So, I thought I would have a recap of two of my favourite images from Prague, so I have selected two that I was really pleased with, there are more, but these are just some of my faves. If you want, go HERE, and you can see the whole set from Prague on Flickr, so, let’s get into them!

The first photograph, although a little cliché, is one I’m really pleased with, and it is a market scene, at “Havelske Trziste” I believe.

So, why do I like this photo? There are a few points about this image that I am just really pleased with. The first point is: the colour.

This photograph, and in fact, both the photos in this post coincidentally, were taken with the Canon AE-1, a film SLR, and it was loaded with Kodak Ultramax 400. I didn’t look specifically into the film, but it was available in a bundle at WHSmith in the airport, so, you know.

Anyway, back to the colour, the main point to me is that it looks completely real, something I feel I rarely achieve using my digital SLR, and it’s great, it looks like it looked when I was there, the glistening, brightly coloured fruits, with the harsh fluorescent lights above them, it was just like it was in real life, and that, I love.

The next thing is the DoF, it must have been darker than I remember to achieve what I can only guess was f/1.8, judging by how shallow this image is, but I think it worked well, what I love is the grapes, hanging, crisp and in focus, over the OOF people walking in the background.

All in all I am really pleased with this photo and have actually got a large professional print of it done, maybe a picture that will get walled!

The next photograph is something I entitled on Flickr, ‘stormy sea’. I will explain all in a moment, first, the photograph:

This was a ‘hidden gem’ in ways, when I looked through the photographs, in the respect that I had forgotten taking it, normally I find I remember almost everything I have taken a photo of on a roll of film, so it was a nice surprise to find something I like, but didn’t remember on the roll.

The reason behind the title is slightly confusing, even to myself. Basically, I view the lines and shapes in the photograph as something from a stormy sea, you have that fence at the bottom, an incredible shape that looks like it could be a rolling wave, and then the other fence line, the roof line etc, and to me it all appears like waves; then, you have the crack down the wall, coming from the window, which is like a lightening bolt from the sky.

Wait, it’s gonna get more confusing:

What it really reminded me of, was an animation I feel like I have seen of a stormy sea, but made out of unnatural objects, like cogs and clockwork kind of objects. I don’t know if you’ve seen the film, ‘the illusionist’ but there is a scene when certain documents are found, and there is massive elaborate cog-work inside things, and imagining those spinning is how I imagine this. Also, to make it more confusing, you know the animations for a film production company before a film? Like the one with the long straight road, and then there’s the one with the lighthouse, it reminds me of one of those too.

All in all, I have probably confused you, but I thought it would be interesting to see if anyone at all would be able to understand my thinking. I’m going to scour YouTube and Vimeo for an animation video that explains what I’m trying to say. Possibly.

Anywho, so, I like the photograph for that kind of dual meaning, but I also like the simplicity and the abstract nature of it, it’s just one I really like.

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Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little blarb on the photographs, any thoughts are welcome via email, or just in the comments on the blog, also feel free to click on the photographs and visit them on Flickr!

I thought it’d be worth a moment of your time to look at this site I came across. It is definitely worth a look if you’d be interested in submitting your photographs to be used ‘commercially’ and for financial or otherwise rewards. Here’s a little about how it works:

Publishers come to the website, join, and create an ‘assignment’ for example, a musician may want a photograph to go on the front of his new album cover, and he’ll give some description of what he wants, for example, something based on lomography.

Then, (after you’ve joined!), you can submit images for that assignment, (the creator of the assignment chooses how many you are allowed to submit). And that’s it!

The end result for the publisher is he/she has a collection of images that people think are appropriate for his assignment, and also, he’ll see votes on each image. (You are allowed to vote for pictures that have been submitted, to give the creator an idea of what some people like), and then he picks a winner, (or more than one winner if he wants), and that photo gets used!

This isn’t some dodgy referral thing or anything, I’m just sharing this idea with you, so visit Pixish.com now and sign up! (It needs the support, it’s just starting out!)

So, welcome to the completely revamped AP Blog. Hosted on it’s own, running on WordPress, hopefully this will be an exciting rebirth for the blog.

This first post is going to be on a thought I had the other day, about how since I bought my AE-1 I have rediscovered photography, (the AE-1 being a film camera, as aposed to Digital). So, here it is. It’s a story/article that I hope you will find interesting.

Nowadays, photography is becoming numbed, by it’s own evolution. The digital age, and your cheap digital cameras are flooding this art form with so many new ‘artists’ that it’s touch is being lost. People are firing off their cameras thousands of times and maybe leaving themselves with one or two likeable shots. I see this as a problem, purely because it’s in essence destroying photography, whilst aiding it too. So, I think there is also hope in this problem.

Film photography is becoming scarce, because, for the most part people just use a camera to record their lives, their family and friends, but to photographers, digital has managed to force newcomers to the art form to lose all basic training, instead of working out what composition would be best for a single frame, they take a hundred photos and see which one turns out best. You and I both know this can’t be a good thing.

A shot I took with the AE-1 (click for flickr page)

So, I’ve decided to follow my own story, and share it with you with a method that I think will change your whole view on photography. I feel it has helped me, and that it is something all new photographers should do.

I decided that a 35mm film SLR would be the next thing I would like to purchase. I looked around on Flickr and asked various people, and came up with a short list of SLRs that I thought could work:

• Canon AE-1, AV-1, A-1.
• Olympus OM10, OM20, OM30, OM40.
• Various Nikon film SLRs

This is by no means the complete list, and there will be plenty of other options by many brands, Pentax for example. You may have a brand preference, but I went by what was a reliable camera, and a popular camera, (thus meaning there would be lots available to buy, that were reliable).

I ended up buying a Canon AE-1, an SLR from the late ’70s which had a semi-automatic, Tv/S shutter speed mode, or fully manual, (manual focus of course). It works perfectly, I’ve run black and white, and colour film through it, and it set me back £21.

Photo of the AE-1 (click for flickr page)

If I can just put that price into perspective, I have got a Camera, with a lens, (battery too), that was £21, when I got my Canon EOS 400D, it was retailing at £500, and already from the rolls of film I’ve done, I am loving the work I’m doing with it. So, the investment for this fun really is minimal.

So, what am I really rambling on about here, well, it’s about photography, and your skills in that area. I feel that having a film camera will really connect you with photography, it all becomes much more real when you know there are slides of celluloid in your camera with images waiting to be seen on them.

A photo of my dog, from the AE-1 (click for flickr page)

The inability to look at your picture straight away and maybe delete it will put you in a completely different mindset. You will want to make sure that that picture you are about to take will be right, you don’t want to waste a frame of that film, you contemplate composition, lighting, you think about the exposure, everything. And I have noticed this in my own photography, with the AE-1, I find that my pictures are so much more ‘classically’ correct in terms of photographic technique, with my digital camera I often end up going for strange orientation, odd composition, excessive contrast, ‘incorrect’ exposure, with the AE-1 I get pure results, that are ‘right’, and they work on a much more simple basis.

Furthermore, in this time when it seems everyone and their dog has a digital SLR or at least a compact, how can one differentiate oneself in the photographic ‘market’. If you try and sell your photographs, there would be nothing more interesting to people than seeing a section in your portfolio of purely film photography, it separates you from the crowd in a big way.

Black and White film is also Lovely (click for flickr page)

Once you have used your film camera for a while, there is another big advantage: you will inherit your technique straight into your digital camera too. Of course, over time you may slip back to taking five shots of a single idea, but, the likelihood is that you would put more thought into those photographs.

If I can just slip back to what it means to use film, and people will inevitably bring up the fact that it is costly, and awkward to get your pictures etc. I mean, if we think about this for a second, if you live anywhere near a town, you can get your films processed, and printed in an hour, and nowadays you could just get them thrown on a CD as well. To start with, this quality will be fine, but after a while if you are yearning for higher quality, as you do, you could still get the film processed, but then have a film scanner, and get some high quality scans by yourself.

Furthermore, if you live away from a place to get your rolls developed, there are plenty of post based options, all over the world, you needn’t worry, you can send it away and get it back all done, simple!

The whole idea of this is to reinspire yourself for your photography, and I hope you will be able to do so. For a modest investment on eBay, you can really pick up some lovely cameras, the feel of the hefty metal AE-1 against the comparatively light 400D is also strange.

Hopefully this little article has been of interest to you, let me know if you liked it
Charlie -

Hello Reader,

I hope you’re doing well, and I thought I’d get a nice lens review in here, as it’s been quite desolate for a while. The lens that will be under the microscope will be the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, which is a budget lens, although it with-holds a very nice surprise. So here goes…

Initial Impressions

Firstly, a new user to this lens will probably notice the amazingly compact size and weight of this lens, it’s amazing really. I’m using it on my Canon 400D, and compared to the Kit lens, this thing is tiny! I’d say that this is a good factor for this lens, it’s size and weight really complements the compact body of the 400D, and contrary to many peoples beliefs, the main lens body is surprisingly sturdy, at least at a parallel with the Kit lens. (18-55). There are quite a few reasons I bought this lens:

• To learn how to work with a Prime Lens
• It is EXTREMELY cheap, (around £52, or $80)
• It had a very large aperture, f/1.8, ideal for low light
• Huge image quality gain over the kit lens

Hey Everyone,

I’ve had the Canon EOS 400D for three weeks now, and I want to implement the first section of a review that will conclude over a period of time, (I don’t want to rush out a review too quickly, and I know I wouldn’t want to read one that was). So, I think I’ll cover in this first one, what I think of the physical camera, (and the kit lens, EF-S 18-55mm), to get you down on the physical properties of this wonderful camera.

Features

First of all, if you are familiar with either the 300D/Rebel, or more so, the 350D/Rebel XT, then you will be familiar with the 400D/Rebel XTi, they are very similar cameras, with progressive growth through the generations. The latest installment, although widely viewed as a kind of ‘Facelift’ is significantly more than that, there are many physical changes, new features, improved features etc. The major ones of these are as follows:

• 2.5” Wide Viewing Angle Screen
• All Black Body design, (unless you get silver), i.e. buttons now black
• 9 Point AF
• 10 MegaPixel count, (up from
• Canon DUST removal system

These are the prominent differences that you will notice between this and the 350D, and they are the major ones that Canon makes an effort to point out. I can say though, that there are other, slightly less important, and less publicised differences, such as a better thumb grip and hook, different mode dial, different material, (similar solidity, but different feel, nicer in my opinion).

I think I must make it clear, that unless you detest the screen on your 350D, (if that is your camera of choice), I don’t think it is really worth upgrading to this, I mean, it’s wonderful, but the increased pixel count and other little things really aren’t that amazing when you consider the hassle and cost of switching cameras.

Body and Design

Wow, what a truly lovely camera the Canon Rebel series is, many people complain of the small hand grip, and I have big hands, and I have to say that there really isn’t a problem there, you just change the way you hold the camera, nothing too complex as moving your fingers..!? The feel of the grip is simply fabulous, it has an almost, well, carpet-esque feel, although, it is rubbery really, but it is wonderful. The rest of the body is a very solid plastic, slightly shinier than the 350D which I wasn’t fond of in pictures, but in real life it looks great.

There are no creaks when handling the camera, in fact, I’m not sure if I’ve ever felt it creak, and which is a lovely feeling. Overall, I have to say that the body is amazing, considering the cost of course. I have to make this comment, as I read a lot of reviews before I got the camera, and I mean a LOT, I make sure that when I buy a product it is the best I can get for the money, (because I’m not the one to have lots of money to just throw around, and a lot of other reviews are too used to their D200s and the 5Ds and think that that is standard quality, and so by their standards, of course the 400D is going to feel like less of a camera, because it is, but in value to money, it is so much more.

Kit Lens

I would just like to make a quick section on the kit lens. A lot of people that buy this camera will be first time SLR users, and will almost certainly get it with the Kit lens, as I did, because that is the logical thing to do when you are getting an SLR for the first time, therefore I would like to state my comments on this surprising lens.

Once again I will reflect against other reviews and say that they are too used to their L lenses of superior quality, (optically and physically), but with me upgrading from a Fuji Film S7000 Prosumer camera, the lens is great. One of the main points of a DSLR over a Prosumer is the fact that you can get specific lenses, and the Kit lens is a specific lens. When it was being designed, it was designed as a lens, and more time would have gone into this side of things. When Fuji were making the lens for the S7000, of course they would have been considering the optics, but as much as that they would have been concentrating on making it fit in with the camera, and be small and retractable etc, the Kit lens is born as a lens, not as a part of the camera, which I think is a critical difference that no one concentrates on, so whatever your previous camera, (non SLR), the lens would have been designed to fit, and the Kit lens is FAR superior to built in lenses in almost all cases, of course, the range can be less, (28-88mm compared to my Fuji’s 35-210), but I don’t feel that important when the optics are so much better, and the extra wide angle is so amazingly useful!

This is a lesson I have learnt by having the camera, and that I haven’t read anywhere, so I feel it my responsibility to make this point to anyone looking at DSLRs, purpose built lenses are always going to be better than the ones stuck on a compact, period. The kit lens is a 28-88mm, (equiv. don’t understand? Read THIS), with a maximum aperture range of f/3.5 – 5.6, so a bit slow, but nothing critical.

Image Quality or, IQ

Obviously a critical point of any camera, and somewhere where the 400D can sit very comfortably, of course it varies with lenses used, but I only have the kit lens, so I will be doing all description of image quality with the kit lens. I’ll start by saying, amazing! A nice start it is indeed, and one that can be built upon, the 10 MegaPixel CMOS sensor in the 400D is amazingly good, I have been very impressed with it so far.

One of the major things I notice when in comparison with my S7000 is noise, at ISO100-400 there is nothing, well, unless of course you blew it up stupidly large, but realistically, nothing, and it is something that really impresses me, I mean, the lowest setting on my S7000 was ISO 200 which was annoying to start with, and at that level, it became apparent when viewing the images full screen, the true amount of detail present in the images, with the 400D I most certainly don’t have that problem, even blowing up an ISO 1600 image to full screen, the ISO doesn’t bother me, (although I’m not ludicrously scrutinizing like some people may be, I feel myself to be more of a realistic reviewer, I look at a product and decide what I think the buyers of the product are really going to consider, and in this case, it is whether the noise truly intrudes on the images, and I think, well, I know, the answer is no.

Sharpness is something that should always be discussed, and unfortunately once again is heavily dependent on the lens attached to the camera. I have found that I wanted the camera’s default setting to be a bit sharper, so in the menus I put the sharpness up a notch, which I feel, with the kit lens gives very detailed and comfortable results, and is most certainly on par with some very good cameras. Overall, on the image quality front, there is definitely nothing to worry about, and the quality is VERY impressive.

My General Views

After the first three weeks with my first SLR I can only say that I am amazed, it is incredible the difference between using a Prosumer camera and the SLR, there is such difference, so when I see adverts on the back of my Photography Monthly magazine, saying things like: “Compact or SLR?” “Have the Best of Both Worlds” etc, I think, well, I’m holding this 400D, and I look at this ad and think, I don’t want only the best of each, I want it all SLR, I want no shutter lag, real, ‘through the lens’ viewfinder, I want to be able to change my lenses!

There is no substitute for an SLR, none. And I urge anyone considering getting one, to get one, namely the 400D, but if something else takes your fancy, maybe you’ve got a little extra to spend, then go ahead, as I cannot believe the difference it is already making to my photography, it’s amazing!

I think I will update this ‘Long-Term-Review’ sometime within the next three weeks, and we’ll see how I’m doing with it then, will I have another lens? Will there be something detracting from the experience? We shall see, but right now, there most certainly isn’t.

If you’d like to see some example images from the Canon EOS 400D, then I’d like to point you in the direction of this group on Flickr, all to do with the 400D, there is also a discussion of the camera if you join the group! HERE

Hope you’re all well,

Charlie -

Hey Guys,

I just was taking a great HDR image, and I thought that a lot of people still ask me, ‘Wow, how did you do that?!’ So, I thought, time for a blog post! Anyway, this guide will quickly cover the basics for making interesting HDR images.

By the way, HDR stands for ‘High Dynamic Range‘ here meaning that you are capturing all different levels of light into one image, which you cannot do in a normal single shot photograph.

Getting the Images
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Firstly, you will have to collect the images that you want to turn into an HDR. This can consist of a certain amount, (here, 3), of photos taken at different shutter speeds, (different exposures), (or Apertures, but preferably shutter speeds), which you will have to take in a manual mode, (either Tv/S or M), (not sure what those mean? check HERE). You will have to take these photos with a tripod, or from a firm rest to keep the image the same each time. To start with, you’ll want to take a photo using the correct exposure, maybe even take this in automatic, to find out what shutter speeds it uses, you’ll get something like this:

Correctly exposing the grass, the fence etc. Now, the problem with this is, that I am not getting any of the beautiful orange sky here, so, I must take an underexposed shot to correctly expose the sky, so I click three stops too many and press the shutter to get this:

We can now clearly see the orange sky, and the beauty of the feather into lighter orange, yellow and eventually blue. This will end up being the sky in the end image. Now to get an even spread of light you have to do a slightly overexposed shot as well, which will bring up the detail on the plant in the foreground, and the frost etc, this looks like this:

Now, we have the makings of a great HDR image, ready for use. What will we need to do to get the combined? I will explain to you how I do it, which I feel is the simplest way to do so. Oh, and by the way, you can do more than three images if you want, if you can capture even more detail, (say if you were doing a midday HDR), you could do 5, 7, even 9 if you wanted. It all depends on the situation.

Combining the images to an HDR
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I use a piece of software called, Photomatix. This software is available in a free trial version for you to use to try out your skill in HDR, and then you can buy the full version.

You can read about the software on it’s website, but basically, it provides a simple means for you to combine images, as many as you wish, and I have been using it for a while now, and it’s always left me with great images.

Firstly, you need to gather your HDR images into a folder somewhere on your computer, or you can load them straight off of your camera if you wish, and to start off with, click here:

This will bring up a walk through stage of the program in which you can follow through easily, it isn’t very complicated. When it asks you whether or not you want Photomatix to align the photographs, check the box if you didn’t take the photos with a tripod, but if you did, and you’re confident they’re all pretty much of the same image, you can ignore this.

Now you will be left with what will probably be an uninteresting image. Using the photos from above, I’ve been left with this:

Obviously, this is in no way interesting, so what you will have to do now, is tone map the image. Firstly, click here:

And with the menu that comes up:

You will already be presented with a much more attractive image, displaying most of the light and what will already be a much more interesting and dramatic photograph. You can then tweak setting such as colour saturation, and HDR strength, I find it’s different for all images, so you just fiddle with everything until you’re happy.

Once this is done, you simply press ‘OK‘ and save the image, so that you can do whatever you want with it, upload it to Flickr for example, or post it on your blog! This is the final image that came out of the software above:

Neat, don’t you think? Anyway, I hope that this guide has been quick, yet informative, and let me know what you think!

Thanks a lot, and have a great Christmas if I don’t post before then!

Charlie - Teenage Photographer

Hi Everyone,

Well, Christmas is almost upon us, personally I just finished decorating the tree, and it put me in a very holiday-ish mood, and anyway, I’ve always had a thing for Time-Lapse photography, but I’ve never been able to do it with my Fuji, so, upon looking forward to Christmas, I’m even more excited by the fact that I may be getting a Canon EOS 400D, which is capable of Time Lapse photography, and I cannot wait, it’s going to be very cool, and to show you what I mean by cool look at this:

That is most certainly interesting, and being able to do things like that will make me very happy. It’s quite simple really, all you need is:

• A DigiCam capable of Time Lapse photography
• A Computer, (Mac or PC), preferably a laptop
• Compiler tool, (I will use Quicktime Pro)

And that is all it takes for some cool time lapse work. I say, preferably a laptop, because that means that you could do this outdoors. With Nikons, I believe, (however don’t know for sure), that you can set it to timelapse for you, with no computer, the advantages are obvious, however, it’s not hard to realise you’ll need a big memory card if you do that.

I think that Canon’s bundled software has a timelapse recording capability with it, which means, out of the box timelapsing. If it does not, you can easily download software, for example, GBTimelapse, which allows timelapsing with most canon cameras.

Once you have the software sorted, it is a simple case of getting the shots. The subject can be of almost anything, for example, mountains with clouds rolling through them, a road with traffic on it. Somebody working, all sorts of things. And then you set up the camera, on a tripod preferably, or on a solid rest, taking the pictures. You’ll probably want to take a lot of shots to make sure the video isn’t only a few seconds worth of footage, maybe taking pics of the subject for hours, even days.

With the final pictures you can use quicktime, (very quick and easy), to go, File>Open Image Sequence, then you just select the pictures, and there you go.

Of course, the advantage of doing all these pictures with a new digital camera, rather than with an old fashioned video camcorder, and then speeding it up, is that you are left with a sequence of images that are already HD, and can be cut to any resolution you want, 1980×1080, 1280×720, 640×480, anything! Ready for use in any situation.

Anyway, I’ll let you know if/when I get my 400D, and when I do any time lapse work.

Hope you’re well,

Charlie -