Little Things..

/in , ,

So, tonight I thought I’d have a quiet night in and do a few flower Macros.

There was a particular shot I’d done a while back that I quite liked but which was really not good enough for my RPS panel so I thought I’d take another stab at it. Shouldn’t be a long job, or that’s what I thought until I imported a few test shots into Lightroom. The trouble is with Macro is the distinct lack of depth-of-field so I was stopped right down to f/25 at 1s exposure, focusing with macro rails and firing with an wired remote to avoid camera shake (I’ll post a setup shot later to illustrate). At that aperture you’ll see every imperfection and suffice to say the sensor dust that just wasn’t visible in normal use looked something like the surface of mars. So, time to break out the sensor swabs and give it a quick clean.

I know lots of people are twitchy about touching their sensor, and if you’re one of those then please leave it well alone and take your camera to a service centre and have them do it for you. It will probably only cost about £25 which is less than buying a set of swabs, However, if like me you’ve got a reasonably steady hand then honestly there’s really nothing to worry about. It’s a pretty painless operation and the solutions and swabs from Photographic Solutions are excellent.

For my Bristol chums, you can get the swabs and solutions from Bristol Cameras. You’ll need to make sure you get the right size for your camera, it’s usually the type-2 for cropped sensors and type 3 for full frame but if in doubt check on the website I linked above.

The above pic was *before* I cleaned the sensor, but what you can’t see there are the 100+ spots I’d already cleaned up in Lightroom.

I’ll post some more later :)

Ooh crikey…

/in ,

.. I’ve just realised it’s only three weeks to go until I’ve got to present my panel to the Royal Society!

For those who don’t already know, I’ve applied to be considered for a Royal Society distinction. Just the first level or ‘Licentiateship’ for now. This first level is a pretty thorough assessment of your technical proficiency and involves the presentation of a panel of ten images which are then scrutinised by a panel of five expert judges, all of whom are themselves Fellows of the Royal Society. *gulp* I’d love to brazen it out and say I’m not worried but to be honest I’m bricking it!

I’ve spent most of this evening trying to narrow down my final selection and it’s a lot harder than I’d thought it would be when I first applied. It’s not so much the selection of individual shots that’s hard but more the way they need to sit together as a cohesive panel..

I figure the only way I’ll really nail it is to get a lot of the candidates printed up at the size I need them and narrow them down as finished prints. So, time to melt the plastic and just go for it.

I do own a mat cutter but having found my initial experiments to be quite frustrating I’ve also decided to let the experts deal with the cutting and so I’m getting my mounts cut to size by the people at http://www.picturelizard.co.uk. Works out cheaper that way too!