After the Shutter

It's hard to keep a blog alive, but while I'm learning and while it's still fun I'll continue. 

So, what to write about? Keeping with the general subject matter of Camera stuff I'm thinking  about what happens to my pictures after they are in the camera. Lot's of possibilities.  The simplest is direct uploading to a web site like Apples "Photostream"  This can be done by the camera or phone without human intervention. I am not sure how all this works, but what I dislike is that all pictures go with no selection on my part.  So when I take 10 pictures in burst mode of a bird in flight, all ten pictures go. The photostream is completely unorganized and would not be of interest to many people, not even myself.

Next up is so called amateur photo editing software, Apples iPhoto and Picasa are examples. This is what I use.  I download from the camera to iPhoto all pictures. I immediately discard the junk, mistakes, obviously poor quality,  boring etc. photos.  The remainder I might sort or just leave in the iPhoto library. 

If I decide for some reason to use a photo I edit it.  That may be as simple as a crop or more complicated with color adjustments, exposure adjustments or more.  

Another thing I've been doing lately is crating something different with the photo using say, Image Tricks or Sketchmee.  

Here are some examples:

Cyrus

James Larson

Jenny

Beatrice

Leif

Another possibility is editing with a "Professional" program which means Adobe Photoshop or Apple's Aperture. I've used Photoshop Elements and have watched demos of Photoshop itself, but cannot see the use of such complicated programs.  I guess if one is a professional photographer, submitting to a magazine there might be some use. 

 I once watched a professional demonstrate how to tweak with Photoshop this and that in a photo of Alcatraz and the SF bay.  It took him a half hour or more to get it just the way he wanted it, but for the life of me I couldn't see how the finished product was any better.  It was different, but in my opinion, not better. Anyway, take a good picture to start with and there is no need to alter it. 

Why Take A Photo?

Why Take A Photo?

There are almost as many reasons to snap a picture as there are people to push the shutter release. Most obvious is to show something to someone. But, will it be shown on the web, in a photo album, in a print on a wall, in a newsletter, some other dead tree publication, or all of the above? Must it stand alone or be part of a collection, group or set? Is it to create emotion or to do something more literal?

Other, not so obvious, reasons to push that shutter release is to force yourself to learn a new skill or perhaps to train yourself to see different things or old things in new ways.  There are people who don't care about the picture at all, but the act of seeing what to take is enough.  It opens their minds and eyes and who cares about the viewers.

Now with all that in mind I'll show some pictures taken for different purposes. These days I take bird photos mostly. I take them to improve my birding skills and so I will enjoy nature more.  I could never hope to make great and unique pictures that others would flock to see.  There are too many experts and their equipment is so good (and expensive), that I would be very lucky to get such a photo. Here are 2 pictures taken on walks. I may have never identified or even seen the American Goldfinch or the Sandpiper if I had not been taking pictures. 

….

Here are more examples of pictures taken, not for the sake of display, but just because. I have a relative that has over 40,000 pictures posted on Flickr.  He carries his camera everywhere and constantly pulls it out, be he shopping or dog walking or visiting relatives. He almost never edits and he seldom holds back because of errors like out-of-focus. Here is a link to some of his public Flickr account. Look for yourself.

Eli's Flickr Link 

  What are his motives?

A Useful Book

In my experience books from Peach Pit Press are the best how-to tech publications around.  They specialize in Apple products, but are not exclusively Apple.  So when I saw, Canon Powershot G12, From Snapshots to Great Shots by Jeff Carlson was a Peach Pit book and that it was general purpose enough to work with the Power Shot SX 50 I bought it. I highly recommend it. 

In the introduction Jeff says: 

"The owner's manual is a great resource that covers every feature of your camera. Writing a book that just repeats this information would have been a waste of my time and your money. What I did want to write about was how to harness certain camera features to the benefit of your photography."

The book is full of topics like "Selecting the Proper ISO." or "Manual Focus For Anticipated Action." 

It's not surprising that the Powershot G12 and the Powershot SX 50 have nearly the same features and menus. They are both Canon products and are designed for the same customer, that is the person who wants more than a basic point and shoot and less than an expensive SLR.

Following is an example of how the book can help. 

Below are two shots of a very cold squirrel.  The first is OK.  It was taken on "Auto" mode.  The second I think is better.  Using the advice from Jeff's book.  I switched to "P" mode and there was able to darken the image by going down one F stop.  This makes the backlight on the fur stand out more.  It was the back lighting that drew my attention in the first place. 

 In the book Jeff says there is a reason the "P' mode is right next to the "Auto" mode on the selection wheel.  "It offers choices and control that none of [the automatic modes] can deliver." That to me is useful info.

All in all.  I recommend this book as a useful addition to the camera.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon.

Here I will publish a little about my camera.  It is not an SLR type camera, though it looks like one, only much smaller. It is a Canon Power Shot SX 50 HS.  One of a new breed of "super zoom" so called point and shoots. It does not have an interchangeable lens and it does not have the larger image censors of the larger cameras.  It does however shoot "raw' It has many advanced features, the best of which is a stabilized 50X zoom.  That is equivalent to a 1200 mm focal length on a 35 mm. Most of the folks with the big fancy NIkons and Canons have no more that a 400 mm zoom, even if they spent thousands of dollars. Here are some pictures of the camera.

The camera is really full-featured.  Note the optical viewfinder and the accessory hot shoe.  It has almost every kind of control one could think of.  I'm finding it fun to use the burst mode of 13 shot/sec. That is good for flying birds.  Sport mode is much slower at about 2 shot/sec

There is much more to tell and I want to talk about a marvelous book I found that is actually about a different Canon camera, but is very useful for the SX50

I'm going to look around for some reviews and such on the web and hopefully put the links in here:

Link to Canon site and full description

Link to downloadable PDF manual (300 pages)

If you double click on the photos you will be able to see a full size image with full details.

This is an American Kestrel

This is a Red-shouldered hawk

This is a Golden-Crowned Sparrow

A Link to hear my voice. I hope.

This is still all a test.  I'm trying to see how Blogger works and how the templates get applied.  I can't figure out how to put stuff on the right side of the blog page.  What goes there?  Also where do I change templates.