Due to the proliferation of comment spam, I’ve had to close comments on this entry. If you would like to leave comment, please use one of my recent entries. Thank you and sorry for any inconvience caused.

March 03, 2004

My camera technique: a technical discussion

Stand aside psychological theorists, I am about to horrify photographers. This will really make you squirm .

I use a Canon S40 PowerShot for all of my pictures, except the one of the coin with The Eye of Horus on it. That object required focus from a better camera. I have only had occasion to need a close up like that once, in 7000 photo opportunities. My point is, that whatever capacity the S40 has in the focusing arena, (I can't tell you, but we could look it up on the internet), serves me just fine on almost all occasions.

The size of my camera is very important, since I believe in carrying it with me at all times. I have passed the legendary harpist and fisherman , cameraless, on too many occasions. Painful lessons all.

I always carry an extra charged battery, and a couple of back up cards, so a shooting expedition isn't interrupted for technical depletion. My current card is 1GB. I have upgraded from a 16 to a 256 to a 512 to 1GB. I did that after I ran out of disc space in Montreal. If I had had more space, I would have kept the folded towel picture. Now I never have to play picture poker, discarding a photo prematurely, to make room for a possibility. I can have it all, for about $250. Thank god it's for sale.

Sometimes I go photo hunting, but these days, they often find me. It is, as the scouts have been telling us, a good idea to be prepared.

Don't mistake me for a mini camera fan. My camera is about the size of a pack of cigarettes (remember those, from the olden days?-- smaller than a breadbox is out too). I was originally given a tiny, little thing (with inadequate pixels) and I quickly learned that, even with my elfin fingers, the buttons were hard to see and harder to push. My S40 buttons are just right .

I didn't have to get over wasting film, since I never used film, but switchers from real cameras generally have this obstacle to overcome. Here is my digital photographer's stance: I can take as many pictures as I want, and erase any pictures that I don't like. Abundance, pure and simple. I have never been freer to make mistakes, and, (this is important, given my attention span) I can also see what I did wrong immediately, and try to correct it.

I once was trolled , and the guy said that my entry was wasting electrons on the internet. That's how I feel about taking a terrible picture --flagrant electron consumption. I am the George W. of flagrant electron consumption. I will suck up all the world's electron resources before I'm done. So What.

That is a very important attitude in digital camwifery. As a well-intentioned person once said to me, "You have taken 7000 pictures, naturally you have one or two good ones." Guess what, he's right.

And here's my next inside tip. I always take three exposures of everything. I keep my camera set on big P (programmable) rather than AUTO, and that is just what it does; snap snap snap. I probably discovered this feature by mistake (I have been so motiviated from time to time, that I have even read parts of the manual.) There are those who find it tedious to look through my proofs, as a result-- but not me. Sometimes, as in birds flying, I get something I never aimed for. I usually have the choice of three exposures of exactly the same thing, one light, one dark, one okay. I generally keep the okay one and the dark one. Dark ones can be photoshopped most successfully.

I do use photoshop on about 5 or 10% of my work. As you can imagine, I am simply a whiz at it. I can do about three things -- crop, adjust contrast, color and rotate. There you have it .

When I don't see anything to photograph, I look for the light, or change the scale.

I never look through the viewfinder to compose a picture, I always use the screen. Sometimes, on a sunny day, glare forces me to the viewfinder; then I try take into account a few more whatevers around the edges.

I have a Dazzle drive plugin (I'm just making up the jargon), which was not very expensive, that I use to upload pictures from the camera.

Until the advent of the digital camera, my considerable talent was thwarted by the level of technology available. Perhaps I have made it evident from time to time that I am no technowhiz. Having to remember all those shutter speeds and exposiure times, numbers, interfered with my creativity. Not being able to see the finished product for eight months, until the whole the roll of film was shot, was a challenge to my attention span. And then I couldn't fix anything I didn't like. Real photography was not for me.

I can learn complex things, like driving a car, if I'm motivated. I do need to see an end product I like, and work backwards. I am beginning to understand that my attention span provides guidance, and tells me when I have a passion for something. Then, learning isn't a problem. .

IMG_6234_240.jpg IMG_6235_240.jpg

IMG_6236_240.jpg IMG_6234_a_240.jpg

View larger image

Here is a good example of what comes out of my camera -- raw footage, as t'were. The lower right shot is the upper left, photoshopped. I can't see much of a difference, now that they're together. Maybe I like "before" better.


Posted by Dakota at March 3, 2004 08:48 PM