May 2012    Photographers Resource - Monthly    Edition 101

National Mills Weekend, In Focus and Tablets

Hopefully the weather will improve as we enter May, and although Badminton has been cancelled many of the other events taking place during this month will still go ahead. However if you need somewhere to go to keep you out of the rain then you could take a visit to Liverpool and visit the The Hardman House and Photographers Studio, at No. 59 Rodney Street. This house, now managed by the National Trust, was the home and business of the renowned portrait and landscape photographer, Edward Chambre Hardman. It is a time capsule being exhibited as it was in the 1950's, with the majority of the house taken over by the business, and just a small part where he and his photographer wife, Margaret lived. He loved his landscape photography, but made his living taking portraits of the better off in society. Although he still lived there until his death in the 1980's, he officially retired in 1965/6 as the fashion for formal portraits declined,  but he did continue to do some small commissions and continued with some landscape photography. He did however, continue to send exhibition prints to the London Salon, and in March 1975, an exhibition of his work titled 'Fifty Years of Photography' was displayed at the University of Liverpool.

Since Hardman's day there have been significant changes to the photographic world, both in the kit we, as photographers, use and the move away from needing to print the photographs we take. In Hardman's day he made a living from taking portraits and made use of artistic skills to enable him to remove blemishes and add colour.  Today digital photography has opened photography to the masses and colour photography is standard, we use computers and associated editing software to add effects, remove blemishes, and more. The cameras we can use also range from those we carry on our mobile phones, through compact handheld cameras, DSLR's and modern day plate camera equivalents, but we can also capture images in 3D and a new camera out recently also gives us the opportunity to allow the viewer of our work to decide where the Focus point on the image should be. Take a look at our 'Focus and Depth of Field' piece below to find out more about this camera and other techniques you can use to get a greater depth of field.

With the age of mobile technology having enhanced the photography world and made it available to more. It was only time before computer technology went the same way. You'll be shouting at the screen now, saying laptops have been out for ages, and I know they have, but with only 3 hours battery life, if you're lucky, it's still not really mobile. I agree there has also been the growth in smart phones over recent years and with them being able to do so much, including being able to access emails and the internet that was a step further, but is it really practical to view the internet on such tiny screens, many companies having special mobile websites in order to make it easier to be viewed on such a small screen. However tablet computers are another matter, their screens are larger than mobile phones which allows you to view the internet properly without the need for special versions. They are a handheld device, you don't need a desk to work on. Their battery life, at around 7-9 hours does make them truly mobile, and with some having cameras built in they are becoming a must have accessory. Take a look at the 'Tablet Computer and iPad' feature below to find out more.

I hope you enjoy this months magazine and when the weather improves do try and get out with your camera.

Feature

National Mills Weekend

The annual celebration of National Mills Weekend takes place this month on the 12th and 13th. This is when more than 400 mills including Flour mills, Paper Mills, Woollen Mills and Silk Mills around the country open their doors to the public. Some of the mills who open their doors are not normally open to the public as they are private homes or are run as commercial businesses, so it is an opportunity to get to see inside and close-up to find out how the mills work. Many of those that are open during this weekend will be running special activities and family events including demonstrations and selling products they produce. Amongst the 450 mills listed on the National Mills Weekend website you can find a windmill or watermill near you by selecting your county and finding a list of those that are open and then linking to find out their specific opening times and how to find them. Not all those listed are open on the National Mills weekend but do open on regular days each month at fixed times. Those that are tourist attractions will be open the most often.

Mills are typically powered by water as in the case of watermills and when powered by wind are referred to collectively as Windmills. Some of the working mills in the UK are more than 300 years old, yet many are still efficiently doing the job they were built and designed for into the 21st century. They can be found in nearly all parts of the UK, some are in ruin, some are lived in having been converted into houses or flats, others are now  tourist attractions while others have been restored and put back into commercial use.

Some areas of the UK have larger numbers of certain types, for instance in the industrial areas like Lancashire and Cheshire there will be large commercial mills, typically Cotton or Bobbin Mills like Quarry Bank Mill at Styal in Cheshire which is the largest water-powered cotton mill in the UK, today a tourist attraction owned by the National Trust. Lincolnshire and Kent being primarily agricultural areas have large numbers of windmills used for producing flour. Where as Norfolk also has a large number of windmills, but many of them in this area are used to power water pumps to control the levels of the water across the broads. Take a look at the county listings within our Windmills section and you will see that there are still many around.

Focus and Depth of Field

As a photographer I am really picky about the way my photos look and I particularly prefer them to be in sharp focus rather than the more artistic semi blur. Today with digital cameras and the facility of AutoFocus there should not be really any excuse for not having sharp in-focus images, unless of course we've turned autofocus off. So why then on closer inspection of some of our images do we find that some of them are out of focus or blurred. Well there could be two reasons for this, the first is something really simple, camera shake.

Camera shake becomes noticeable because the shutter speed is not fast enough to cover up the movement of the camera, this is more noticeable with a telephoto than a wide angle lens. It can occur because the weight of the camera is such that we find it difficult to hold it absolutely still, so to overcome this, where we can, we should use a tripod. It can also occur because the camera is too small as with compacts or mobile phones, because they are difficult to hold when you move to press the shutter the camera moves and your image blurs. Whether you use a DSLR, compact or mobile phone the way we set up the camera also has an impact, for example if our shutter speed to Aperture is too slow, therefore setting a higher ISO will overcome this, however watch that you don't go too high otherwise you will have problems with noise where the pixels in the image blur or break up a bit.

The second and probably most common reason for images to look out of  focus is depth of field. Any aperture for a lens on a camera has a minimum and maximum range that an item within a photograph will be in focus. Anything outside this range will start to blur until it becomes out of focus. So when you are setting up your camera to take the photo you need to be aware of where the focus point of the camera is and at which point you want it to be in focus, re-positioning yourself or the focus point on the camera or changing the aperture to give you a different depth of field.

Unlike other errors that might occur when taking a photo out in the field, like the colour balance being off, the exposure   being out etc which can be corrected afterwards in editing, something out of focus can't be. Well that was until now and the launch of the Lightfield Camera or Plenoptic Camera. The idea presented by this type of camera is of a photo that can be taken first and focused when viewing later therefore the viewer, not the photographer, can select the point of focus. In fact this type of camera actually takes a number of photos in one picture and once you have it back on your computer, using a piece of software you can select which part of the picture is in focus afterwards.

The only camera that is available to the public, for general photography at this point is the new Lytro camera. It allows you to take a photograph through its constant f2 aperture, so a very limited depth of field to the basic photo, and low light is rarely a problem, you don't focus at the time but you can zoom. See the effect demonstrated in their online gallery. Just click on any point in the photos and it refocuses to that point. It's not cheap but if you like what it does then take a look at Lightfield Camera or Plenoptic Camera, to find out more. The downside is that the size of the image is very limited.

Another way to get images totally in focus is to use a technique called Slicing.   Slicing, some call it image stacking, is a photographic skill or technique that allows you to get expanded depth of field by taking a series of photographs with your camera on a tripod or locked in position in some other way, where each of these is the same except that the focus point in each has changed. You therefore have a series of photos where everything that you want in focus, is in focus in at least one photograph. You then put these photographs through a piece of software that selects the most in focus area from each and creates an overall photo with everything in focus.

It can be used in many areas of photography, although probably the best known use of the technique is in the areas of macro and extreme macro photography, as well as photography through microscopes. Other areas it can be used in are landscapes and scenic photography through to more specialist areas like food photography, property photography as well as many areas of advertising or product photography. So it is part of the range of skills that every professional photographer should know and most enthusiasts should at least have tried. We have a number of articles including projects you can have a go at available, to show you how it works:-

Depth of Field Magic  (Project)

What we can do with Helicon Focus

Capturing Slices with a Nikon DSLR

Slices - Coins

Slices - Chips

Slices - Red flower

Tablet Computers and the iPad

Over the past couple of years tablet computers have made a come back. They were tried back in the 1980's, but were very large, expensive and hardly mobile, and failed to take off, with laptops only just really starting to establish a market from the desktops we were all used to. This time however they have come about when laptops have become more common, with more people having these in their homes instead of the large desktop computer, are truly portable, lightweight and at a price most can afford, coming after the mobile phone and in particular the smartphone.

Two years ago Apple launched the iPad with the revolutionary touch screen found on its smartphones that you can use your fingers to navigate around the screen instead of using cumbersome devices such as the keyboard, mouse, or trackpad. Apples purpose built operating system has put them miles ahead of the rest. With just last month Apple launching their third generation iPad with a retina screen giving a much crisper display, and better quality cameras. Following Apple's lead many others have also brought out tablet devices, using the Android operating system, which is a phone operating system with more limited capabilities than the iPad.

We purchased our first iPad's this time last year on the launch of the iPad2 and for me it has become part of my everyday life. I carry it around the office and my home and it is with me pretty much all the time. With it's built in calendar, reminders and note taking facilities it has replaced my trusty Filofax. Being able to check on my email on the go and web browsing without having to sit at my desk, when travelling I can read books or listen to music, with Facetime and Skype installed I can carryout video conferencing and being able to carry documents with me, or have access to them via Dropbox, that can be instantly modified/updated when in a meeting it has replaced my laptop and briefcase. I only have to make sure now my handbags are big enough to hold it. It hasn't however quite replaced my trusty two screen desktop computer, that I am using currently to produce this copy of the magazine. Yeah sure I could create the content of articles on it, but for ease of creation and the fact that the software we currently use to create this magazine and upload it to our servers is a little dated and won't run on it, means every month I do have to put it down for a little while to communicate with you. Of course the iPad or a tablet can't replace the desktop or laptop for storage, they just don't have the capacity to store pictures and everything else we want to carry, but in the future who knows!

A second iPad we have has GPS and built in 3G which means it will also double up as a generous screen SatNav and has just about everything available away from telephone links, while mine requires a Wi-Fi link for all internet access.

We have spent much of this year getting used to using the iPad and working out what it's capabilities are. We have downloaded and tried out many of the APPS that are produced for it, but not all of them there are too many, and more coming out every day. This month we have put together a list of non-photography based iPad Apps and are currently working on a list of Photography related ones. We have also undertaken a project to take photographs out and about on both an iPad2 and an iPhone 4s and reports on these will appear somewhen soon.

Another aspect of the tablet computer and in particular the iPad is that even people who in the past would not use a computer are willing, with a little help, to have a go. In fact one of our iPad's was originally shared with our two sons, who have learning difficulties, and even they have been able to master it that they now also have one each. Also more elderly relatives who have not embraced the computer revolution have also been able to use many of the features of the iPad and for the first time have access to the internet. The iPad with it's Apps has something for everyone and if you want to find out more then take at look at Tablet Computers and the iPad.  

The June diary is now in the 'next month' slot with May moved to 'this month'. Both months have a lot of opportunities for everyone.  Some highlights that are of particular interest during May are:-

May is usually a busy time for events in the UK as we normally have two bank holiday weekends, one at the beginning of the month and one at the end. However for this year only the bank holiday at the end of the month has been moved, and an additional day added, into June as we are celebrating our Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

We kick off the bank holiday weekend with the Knights of Royal England Jousting taking place at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire where you can combine watching the skills of medieval knights and their horsemanship and handling of a 3 metre length lances with the back drop of one of our most spectacular palaces. Or from the 13th to 15th you could witness a horse endurance ride over a 100 miles course on Exmoor in Devon, the Exmoor Golden Horseshoe Ride.

The Knights of Royal England Peter G Trimming

This bank holiday weekend is the May Day bank holiday and traditionally, and still in some small communities, this is celebrated with Maypole Dancing and Morris dancing to celebrate the height of spring and start of summer. In Hastings, Sussex they have a traditional May Day event (on the Monday 7th) called the Jack in the Green, where a Jack is released from the Fisherman's Museum and a procession of Morris Dancers, giants and Bogies following through the streets to the Castle where an afternoon of activities and entertainment takes place. At around 3.30pm the Jack is killed and the spirit of summer is released. In Salisbury Wiltshire on the 5th the Downton Cuckoo Fair takes place with over 250 stalls, produce market, children’s funfair, rural crafts and demonstrations, bands, morris dancing and maypole dancing.

Other May Day weekend traditional events includes the Beltane at Thornborough Henge in Yorkshire. The festival is associated with fire, courtship and the renewal of nature following spring. Beltane was traditionally celebrated throughout the north of England and beyond as a season of 'hilarity, merry-making and good humour'. Beltane is also associated with more ancient religions and beliefs going back to before recorded history as well as included in later witchcraft recreations. Or you have the Flora Day and Furry Dance in Helston Cornwall, a blend of Pagan ritual and Christian celebration where the streets come alive with singing, dancing, parties as the town celebrates the start of spring. There is also the Urchfont Scarecrow Festival near Devizes in Wiltshire, where around 50 scarecrows can be found at various locations around the village and you can get to seem them all if you follow The Scarecrow Trail. Or if you like your cheese rolling then on the 6th you have the Randwick Cheese Rolling Ceremony taking place in Gloucestershire, and on the 7th the World Stilton Cheese Rolling Championships in Cambridgeshire, an annual event where teams battle it out for the honour or being called the Stilton Cheese Rolling Champion. The teams roll the large Stilton Cheeses down the High Street of the village. There are also other May Day activities taking place including maypole and country dancing, street entertainers, fancy dress competition, evening concert on village playing field and lots more. For more Cheese Rolling Events.

Tulip Parade Martin

In Spalding, Lincolnshire on the 5th it is the annual Tulip Parade, where more than half a million tulip heads are individually pinned to floats and at 2pm a parade of floats, dancers, carnival performers, marching bands takes place through the town centre. If you happen to be at a seaside location over the holiday weekend then in Eastbourne in Sussex they have the Magnificent Motors event where more than 500 vintage and  classic cars, motorbikes, buses, steam traction engines, commercial and military vehicles will display on Eastbourne’s seafront and a cavalcade starts from the Eastern Seafront. Or a visit to Weymouth in Dorset they are holding the International Beach Kite Festival on the beach where kite flyers from the UK, USA, Germany and Spain show off their aerial acrobats and colour spectacle. Also see giant sky sculptures, stunt kites, fighting kites and loads more.

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Staying with a water theme there are two events taking place on the canals including on the 5th and 6th the Loughborough Canal and Boat Festival in Leicestershire with 100's of canal boats, music, punch and Judy, vintage vehicles, birds of prey and boat trips. But it is also the weekend of the annual IWA Canalway Cavalcade this year taking place from the 5th to the 7th at Little Venice, Paddington, London. As well as the traditional boat rally and trade show it also includes a pageant of decorated boats, procession of illuminated boats in the evening at 9pm, boat handling competition, trade and craft show and musical entertainment. If you're a petrol head and it's trucks you like then you could pop along to Truckfest being held at the East of England Showground in Peterborough on the 6th and 7th, with somersaulting monster trucks as well as the jet-propelled variety.

IWA Canalway Cavalcade

Flower shows and County Shows season starts this month with the Malvern Spring Garden Show at the Three Counties Showground in Worcestershire from the 10th to 13th. The Devon County Show at Clyst St Mary near Exeter takes place on the 17th with animals, agriculture, vintage steam engines and more. The Hereford Spring Carriage Show takes place as Hampton Court near Hereford on the 20th with carriage driving, donkeys and traditional crafts, and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London takes place from the 22nd to 26th. The annual Royal Bath and West Show near Shepton Mallet, Somerset takes place from the 30th May to 2nd June. This is the UK's biggest rural festival and there is something for everyone. From livestock and over 600 trade stands to the National Cheese Awards and the UK’s biggest cider competition. You can also experience canoeing, visit an art exhibition, sample and purchase some British produce, watch birds of prey in the Countryside Arena and loads more.

The 26th May sees the start of the Isle of Man TT Races, two weeks of road racing for competitors on two wheels. No other motorcycle race is held on such a challenging track as the 37-mile plus Mountain Course with its seemingly never-ending series of bends, bumps, jumps, stone walls, manhole covers and telegraph poles. Practice week is 26th May to 1st June and race week is 2nd-8th June.

There is so much going on this month make sure you check out the diary page for something that is of interest to you.

We are now in the last month of Spring and in the wildlife world there are babies everywhere, from fox cubs, baby rabbits, through to badgers and of course the birds. I've already seen a young blackbird in my garden hiding under the large hedges and landing on our decorative fencing in the back garden which is more secluded. Mum and Dad haven't been too far away foraging on the tiny wildlife in our lawn. There are also now a wider variety of birds and many are still wrecking the grass liners of my floral baskets, in recent days I have seen a blue tit, robins, a dunnock, great tit, pigeons and of course the blackbirds. The bird populations in the UK not only get larger this time of year because of all the new offspring that is hatching but May is also the month of mass bird immigration with large numbers of our summer visitors such as Swallows, Swifts and Martins returning to us for our warmer summer months.

Ponds, lakes, rivers, canals and other water outlets are also full of life, with water birds such as swans, ducks, waders etc showing off their new broods. Tadpoles will now be sprouting legs, dragonflies and damselflies start to do their aerial aerobatics over ponds and landing on water plant life to team up and mate, or just to take a rest. Damselflies are colourful and in the spring sunshine their iridescent bodies sparkle as they fly, however you have to be quick to photograph them as they don't sit still for long. Mayflies are also emerging from the riverbed and explode into the spring sunshine hovering just above the water during their very short life.

Dragonfly

Other miniature wildlife and insects will also be out in abundance and if you look on leaves of plants you will see colourful caterpillars and butterflies, but also ladybirds after a tasty meal of the small aphids. Amongst woodpiles or in woodland you may also come across beetles such as the cockchafer beetle.

At night badgers will be out feeding and making the most of any food that has been left for them in gardens. While bats, having now come out of hibernation, will be out feeding on the smaller insects and flies.

You have probably noticed the trees are now coming back to life, those that flower first have been doing so and apple and cherry blossom with their pink and white flowers have burst onto the scene, many of the cherry blossoms petals when falling to the ground leaving carpets of pink underneath and strong red leaves on the trees. Our Woodlands and Forests  are also starting to come to life, looking bright and healthy in their variations of green splendour. In sheltered areas of the woodland where it takes longer for the sun to get to them and before their leaves fully grow you will find carpets of bluebells at your feet. In mid May you may also see the crimped purple shoots of the Lilly of the Valley, followed by an array of white flowers. Out in the countryside along the roadside or along field boundaries the white Hawthorn hedges will also be in full bloom. As well as the white flowers of the Hawthorn other wildflowers to watch out for this month include the white flowers of Elder, Cow Parsley and Meadowsweet. Bluebells, Cowslips  and a diversity of grasses and wildflowers will be enriching England’s meadows, fields and pastures including the Fritillaries. A good place to see a meadow in full flower including fritillaries and in particular the rare Snakeshead Fritillary, is at the North Meadow National Nature Reserve, at Cricklade in Wiltshire. Before last week while the weather was good there were large numbers of the white and red snakeshead fritillaries on show, so it might be worth going for a visit soon if you are to catch them this year. In damp corners you may come across a sundew catching a fly in its trap or red poppies in an untilled patch of agricultural land. Look out for Bracken pushing up on hillsides as bright green intricate coils.

Snakeshead Fritiliary Photo by Miles Underwood

Keeping with the floral theme May is also the start of the Well Dressing Season, where pictures often made of flower petals pressed into clay are created to dress the wells. They are usually dressed for a period of 3 to 8 days, and it's best to visit during the first few days as they do deteriorate quite rapidly. The most well known area for this activity is Derbyshire, and many communities within Derbyshire today also have a programme of events such as Morris dancing, sporting events, flower festivals and carnivals also taking place. In fact it has become so popular amongst communities and villages in Derbyshire they have made a season out of it and the first towns/villages make a start in May, and the last event, in Chesterfield, takes place in the middle of September. The Well Dressing 2012 calendar will keep you up to date with the latest details of which village/town has a display.

Towards the end of this month many parks will start to turn on their water fountains/features adding an extra dimension to the colourful plants they have planted around, and provide a tranquil setting for us to relax and unwind, so look out for the opportunities a public park can give you.

Wildlife photography in May has just got easier with the advantage of having longer days of daylight, there are large numbers of parents and young out looking for food, many visiting our gardens so we don't have to travel too far. The warmer weather is also a bonus when you want to be out and about catching those that are around early in the morning or later in the evening. See Wildlife Photography May for more opportunities this month.

Lightfield Camera or Plenoptic Camera  

Mosquitoes

Tablet Computers and the iPad  

iPad Apps

How to photograph windmills

About windmills

Smock mills

Tallest windmills

Making buildings stand up straight

Shutter speed

ISO

Aperture

Colour balance

Exposure

Depth of field

Slicing

Depth of Field Magic  (Project)

What we can do with Helicon Focus

Capturing Slices with a Nikon DSLR

Slices - Coins

Slices - Chips

Slices - Red flower

Macro Photography

Landscapes

Cheese rolling

Wildlife Photography May

Rabbits

Swans

Bluebells

All windmills with sails

Cheese Rolling Events

The Hardman House and Photographers Studio, Liverpool