On this episode I was joined by Scott Wyden and Richard Wong to discuss filters. And filters we discussed – from the humble UV filter to fancier stuff like reverse graduated neutral density filters, we covered them all.

If you want to learn more on filters or just want to listen to a good photography-related discussion, PhotoNetCast #88 is the episode for you.

And don’t forget that you can get all the past and future episodes for free by subscribing to the show on iTunes.

Not only was this my first time shooting hockey, it was also my first time at a hockey game. Unsurprisingly, most of the time I was very much clueless as to what was happening on the ice.

Let me set the scene for you. Imagine a big NHL game, crowds cheering, brighter than daylight to suit TV coverage, a spotless glass, everything perfect for a great sports evening. Now, forget all that.

This was a recreational hockey game in a country that sees hockey probably below chess in a list of interesting sports. The light was absolutely miserable (due to costs, these small rinks light just enough to meet requirements), there were probably more people on the ice than in the stands, and the glass was opaque with condensation even before face-off.

The actual shooting

After some test shots I realized I would have to stay at ISO 6400 if I wanted any hope of freezing motion – a speeding puck will be blurred at anything longer than 1/1000th of a second. This was definitely not idea. I know the Canon 5D Mark III handles noise well but I wasn’t too comfortable staying at 6400 all the time.

Also, because it was impossible to shoot through the glass and the rink is not set up with lens holes, we had to shoot down from the stands. The two main disadvantages are the angle of shooting and the distance to the players. On the positive side, rink-side the action is much more fast to photograph than from the stands – this is a very very fast game and the action can move from one side of the rink to the other in a couple of seconds.

Due to the distance, the 70-200 f/2.8 lived on the camera. I did not use any other lens. I had considered using a 1.4x converter to get some closer shots but the lack of light prevented that – all the images were made at either f/2.8 or f/3.2 and I just couldn’t afford to “waste” a full stop of light with the converter.

In terms of focusing, I don’t think I ever had the need to test the AF system like this – did I mention how fast this game feels when you see it though a 70-200? Not only that but players change direction all the time and you always get some “obstacles” in front of the player you’re tracking. The 5D3 behaved beautifully. The Servo worked as it is supposed to and I had very few images rejected due to poor focus (I rejected many more due to motion blur). The thing just works.

In the end, I brought home over 1000 images. Yes, the burst mode is addictive. Probably I was too apprehensive of missing “the moment” and fired a lot more than I needed, something that can be corrected with experience. How photographers used to cover these games shooting film, I have no clue.

In conclusion

After all my complaining about the low light and the shooting conditions, how did I find the experience? I loved it. It’s fast paced (hardly any time to even look at any image on the back of the camera), filled with action, and because I was shooting for myself there was really no pressure to get the shot – it was fun.

Am I happy with the results? Not entirely, although I’m also not too disappointed. The ratio of bad to good images was extremely high and even the acceptable ones weren’t that great, mostly due to noise. The conditions were poor but I’m sure I could have done some things differently. That said, I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to shoot some hockey and get home with better images.

Do you have any tips for better results when shooting ice hockey? Drop them in the comments below.

Book Cover: Mastering Landscape Photography – David Taylor

BOOK INFO

Title: Mastering Landscape Photography

Author: David Taylor

Publisher: Ammonite Press

Release date: July 2014

Edition: 176 pages, soft cover

ISBN: 978-1-78145-084-0

ABOUT DAVID TAYLOR

David Taylor is a landscape photographer based in Northumberland, England. I’ve been following David’s work for some time now, primarily because I live in the area where the majority of his work is shot, and have admired his landscape images since I’ve moved into the area.

Besides his photography works, which can be regularly seen exhibited, David was a contributor to over twenty photography books.

THE CONTENT

Mastering Landscape Photography is divided in eight chapters:

1. Equipment
2. Exposure
3. Light
4. Preparation
5. Subjects
6. Composition
7. Filters
8. Postproduction

MY IMPRESSIONS

I was excited for having the chance to review this book – I had read a review somewhere else that really raised the expectations. However, my first glance at the book was not impressive - the cover is very dark and far from the digital cover image I had seen previously (and which you can see above). My best guess is the printers did a less-than-optimal job on this one, which is a shame. A book on landscape photography really needs that wow factor from an impressive cover. But a book should not be judge by its cover, or so they say…

Inside it’s completely different – the images are vibrant and bright, as one could expect for a photography book.

In terms of content, I was positively impressed. Yes, it mostly addresses the basics of photography, exposure, aperture, ISO, depth of field, hyperfocal distance, etc etc, but all with clear examples showing the effects in landscape photos. For example, far from the boring technical explanations of gear nowadays so commonly found as filler in photography books, the chapter on equipment is demonstrates the impact different choices of gear have in landscapes. For instance, the effect of lens compression on the landscape and the relationship foreground/background, depending on the choice of lens.

Other example of a nicely written and informative chapter is “Preparation”. The author goes into some detail on his process of how to prepare for a “landscape session” including scouting locations, choosing the right time of day or even season, etc. Also addressed are the typical challenges found with different types of landscape, from coastal scenes to dark woodland.

In his chapter on composition, I was glad to read little gems that are so often forgotten and very well explained in this book – for example the concept of “visual weight”, of uttermost importance in landscape photography, and some theory on color harmony and complementarity. Again, well illustrated with nice imagery.

Interestingly (and positive) is the fact that almost as many pages are dedicated to the use of filters in landscape photography as are dedicated to post-production – nicely done David.

“Landscape photography gives you permission to temporarily cut yourself off from the modern world. Being out in the landscape early in the morning or late in the evening means you’re often on your own, with only your thoughts for company. These are all good things: creativity requires a certain amount of peaceful contemplation to flourish.”

CONCLUSIONS

Let’s forget about the cover disappointment for a second. Is reading “Mastering Landscape Photography” going to make you a master in landscape photography? No. For that, read all the books you want, but only being in the field and spending hours behind the camera studying light and how light falls on the landscape, and years of shooting, will take you in that direction. Is this a bad book then? Also not. It is actually a very nicely written book, with a good mixture of content and imagery, enough depth, easy to read and, with a bit of pushing, could even be considered a good reference book. Is this a book for seasoned photographers? Probably not. However, for someone that is now starting in photography and in particular with an interest in landscape photography, I can definitely recommend “Mastering Landscape Photography” by David Taylor.

Please Note: This book was sent to me by the publisher for review. Financial compensation was not and will not be received and the review was not read or edited by the publisher before publication. The opinions expressed are mine alone.

After a few tribulations with personal circumstances, both for myself a couple of the co-hosts, we had to de-prioritize the show for a while. So, after a 8-month long hiatus, episode 85 has just been released.

We talk about new cameras, filters (Lee Big Stopper vs B+W), curved sensors, very high photography prices, Flickr, and a bunch of listener questions.

Sorry for the delay, but better late… and all that.

Go get your audio dose of photography…

In this case, it’s renowned photographer Kevin Gilbert talking about the importance of backing up our photographic archives (yes, everyone knows that) but also important is to be able to organize it in a way that we can actually find the photos we are looking for.

Although for professional photographer this is probably a given, it is almost heartbreaking the stories I hear of people losing large numbers of images and memories (lost phone, stolen laptop, …). Kevin calls it the Lost Generation.

Extremely important message, and something I’ve been thinking about more and more. Kevin says that 2014 will see 880 billion images being made in the US alone – If just a fraction of 1% of these are lost, that’s a lot of memories erased for future generations.

In the end of June, Apple dropped a bomb that many could see coming for a while, and a few refused to even consider such a thing:

“With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture. When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS X.“

From the little that is known about Photos it looks like an ok product, but many are unwilling to stick around to find out how good or how bad it really is, and the upgrades of little relevancy that Aperture has suffered in the past years left many faithful users disgruntled. And with all the good press Lightroom has been getting, who can blame them.

These are the users that Adobe want to grab.

Migration made easy?

For photographers with libraries composed of thousands and thousands of images, easy migration of the library needs to be a major concern if changing software is even to be considered. Apple mentioned that Aperture libraries will be compatible with Photos – nothing else to expect. But if you do want to switch to Lightroom, Adobe mentioned that it is developing a tool to help migrating libraries from Aperture to Lightroom. But this is not without difficulties since both programs use different processing engines, and thus any adjustment made in Aperture will not be visible in Lightroom. Best option? Export the image as a tif file – not a great solution though.

Until the migration tool is ready, and without knowing exactly what will be migrated and what won’t, Adobe released a quick guide on the best process for those not willing to wait.

Does this affect you? Are you an Aperture user thinking about switching to Lightroom? How will you approach the migration? Let us know in the comments.

“Rediscover the magic of analog film”

While I still think that to discover the magic of analog film, one has to actually use film, the FilmPack software by DxO is famed for doing a very good job emulating the image characteristics of a multitude of film stock.

If you want to give it a try, until August 15, DxO has made available it’s FilmPack 3 for free. And while FilmPack 4 might have a few additional features, you can’y go wrong for the price.

At the end of a fairly typical day, I get a phone call from a photographer friend. In an almost shocked tone, he starts by asking me since when do I have images in the Reuters photo bank and, more importantly, why had I not mentioned anything to him. After joking around for a bit and making him believe that  I’m actually a Reuters photographer for years, I decided to come clean and say that I’m really not working for Reuters nor do they have any images on mine in their collection – basically he did not believe me. After a couple more minutes in which I’ve actually managed to convince him that I have nothing to do with Reuters, he followed with a sombre “Then you better take a look at this” and sent me a link to the page which contains the image above.

And there it was – my image, illustrating an article on the site of one of the most reputable newspapers in Portugal. Unlicensed. And look, they even gave me attribution, which is nice… /Reuters?!?

So, somebody takes the time and effort to find the author of the image, “forgets” to even think about license,  and then credits the completely wrong agency?

Had to be the funny highlight of my day.

Interesting announcement today over on Flickr’s blog - Curated Connections: A new Flickr licensing experience.

If I understand the announcement correctly, Yahoo is trying to capitalise on the huge photo library that is Flickr by marking themselves as the middle man (or more politely, providers of “assistance, outreach and connectivity”) between the creators and typical photo agency consumers. Call me cynic, but saying that “…we will look for ways to showcase your photos on the Flickr blog and across other Yahoo properties like News and Travel” also reads a lot like, oh and we’ll get all these great images for our online properties for free… yes, call me cynic.

Could they have done this before? Yes, years and years ago. After all, 500px has done it with a much smaller library. And if done correctly, it could actually change the market.

Difficulties

Well, the obvious one – where does the Curated come in “Curated Connections”. Obviously they can’t allow every single image access to the platform or it would scare off any potential buyer. A premise of any photo agency needs to be quality across the collection, and Flickr, although with a vast amount of amazing work, also has a lot of rubbish (500px has the upper point here). It does need to be curated, and preferably by humans.

They have a head start already in the process based on their partnership with Getty Images. The Flickr collection on Getty is not immensely shabby. However, how much effort Yahoo chooses to put into this may dictate the success or failure of the whole thing.

Pricing Models

No details. 500px opted for making participants agree in licensing their images royalty free (the main reason I have not paid much attention to the idea). The Getty/Flickr partnership allows both royalty free and rights-managed licenses, albeit at ridiculous low percentages for photographers. It will be interesting to see how this will work, as soon as more details are available.

And the final question?

What about the Getty/Flickr partnership? The big names that Yahoo is using to illustrate their Marketplace are prime targets for Getty, so I’m quite curious to see how they are going to approach this… Interesting times.

The Saltwell Towers are located in the center of Saltwell Park, Gateshead, England.
Built in the mid-1800s, the towers have been recently restored in line with their Gothic, Elizabethian and French style.

Image made by blending 5 handheld exposures into HDR.

St Mary’s Lighthouse.

St. Mary’s lighthouse

The lighthouse is located on a tiny tidal island and accessible through a short causeway, just north of Whitley Bay, England.
The high tide covers part of the causeway to the island, making it inaccessible on foot.
The lighthouse, decommissioned in 1984, is open to the public as a small museum.

It seems more and more likely that the rumours regarding a Canon 7D replacement are going to be proven right. A friend of mine mentioned an announcement on September 5. However, he doesn’t want to risk the wrath of the embargo gods so I got no more details from him.

Photokina in Cologne, Germany, starts on September 10, so it would fit with a pre show announcement.

Also, it seems that Amazon.com had marked the current 7D as Discontinued. I certainly did not see this on the UK site and a quick look on Amazon US shows it marked as Discontinued on the search page, but not on the product page.

Great time to buy a 7D

Of course, it all depends on your intended use for a 7D – and note that it has not been publicly announced any specs for the replacement (the so called 7D Mark II) – but heading up to an expected announcement or just after it is usually the time  retailers want to get rid of old stock, which in turn means lower prices.

I’ve shot with a 7D and it is an absolutely great camera and will fit most needs if you prefer a cropped sensor.

So, if you are in the market for a main camera, I would say wait for the 7D replacement announcement. If you want a backup, keep your eyes open for the deals ahead and if it sounds good, go for it.

Pathway to the Lighthouse

St Mary’s Lighthouse.

The lighthouse is located on a tiny tidal island and accessible through a short causeway, just north of Whitley Bay, England. The high tide covers part of the causeway to the island, making it inaccessible on foot.

The lighthouse, decommissioned in 1984, is open to the public as a small museum.

160 seconds exposure made with the Lee Big Stopper.

A very dry Bonnington Linn, the upper waterfall of the Falls of Clyde.
Together with Corra Linn, Dundaff Linn, and the lower falls of Stonebyres Linn, Bonnington Linn is part of the waterfalls on the River CLyde, near New Lanark, Scotland.
Besides the natural flow reduction in summer, the stream feeding these waterfalls is diverted upstream to feed the hydro-electrical Bonnington Power Station.

This is a 41 seconds exposure made with a B+W ND 3.0 filter.

Quick heads-up that, if this rocks your boat, MIT are now offering online courses in photography, both at undergraduate and graduate levels.

Basically, it’s the support material for their courses made available – no, it won’t give you a diploma in the end.

A quick look at the courses available shows an interesting list with definitely a few that have attracted my eye. However, some of the material may be quite dated and not so relevant any more.

In any case, it’s something to look at on a rainy cold day…