The mother of all zooms!
Tue Mar 20th - 9:14am
I thought the longest production lens was the Canon 1200mm f/5.6 but I learned today that Nikon once made a 1200-1700mm zoom! Surprisingly it matched the f/5.6 at the 'short' end, and even at the long end it only dropped to f/8. Manual focus unfortunately. I found out about it from an advert by a guy who's selling one and he didn't want the link passed around, but here's a page with some more info:
The guy who wrote that page comments about it being the most expensive lens for 35mm SLRs, but if I'm not mistaken the Canon prime retailed at $80,000 while the Nikon zoom retailed at $75,000. The second-hand zoom is going for $40,000 and amazingly the seller also owns the Canon prime!
Of course both lenses pale in comparison to the Carl Zeiss 1700mm f/4 which was recently built to order, reportedly for a specialist wildlife photographer in Qatar, with the price tag rumoured to be somewhere around a million dollars.
Anti-war protest
Sat Mar 17th - 9:44pm
It would take acres of text to explain the background to today's adventure so let's skip all of that and start at 2:30pm with me sitting in an Inverness hotel sorting through photos of a small anti-war protest that had just finished.
With a 90-minute deadline imposed by the bus timetable, I picked out 10 photos, captioned them and sent them on their merry way to the BBC, only to find that the hotel's wireless connection was running slow. When the e-mail finally finished sending I got an error message from Gmail saying that it was too large. The sent messages list showed that it had gone but the final photo had been removed, so I sent that separately and legged it to catch the early bus home.
As I got on the bus I had a nagging feeling that the first e-mail wouldn't have actually gone, so I got off the bus and headed back to the hotel. Sure enough when I went back online there was a failure notice. I sent the photos again in two e-mails, five pics each. Back to the bus station and away home.
There was an e-mail waiting for me when I got home saying that the single image had got through okay but none of the others had. There was already a brief report up on the BBC Scotland site (here) with the one picture that had got through, and I think it's the best human-interest picture so it all worked out well in the end.
This is the picture that was used:
This is the one I had expected to be used but looking at it now the one with the kid was the clear choice. I was going for dramatic lighting with this one but it just looks like a bad flash snapshot…
Here's the rest of the set:
Hi-def video stills
Wed Mar 14th - 7:15pm
Ever thought of swapping your still camera for an HD video camera and grabbing frames? Kirk Mastin has posted some frames from a hi-def Canon XH A1 and the quality is really quite impressive. Note that the frames on Kirk's site are only 1600 pixels wide but the XH A1 can capture at 1920×1080 pixels.
Alness vs Bunillidh
Sat Mar 10th - 11:38pm
Not a great haul from today's match which Alness won 5-0 at home against Bunillidh. For part of the second half I was experimenting with a new idea so my mind wasn't on the action, but the rest of the time I was giving it 100% and simply not getting the shots. I really need to do better than this if I'm going to do the bigger sports jobs. Best 'story' pic in my opinion is the top-right one as it sums up the match, which was dominated by Alness.
dg28.com relaunched
Sat Mar 10th - 12:06pm
I think it's fair to say that David Hobby's Strobist is the current #1 site for creative editorial lighting, but for a long time that title was held by Neil Turner's dg28.com which has just been relaunched after lying dormant for a while. Neil is a staff photographer with the Times Educational Supplement.
Unfortunately the archive pages are gone. According to Neil: "Too many people whose pictures were on the site have asked for their images to be withdrawn to make it worth keeping the archive alive." (Boo! Hiss!) But he's now updating the site with new tutorials. (Hurrah!)
Football grant: Measuring up!
Fri Mar 9th - 4:32am
Time for the next instalment of the football grant photo story.
A dark, cold and rainy Tuesday night saw four of us make our way up to the pitch to take measurements of the changing rooms and showers. (I was only taking photos, the other three did all the work.)
For this part of the story I wanted two photos:
Firstly, a basic shot of the showers as an illustration of why the facilities need upgrading, ie: There are only seven showers for two football teams. I did find a few angles that allowed me to get all seven showers in frame, but I've settled on this shot that shows most of the showers plus the door into one of the changing rooms.
Secondly I wanted a shot of Gordy, Ross and Jean all hard at work. I've got a few to choose from but each photo has strengths and weaknesses so I'm not going to make a final decision just yet. Here are the ones I'm considering.
These shots of Ross measuring the showers and a changing room are my favourites due to strong compositions and good light, but obviously they only show one person so I think that will rule them out.
These shots of Gordy and Ross would be the best candidates if it wasn't for the fact that the next part of the project is to have a professional architect do a scale drawing, and I'm intending to get a shot of her doing that. If I used one of these photos then the final set would have two photos with a similar theme.
So I'll probably have to go with one of these last two. The first one clearly illustrates people taking measurements, and the second one shows all three people. Technically and artistically these are my least favourite shots but they are the best illustrations of what I was trying to show.
Wildcat leaves Invergordon (updated)
Wed Mar 7th - 4:41pm
Had a lucky break today…
I had an hour to kill in Invergordon so I took a walk down to the refabrication yard and noticed that there was still a drilling platform there. I knew from the BBC's coverage that the last one, Wildcat, was meant to have left a few days ago so I asked a security guard what was going on and he told me that it was leaving today after being delayed by bad weather. And right that very second, off it went!
So realising that my best chance of a good photo was from the pier, I legged it round there (quite a distance) and made it just as the rig was going past. I only had a wide lens with me so I looked for shots with something in the foreground, and I couldn't have asked for a better prop than a lifebelt with Invergordon written on it!
An hour later I got home, fired off an e-mail to the Highlands reporter at the BBC to let him know the pics were on the way, picked out the four best ones, quickly processed them and sent them in. Not sure when the story's going to be up on the site but I assume this is the pic he'll use.
Update: The story's up here but with one of the other pics. I'll leave this one here though because it's my own favourite.
7 March 2007: The Essar Wildcat drilling platform leaves Invergordon for India, a journey that will take around three months. The departure had been delayed by several days due to bad weather. Wildcat is the last platform to leave the Cromarty Firth in the Scottish Highlands where drilling rigs are stored while not in use. The lack of rigs in the Firth is a good indication that the oil and gas industries are currently strong.
Link of the day
Tue Mar 6th - 3:23pm
Trivia: In a drag race between the McLaren F1 and the Bugatti Veyron sports cars, even if the McLaren reached 120mph before the Bugatti left the starting line, the Bugatti would still be first to hit 200mph.
That's assuming you don't slam your £800,000 Bugatti into a tree.
Alternative meeting photo
Tue Mar 6th - 2:55pm
I knew I'd end up changing my mind.
The reason I rejected this photo at first is that it was taken after one of the committee members had left, but after consideration I do think it's a stronger picture than the original choice. It looks more like something is being thrashed out and everyone means business, rather than just a group of people having a chat.
Football club grant project
Tue Mar 6th - 1:19am
Last night I began a personal project that is likely to continue for the next year or so. When I say personal project I mean that I'm just doing it because I want to do it, not for a publication, although if it goes well then I will pitch it somewhere. I doubt it will go further than the village newsletter though.
The idea is to document a grant-funded project from beginning to end. I'm on my local football club committee and we're applying for money to improve the facilities at our ground. Last night we met with the person who is advising us and helping to put the wheels in motion. I'm planning to document every step of the process, from the meetings to the drawing-up of plans, from the first bit of work done at the ground to the improvements being finalised.
For most people the first they'll know of this project will be when they arrive at the ground sometime next year and see the new facilities. My photo project, which should produce a finished story of 12-15 images, will document all the time and effort that goes into actually getting the work done.
The point isn't to produce stunning photos. Nothing arty. This is meant to be purely documentary, illustrated with fly-on-the-wall style images.
Here's the photo I've chosen to represent tonight's meeting:
Here are some that I considered as alternatives. (Is it just me or do these unprocessed jpegs look better than the processed raw conversion above?! Can't make up my mind.)
All taken with the 1D and 17-40 f/4L at 1/40s, f/4, ISO 3200.
