Photographic Experience
Derek Smith • 28 May 2021
This is the last of a quartet of blogs on photography skills, and gear. In this blog I want to focus on photographic experience, this is something that simply cannot be bought, but is acquired over time.
Photographic cameras, and lenses are tools to be used, whether the camera is a mobile phone, compact camera, mirrorless, DSLR, budget or top of the range camera it is important to be confident using the camera. Ask yourself these questions, can I change ISO, Aperture, Shutter speed, or select a focus point quickly? When is the use of continuous AF best employed? What aperture best suits my camera for a particular subject / scene?
Having a camera that feels comfortable to use, and where you know all the camera controls will produce far better images than having the latest and greatest gear. I’ve been watching a YouTube video by Chris Orange, a photographer, who is enthusing about the Fuji X-E1 that he bought second hand for £149 and taking some fantastic photos with it, my Olympus PEN E-PL7 body cost only £120 second hand, and I’ve taken some great photos with that camera. Take time to research your camera, watch set-up videos on YouTube, then set the camera the way that you want it. Know what works for you, I know that many photographers use “back button” focus, a method that I wouldn’t find useful, as I have always used a mirrorless camera with multiple focus points, and I am comfortable with a half press of the shutter button to focus on my subject.
Focus points, on my Sony cameras I used to leave auto-focus set to continuous AF, the focusing just worked. On Olympus my cameras are always set to single AF, unless I’m tracking a moving subject when I switch to C-AF with a cluster of 9 focus points, it’s learning your camera, with strengths and weaknesses that make a difference in your images. Many photographers will use fully manual mode for every photograph taken, whereas I invariably use Aperture priority mode, as I know the aperture that gives the best results in most given scenarios and remember the best aperture for a scene may be dependant on sensor size, a landscape scene on a full frame camera might be taken at f/16, but on a Panasonic, or Olympus micro four thirds sensor f/7.1, or a f/8 aperture might be more appropriate.
Get to know your lenses, for prime lenses many photographers will use a trio of lenses in full frame terms a focal length of 35mm, 50mm, and an 85mm. Sometimes though a wide aperture constant aperture zoom lens may offer best value and results, the Sony 18 – 105mm f/4, the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 are good examples of these type of lenses.
The next area of expertise is in the composition of your images, and the use of light. When you see a scene worthy of photographing, take time to assess the scene, and the direction of light, especially with landscape, or architectural photography, and if you know of a good location perhaps return when the light is more favourable. Take multiple shots at different angles, is there an element that either needs to be in the frame, or should be excluded? A good tip that I’ve picked up from Nigel Danson (a YouTube landscape photographer) is to visualise the scene with the screen of a mobile phone, before setting up the camera on a tripod.
Try to simplify the image, picking out the essential elements only, this will make for a more impactful image. Try and ensure that your subject is positioned correctly within the frame, on the thirds, or centrally, get as much right in camera as you can, as this will save hours of editing later.
Fill the frame with the subject, this is especially important with smaller sensor cameras, are you photographing a tree that happens to have a bird in it, or are you photographing the bird? The same will apply to insect photography try and get as close as you can, or use a longer lens. Yes, you can crop into an image to highlight the subject, but not to the point where the image is the size of a postage stamp!!
Having said all that, never be afraid of the “grab shot”, sometimes an opportunity will arise, and a few seconds is all you will have to take the shot, this photograph of Glen Coe in the Highlands of Scotland was taken on a 10 minute coach stop, out of the lay-by, the early morning November light was just right. The elements in this image are a good in-focus foreground, the leading lines of the roadside barriers, guiding the eye through the scene down the valley, the sky, the lighting, and the colours of the hillsides. Taken with a Sony A6300 camera, and a Sigma DN Contemporary 16mm f/1.4 lens. Aperture priority at f/10 to give the depth of field within the scene, 1/250 shutter speed, and ISO 1600.
Lastly, and most importantly, take the photos that please you, obviously some critique of your images will help you to mature, and grow as a photographer, but the pleasure in creating images that appeal to you is immeasurable, just enjoy your hobby, and if someone else likes your photo that is a bonus.
Louth Photographic Society
Good Morning All Last week at the club Harry and Chris gave us an insight into how our exhibition preparation is going, we have a lot of historical photos to go on show and there may be room for some more up to date ones but Harry and Chris will see how much room we have left when they start putting it all together at the museum. I also took the time to find out what you wanted in the new program, filling in the competition subjects and outings. This week, Wednesday 25th February, it is the Presidents night, so that's my night and I will be showing you what I got up to in 2025. The rainbow at Brough castle gives you idea of one area I visited. Harry is now accepting entries for the next PDI competition, with the categories of "Architectural Detail" and "Open". The new program is nearly done and to give you a chance to get ready for the first two competitions in May and June the subjects are May, PDI comp - Landscapes with water and Open and June, Print competition, Trees and Open. Regards Graham
Good Morning All Last week at the club we held our Print Of The Year (POTY) competition, it's one of our highlights of the year and judged by Grahame Dunkin, it proved to be an excellent night with some very good prints on show. The results are on our website under competitions but the highlights were Dave Turner being placed first in the Pictorial, landscape and best Mono print in show; Robin Begley, First in the Record section, Keith Rossington first place in Portrait, Harry Kerman first in the photo/journalism (including Street) and myself taking first place in the Nature as well as overall Print of the Year. My photograph of a Hairy Shield bug was taken at Chambers wood on a camera club outing. This week, Wednesday 19th February, we are sorting out Prints for our 70th anniversary exhibition at Louth Museum. Please bring along any local prints you may have and maybe a few further afield for selection. Please also bring along any prints you may have that you think will be ok for the LPA Foster challenge and LPA Battles. They need to be mounted on a 500mm x 400mm mount and a maximum print size of A3. Don't forget to take a photograph of water if you are doing this years project, no real excuses at the moment. Regards Graham
Our highlight competition, Print Of The Year (POTY) competition was held last night, with our judge Grahame Dunkin giving his experienced critique on the excellent images submitted. Congratulations to Dave Turner for his Monochrome image of the year: West Pier Watchtower - Whitby, and Graham Harrison for his Colour image: Hairy Shield Bug.
Good Morning All Last week we went to have a look at the Lancaster sculpture at Norton Disney, it is open for visitors at certain times and although work is still ongoing the main Lancaster is finished and a car park in place. The sculpture is full size weighing 100 tons and honours WW2 RAF crews. Last week at the club Derek Smith ran an editing night, members were asked to bring their laptops in and Derek gave us all an SD card with some images to edit and information regarding the free editing software. A different and interesting night and hopefully we all learnt something and anyone new to photography would have learnt quite a lot. Thank you Derek for running the evening. This week, Wednesday 11th February, we have one of the clubs yearly highlights, the Print Of The Year (POTY) competition to be judged by Grahame Dunkin, all the entries are now in and you should have checked the scoresheets to make sure yours are included. Dave Turner is also asking for prints to enter into the Foster Challenge and LPA Print Battles. He will ask to use prints that are in the print of the year but if you have any prints that you think would be good to enter in the two competitions please bring them and hand them into Dave Turner. The following week we are having an evening collecting everything in for our exhibition at the Louth museum, if you can sort out any prints especially local prints that could go into our exhibition please bring them in on the 18th February. Regards Graham
Last Sunday I was in Stockton on Tees working with Izzy, a favourite model of mine she enjoys cosplay, that’s dressing up as a character from Marvel, Hasbro, or film titles. This photo is of Fey, a woodland sprite, pictured against a woodland backdrop that I bought for the photoshoot. I stayed overnight at a Premier Inn, and in the morning drove to Staithes, as I had always wanted to visit this fishing village, Staithes in the February rain wasn’t much fun, and the tide was out, but I did manage to take a few photos, and I captured one for the “Water” project so I was pleased with that. I was quite surprised how vibrant the colours were in the drizzle, and misty light. Driving back over the North Yorkshire Moors in rain, and fog, didn’t allow for much photography either. Yesterday, walking along the harbour front in Bridlington the high tide, and strong winds had thrown lots of debris onto the promenade, seaweed, nets, tree branches, and cuttlefish kept council workmen busy clearing up the mess. With the right clothing, and a weatherproof camera photography can still be enjoyed even in poor conditions.
A photo editing workshop was held last night, with members bringing in their laptops, and post processing sample images. Members were able to practice processing bracketed, and focus stacked images. Simple editing tasks of cloning unwanted items from images, cropping, and resizing of images were shown. The excellent FastStone photo viewer, and editor was able to accomplish most tasks apart from developing of RAW images, this free software is a “must have” for those with Windows computers. The Affinity photo editor has now been acquired by Canva, and the changes applied by Canva have made the software very confusing to use, and on my 14” Lenovo Thinkpad, it was very difficult to view the master layer to apply adjustments. PhotoScape X is a simplistic photo editor, for all that the software was easy to use, and the RAW processing was seamless. It was an interesting evening, and hopefully members will have attained some new skills in post processing, some of the images edited are shown here.
Good morning All I did manage to get to visit Gibraltar Point last week, very few birds to photograph at this time of year but I took a few and a Grey Squirrel. Last week member Dave Mann showed us photographs from his visit to Beamish, it's a great day out and Dave went round most of it and showed us some photographs from the new 1950's town as well as the farm, pit village, town and trains. Thank you Dave, and Harry for helping out with refreshments. This week, Wednesday 4th February, Derek is running an editing night, he has sent us all information on what we could download, if you have a laptop remember to bring it along. Print of the year is fast approaching, if you are entering make sure you send Dave Turner a list of your entries with which subject they are in and bring your prints along this week. Regards Graham
Fed up with watching the rain coming down, I set out yesterday into the rain to Normanby Hall to try and get a photo for the “Water Project”, I have one potentially good image, but I always like to see if I can get something better. My OM Systems OM-1 camera, and 12-40mm Pro lens are weatherproof, but obviously I wasn’t, but really lovely to get out.
Last night Dave Mann gave an excellent talk on his visit to Beamish in May last year. Dave explored much more of the Beamish site than when I visited in April last year, Dave mentioned the difficulties of getting on some of the vintage transport around the site, I experienced the same during my visit. It's a fascinating historic working museum and well recommended for a visit. Many thanks Dave for an entertaining evening.
Good Morning All Last week at the club we had our yearly project night, last year it was one photograph a month with the same focal length, there is a full report on the evening on our blog page, but four members did last year's project with newer member Sam Collet showing photographs at the club for the first time, some excellent photographs taken in Japan. It would be good if a few more members took part this year, just one photograph a month with the subject being water. Attached is my January photograph from last year, it would work for this years project as well. This week, Wednesday 28th January, our catering manager Dave Mann will be having a week off and showing some of his photographs. His presentation will be a mixed bag of photographs. Don't forget to send Dave Turner an email with your titles for the print of the year. Entries will need bringing in on the 4th February. Regards Graham
