The Two Types of Photographers

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Tags

Colour Correct, forum expert, forums, gadgets, Histogram, Internet Forums, Nikon v Canon, photography, Raw v JPEG, technology

Morning.

There are two types of Photographers, those that go out and create pictures. And those that talk about it instead.

Photographers that go out and create pictures are usually either, a) out creating pictures, b) editing those pictures, or c) researching for the next photo-shoot opportunity – they don’t have the time to be sat around on Internet Forums talking about the latest and greatest MPix Sensor or senselessly debating Nikon v Canon.

Too many “photographers” get sucked into Internet Forums, reading countless comments on topics posted by total strangers. Before long they even start to believe some of the things that are written.

Don’t get me wrong, Forums “Can” be a useful source of information – but only if backed up by an alternative and reliable source of enquiry.

A huge problem with forums is the people who post the most shoot the least. These forums make it impossible to know the credentials of the posters. Worse still is that if another poster dares to differ with the opinion of the resident “forum expert” then that person is heckled and belittled and will usually not return, or at the very least will not offer an opinion in the future.

There is absolutely no substitute for picking up your camera and going out and shooting – change your settings, play around, look at what you get and learn from it. You will learn far more from actually using your camera (and reading the supplier provided manual) than you ever could by asking a faceless person on the internet.

Since January I have shot 48K images on my DSLRs, 3k on my X100 and countless images on my phone – I don’t have the time to read Internet Forums – even if I wanted to!

If you shoot as much as you can, and post process as much as you can, then you WILL learn why RAW is better than JPEG. You WILL learn to understand your Histogram and you WILL learn how to colour correct in Photoshop – and you will have done this through trial and error – but you will have learnt!

If on the other hand you spend most of your free time surfing Internet Forums asking questions then you “may” get to the same conclusion, but you will have wasted all that valuable time when you could have been out having fun taking pictures creating art and learning.

I know what I would prefer to be doing.

Best – Colin

iPhoneography

30 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

App Store, Apple, camera, camera function, Digital single-lens reflex camera, film types, gadgets, glyn evans, Hipstamatic, iPhone, iPhoneography, mobile, Photograph, technology

Afternoon

iPhoneography – taking photos with your iPhone – right?

A brief history lesson first – back in November 2008 a fellow called Glyn Evans launched a Blog onto the unsuspecting world, called iPhoneography.com. Glyn’s Blog bought the phrase iPhoneography to the masses, more so because Apple has Patent rights on the term iPhone and to date have not pursued him for infringement – thus implying tacit approval.

iPhoneography has become very big business these days. With the explosion of the App store there are literally thousands of Apps for the iPhone and many are specifically related to the Camera function of the phone.

Like most people with an iPhone, I have downloaded my fair share of “Apps” for the camera, I have the usual HDR Apps & Camera Plus, along with the almost mandatory Instagram App, but yesterday I downloaded an App I had only been made aware of via an advert in an online magazine, and its called Hipstamatic.

Hipstamatic uses the iPhone’s camera function to enable you to shoot square photographs, to which it applies a number of software filters to make the images look as though they were taken with an antique film camera. You can then choose among a number of effects which are presented in the application as simulated lenses, films and flashes.

Its a pretty cool App to play with, you can change lenses and film types with just a swipe of your finger to give you hundreds of different possibilities when shooting – but does it cut the mustard?

One of the great things I learnt pretty quickly is that rather than having to change lenses and film types between shots (which could get very time consuming) you can enable a “shake to randomise” feature. Just shake your iPhone and you will get a random selection of lens and film type. I looked pretty daft shaking my phone vigorously every few minutes!!

Here are twenty of the best, different subjects, different lens/film combinations.

Would I recommend Hipstamatic? You bet

Would I have taken any of these photos if I had been using my DSLR? Nope

Is it art? I think so 🙂