NOVEMBER 2008 NEWSLETTER

Hi

Welcome to this month’s newsletter and apologies for the delay.

The reason that the newsletter has taken its time to get to you is that at the start of the month we experienced a power cut. Although the electricity was only off for about an hour the first thing that I notice when everything powered up again was the lack of Internet.

The problem was not in my premises but outside in the street somewhere. Frantic calls to Virgin proved most unsatisfactory and only after many calls, the ‘net’ came back after a gap of 4 days.

Whilst 4 days is not the end of the world, it is surprising the effect that it had on my life. First of all there were my web sites and Ebay where my customers send in orders and, at the very least, expect a confirmation response within hours. Secondly, I was unable to update my sites, check my bank accounts, or receive emails from customers relating to photographic commissions etc. Finally, just a blank screen meant that I was unable to look things up on Google and other sites, an invaluable tool.

Now, with all the troubles in the world, my lack of Internet does seem insignificant, but I was surprised on the effect that it caused. I have power back-ups, data back-ups and 2 independent telephone networks and so I thought that I was covered, but surely I don’t have to have 2 separate subscriptions to ensure that I get uninterrupted internet.

Anyway, enough of the moan.

I recently bought a new camera, a Nikon D300, in order to ensure that I was getting the technical specifications in Mega Pixel terms that some of my clients demand. Given the fact that my last digital camera, a Nikon D70, was 4 years old, and in today’s terms a comparatively prehistoric model, I expected brilliant results. I had read all the reviews and almost as soon as I bought it, I was asked to take some pictures of an event.

I checked the aperture and auto-focus settings, the film speed and all the other variables that I have dealt with over the years and went off on the shoot. However, I found that I was getting very inconsistent exposure results. A few images were correct, whilst some were very over or under exposed. I even tried taking the same picture a couple of times and go the same varied results. I checked everything over and over and came to the conclusion that there must be a fault with the exposure sensor or the software in the camera. I was on the point of returning the camera when I did one final test in my house.

I put the camera on a tripod and fired off a series of shots at a fixed point on my landing wall. Low and behold, the exposures were indeed all over the place, but I did notice a pattern. In the sequence the exposures stared as too light and went through a range until after 5 pictures, the pictures were very dark. Shot 3, the middle one was correct.

I suddenly twigged; I had the camera on ‘bracketing’, which basically meant that the camera was taking pictures at different exposures. The main use for this is when exposure calculation is difficult, i.e. when taking sunsets. The camera takes a range of exposures and allows you to pick the best one back at base. However, if you are taking pictures of single subjects then it simply takes one picture at each setting and renders many of the shots unusable. So, you would get 1image of 5 different views all at different exposures with only 1 out of 5 correct.

I changed the setting, which must have been set at the factory and now everything is perfect. Just goes to show that even with over 30 years of using SLRs, it always pays to read the manual and run tests before leaving home to take pictures for the first time with a new camera.

I have learnt my lesson, so please don’t make the same mistakes and read the manual – it makes for an easier life in the end.

Anyway, quite a month so far but here’s to the rest of the month and looking towards Christmas.

Cheers

Frazer Ashford ABIPP ARPS