Edinburgh High Street

Spent the afternoon on the High Street, taking photos of whatever caught the eye - and there was quite a lot! The light wasn't bad for the most part though it dulled down later. Had the strange sensation of missing something. I think I was finding it quite hard with the 50mm lens and was intimidated occasionally about taking candids of people close up. Also wasn't quite certain about the camera settings, settling on Av in the end but was never convinced I knew what I was doing. They needed quite a bit of PP in Lightroom as the exposure didn't seem right with quite a lot of blown highlights. Might have to think about matrix metering for these kind of shots, though I think large apertures is the way to go. I like the bokeh effect it gives with portraits. In the end I was quite pleased with the results, especially when I used the gradation tool. Quite a few strange character wandering about. Strangest moment might have been when the driver of a tour bus pulled up his window as I took a photo of the bus and asked if I was using a D700!

Lyndsey's Wedding

Had a great couple days down in Melrose and enjoyed the wedding a lot. Chatted to the pro tog briefly who said he used a 24-105mm lens and his results were certainly very good. Really pleased with the way the nifty fifty performed and the results were again really sharp. I'm not sure I really missed the zoom at all which was interesting. I'd like to see how I get on with this and learn to find my way around my camera a bit better and I'm more determined than ever to not squander money on a lens or lenses I don't really want or will need.

Melrose and Newstead

New camera and new lens. Lens arrived the Friday before the wedding and got its first outing that evening in Melrose. Truly astonished at the quality of photos in low light. It was virtually dark with the street lights on but managed to capture a couple of shots that the old kit wouldn't have got near. A wander round Newstead the next day - lovely village but not a huge amount to shoot really but again, pleased with the sharpness and simplicity of the nifty fifty. Now looking forward to getting to know it.

And the really good news - Lyndsey and Scott were happy with the picture of Melrose Abbey which I finally chose.

Third trip down to Melrose to try and get a decent one of the Abbey, this time with the new camera. Light was good this time and the general standard seemed much better, though I'm still not convinced that the lens is as good as it could be. Set the f-stop at f8 and f11 and it seems as though there was a definite increase in sharpness but I'm still not convinced that it's as sharp as I'd like. Fiddled with the trial download of Lightroom 2 and the graduated filter tool seems really good. In fact - it made the pictures, which I've finally whittled down to three.

recharge batteries

Tried to enter a competition set by the Independent (How do you recharge your batteries?) but couldn't register properly as my login name was used already (by me!) Though in truth it may not have mattered as the minimum jpeg size was 8mb and the most I could manage in raw was 7.7mb. So I didn't meet their criteria anyway. The photo I chose, here, wasn't really all that great an idea, but the important thing was that I set out to take it. There's a number of competitions about and I think I really need to start trying to concentrate on entering a few more and take them seriously, having a think about what I want to take and leaving the submission of it to the last minute. Taking my time in other words. Digital Camera have a photographer of the year competition which I should really try and enter,

Melrose Abbey

Melrose Abbey
Originally uploaded by al's_foties

Starting to think that this is the best option, having spent ages honing down the alternatives. Really difficult to decide but this one has an Eildon in the background and has a lovely pleasant feel to it.

Reading up on hyperfocal distance yesterday it seems that I've been setting the aperture too small, which doesn't necessarily increase sharpness throughout the depth of field as the light defracts more the smaller the aperture. f8 or f16 would be adequate, which would explain why the photos at Melrose were a bit soft.

Melrose Abbey

Melrose Abbey
Originally uploaded by al's_foties

Decided that I could frame a photograph of my own for Lyndsey's wedding present so popped down to Melrose on Thursday evening which started off as a lovely evening and almost immediately turned gloomy and overcast. Got to Melrose to discover that the abbey was actually closed so nearly gave up there and then, but found this viewpoint when turning. Set up the tripod and set the camera to bulb and took a good few exposing up to 60 secs. This is probably my favourite but I'm not convinced it prints well enough to be a wedding present.