Photography – Page 40 – a sibilant intake of breath

Devon photos I

For those who were confused, the photos appearing while I was in Devon were not, in fact, taken while I was there. I had set them up to appear at regular intervals in my absence, so as to have some kind of new content appearing on the site. These are the first images from Devon that I have posted on this page:

This is the main area of the converted barn in which we were staying. I was the only group member to sleep in the smaller, quieter, and much colder ‘annex.’ We visited the main house once, for dinner.

This OS map shows the countryside surrounding the Edge Barton estate, where we were staying. On our first full day in Devon, we walked down the valley to the coastline.

The path down to Branscombe was a muddy one.

Here is the south coast of England. If this picture had been taken in the opposite direction, a large grounded ship could be seen.

Pheasants are pretty fearless animals. The camera was about a foot away when I took this.

The virtue of stability

For several weeks now, I have been keeping the mini-tripod that I bought for my trip to Turkey attached to my point and shoot digital camera all the time. Doing so has proved useful in a very great many circumstances: primarily those in which low levels of ambient light have been available. Many of my best recent photos would have been impossible without it. Having it attached has also changed the way in which I approach photography, generally, and what sort of images I try to capture.

You can get a similar tripod on eBay for a couple of Pounds.

Serial numbers and used goods

One of the great things about the internet is the ability to deal with information that is far too diffuse and voluminous to be processed in other ways. Indeed, that is the principal way in which modern computing qualitatively changes that we are able to do, as opposed to altering the rate at which we can complete a particular task.

Given those characteristics, it surprises me that nobody has come up with a site that catalogs serial numbers for all the kinds of products that include them: from bicycles to cameras to mobile phones. Such a site would allow users to enter that information when they purchased a product. It would then be on hand for warranty claims and in the event of loss or theft. People purchasing such items online, or in used good shops, could check the database to ensure that the products they are buying are not listed as stolen. Like eBay, it is much more efficient to have all these numbers sorted in a single place than to have numerous separate databases. The chances of a person trawling through many sites are low, but one well organized one could get masses of traffic. (See: network effect)

You could even imagine a system where online retailers like eBay are integrated with such a site. The listing for a camera would thus include a serial number linked to an entry in the database. If you bought the item, then received one with a different serial number from the one listed, you would be entitled to lodge a complaint and the seller would get flagged as a potential fraudster. I have personally avoided buying photographic equipment from eBay because I fear that a lot of it may be stolen. Having some simple protections like these in place would make me feel a lot better about it.

PS. For an example of an existing but limited serial number listing, see the stolen equipment registry over at Photo.net. It is unlikely that someone buying a cheap digital camera online will look at that (I knew it existed and it took me some searching around to find the URL), but perhaps someone buying an expensive tilt-shift lens for a medium format camera system will.

Wales 2007 photos: fourth batch

Welsh landscape with sheep, taken on the third day of walking.

Small lake, halfway up a mountain.

Welsh valley, viewed from the highest point we reached on the third day.

Snowdonia does not suffer for lack of moss. I like the colours.

A gloomy view of Snowdon, as well as the two other peaks we climbed on the first day. This is the last photo from Snowdonia that I will be posting.

Wales 2007 photos: third batch

Bridge in the nature reserve we visited on the second day. Because of the low altitude and protected status, there was far more vegetation there than elsewhere in Snowdonia.

Pool at the base of a waterfall

Another group photo, this one with me in it

Creek flowing from the waterfall

View uphill to the ‘barn’ in which we stayed. Nearby was a small power plant, with turbines operated by water pressure. A long pipeline – resembling those for natural gas – ran down to it from a lake somewhere above us.

Wales 2007 photos: second batch

Keeping my hat on was a constant challenge, given the lack of a chin-strip and the strong winds.

Because the winds on the second day prevented us from going up any peaks, we visited this nature reserve instead. It was nice to see some trees.

In the reserve, some of us climbed along a steep hillside to see a large waterfall from above. We also got some nice views of the valley below and the seashore.

The Welsh landscape is dominated by bare rock, separated by grassy sections. Often, you see veins of quartz in the shale that look like snow, from a distance.

Wales 2007 photos: first batch

Shed beside a Welsh lake.

All over the Welsh countryside there are walls and paths made of slate. The amount of labour involved in building them all must have been colossal.

Our first group photo, in front of the view we had from all three peaks on the first day.

Climbing Snowdon was a foggy business.

On the third day, we hiked up to a ridge but found it too windy to continue. On the way down, we walked around this lake.

Zoom confusion

A quick question for fellow photographers: Continue reading “Zoom confusion”

Studio photography on the (very) cheap

Something useful learned tonight: using standard height white ceilings, a glossy white St. Anthony’s College laundry card, and the on-camera flash on a Canon Powershot A510 digital camera, you can pull off some tolerable bounce-lit flash photography. A hand-held mirror is even better, though I would recommend using a relatively matte ceiling, with that arrangement. The flash is only really adequate for this role in the wide-angle range, due to a low power rating, but this does make it dramatically less unflattering, through the dual benefit of eliminating white patches that have been completely overexposed and removing the unnatural shadows that arise from a flash too close to the lens.

Attempt to make diffusers out of Sainsbury’s receipts, onion-skin paper, and other miscellaneous translucent materials were less successful. I look forward to eventually having a proper off-camera flash with diffuser, not to mention the chance to do some real studio work. If only this pesky thesis wasn’t getting in the way of various hobbies.

More published photos

First, it was The Oxford Student. Now, the 2007 Wadham College Gazette, produced by the college and distributed to students past and present, features two photos that I took and posted on various websites. The back cover is a photo I took of the flowers behind the cloisters last spring. Happily, they credited me for the images. Unhappily, they called me Milan Llnckyi.

Now, I can understand how a person sees Smyth and writes Smith. I cannot see how someone sees Ilnyckyj, just wings it, and writes ‘Llnckyi.’ Every single website from which these photos might have been taken (blog, Facebook, and Photo.net) includes my name in full. Incredulity aside, I have invented a mnemonic for the aid of future generations:

I
Love
New
York
City.
Kate (Happy Birthday)
Yodels
Joyfully.

Add this to the pronunciation guide, in Ilnyckyj lore. Still, I am flattered that the college found my photos worthy of printing and distributing.

PS. I really can’t be too scathingly critical. I have been double and triple checking this entry to make sure I haven’t committed the spectacular gaff of misspelling my own name.