Still alive

I've been busy with other things than blog posting. But I have been doing some photographing and even bought some new lenses etc. How about a Takumar SMC 400mm? I've got one and I'll write soon some comments about it.

Fighting with the image back log

It has been quite busy with other things during the early 2011 and I haven't had too much time or interest for the photography. One reason might be the huge amount of photos waiting to be sorted. That might sound familiar for you, too.

Having 15 000 RAW photos sitting on your hard disk takes up space and makes the back ups unnecessary large. I have been trying to sort photos but the problem is that after couple months I simply don't remember why the photo was taken.

So the only solution seems to have a strict rule to sort photos right after the import. Use the rating tool or something similar and mark those photos you want to keep. And delete all the rest.

Winter time and camera gear

It was -24 C in Finland during my xmas holiday there but it did not prevent me from photographing. Cold weather like that just requires some preparations. The most important one for your gear is to prevent condensation.

Condensation happens when cold camera is brought indoors. Fog appears on lens surfaces etc and that moist can damage your camera internals as well. Preventing condensation is simple. You need put a camera inside a plastic bag before entering indoors. Wrapping camera inside a bag prevents the warm and moist air reaching the cold surfaces of the camera. Take the wrapped camera indoors and wait half an hour or so to let the camera to warm up.

Cold weather affects camera and accessory batteries as well. In cold they do not hold their charge well and you end up running out of battery sooner. Have an extra battery and store it inside your coat to keep it warm. When the cold camera battery runs out of juice, swap it with the warm one. You should be able to get some extra shots from the empty one after it has warmed up. Do not put the camera inside your coat because of condensation issue.

Especially with older manual lenses the lubrication used in the gears gets stiff in freezing temperatures. There is not much you can do without putting the whole lens apart. Modern lenses use synthetic lubricants and they are not that prone to get stiff. But modern equipment has a lot of plastic parts and some plastics become very brittle in freezing conditions. So be extra careful.

Last but not least is your own body. Keep your fingers and head warm!

Manual lenses presentation

Here is my presentation for Edinburgh 2010 Photocamp:

Manual lenses presentation

View more presentations from Petteri Hietavirta.

Tips for photographing airplanes and airshows

I have been interested in airplanes all my life so no wonder I have taken good amount of photos of them. Yesterday I visited RAF Leuchars air show and I have been going through my photos and videos of it. There are couple tips I learnt from others and by experiment.

Stationary planes are pretty easy and interesting subjects. Plenty of details and shapes to photograph but in case of museums the lack light is sometimes a problem. Many museums do not allow tripods so fast lenses with stabilizers are handy. At the airshows there are many stationary planes outdoors so no need to worry about lack of light. In many occasions it is possible to join a tour to get a look inside. Switch to wider and faster lens for inside shots as the interiors are cramped and dimly lit.

Flying planes are then a bit different case. Usually there is enough light but you are far away and planes are moving fast sometimes. A decent telephoto lens is necessary here and its focal length should reach at least 200 mm. A good place to practice is the local civil airport with airliners landing and taking off. Depending of your local law and regulations it might be illegal to photograph airport so check that before ending up arrested.

Planes landing and taking off are quite easy to photograph. I use continuos focusing (AI Servo in Canon) with the center point and I keep plane's cockpit under the point. In case of jet planes the shutter speed can be set quite fast depending how much motion blur is wanted for the background. With 200 mm focal length I would use at least 1/500s. Prop planes need slower shutter speed because too fast shutter speed freezes propellers and that looks awkward. I usually photograph propeller planes with shutter speed of 1/200 - 1/250s. Helicopters have even slower rotating blades so you need to find balance between motion blur and general sharpness.

Airshows have fast military jets and planes performing aerobatics. These are much louder so pair of ear plugs might be needed. Fast flying planes require faster shutter speeds in order to get sharp photos. The alternative is to shoot continuously and hope that one of the photos is a good one. The downside is the amount of photos, I usually take ten or more photos of a single pass and that means I end up having 100-200 photos of a single performance. A day at the airshow equals around 1500-2000 photos. Sorting those is not a matter of couple minutes.

Aerobatics with smoke trails are visually impressive and it helps to know the routine a bit. Videos from previous airshows can be found from youtube and those help to find out when and where are the climax moments. Prepare, shoot a burst and hope the best.

With 550D I had the chance to take video as well. Changing between still and video roles is not that simple and I lost some nice spots. In order to switch to video I had to attach the camera on a tripod, turn off lens stabilizer (ruins panning), switch camera mode, check exposure and focus the lens. The microphone on 550D picks wind very easily so the audio turned out to be mostly useless. Tracking fast moving planes performing loops and break turns requires practice and space around the tripod. Not that easy at the packed display line.

RAF Leuchars 2010 photos
RAF Leuchars 2010 videos
Edinburgh East Fortune 2010 photos

LCDVF 3/2 for Canon 550D

The LCDVF 3/2... from Terry Gray on Vimeo.

This is the first review of the LCDVF 3/2 I have seen so far. Looks good, the only issue might be how well I see the screen without glasses or whether it is usable with glasses.

Holiday camera gear

We came back home after two weeks in Hungary and Romania. It was a holiday after all so we did not pack every possible piece of a camera gear with us. The airline restrictions prevented it.

The main parts of the camera gear were Canon 450D and 550D bodies. For them we had three lenses. EF-S 18-55mm IS kit lens, EF 70-200mm f4 L IS USM and Vivitar M42 35mm f1.9 prime. We also had set of extension tubes, Canon 430EX II flash, radio triggers, YN-460II flash, SLR Zoom GorillaPod, Manfrotto 745XB tripod with 701 RC2 fluid head, batteries, filters, chargers and some random bits and pieces. Most of this was inside or attached to Lowepro Primus AW backpack. Only the camera with 18-55mm lens was in a separate small bag.

So, what was necessary? Most I would say. We did not use extension tubes or YN-460II flash for some reason. Everything else was used and I don't think we were missing anything else except couple more memory cards. I left the tripod in the car trunk quite often but every time we left the car we took all the rest of the camera gear with us.

We had 2x16Gb cards for 550D and 4Gb+8Gb for 450D. Unfortunately that was not enough for RAW photos so we had to switch to JPEG. That has caused some issues in post processing but most of the photos seem to be fine. There is still good amount of material to sort and video to cut... I think I would need another holiday just for that.