photography has changed the way we take photographs:

1. taking the image
2. editing the image
3. sharing the image

Although obviously I am a digital photographer and really enjoy it, I am going to look at the pros and the cons to be fair (or I’ll try to anyway). Digital photography is such a huge topic and after all this whole blog is about it, so I only plan to cover what I think are the best features of the above areas. Starting with the first one tomorrow!

Thanks

Mandy

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Which Type of Digital Camera Do You Use?

So which type of digital camera do you use?

In yesterdays post I took a look at how digital cameras work, so today I thought I’d take a look at the different types available. Although for me it’s not just a question of which type I use, it’s also which type I would like to have! Here are the different types:

1. Point and Shoots

These are great for taking snapshots and are generally small and easy to fit into a pocket or bag, so they can be taken anywhere. They have come a long way and take good images for snapshots and also are reasonably priced. But they do have limited features and options that you can use and therefore limit the photographs that you can take. At the moment this is the type I use.

2. Advanced Point and Shoots

These cameras have all the features of point and shoots but they have greater resolution (megapixels) and have more options and features for taking photographs.

3. Digital SLR Cameras

These cameras are for very keen photographers or professionals. SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex and are very similar to 35mm film SLR’s. You are able to change the lens and may find that some 35mm lens will fit your digital SLR. They are fantastic for being in control of your creativity when taking photographs, and they have very high resolution so they can be used by professionals. But this means they are expensive! And this is the one I would like…

Which one do you use?

Thanks

Mandy

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How do Digital Cameras Work?

Have you ever wondered how digital cameras work?

I know I do. It has always fascinated me how they work. I understand how film cameras work, the shutter is released to expose the light sensitive film to the image being taken, and then the film is developed with chemicals.

But how do digital cameras work when there is no film and no chamicals? Obviously the image is created digitally but it would be interesting to know how!

I recently watched a program on the Discovery Channel called How It’s Made, and they were looking at how sensors are made for digital products including Digital Cameras. It was really interesting, a light sensitive sensor is made using a mixture of circuits and light sensitive chemicals. That when exposured to an image it records the different light information from the image, then a processor converts that information into the photograph. Cool hey!

Now that was a very basic introductory description about how they work. Digital cameras are very sophisticated pieces of equipment with basically miniature computers onboard. But this is an introduction to them, here is another one that puts it slightly better from How Stuff Works: An introduction to how Digital Cameras work. 

I hope between these two descriptions you can get a feel for how they work. How on earth do people come up with these ideas and inventions in the first place? Because digital cameras have revolutionized photography and how we take photographs. That was some idea!

Thanks

Mandy

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Image of the Week #1

New Feature

Image of the Week is a new feature I am starting on this blog. It will be a weekly feature on a Monday.

Each week I will be looking at my favourite photograph for the week. And this will be the main way at first that I will share my photographs, although as the blog grows I may look at other photographers as well. I will have to see how it grows! I hope by looking at photographs in this way I will learn more about how I take them and what works best.

So this week I will be looking at this photograph:

I really like trees! What can I say, they just look good no matter what time of year it is. I took this one just heading into spring on my Traveler DC-5080. It’s the detail and patterns in the branches that I like the best.

Thanks

Mandy

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Why Has Digital Photography Become So Popular?

So what is it about digital photography that makes it so interesting to people?

• Is it the technology and how images are generated digitally
• Is it because they are great gadgets
• Is it the ease of producing images instantly on your computer
• Is it the quality of the image
• Is it the flexibility given for post production
• Is it the DIY side to processing

Whatever it is digital cameras and photography have become incredibly popular. Everybody from the complete beginner to the professional photographer are using them. I suspect it is a combination of the above statements for most people, I know it is for me. For me it would have to be a bit of all of them. And this is how they have become so popular, they have a wide appeal to a wide range of people.

It’s has taken a while

I think at first it took a while for digital photography to catch on. The cameras were quite expensive on their own, but then if you wanted to take full advantage of their capabilities then you needed a computer as well. Not as many people had computers a couple of years a go and I think this affected how they sold.

But with electronic prices crashing and price wars in full swing. The prices have dropped drastically for the cameras and for computers, and a lot more people have both now. Therefore the savings that can be made from film and processing costs are now being seen. And in turn that makes them rate highly in the affordable gadget category. I know I waited until the prices came down before I bought one!

Has it changed photographers forever?

Digital photography has changed the way photographers take photographs. For the professional it must have saved a lot on film and waiting for developing. But also it instantly lets them see what they have taken, and given them greater flexibility in the post production process. And they have had to become more computer friendly! It was the other way round for me. I became more computer friendly first, then I bought a digital camera and started to realise the great potential that they had. I suppose I didn’t like change, and it took me a while to change from film to digital.

I’ve also fallen into the trap, that I really tried not to do of pictures collecting on my hard drive. I like to look at photos, I don’t want them all on the computer or disc. It’s nice to take the time to look at ‘physical’ albums sometimes. But I don’t get around to printing them off as often as I would like. Which makes backing them up even more important!

Digital revolution

The digital revolution has made digital photography available to even more people as it’s appeal has spread, and has seen a lot of new people taking it up as a hobby. Helped along by the speed at which the technology has advanced. With new cameras coming out all the time with greater power and resolution. It wasn’t that long ago that 3 million mega pixel cameras were the best point and shoots around. Now you can easily pick up a 10 million mega pixel camera for the around the price, that the 3 million was when it came out a couple of years ago.

And the fact that they can be fitted to other devices like mobile phones and digital camcorders etc, makes them available to groups of people that would not normally have been interested in photography. Digital cameras fit nicely into the way we live today, we need to be mobile and have everything at our fingertips. So having a phone that is a camera (and pretty much a computer as well now) makes it easily accessible and instant to capture that moment and send it on.

It will be interesting to see where this digital revolution is going next and whether it will stay as popular as it has become. I hope so, because anything that helps more people take photos and enjoy them better, is good for photography.

Thanks

Mandy

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How To Upload A Photograph to a Blog or Forum

Why am I talking about this?

I am starting off by talking about something really basic, uploading a photo to a blog, or forum. Now I know everybody knows how to do this, but I have found in the past that the easiest things to do are often taken as a given, that you should automatically know how to do it and therefore do not need to be told.

But this isn’t always true, everybody has to start somewhere and learn simple things for the first time, and if there is no-one there to help them then it can become a real chore to complete. It can be so simple and obvious, but not to the person trying to figure it out for the first time - until they do, then it becomes obvious!

So what I am trying to say is everyone has to start somewhere so I thought I would talk about how I learned to do this, just in case. Here is how I do it.

So what do you have to do?

The most important factor to consider is the file size of the photograph, it needs to be kept as small as possible while not taking away from the quality of the picture. This way the photographs don’t effect the time taken for the blog to load, or slow down scrolling effecting the sites performance and usability. Forums tend to have a file or size limit for this same reason. This is an important consideration when uploading to a blog or forum.

I use Photoshop Elements 3 to help me edit the photographs. I take a photo off my computer and resize it to the desired size and then I crop it if necessary (which I do most of the time) until I get it looking like I want it to. Then I use the ‘save for the web’ function under file and that makes it even smaller. With photographs they should be saved as jpegs, but when I use the ‘save for web’ option it converts them to gifs (to get them smaller I think), but recently I have been saving them as a .png file and they look fine or .gif file (for graphics).

Uploading to a Blog

Now the photograph is ready to be uploaded to the desired blog. Whether it’s a blog or forum it’s a similar process. This is what you are looking for a browse button:

I have a Wordpress blog so I find it at the bottom of my write a post page. The browse button lets me navigate to the photograph on my computer and select it, I give it a name so it’s easy to recognise. Then I click upload and choose whether I want thumbnail, full size, etc and what I want it to link to, if any. All I have to do then is either click ‘send it to the editor’ if I want it to go in a post. Or click edit and save it for later, and it will be added to my uploads. And that’s it uploaded to my blog.

Uploading to a Forum.

Generally when it comes to forums you are uploading a picture for an avatar which is a small picture that appears with all your forum posts, and becomes identifiable to you. So it follows the same principles as uploading to a blog. The difference being where to find the browse button. I went to the forum control panel and then edit avatar and found the choose one from your computer option and there was the browse button. I just selected it and that was it. The other difference with forums is the size of the picture in this case I had to get it 100 x 100 pixels or 19 kb whichever was the smallest. Most forums are similar so if you can do one, the others should be near enough the same.

I will be looking at uploading photographs to photo/stock sites and what is required to do it in much more depth in my stock photography exploration. But this is an essential small beginner step to learn. I have taken photographs for a long time but it is only this year that I have become active with online activities and wanted to upload one, and learned how to do this.

Thanks

Mandy

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Which Cameras Have I Used?

How did it all start?

A lot of my family were into cameras and taking photographs. I always remember watching them and wanting to have a go. I have probably been interested in cameras and wanting to take photographs since I was about five. I remember really early on being shown how to take a photograph, probably because I was nagging to have a go. It was on a really basic camera with no settings or anything, and it was to just practice taking photographs (and shut me up) without moving the whole camera to do it.

I had a lot of cameras when I was young, and I have had trouble trying to remember them all, but the ones below are the ones I used the most.

Which cameras have I used… so far?

1. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s when cameras were going through a lot of changes and shapes and sizes. A lot of new models came out like the 110, Disc and Polaroid cameras. My first camera was a hand me down, the simplest 35mm camera you had ever seen with no settings whatsoever and a flash cube! Showing my age now.

2. I had a Disc camera for a while, they were very popular at the time due to the design being so different, they were really thin. And the negatives were on a disc like a kids picture viewer.

3. I wanted to try an SLR camera so I borrowed my Dad’s old Zenith SLR that weighed a ton, it’s the heaviest camera I’ve ever held.

4. Next I was given a hand me down 35mm old camera of my Granddad’s made by Kodak, from about the 60’s. Still worked though, nobody else wanted to use it because the settings on the lens were in feet rather than f stops.

5. Then I had a more modern point and shoot 35mm Richoh RZ-735 with a zoom lens. My first camera with a zoom on it.

6. I also borrowed my husbands 35mm SLR for a while, a Pentax MZ-50 with a SMC Pentax 35-80 mm lens on it. I really enjoyed using that camera.

7. My first digital camera was a 1.5 mega pixel Fujifilm point and shoot camera that needed batteries! This was only a year or so after they came out and they were still quite expensive. The only thing now was I wanted a computer…

8. My most recent camera is a Traveler DC-5080 5 mega pixel camera and size wise my smallest camera so far. Although it’s not a Digital SLR it is a nice little camera and most of the photographs on this blog will have been taken with it.

I would like to buy a digital SLR camera but that will be a little way in the future, but not too far hopefully. The problem will be deciding which one to get? I’ll let you know when I am deciding.

Thanks

Mandy

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How Does Photography Make You Feel?

Following on from yesterdays post What Photography Means to Me, is part 2 talking more about the different ways photographs make me feel.

Photography as Art

I love photography as art, I have lots of photographs around my house, some of family, some of places we have been and some by other photographers. I find it very relaxing to be able to look at photographs. Having photos of family around brings up memories and keeps them close. Pictures of places we have been stirs up memories and makes me want to go again. But pictures that other photographers have taken are interesting because I am seeing the scene or subject through their eyes, and appreciating it for what they have captured.

It’s a more real type of art, like I can just step into the photograph and be somewhere else. A complete get away or escape from whatever I am doing at the time. Being moved or inspired by the things around you and enjoying them through photographs makes things real, like a place I have always wanted to visit but not had the chance yet.

For me photography is my favourite type of art. The paintings I have in my house tend to be again of places I visit, so I think I can conclude that I like my art to stimulate an emotion or memory, for me to get the most out of it. How do you enjoy art?

Inspirational Photographers

Looking at other photographers work can be inspiring and their work can be different and give me a new way to look at things or give me ideas. Sometimes I can’t help wondering how did they do that? That in turn inspires me and my photography. I will be looking at some inspirational photographers in this blog as we go along.

History of Photography

I love looking into the history of photography and it’s journey from when it was invented to today, it’s intriguing. I am fascinated by the inventors then and now, and how do they manage to think up the ideas in the first place? It’s nice to know how we got to this point with photography and where we could be going next.

Photography is a great reference tool and I love to see how the recording of history has changed since it’s invention. Looking back at old photographs say from where I live can show how much things have changed or grown. And it gives a unique insight into how we used to live or what happened, telling history in there own way.

I would like to look at past photographers and how they recorded the things around them. I wonder what future generations will think about how or what we record in our photographs?

Thanks

Mandy

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