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February 2007 Archives

February 2, 2007

Realisations

Yesterday at work, we were discussing an exercise the students undertake to understand Depth Of Field.

Historically, we get them to take 1 shot at 3 different apertures in one location on a tripod then shift focus and repeat, finally focusing on infinty and repeating again, as well as a portrait at 3 different apertures, on a tripod.

A year or so ago I did this exercise using a Canon 350d, and the differences were NOT as apparent, as a traditional 35mm camera, I left it at that and haven't given it much thought since.

When I mentioned this in the meeting a passionate discussion then ensued as to why this was the case as we are contemplating getting the students to do this assignment using digital cameras. Beginning students need to see big differences quickly and the 350d wasn't giving the results I'd expected.

As a result, we found the answer. It has to do with surface area of the light capturing surface and size of circle of confusion. The smaller the film/sensor area the more D.O.F you have.

Let's let Bob Atkins explain it.

"So the bottom line - and all you really need to know - is that DOF is inversely proportional to format size. Note that format size is inversely proportional to the "digital multiplier". The higher the "digital multiplier", the smaller the format and thus the greater the depth of field. Note also that now you can see one of the reasons large format camera users need tilts and swings to get adequate depth of field. With an 8x10 camera you have about 8.5 times LESS depth of field than you do with 35mm for the same image. This also explains why consumer digicams, some of which have sensors 1/6 the size of 35mm film, have such a large depth of field and one of the reasons why it's almost impossible to get blurred backgrounds when using them."

The difficulty for us to teach the principles of D.O.F is that all cameras have different sized sensors and only cameras like the $4,000.00 Canon have 35 x 26 mm sensors. A camera few students can afford and the type that is not held in stock by us because of their delicateness.

Today I am going to shoot the exercise on the Pentax k100d, which has a larger CCD than the Canon 350d. I may post the results over at flickr, we'll see?

Some more links:-

February 3, 2007

1/2 Done

IMGP1471.JPG

I shot the first half of the DOF exercise on Friday. I used a zoom and a fixed lens. Just looking at the lens markings on the zoom confirm yesterday's post.

The second half requires either a portrait or a still life.

The reason we use either a portrait or still life is, because when the subject is closer than 8 times the focal length of the lens the relationship of f/g and b/g DOF changes.

The top image was made using the fixed 50 mm lens, which actually has an equivalent 35mm focal length of about 80mm

Here are the two lenses used, it's interesting to notice that, the Zoom lens made for the Digital camera, has a smaller spread of distances under 1 metre than the fixed lens.

2 Lenses

February 4, 2007

Nine is too many

trocadero bottom right.jpg

trocadero bottom left.jpg

Based on this mock-up, I feel 9 prints will be too many.

February 5, 2007

Landscape art

Fantastic work

February 6, 2007

Photo Sales

serendipity?

Trying a new photo site, aimed at selling mainly, so not that much use to me, we'll see, already a few flickrnauts moving in.

February 8, 2007

Ramped Up

Pressure is mounting for the upcoming solo-show, have collected 2 images from a Pro-Lab, not happy with the 'look' of the prints at all. However, I have been fortunate to have been put in touch with an Art School that prints large format. Had a quick chat last week with the guy in charge of the printing and am now proceeding with 7 inkjet pints 1 metre square.

Now I've just got to find 7 times $140.00!

Outside said art school I found this piece of graffiti, and of course the only capture device I had was a mobile phone, I made 2 images with it and chose this as the best one that expressed the idea.I felt the context from the surrounding Architecture was needed.

at last...

February 9, 2007

Street Photography

'E'

Yesterday I started to ramble on a little about the image I made using all I had at the time, I think I wanted to philosophise a little about that, but neglected to do so, and today I'm focused on re-scanning 7 images for the Solo show which opens on the 21st of March at Trocadero*. Today I've uploaded another image, taken this way, and again this image is made for similar reasons, it was the only device I had at the time and the characteristics of it suited the image. I wanted to exploit the features of the device and have an incredible amount of DOF. Capturing the objects themselves and the reflection across the street was the catalyst for this. Which I hope in turn says something about shopping, consumerism, light, photography, and representations of the human form... as well as ideas of beauty.

*Across the River Styx, opens at Trocadero Art Space, Level 1 119 Hopkins St Footscray on the 21st of March 2007 and runs until, the 30th of March.

February 10, 2007

Lo-Fi Moments cont'd

white

February 12, 2007

A Metaphor?

tape

February 13, 2007

A Request?

Anyone able to help me tweak my movable type template? I lost the whole front page for a few hours last night, all's well now except I really want to add some features such as links to other sites and my flickr stream.

February 14, 2007

Busy but not Swamped

Must see exhibition.

Fashion Face: Fashion photography by Robyn Beeche 1979-1989
2 March - 21 April 2007.

Based in London throughout the 80's, Australian photographer Robyn Beeche's photographic style moved from the realm of straight fashion photography into that of high art, melding make-up and costuming to create fantastical tableaux and exotic narratives. [Image above left: Robyn Beeche, Arrows, 1979] from the R.M.I.T website.

The sentence that really caught my eye however only appears in the printed material that hit my desk yesterday.

Long before the era of Photoshop, Beeche was pioneering a technique of photography that used extensive make-up, body-paint, props, and costume to create elaborate tableaux

I wonder what Adobe thinks about the idea of pre-photoshop? I'm lead to believe that that they discourage the use of the term "photoshop" as an adjective. How has photography's perception changed since the introduction of Photoshop? I still have an article at home somewhere from 'The Age' many years ago that looked at what photoshop was capable of.

Photography @ Wikipedia, they now have a photography portal [not sure how long though?], a long time ago I wrote something about photography in there, can't remember what though? One day I'll write something about modernism and fine art photography.

Interesting camera, for those wanting to see beyond the visible spectrum.

February 15, 2007

Untitled

untitled

February 16, 2007

GUI gripes?

snap gui

I have not been using snap a great deal, and here's a picture that tries to explain why. How much of this sluggish performance is my computer and how much it is the site and how much is it the interwebs itself?

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Panoramic...

...Photography

February 18, 2007

A series, 1 of 6

.

One of six

Exhibition Dates

A correction.

Sitting here at home today, designing my catalogue for my solo show, 'Across the River Styx' I realised I originally posted the wrong dates.

The correct dates are:-
21st of March, to the 7th of April 2007.
Trocadero Art Space, Level 1, 119 Hopkins St,
Footscray,
9687 6110

Opening night is the 24th of March.

Once I have completely finished the catalogue, I will upload a pdf file for either of my readers, who might like to see it.

More Great Photography

File, has some great stuff and a couple of big names too. Checkit

February 19, 2007

Strangeness?

desktop-20070219-055327.jpg

While researching some idea for titles for my solo show in March, I noticed that my own set for the show, ranks number 10 in the google listings, yesterday anyways.

What a pleasant surprise. Hope it helps with the publicity?


February 22, 2007

oh yeah?

red

I nearly forgot...

February 24, 2007

Exhibitions?

Maybe I should have named my upcoming show at Trocadero Artspace, 'The Wasteland'?

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Maps

Maps, have long held a fascination for me in my imagination. This morning while adding some details to some images on flickr, using a geographical mapping tool, I kept switching between map view and satellite view, just to get a better idea of where I was and the location I was trying to pinpoint. The two views, offered a richness of information I'm having trouble articulating? Both identical views, yet both so different to each other, the sense of scale for one thing that was imparted was hugely different, perhaps this is based on my own knowledge and realtionship to the location?

When flickr is back up and running I will post the two maps side by side here.

It's back

2maps.jpg

Also I'm honoured to have another image blogged on the urban nature blog

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February 25, 2007

Mophone Browsing

Opera Mini™ - Free Web Browser for your Mobile Phone

Thanks to Andrew for pointing me to this browser for my mobile phone, far easier to use than the built in browser on my mobile phone

Opera Mini


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February 26, 2007

Lo-Fi Driveby

stalled

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February 27, 2007

Flickr, the Evolution...

Well at, well over 2 years down the track on Flickr, I've begun to notice a change in how I use the service. These days it seems to be all about muckin' around with other flickr users in the DBOLRL pool, a place where smart alek's get together and cast meaningless votes on images made with low rez image capture devices

What I'm doing nowadays is uploading an image or two, making them "private" and once it has been through the grist of DBOLRL opening it up to public scrutiny

A far cry from my early days where I my mindset was coming from some other angle... what I actually can't remember. Still it's all good clean fun and who knows maybe, someone in the future will find these cyber-footprints of mine amusing or enlightening.

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February 28, 2007

Well Well Well

Tomorrow I get my first gander at the solo show images, on the monitors at the printers. This can mean one of three things. They will need tons of work or, they will need some work, or they will be ready to go. Fingers crossed folks.

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Online Exhibition

Submit a piece to this gallery and have your work exhibited in Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, in the show entitled, "The rapid mutation of amateur photography in the digital age"

They are asking some pertinent and burning questions, among them:-

Does the digital shift constitute a revolution, or merely an evolution?
Does the shift represent a real democratization of photography?
Is citizen photojournalism worthy of its name?
Does the shift threaten the livelihood of professional photographers in fundamental ways?
Does the shift represent a shift towards more authenticity or truthfulness — or less?

Looks like others are thinking along the same lines, which is good I enjoy a good quest.

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About February 2007

This page contains all entries posted to musings from the photographic memepool [the shallow end] in February 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.

January 2007 is the previous archive.

March 2007 is the next archive.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

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