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Gear is what makes photography both more fun and more difficult. Lenses and tripods, flash apparatus and hoods can give us a level of creativity beyond just exposing a sensor to light and hoping for something to happen. I only use my iPhone’s camera for quick shots, just to document something, capture a moment to share with others, or in a desperate situation when my “real” cameras aren’t available. Whatever your experience level or objective, you still need to use the right gear and prepare it before your expedition.

Our family went on a service trip in August and September, and on a deep-sea fishing trip in early November. One was a journey into unknown conditions, the other an 8-hour event in salt water.  I didn’t want to deal with lenses and filters on either trip, so I chose to take my Canon Powershot instead of the Eos Rebel. For serious creativity I would rather use the Eos, but I’m still learning about how to use it.  I wanted to know that I could capture the shots that told the story. The Powershot wouldn’t require keeping up with nearly as much gear.  Even so, I learned something significant and useful about checking my gear before an event.

What Gear Should I Check? (All of it)

1. Battery or batteries :

Whatever you use as a power supply for your camera and any other gear. I learned pretty early into the trip that I need to change back to electronics AA’s for my Powershot. I had been using household rechargeable batteries, because I’ve been trying to make myself use the Eos more and depend less on the Powershot. But even fresh out of the charger, they just don’t have enough juice to keep the camera powered for long. I put two freshly-charged batteries into the camera before leaving the house, and shortly into the trip I was getting the low battery indicator. During the 4-hour fishing segment of the trip, the camera would no longer power on and displayed “Change The Batteries.” I put the other freshly-charged set in and got the same message. Evidently, I don’t fully understand how you’re supposed to use rechargeable batteries. I can eliminate the problem by going back to the batteries that are made for high-use electronics. They cost more but they’re worth it.

My Eos has a separate power pack, but I only have one. I always charge it up before every expedition, and I plan to get another one soon. If all your other gear works perfectly but you run out of power for the camera itself, your experience will not be a happy one.

2. Your case or bag:

Although you may not want to keep up with another bag, it’s always easier than trying to keep up with individual pieces of gear. Pockets are okay, but if your shirt or jacket gets wet, your gear can get wet. If your pocket gets snagged–which is not unheard of around 30 fish hooks– you could lose an important piece of gear. My Powershot’s case is tiny compared to the case I use for my Eos. All the Powershot needs is a pocket for the cable, a pouch for extra batteries, and a slot for an extra card. The Powershot itself is considerably smaller than the Eos. Also, I was going on the trip to fish, not to photograph the event. If the situation were different, if I was the trip’s photographer, I would have wanted the Eos and its case. I would have needed at least one lens and all the stuff I use to care for it.

I also need to consider getting a bigger or better case for my Eos. It’s a pretty tight fit in the bag for the gear I have. I end up having to hunt for stuff. I’d like something with more defined compartments so I don’t have a lens in the same compartment as the flash gear, and I’d like to have the lens care pieces separate from the SD cards. The other thing I have a real problem with is the outboard pouches. They zip all the way around, instead of meeting at the top with two zippers. That’s not good, because gear can fall out of the side of the pocket while you have it open.

3. A good tripod:

This trip didn’t need one, but for more creative shots, my tripod is an essential piece of gear. I have purchased a couple to use with the Powershot and I got one in the kit with my Eos. Still, if I get more skilled with my camera, I’m going to want a better tripod. It needs to be easier to set up and understand how the pieces fit together and work. I didn’t take a tripod on the fishing trip, because I didn’t imagine how i would find a use for it. That was a good choice; the only time the boat was still enough for a tripod to actually be useful was while it was at the dock.

4. Extra cards:

You’ll get a feel for how much you can put on a card until you get up to about 8 GB or bigger. On a couple of vacation trips, I’ve had to do emergency deletions of some bad shots so i could make room on the card. I was transferring images to the computer every day, too! It’s only recently that I started carrying extra cards, and they are the least expensive piece of gear you’ll buy. Since prices on SD cards have dropped, you can have several in your gear bag, and you’ll feel more confident about taking lots of pictures you won’t feel bad about not using.

Takeaway:

Planning your trip, having an understanding of what the conditions will be and what you are likely to see, will give you a good idea of what gear you will need, but you still need to make sure it’s in good condition. What did I miss–is there gear that you would consider essential? What is your pre-trip gear check ritual?

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I love equipment. For reasons beyond my comprehension, I could sit and watch road work equipment all day. I could watch heavy construction gear for hours. Since I’m always on the lookout for things to photograph, my eye is constantly scanning my horizon. Yesterday it fell on this piece of farm gear.

Actually it’s not quite “farm” equipment, per se. It’s a grapple from the Bobcat. But sitting out all by its lonesome, it was almost posing. The colors stand out from the greens of the leaves and grass. No, it’s not a fabulous picture, but it can tell a story. Is it out of place in the greens of nature? Is it off doing its own thing, “finding itself?” We have several photogenic farm implements, but it’s hard to get them off alone. They seem to hang out together in groups. I need to remind my hubby to drop one off just slightly remotely from the others one afternoon

The Equipment is Off Center–Why?

Not only did the grapple catch my eye, but you’ll notice that I purposely set it off-center.  It works much better as an image than centering the subject would have done. I considered placing it up or down into either the top or bottom two-thirds of the frame, but it just didn’t feel right.  By using the center third of the horizontal plane and the rightmost two-thirds of the vertical plane, the subject still holds the focus but makes a much more interesting shot.

I’m still experimenting with the rule of thirds, and I am pleased with the results. By mentally dividing the frame into thirds both vertically and horizontally, the only square that is off limits as a solo resting square is the one right in the center. Center is fine as long as the subject fully occupies at least one adjoining square.

I still need a lot of practice composing with the Rule of Thirds, and Darren Rowse at Digital Photography School does a great job of explaining it here.

I’m always fascinated by patterns. I can’t help but notice them in sight, sound, and concept. So I’ve enjoyed watching our birds grow from baby puffballs into birds with patterned feathers.

As I mentioned before, photographing animals can be a challenge, and even a fairly docile peacock, who should be marvelously photogenic, simply won’t stand still for a picture. But as you can see in the image, his adult feathers coming in form a mesmerizing pattern.

Patterns can make interesting prints, especially without the context of the rest of the subject.  Play around with patterns and see what you find. Ripples on the water, fence posts, the bark of trees, birds on a wire, rows of cars, a wall of windows.

Lost Focus

On the display of the camera, this shot looked wonderful! But when I put it up on the computer screen, it was horribly out of focus. Lesson learned–don’t be satisfied with the first shot that looks good. Take many more.

Fortunately, since the peacock lives behind my house, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to grab that shot again. If I do, I’ll post it. But I have other birds with fascinating feather patters to get first. He had his chance to be famous.

What are your favorite patterns to capture? What secrets do you have to find them?

Photographing animals is easy only if the animal is asleep. Otherwise all we have is varying degrees of difficult. Part of being a photographer is being ready to grab a great shot wherever you happen to be. It’s as true for hobbyists as it is for pros.

King of the Hill

This guy was the king of the hill where he lived. I don’t know that he had a name.  After a campout on the property, during which he crowed all night, I wanted to call him breakfast. He posed for this image just before the festivities began at an outdoor birthday party. It looks almost surreal—almost like a painting you’d see made into a jigsaw puzzle.

How do you get memorable photographs, as a hobby photographer?

Some of my pictures have been just spectacular and some would be described as blah, and that would be generous. I read a lot of photography content, and, as a result, I’ve learned how to be ready to capture that perfect moment. Here are a few of the things I try and do to capture memories and feelings in pixels.

1. Carry a camera everywhere.  Yes, this is much easier with a smaller camera. I’ve graduated to a DLSR which is bigger, bulkier, heavier, and more complex to use. As a result, I’ve neglected carrying it the way I did my smaller, lighter camera.
2. Take LOTS of pictures. LOTS of them! With digital photography, we aren’t paying to develop a whole roll of film anymore. As a result, we don’t have to worry about wasting money on bad shots.
3. Walk all around the subject, if the subject will let you. Granted, with this particular subject, the subject would not tolerate a human circling around. But, for more gentle animals, you might try seeing it from every angle. This might include above and below if possible. It will give you more composition options.
4. Consider where the light is coming from. Side light on a subject can be less harsh than back light or front light.
5. An animal can add interest to a landscape. Often the landscape, even a breathtaking one, can be more real with a bird, or a deer, a rabbit or a bison. Not in this case, unfortunately. All that was behind us was a boring pasture.

The camera settings were full auto for this shot, and the camera is a Canon Powershot SX110i.

What is one thing you could share below that has improved your photography? I’m always ready to try a new method.

I was so excited to take my camera to our Youth Conference, which took place last weekend on the beautiful campus of Troy University in Troy, Alabama. And while it is a lovely campus, I didn’t find a lot of compelling shots. I did see things I wanted to photograph so I could remember them, but nothing really photographic.  While waiting for our group to assemble for a photo, I did look into the face of this fella and deemed him camera-worthy. A little brightening up in the Gimp, and you can actually see his facial features.

Speaking of the GIMP (which is an acronym for Gnu Image Manipulation Program), I went round in circles trying to find a converter that would let me use it to work with RAW image files. Photoshop uses Adobe Digital Negative Graphics converter to take the RAW file and convert it into a DNG file, which Photoshop can open. And, what’s really cool, is that when you open a RAW file “with Photoshop,” a pre-Photoshop program that will let you make some basic changes to the images themselves.

Well, I wanted to do that with GIMP, and I’ve heard a few different things about how to do it. One article indicated that nothing at all was needed. Well, that didn’t sound right, and when I tried it, I was right, I got a bunch of TIFF errors, indicating that GIMP didn’t really know what to do with the RAW file.

I kept seeing articles that UFRaw would do what I needed it to do, and that GIMP for Mac already has it installed. There were installers for Windows and Linux, but not for Mac. Well, obviously my version of GIMP didn’t have it installed, because if it were, I wouldn’t be getting the errors. I found a fork of UFRaw called NUFRaw, and installing that didn’t work any better. I did find, though, that I was using GIMP version 2.8.16, and the version referenced was 2.8.14. So I rolled back my installation of 2.8.16 to 2.8.14, and —voila– GIMP is now able to open and work with RAW image files.

A final word and then I’m done for this week. I’m really disappointed in Instagram not letting people use it on a static platform. It seems like a bunch of bratty developers said, “It was designed for mobile, if you want static you’ve got other platforms.” I can still put stuff on Instagram from my computer but it’s a few extra steps. As a result, I’m not likely to do so. More’s the pity for Instagram and it’s advertisers.

Taking photos of fireworks is really difficult, the many articles written on it notwithstanding. I’ve had some lucky shots, assisted by a lot of preparation and patience. For one thing, you’re asking the camera to interpret a moving object, capture it, and present it beautifully. When you see a gallery of great images, it’s important to remember you’re likely seeing the best that the photographer got–not by any means every shot he took during that shooting session. There are  a LOT of rejects!

My first attempt at photographing fireworks was with my first digital camera, a Fuji FinePix A303. It wasn’t a first-generation digicam, but it was pretty early.

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The camera chose the settings, and these turned out “not bad” with an aperture of f/2.8, shutter speed of 0.5, and ISO 100. I was pretty impressed that a point-and-shoot digital camera could do that well.

Sometime between the set above and the set below, I got a newer camera, a Canon Powershot SX110 IS. It was a little “smarter” than the Fuji camera was, and had some settings I could change, a fact that I didn’t discover for a couple of years. But it got these images down in Gulf Shores, AL. The main disappointment I had with them was that the camera just didn’t process black very well, and on a large screen, the sky looked dark blue instead of a nice black. These used an ISO of 800, and all the images used an aperture of f/4.0 and a shutter speed of 1/8.

Fast forward several years; new camera, still learning the settings, and a last-minute decision to go see fireworks. If you’re trying to shoot pictures of fireworks, it’s a good idea to avoid making settings adjustments in the dark on a fairly new camera. Photographing fireworks is a lot of guesswork for an amateur anyway, because you have to kind of try and predict where in the sky the explosion will happen, and time the shutter to capture it. You have to decide whether you want an instant shot or catching the motion of the fire. You have to hold the camera steady (tripod!–I did have one, and I did use it, and I was glad I did, and it still wasn’t failsafe). Oh, and bring a chair, because you can’t do this standing up and sitting on the sidewalk for half an hour gets less fun as you get older.

I shot 273 images last night. Many were junk, like this one, just plain overexposed. The camera went nuts with whatever setting I set for it in the dark, and just started shooting frames, and the best I could hope for at that point was maybe having the camera pointed in the right place at the right second; this one obviously got a lot of light for a long time. The camera was making the decisions, the ISO was set at 3200, aperture at f/4.0 and shutter speed at 1.3

Some turned out really neat, even though I moved the camera during exposure, like these.

 ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1.3.

The movement of the explosives and the slight movement of the camera made something interesting and useable, but not as an illustration of how to take pictures of fireworks. ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed  1.0.

Each image below tells its own story. ISO 800, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/60

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/50

ISO 2500, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/800

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/60

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/125

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/320

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/60

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/40

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/160

Photographically, this is not a great shot, but it is so dramatic that I love it! ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 0.8

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/100

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/10

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/80

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/20

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/80

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/640

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/160

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/320

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.o, shutter speed 1/25

ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/13

And if I had to pick a favorite, it’d be this one. ISO 3200, aperture f/4.0, shutter speed 1/200

I learned how to use the light meter, and out on a sunny day in downtown Mobile, Alabama, I didn’t get a whole lot of use out of it, but there were some differences I saw. Take a look at these, and I’ll tell you what they were made up of.

These were all taken from the same place, obviously, with different exposure settings. Just for fun, I set the ISO at 800, shutter speed at 1/160, and f/4.  Seriously overexposed, with not much chance for rehabilitation, but I did play with it a little in Photoshop.  The center image used a much lower ISO, at 100, and I sped up the shutter to 1/4000, and the depth of field I took down a little to f/4.5. The depth of field really didn’t make as much of a difference as the ISO did. I just don’t need nearly that much sensitivity on a bright, sunny day.

I turned around the corner of the building and saw three hanging lamps like the red lamp at the end of the building. The power lines and the cars and other buildings keep it from being a really great shot, but I liked the red against the white building and the repetition of the lamps.

The image on the left is just too dark to be of any use, but this was an experiment, so in a way, it was of some use. ISO 100, f/4.5 depth of field (pretty much standard for this lens), 1/4000 shutter speed.  The center image got a little lighter, I slowed the shutter down to 1/2500. The only thing that changed in the rightmost image was a bump down of the shutter to 1/2000, but it made a visible difference.

These last two are my favorites out of the bunch, a little better contrast.

I increased the sensitivity to ISO 200, and kept the shutter speed at 1/2000 for the left shot, and for the one on the right, sped up the shutter to 1/4000.

If the subjects had been more interesting I’d have paid more attention to getting good focus on something, and I still like those red lamps against that white wall. I may have to get a shot of just one.

Now, for the shot that was waaaaaaaay overexposed, I took the raw image and pulled it into my Camera Raw editor before opening it up in Photoshop, and adjusted the exposure digitally, and this is what I came up with:

I added a little saturation to make some of the elements stand out a bit, and it could be kind of an artsy print for some purpose, but it would take a lot of creative work. It almost looks at this point like film negative.

As lovely as this photo is, it’s just not very good. The symmetry of the image and its reflection on the water are nice, but the composition just isn’t great. I think it would have been much better if I had shot it in landscape and moved the treeline either up halfway between where it is now and the top, or down halfway between where it is now and the bottom. The clouds over the left of the image are also pretty heavy, too heavy on one side of the picture. I think I could have played with the exposure in Photoshop and maybe gotten it a little lighter/brighter/more exposed, but the overall colors are nice, and the image does convey the feeling of being out on the Tensaw River at sundown.  There’s no exif data on this because it was shot with my iphone.  Still, it’s a good enough shot to play around with in Photoshop or Gimp.

I had taken some fair shots before, but when I saw this one right after I took it, I was hooked, and I knew I wanted to learn real photography.

I’ve tried many times since then to capture a single drop of water on a leaf or a branch, and I’ve never made it happen. I intend to keep trying.  Here are the details of the image:

Location: Desoto Falls, Alabama

Date: January 1, 2011

Exposure: Auto, no flash

White Balance: Auto

Focal length: 16.1 mm

Aperture: f/3.5

Camera: Canon PowerShot SX110IS