Downsizing
Giving up contracting in London has its pitfalls. Mainly the huge drop in income. This time last year I had not only bought an iBook but an accompanying iPod. This year I am having to hold back on treating myself. Although I have bought a smaller joint birthday and Christmas present of a Sony DSC V1. The same as Mike's. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. It arrived this morning following some confusion.
As Mike said of the addition of photos to his blog:
...hey, it's creative! and with any luck inspirational.
Well, you might be glad to learn you've certainly inspired me Mike. Since I bought my old camera I've slowly gone off it, to the point where I hardly took it out with me. It was just too bulky and took too long to go through the process of taking a photo. I had made the mistake of buying a camera that looked like a real camera. The idea being that if I am paying that much for a camera I want it to look like I did. What a stupid idea that was! Well, thanks to Mike, I'm now the owner of a small camera that I can take anywhere and have a revived interest. All I need to do now is learn how to take photos as well as Mike does...
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Jake,
I have recently brought a couple of issues of the total Digital Photography magazine - {Link} and it has certainly given me some inspiration as well as some very useful advice regarding digital photography and post production on Photoshop and PSP8.
When I first started with my camera I thought it was kind of cheating to use Post production techniques but if you are taking digital photographs then why not embrace the whole craft.
Mark
Thanks Mark. I was in Smith's last week looking at the array of available mags. I didn't buy one in the end as I couldn't decide which one to spend the money on. I'll try this one on your advice.
I too feel like a cheat if I do anything at all to the image. We're going to have to let it slip...
I just got a Minolta Dimage S414, nice camera but so much possibilities...I just use the automatic mode because I didn't found the time to read the f...... manual. Hundreds of pages just to shoot some pictures of my baby?? Anyway maybe you show us some tricks to extremely cool pics:-)
Cheers Jake! Nice to know I inspired someone!
It seems to me that most people treat their digital cameras like traditional film cameras. i.e. they are careful what they take pictures of and do it sparingly (maybe because of small memory cards?).
I do believe that spontaneity can be a huge factor in good photographs and digital can take advantage of this fact. Plus, one of the huge benefits of digital *is* being able to post process the pictures, if you never take advantage of these facts you might as well use film. When you consider the number of filters, lenses, lighting and processing effects used by professional photographers, as long as you use programs like Photoshop sensibly you are only doing what they would do anyway.
I guess the issue is learning how to post process properly and not just apply a bunch of random filters in Photoshop. I have been using Photoshop (and singing its praises) for longer than I have been developing web pages, it's powerful and a useful tool. For example if I want a sharp image I'd be much happier taking a shot at a higher shutter speed knowing it might be underexposed but sharp, because under exposure can be corrected in Photoshop but blurring can't (easily).
Good luck with the v1 (and PS CS)!
Cheers Mike. I'm just about to go out on the bike with it and see what I can come up with. Makes me wish I still lived in London. You're spoilt by your surroundings. Sunderland it anything but inspiring. I will have to make do with nature...