Scotland

Ok, I know its been a while since my last post, but in that time I have had a holiday in Scotland. What a beautiful place. Their is something to picture every 100 yards or so. Fancy a photo holiday? Scotland is the place to go.
I quite like the idea of a few friends flying in to Inverness airport, hiring a car and then just driving around taking pictures. Few beers in the evening, nice meal and then same again next day.

Scotland is full of water, lots of little streams and rivers, water falling of mountains, and of course Lochs! Lets put it thsi way, I cant wait to go back!!

Time Machine

Time Machine, originally uploaded by Anthony Jay.

I know its been ages since my last post. I have been far too busy at work for my own good so have not had much time to myself. But the other Saturday morning I was awake early so set out to get the sunrise.
While on my way I had a play with some photos taking whilst driving. I held the camera in my right hand and steered with my left. Being as it was 4.30am their was not many cars around and I was driving slowly.
To get the shot I used aperture priority set at f/11 and the camera choose a shutter speed of 3 secs. I edited my raw file in photoshop, then using layers to first darken the sky I then removed noise and grain. The next layer was for a high pass filter to sharpen the image, and finally I flattened the image then overlaid the same image to boost saturation and contrast. HOpe you like the REsults

Anthony Jay

An Evening with Howard R

I have just had a wonderful evening playing around with some off camera flash. My mate Howard came along and we spent a few hours running the batteries down on our flash guns. If you read my post a few weeks ago I shoot a graffiti wall in Rayleigh. I have been itching to get back there with my flash gun and try some new shoot.
Until I finish those shots off, here is the last shot of the evening, while walking back to the car the sunset was to good to miss. A few snaps latter and I had this shot.


Hope you like it

Anthony Jay

Its June! And the worst thing about it is the dull weather. I have been totally uninspired recently when behind the lens, its been hard work to even pick up my camera. I did try to revisit some old unused photos but the creative fairy had flown away (or washed away more like.)
So to cheer us all up I thought I would show of an old shot! This was taken on my kitchen table. I pushed the table against the door and draped a white sheet down the door and across the table. I stood an upside down glass in a saucepan and positioned another glass right way up on top. Put a few blueberries in the glass then poured water into the glass from a jug while rolling frames off on the camera.
The lighting was two static video heads. ie constant light not strobes. One camera left and one camera right. I wanted to get a real light blown out look from the lighting to let the water and fruit movement make the shot.

Happy days

Anthony Jay

Places to Go to be Inspired

I thought I would share some of the blogs I visit regular with everyone.
I like to read and keep up the best in the business, it gives me inspiration and I might even pick up tips and trick to learn how its done.
The first is Strobist.com It is written by David Hobby, who is the king of off-camera flash. If you need to learn about lighting and and flash heads this is the site for you. What's really brilliant is that Strobist.com has its own lighting course! And its FREE!! Where else can you learn to light with out spending a penny. A recent blog entry on Strobist.com announced the release of "The Strobist lighting seminar" DVD. Check it out here.

The second site I am an avid fan of is Joe McNally`s Blog I came across Joe McNally while reading Strobist.com. Joe is a highly respected photojournalist and if you don't know his work, you should! He has worked for National Geographic, Time Magazine and Sports Illustrated to name but a few. I really Enjoy reading his blog he seems a really nice and genuine guy, someone I would like to take out for a beer. I have just ordered his book The Moment It Clicks and cant wait to read it!

I have also just found out about Scott Kelby. I came across him while watching some of the videos on tv.adobe.com He has a blog called Photoshop Insider which I am sure you have guessed is about Adobe Photoshop. I use a lot of photoshop on my pictures, I love it! So to get tips and tricks and learn new things is great.

So to be inspired check out these links.

Until Next Time
Anthony Jay

Roger Waters Tests the N95

I feel that I am quite competent at taking photos. I understand the basics of exposure and the concepts of using manual modes on a SLR. I by no means know it all and welcome any help and further tuition I can get. I have always found that using basics helps me understand the more advanced stuff. I have used this idea extensively to better my hairdressing skills (that's my day job.)

All this has point and an idea, I would use my Nokia N95 camera phone to record the events of Roger Waters Live in concert. I also used my Nokia N95 because I dont have a Canon G9 and my SLR is to big and properly would not be allowed in to the O2.

Enough blabber what do I think of the phone?

Brilliant phone, its got wifi, great for checking you emails and web browsing at work or piggy backing someone else's wireless internet connection. Great screen, clear and detailed, good enough to watch a movie on! A few negative points, the phone can be a bit slow in carrying out a desired requests and it can sometimes freeze and need restating. At the end of of the day it is more like a mini pc than a phone, the good points far out way the bad points!

The camera part then, what do I think. The reason I bought the N95 was because of the camera, I was looking for a phone that had email, my choices were a Blackberry or th e Nokia. The 5mp camera on the Nokia swung the decision in its favour. The Nokia was the more all rounded piece of equipment, and it was the latest fashion as well.
I had played with the camera a little bit leading up to Monday (the day of the gig) but had never really used it to any great extent. What I did know was that it was pretty nifty at simple macro (an example) work and close range snapshots.

On the train to London I had a little play with phone to familiarise myself with the controls and the different settings on offer. I tried a wide angle shot and a motion shot.


A good thing about the N95 is that you can select the iso value, albeit in only 3 ways, low, medium or high. I used the low iso setting knowing the camera would increase the shutter speed to achieve a even exposure giving me the motion effect I was after. The camera gave me a 6mm focal length with f2.88 @ 1/20th. I like the result achieved here. The auto focus has managed to focus both the man's reflection and the foreground window still. Quite impressive for only f2.8! The colours in the original were a little flat but not really an issue. As in the picture below I have boosted the colours and contrast in photoshop. (I love photoshop!!!)


6mm, 1/17th @ f2.8
I like the clarity achieved at long distance in this shot, the lens gives good DOF and perspective, but even at 100 iso the noise is terrible! A big problem and one that's not easy to solve, unless of course a G9 appears!!

Have fired off these few test shots it gave me an idea of how to set up my phone for the evening.
I set it to Landscape mode with colour on the vivid setting and iso at 100. The white balance I set to auto, sometimes I prefer to get consistent results that can be rectified easily in photoshop than inconsistent results that can take forever to resolve.


On to the evening then. We ran a bit late so it was straight into the venue for the show, and what a venue, loads of atmosphere and what a brilliant shape. Its not rocket science but a bowl!!! brilliant!!!!!!!!


So lets see some of Roger and the show.



Ok I think I know what your saying, nice shots but crap quality. (Well I hope your saying the nice shots bit, ha ha.) I`ll agree with you, I not so happy with the overall quality of the shots. The camera struggles to get an even dynamic range between light and dark. The highlights are blown and the darks lack detail. Even with tweaking in photoshop the shots lack punch, contrast and atmosphere. The noise is unbearable, incredible for such a low iso!

How does the interface hold up you might ask. There is a really pronounced shutter lag which is off putting and annoying. I tried a firmware update as this was supposed to help this matter. It helped a small amount but not enough to really make a difference, although I have since noticed that when recording images on to the phone memory with no memory card inserted it can improve the shutter lag time, significantly.
Another really annoying thing, if you turn the camera off, or leave it on standby in your pocket for any time (above a minute) the setting reset themselves to the default. It means when you want to get a quick shot you have to wait for the camera to start up (about 5 secs) then adjust all the setting back to your preference. The menu layout is simple and effective making it easy to choose settings with effective descriptions on all options for any user to understand what they are fiddling with.

In conclusion you might think that I hate the camera, but I don`t. I really love it. At any time, anywhere I have a camera in my pocket. Yes it has its limitations, to be honest taking pictures at a rock concert is quite a tall feat for any camera. The N95 performs really well for what it was designed to do, snap shots in midday light at the pub with your mates. Its a camera for normal people not photographers. But push it to its limits and you will get burned. Its not a SLR or a compact camera, its a phone with email!
Its brilliant in my book!!

Anthony Jay

A little tease of Roger Waters.
Come on you crazy Diamond.





Anthony Jay

To follow, a full review on the camera and video on my Nokia N95

Roger Waters

What a night. What a band. What a noise. As you know i spent the evening watching mr waters at the o2. It was fantastic, the best bit was the sound quality. Every insurment clear and crisp every note concise and audible. The surround sound, partly pioneered by waters, was immense. I have never heard a concert like it,

More to follow

Anthony Jay

On My Way Out

Its 4.30 pm and I`m just about to head off out. I am going up to the 02 in London to see Roger Waters live in concert. Yippee I can't wait!! What makes it even better, I am sitting 8 rows from the front. I would just like to thank Howard R for the ticket!

I had planned when I bought my SLR to use it for just such and occasion. I suppose that was my naivety in the subject of SLR's I didn't realise that the camera would be so big and need so much stuff. Also, I am so wary of dropping it or it getting damaged that I don't think I would enjoy myself!!

So until I can afford a Canon G9, my trusty Nokia N95 will have to do. I hope that I can do Mr Waters justice. Keep your eyes posted for my next blog, I hope to have some pictures for you!!

Happy Head Banging
Anthony J

---

Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
A Smarter Email.

Its a rainy day. Oh how the weather changes. To cheer you and me up i thought id take a shot of the lovely flowers we have at work. Hope you like.
Anthony j

A Fresh Looking Blog

Ok, so this is a test really, to see if this email posts to my blog. I have just revamped the look of the blog, make it a bit more appealing. Hope you like it, let me know if you have any questions or queries.

 

Here is the latest self portrait, used for my main site www.anthonyjphoto.com.

 

 

Garffiti

So last night I had an hour or so to spare. I dropped my girlfriend of at her mates and had time to occupy. I found this nice patch of scrub land with a small rolling hill, a tiny lake, quite a nice view into Rayleigh, and the sound of kids playing football. I took a few shots of the lake and view, but wanted to investigate the football, maybe get a few actions shots. Try and improve my sport photography skills.

As I walked towards the sound of the kids this wall appeared out the grass. Fantastic, full of colour. I tried some straight on shots but they didn't work. So I walked around and found this angle.

In truth I was a bit early, the sun was too high in the sky, making the shot really difficult. But I really like the sun in my shots at the moment. I was limited to what i could do to try and get the shot, I had minimal gear, no tripod, filters or flash gun. The sun, as always was too bright, I couldn't get the sky dark enough for me to use fill-in-flash to light the wall. (that's where my tripod, filters and flash gun would have come in handy!)
I decided to take several bracketed shots and combine them later on the computer. I reeled of about 10 shots till I was happy with the results, then took a few more for good measure. You can never have too many good shots.

I was working hand held, so i used Tv Priority with my shutter speed to 1/250, to reduce camera shake, my iso was set to 100 for maximum quality and the camera worked out my aperture for me.

Photoshop is a god send sometimes, You should always try to get the best picture in camera and on location and keep computer editing to a minimum but for this type of shot photoshop is indispensable. A bit of layer masking, clone stamping and colour adjustment and bingo a completed shot.

I think I will go back with al my gear and get the fill flash shot. So keep your eyes peeled, This wall will be back!

Monday 12 May 08

Here goes, my first blog entry. I hope to fill this blog with what i have been up to and how I create the some of the pictures on my website.
Will blog some more soon.
Anthony