Framedlight

Still going with the infrared theme, I visited Chartwell a little while ago while Alan was riding in a London cycle event. I could have wished for better light as it was overcast and dull and I could not go in the house as I had the Hettie dog with me. The following are taken using the Nikon D800e and the 24mm PCE lens. I rather like mixing the monochrome and the colour together to give muted tones and a degree of blur where the foliage has moved in the wind during the infrared shot. For comparison I am posting the infrared images, converted to black and white and the combined monotone and colour ones.

I have bought three infrared filters, of different wavelengths for my camera and as most of my lenses on the Nikon camera are 77mm it is fairly easy to use the filters on any of them. With the zoom lenses I get a hotspot in the centre of the picture, as I have found with the Fuji XE-1 system where I only have the 18-55mm zoom lens. Fuji lenses are really expensive and I would like to add some primes but am reluctant to buy in fully to two systems. If I went travelling again I might consider it as there is such an advantage to a small camera if you are trekking. The first 4 pictures are infrared with a 720mm filter using the Fuji and minimising the hotspot in Lightroom. They are of Arkesden church and my house. The last 3 are using the Nikon with again a 720nm filter and my 24mm tilt shift lens which is manual and leaves no hotspot whatsoever. They are a combination of IR and colour images, produced in Photoshop and just of the local countryside.

Hastings is a great place for photography and on Monday we spent our time in the area around the pier and the fishing boats. The boats were buzzing with activity and were being hauled onto the shingle and being spruced up. I had gone as part of a workshop concentrating on  alternative in-camera effects. I had taken with me a pinhole lens, a Holga lens and a Lensbaby and we also worked with multiple exposure and intentional camera movement. Here are a few of the pictures I took with the Holga lens, a cheap plastic thing (I bought mine in a Nikon fit, secondhand for £15.00). It fits on the digital camera and can sort of be focussed using little symbols for one person, several people, mountains etc as a guide. I found that it produced some rather nice pictures of the boats, rather like illustrations for childrens books. The last picture is a multiple exposure as well.

The Thames Path leads round from Limehouse to Wapping, occasionally diverting inland. I passed Shadwell basin, an interesting, rather rundown area close by the Prospect of Whitby public house. By the time I got to Wapping station I was quite tired and pleased to get on the train. The pictures were taken with the Nikon 24mm tilt shift or 16-35mm G zoom lens. I think I may convert some of these to black and white, which will suit the subject more

I was looking for a good place to shlep my new 24mm Nikon tilt shift lens. Looking on Canary Wharf's website they state that they allow photography, with tripods as long as they cause no nuisance, if you are doing it as an amateur. Duly I turned up and set up in front of one of the buildings. Before the shutter clicked a burly security man was telling me to move along. I pointed out the website but he was adamant that one could not photograph any reception areas, doorways or cameras. I thought I would cut my losses and moved to another location and stood well away from any entrances. Again security came up to me, this one had more of a sense of humour. I protested that if I was a terrorist I might be taking pictures with my phone rather than doing it so conspicuously. He agreed and more or less said that I was just an easy target. He offered to tell other security people that I was operating in the area and to let me get on with it. This obviously did not work as at the third lo...

I was lucky enough to get a tilt shift lens for Christmas. I have a Nikon system and for some reason Nikon supplies the lens with the tilt and shift aligned at 90°. The lens needs to be sent back to Nikon who, for the princely sum of £160 will re-align it so that the tilt and shift are in the same plane. I read that I was supposed to do this in order to get the lens to work properly for landscape photography, although my idea as to why was shaky. Now I have the lens back it makes a little more sense, but I will have to do a lot of work in order to use it correctly. The main problem using the lens with the D800 is that the locking knob for the shift, when the lens has been rotated (the front of the lens can be rotated in relation to the back of the lens), lies directly under the popup flash which makes it difficult to adjust. Fortunately I have fairly small hands. I would strongly advise not to use this lens when out with a non photographer as they will get really, really impatient. ...

I took the dog and the camera for a walk in Wandlebury on the outskirts of Cambridge - a piece of natural woodland surrounding an 18th century house (now turned into residences). I am still experimenting with the 24mm tilt shift lens so the following are taken with that. The first was taken at f/3.5, the third at f/16 and the other two at f/8. It was fairly dark in the woods so I used a tripod.