Wind Turbine Poem, Our Wind Turbine
Ballybay Wind Farm, Tullaroan, county Kilkenny
Wind Turbine Poem
Our Wind Turbines
The propeller is always spinning,
Turning like the world.
With the wind it creates energy,
Makes a sound in motion.
It is environmentally friendly,
And the wind soars through the skies.
A source of power is at work,
And leaves a warm feeling inside.
Our turbine is very tall,
The wind blows in my face,
The sound the machine creates,
Will reach the furthest place.
It helps save parts of nature,
The sound rings loud and clear,
It keeps our land clean and neat,
Good energy is right here.
CERES Community in the Environment
Ballybay Wind Farm, Tullaroan, County Kilkenny
Nigel Borrington
Images from the top of “The Reek” “Croagh Patrick”
Croagh Patrick
The Reek
County Mayo
Nigel Borrington 2018
This time last week during a weeks holiday to both counties Sligo and Mayo, in the norths west of Ireland, we hiked up Croagh Patrick or “The reek” as locals know of it. This mountain is one of Irelands Highest peeks and is most famous for being climbed by pilgrims on Reek Sunday every year, which is the last Sunday of each July. On this Sunday, thousands of pilgrims climb Croagh Patrick in honor of Saint Patrick who, according to tradition, fasted and prayed on the summit for forty days in the year 441.
It has been a personal aim to walk the peeks of a list of mountains in Ireland for a couple of years and “The Reek” is just one of these mountains to hike in the next couple of years.
The weather on the day was perfect and we started our walk about Midday having driven some 80km to the main car park used to start the hike. The start of the walk is good, being flat for a while and then only slowly rising in level, so you get a little time to warmup before the main slopes higher up the mountain side. Once you hike the first slopes the path levels off for a while until you come to the bottom of the main peek.
I really enjoyed this hike, its hard – no getting away from that fact but when you do finally get to the top the views are amazing, you can see most of county Mayo and well into county Sligo from here. there is a step that surrounds a small chapel that you can sit on to eat and have something to drink. We rested here for about 10 mins before walking around the top of the peek.
As you can see these images below are mostly taken at the top, when I finally go to open my bag and get my camera out. As I said you truly feel on top of the world here, this point is some 764 metres (2,507 ft) above sea level, not the highest mountain in the country by about 250 meters but here you start your walk at sea level so it could well be the highest distance you have to walk to get to the top…..
I will let these images do the rest of the talking for me other than to say , this is one of the most enjoyable walks of my life and I cannot wait to walk more Irish mountains in the months yo come ..
Croagh Patrick, County Mayo, A gallery
Film Photography: Ilford XP2 Super, samples and review .
Film Photography
Ilford xp2 super
ISO 400 35mm film
Nikon F90x
Nigel Borrington
In yesterdays post I talked a little about how film based photograph is now back a big way! with many of the film manufacturers having over the last few years seen a big jump in their sales figures. Many films that had disappeared from the photography market have now started to be produced again, Kodak are event about to re-introduce their world famous Ektachrome film, a high resolution positive film used at a commercial level of photography in the past.
It is now possible for the first time in many years to get online and purchase any type or speed of film, from Colour to Black and white, ISO 50 to ISO 3200
. This is a big opportunity for film loves to regain long lost skills, such as black and white film processing at home, setting up a dark room studio using chemical based film processing and printing. If this is not for you however, you can still opt for just purchasing the type of film you want to try out and once you have exposed your full roll, you can send it in the post to processors such as Lomography, who process any type of film for about the same price as it cost way back in the original film days.
One film I always love using was Ilfords XP2 Super, ISO 400, black and white film, Its a C41 processed film which is the same processing methods used with colour films. This film can be exposed at camera ISO setting between 50 to 800 as described in the instructions that come in the box, ISO 400 is the optimum setting but if the film is exposed at setting that overexpose the film, the film grain visible on the final prints will be much reduced. If you do play around with your ISO setting, you have to remember that with film you have to specify to your development lab that you did so and tell them what ISO Setting you exposed the roll of film at, also unlike digital for each of the 24 or 36 exposures on your roll of film you have to stay with the same ISO setting all the way through the roll.
ILFORD XP2 Super PDF
Like all rolls of film, XP2 Super has its own grain look and texture, you can see from the image below that the grain is very visible in the more well lighted areas on the frame. Its not unpleasant and adds lots of character to the image, this is an ISO 400 film after all and as such perfect for use indoors.
Ilford XP2 Super – Sample images, scanned using a Minolta Dimage Elite film scanner
Shooting Square, Lake Windermere, Lake District, UK
One reason I love shooting Landscape images with square format prints and images in mind for the final results is that your images get closer to your subjects, you loose lots of details in the frame that you mostly do not need.
These images are taken at Lake Windermere in the Lake District and I feel that their square format helps in capturing this great place in a truly focused and closer way.
welcome to the World of Visual Inspiration!
.
As someone with a love of visual imagery I am alway looking for inspiration, something we all need. There are some wonderful and creative movies being produced these days, yet! if you just watch ordinary TV you will never get to see any of them. The world of main stream TV is only interested in endless and mindless soap operas and reality shows, useless and the death of creativity!
I spend a lot of time these days watching movies shared on Vimeo.com , this is a world of pure creativity, modern and open minded.
So this post id just to share one of the places you can find new ideas and get you creativity flowing again 🙂
welcome to the world of NOWNESS …..
Check out https://vimeo.com/mikeolbinski channel for a great example 🙂
Seven day Photo Challenge : Time in the rivers flow
The flow of the river and time
Nigel Borrington
Black and white landscapes
Seven day Black and white photo challenge : The Water wheel – faster and faster
Mullins mill water wheel
Black and white photo challenge
Nigel Borrington
Capturing the old water wheel at Mullins Mill, Kells, county Kilkenny , using different shutter speeds ……
Tamron SP 500mm f8 Reflex lens, a review of Mirror lenses
Tarmon SP 500mm F8 Mirror Lens, Real world review
When you make a start in the world of Photography, Sooner or later you will want to own a dedicated Long Telephoto lens. These lenses offer the ability to get some great images in the world of (Landscape, Wildlife, Portrait and Sports) Photography.
Fixed focus (None Zoom) Telephoto lenses come in many focus lengths, but the most usable are 200mm to 600mm, depending on how much magnification of distant subjects and objects you need. The cost of these lenses my surprise many starting photography and to be honest even many long term photographers, they can start in price range from around €800 and end up way into the many €1000’s.
There is however an alternative option with this type of lens, this being to look at what are called Reflex or Mirror Lenses. These kind of lenses replace some of the glass elements within their construction with two Mirrors both used to fold the light entering the front glass element in much the same way as a reflex telescope does.
i.e. NASA uses this method in the Hubble space telescope that has produced some amazing ground braking images of the cosmos.
Third party and OEM Camera manufactures started making these lenses in the 1970’s and continued through to the 1990’s, today mostly only third party lenses are available. The quality of these Early OEM/Third party – mirror lenses was very high, even second hand some of these lenses can set you back some €300 to €800 on ebay, even today in 2017.
Nikkor Reflex Lenses at 500mm, 1000mm and 2000mm
I purchased a Reflex lens made by Tamron (500mm SP F8) way back in 1988 and in this post I just wanted to share my thoughts on some of its upsides and some of its downsides.
To be honest, I have not used this lens very much, for two main reasons.
Firstly : at 500mm and with an lens aperture of F8 it needs to be Tripod or at the very least mono pod mounted in order to create very sharp images. This maybe a little unfair as this is true for most long lenses but Nikon VR lenses are so good at helping go handheld!
Secondly : these lenses have one very different down side to that of refactor (Glass only) lenses, they produce a doughnut ring effect on bright out of focus objects or even just areas in the image that have a bright, lighting than the darker areas around them. I have included some examples at the bottom of the posts images below.
With the first point above, today in 2017 with the high ISO abilities of SLR cameras such as the Nikon D7200 and D750, this issue has been made redundant to a great extent! When this Tamron lens was produced, 35mm film could only produce clean images at a rating of no more than ISO 400.
Today the Nikon D7200 can work very well between ISO 3200 and 6400 with very little help from good noise cleaning software in post processing, this up-rates the usable shutter speeds for hand held work for even a lens of 500mm at f8, letting you work handheld more than ever before !
Remembering that even on a DX sensor slr, you need for some 750mm (X 1.5 DX factor!) to keep a shutter speed of 1/800th to 1/1000th to create fully stable images, If you have a steady hand. Even on a cloudy day ISO 1600 gives a shutter speed of around 1/1600th and ISO 1600 on a D7200 is little to worry about! noise wise. It is for this reason that I am starting thinking of trying using this lens again.
For the rest of this post and review of the lens, I will let the following images do the talking, with a small amount of comments made in each of the related image types.
Tarmon SP 500mm F8 Mirror Lens – sharpness and quality
To test for the image sharpness and quality I placed the camera on a tripod, I don’t use a remote release, so there could be some small effects but all in all these are sharp images.
You can see from the below image that this lens can produce some very sharp images under the correct conditions, its just as good as some much more expensive glass only lenses from Nikon.
I have no worries here and would be very happy in trusting this lens to produce sharp images from corner to corner of the frame.
Above : Nikon D7200 with Tamron SP 500mm Mirror lens, Tripod Mounted
As image sharpness has been tested above, what about color fringing and other detects, color fringing is visible in an image at bright edges in the frame, so I used the wires and other equipment on the telegraph post in this image, I see no fringing Green, blue or otherwise in this image.
So again I would trust this lens to produce sharp and clean images that need little or no post processing to clean them up later.
Using the lens – in the Landscape
The following images speak for themselves, just general landscapes and animal images from medium focus distance subject to long distance landscapes, the town and wind farm in the last landscape is some 8km away from the location of taking the image, crazy!. Again its sharp enough taking into account the haze of the atmosphere, no color fringing problems in the wind turbines.
With the main set of images here, I am less happy with the out of focus effects as the bokeh of this lens is not great!, anything bright and a little out of focus (i.e. The grass!) takes on a distracted look, feeling tangled and distracting with the image smoothness, Most noticeable in the two images of the sheep sitting down.
Those Doughnuts !! OMG!
As you can see from the photo of this lens sitting in my camera bag at the top of the post, a mirror lens is constructed very much like a reflecting telescope, like this diagram :
Mirror lens
Physical construction
You can see that the center of the front glass element is used to hold the housing for the smaller secondary mirror in the construction, that folds the image light back down the lens and into the camera.
This system works amazingly well but for one problem!
For in-focus areas of an image the central lens obstruction is never visible, however for brighter areas of an image that are out of focus this central obstruction created by the secondary mirror housing, created a bright doughnut effect.
In the below images this is very clear!
The light gaps in the trees below turn into bright cycles, the rain on the table in the background focus also does the same.
In some images you can work around this effect and even use it as an interesting advantage?, you just have to get to know when this kind of lens is and is not usable !!!
For the most when you have a subject that has the potential to create this circle effect ! it just distracting and not likeable. This is the point at which the little price you paid to get a budget Telephoto lens €300 not €2000 starts to gets you back !!!
Getting Arty , MayBe?
Like any camera lens, Mirror lenses have their down sides (Slow, bright Cirles, Manual focus, etc …), you just have to get to know these features and ether use them to your advantage or don’t !!!
Some people love the bright rings and make good use of them 🙂 , one use could be nighttime street photography ?
So then ?
So if your looking for a cheep way to get a telephoto lens into your camera bag, a Mirror lens is well worth looking at in my own opinion. Don’t expect to work quickly with them or be lazy in your approach, however – but then most telephoto lenses need hard work to get good images, with a mirror lens you just have to add a little on top!
In the end, just like with all of your image making, you get out what you put in !!!!
Will I take this lens out more than I have? Maybe ! most likely not !! Watch this space ?
If I was starting again with few lenses and wanted a low budget long lens, would I get a Mirror lens , Hell YES !!! , With Great high ISO SLR’s even more so !!!
Sometimes the harder you have to work to get good images , the more you learn !!!!
Also see : Mirror Lenses – how good? Tamron 500/8 SP vs Canon 500/4.5L, a older review, ISO has moved a long way since this article but its a great comparison test (€300 Tamron v €2000+ Canon).
Nikon AF-d 50mm f1.4 Prime lens, one lens all day …..
Tramore Strand
One lens all day
Nikon AF-d 50mm f1.4
Nigel Borrington
Irish Landscapes
Its easy to think that the best lens to spend a full day of Photography with would be a zoom lens, however my favorite and most respected lenses are all prime lenses(fixed focus lenght lenses).
One of my most respected and trusted lens is my Nikon 50mm f1.4, its fast , can work very well in low light and even at 75mm on my DX D7200 body (50mm on an FX) it makes me think in a very creative way. You have to frame you shots well before you click the shutter button, I find this much more creative that just walking around and zooming in and out at everything 🙂 although this can be a very fun experience.
While you need a zoom lens in order to make sure you can capture some subjects, Prime lenses make you think about the subject you want to capture!
So what kind of images can you produce if you only take one lens with you , A 50mm Prime?
Nikon AF-d 50mm f1.4 Gallery
These images from yesterday include a morning walk and then an evening walking alone the strand at Tramore, County Waterford
Monday Poetry , A Buttercup Tale – Poem by sylvia spencer
The Buttercup Poem Nigel Borrington Nature Photography
A Buttercup Tale –
Poem by sylvia spencer
I know of a buttercup with a story to tell
and I can honestly say there has never been a
story told so well. A pretty buttercup so wild and free
once made friends with an old oak tree but sadly the
tree was cut down and little Miss butercup wore a frown;
she still bows her head in the summer sun because she
feels sad about what was done.
She then lived next door to a tall fox glove and she thought
in her heart that he had fallen in love, because he sheltered her
from rain all summer long and in the wind and rain he is
so brave and strong.
Sadly the foxglove did not feel the same and the buttercups
heart was jilted again.
On into the meadows she moved once more hoping that life
would be better than before. It was here she met the Dandelion
a real good catch and now they live together on the farmers
cabbage patch.
sylvia spencer
Irish Photographer Francis Browne and his lucky escape from the RMS Titanic …..
Francis Browne’s pictures of the Titanic
April 14th 1912
Francis Browne’s Finest Pictures
In 1985 an Edward O’Donnell was searching in the basement at the Irishjesuit Provincial’s House when he came across a large black metal trunk, in it he found a large colletion of negative albums, photographs and most amazingly of all an album containing photographs of Titanic’s voyage.
All these photographs were the work of Francis Browne who died in 1960 and was almost forgotten by this time. Subsequent investigations revealed he had enjoyed worldwide fame in 1912 when his photographs of the Titanic’s journey to Cobh were published worldwide. He had travelled first class to Cobh having been given a ticket by his uncle Robert Browne, Bishop of Cloyne. His remarkable pictures proved to be unique.
So it was that Frank was presented with a first class ticket for the Maiden Voyage of the Titanic to bring him as far as Cobh. The morning of the 12th.April 1912 he arrived at Waterloo Station in London to catch the Titanic Special. He immediately started taking photographs, first recording the train journey and then life aboard the Titanic on the initial section of the voyage. Having made friends with a wealthy American family he was offered a ticket for the remaining part of the journey and no doubt excitedly telegraphed a request for permission to go on to New York, to which he received the terse response “Get Off That Ship——Provincial!” That telegram not only saved Frank’s life but also meant that this unique record of the voyage was saved for posterity and guaranteed overnight fame for Frank Browne.
Browne later described the event as “the only time holy obedience saved a man’s life.”
“Get Off That Ship——Provincial!” – I guess many have wondered about this instruction ? , its almost prophetic in its nature – I guess we will never know how or why it was such a strong and clear order . I think it relates to the fact that while many embraced the new-world of 1912 technology, many also stood in fear of it and in this case clearly for good reason.
Frank Browne , April 1912 – Titanic Gallery
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night – Poem by : Dylan Thomas
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Photography : Nigel Borrington
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
By : Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
50 + Landscape images of Ireland : Happy St Patricks Day !
Happy St Patricks day everyone 🙂 🙂
Below I have posted lots of images from the last few years, all Landscape images of this great Island of Ireland !
St Particks day 2015, an Irish Landscape Gallery
How do people see Photography, Commercial or Creative?
Commercial or Creative Photography ?
How do people see Photography and creativity?
During my time here, in the WordPress blogging community the one thing I have loved the most is to see images and posts from around the planet. It is an amazing thing, how quickly you can take this for granted but this is a very recent ability!!
Before the internet with its blogs, you had to visit a book shop and look for international photography publications in order to to see images from other places around the world. These images however as a standard were highly processed and you only got to see a hand full of photographers images.
Personally I have been taking photographs for most of my life and I feel I have a reasonably good idea how this medium can be used, yet its only in recent times that I have attempted to earn some money from images, working with weddings, commercial agencies with landscape images for commercial purposes. I think the oddest job I have been asked to do is to be working in the castle at Enniscorthy, taking pictures of some 7000 historic Irish items from photographs to physical items that go back many years.
As an outsider, attempting to make a living in a small Irish town has not been the most simple of tasks, I have ever taken on in my life, I could tell a story or two for sure ( Things said and done!! ) but I move on very quickly – simple as that !!! 🙂
I think that the factors I have found to be the most limiting are in the way that local people see the subject of photography itself , photography as a medium locally here is mainly viewed as being for Weddings or for Family pictures , yet I know this not to be the case in many other parts of the world. To myself photography is a socially creative medium, one that can be used for much more than (Babies and Weddings,or is it Weddings and Babies ?) and even more so in current times with digital photography offering so many more options.
Digital photography at the same-time however has created some new problems and it does not relate to the problems that some long standing professional photographers have, in that they would love to be back in the days when they were viewed as something special, with skills that actually anyone could do but just did not want to – Sorry old pro’s but maybe its time to face facts Hay !! , anyone could do what you did and since they all went out and purchased a digital camera they have proved it , filling the world around them with wonderful images !!!
To me the problems that digital photography has created is with the drive for pure image perfection, this is the world of the photography purists who would spend a lifetime trying to achieve the unobtainable so that they can die happy ?
It is not that you should not care how good your image is , its that its not the main factor in taking images at all !!!
Personally I feel that photography as a medium is as artistic as any other art form, to make it artistic however you have to let go of pixel peeking just to check how much detail you have, along with as many areas as you can think of that drive for perfection. Where digital cameras truly come to life is in the hand of a creative mind not a perfectionists one , after all some of the best and most creative photographs in history were taken using cameras from the 1900’s that few today would even dream of using , yet the images they created still standup today!!
A Wednesday evening Poem and Gallery : Reach
Images of Ireland
Nigel Borrington
Reach
I want to walk with you to the highest peak
then watch your eyes,
gaze out into the night sky
wide with wonder,
as they see the very stars
they hope to one day conquer
.
I want you to go and see the sights
you never imagined you’d ever see
Walk along the canals, a swim in the lakes,
Walk down rivers so clear.
.
I want you to stand
and reach for the furthest cloud,
grab at the sunshine
and trace patterns in the cold winds from the north
.
The Bridge Builder , Poem by : Will Allen Dromgoole
The Bridge at the Vee, County Tipperary
Photography : Nigel Borrington
The Bridge Builder
By Will Allen Dromgoole
An old man going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening cold and gray,
To a Valley vast and deep and wide.
Through which was flowing a sullen stream
The old man crossed in the twilight dim,
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting your strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build this bridge at evening tide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head;
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followed after me to-day
A person whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been as naught to me
To that fair-haired person may a pitfall be;
They, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”
Using old lenses , Hoya M42 28mm f2.8
Hoya M42 , 28mm f2.8 lens
Using Old M42 lenses on a digital SLR
M42 lenses fit to the camera body using an adaptor for the body you own.
Over the years that I have been taking images using SLR cameras both film and now Digital, the items that I have always show the most interest in are the lenses I have Purchased.
These days lenses are usually purchased as a secondary item to the camera body, with all the dazzling features and technology that goes into cameras and marketing them, it is easy to forget just how important an item a lens is.
It is the lens that produces the image, the camera just records this image and if its a great lens then your image stands a good chance of being so too.
Something that becomes very clear to you, the longer your into photography is that for the most part, lens technology the parts of the lens that really create the image, has been very good for a long time. Little development is needed with the type of glass and the coatings that are used on the lenses.
Most of the development today is with adding lens features such as image stabilisation, the process of moving some of the lens elements to allow for any movement in the camera while it is being held in your hands and help produce a stable image.
So just how far back do you have to go to get a good if not great lens ?
Hoya is a lens filter and lens coating company, they have done huge amounts of research and development over an very long period of time. you may know of them mostly through their UV filters that are attached to a lot of peoples lenses.
Back in the 1970’s along with a lens manufacture Tokina they also sold a limited number of great lenses, I am lucky enough to own a Hoya 28mm f2.8 M42 lens in very good condition, it cost £50 in 1975. I have used this lens for many years for Landscape work and have always been very happy with its results.
This is a fully Manual lens , No auto focus, no stabilisation, No auto exposure and just perfect for Landscapes.
I feel that landscape photography should take a little time and the fact that everything is fully manual with this lens, just adds to this experience. You have to think through all the settings and this extends into your thoughts about what your taking images of.
I feel that this Hoya lens is one on the best I have for reproducing great colours, contrast and sharpness.
The Gallery below is just a quick sample of some very recent images taken using this lens.
Hoya M42 28mm, f2.8 lens gallery
What is Lens Bokeh ?
Led lights and Lens Bokeh
Nigel Borrington
What is Bokeh
Wiki have a great description here : Lens Bokeh
“In photography, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image. Bokeh has been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”.
However, differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting.
Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it is often associated with such areas.
However, bokeh is not limited to highlights; blur occurs in all out-of-focus regions of the image.”
I have been looking for a way to test this feature of my lenses for a little time, then at Christmas we put up some little led lamps as below. So using two different lenses one a Nikon 50mm f1.8 lens and A Mamiya 45mm f2.8 lens I took some images of the lights, with the lens as out of focus as I could get them.
I think that the images below clearly show the effects that are described in the Wiki link, seeing clearly the effects of the number of aperture blades and their shape.
The Nikon lens as seven blade but they are not curved , the Mamiya lens blades are curved. You can clearly see that the shapes created are very different.
Lens Bokeh examples
Led light used for examples below
.
Mamiya Sekor lens
.
——————-
Nikom AIS Lens
Going Square format
The Grange viewing point , County Tipperary
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Square format in the landscape
The concept of Square format images in photography dates back to its beginnings.
The idea of using this format makes great sense when you think about it, a lens placed at the front of the camera produces a fully round image so the idea of drawing a square in the centre of this circle and using this square for image produced on an exposed sheet of film would appear to make the best use of the lens for the final image.
In film cameras a camera that produces a square image is usually referred to as a 6×6 or 12×12, these figures referring to the size of the exposed film area. I have used and owned different 6×6 film camera using one during my photography course and for sometime after.
These are the basics of square format film cameras , today most Digital cameras work in a 6×4 image format, meaning that one side of the final image is 1/3 bigger in its dimensions that the other. Some digital cameras however (Such as the Canon G1 x) offer format options, because a sensor unlike film uses pixels to measure its dimensions, square format is now called 1×1.
Working with a digital camera in Square format your most likely going to use the LCD screen on the back of the camera to frame your image, cameras with electronic viewfinders however will show you the same 1×1 view of your subject. A camera with an optical view finder most likely cannot show you the view you need.
If you camera cannot work in anything other that 6×4 format , one trick if you want to produce a square image is to get some scotch tape and use it to square off the live view image that you see on you LCD screen, this will at least let you frame you image for this format.
Square format in the landscape
Ok, so that’s a little bit about the history of this image format and how to produce images using it today, so what about the landscape images produced in Square format.
Yesterday, I took my Canon G1x out on a walk and set it up for a 1×1 image size, Personally I really like using this format.
Many Landscape photographers don’t and I fully understand why, the main reason is that you do not get the same width to your images, this width would appear to be a basic feature of producing a Landscape photo. The idea of removing 1/3 of the image width would appear to be to limiting and it can be, but not always.
Personally I feel the very benefits that come with wide landscape images can also be a problem, some images need to be restrained in their content to reduce distraction, a square format is a great solution.
I feel that with a square image you gain the exact same hight to your image and this lets you include tall features like poles and trees or an old house , yet you can more easily confine your image to just these main subjects.
I have done my best in the images below to try and explore this and show what I feel is the benefits to going square format with your camera.
Square format Gallery
Finding light , around the farm.
Burnchurch Farm , County Tipperary
landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Light is just an amazing subject in photography, the searching for and finding of interesting lighting conditions can become an obsession for many visual artists.
I have found over the years that the best light can be found in places that need to be search for, looking for limited amounts of light is I feel my personal interest when getting an image I feel happy with.
Burnchurch is an old Family Farm in county Tipperary, the land here is still farmed but the house is no longer occupied, we visit and stay here a few times during the year, its a wonderful location to get away and relax for a week.
Some of the images taken here are an example of my attempt to explore and experiment with the use of limited light in photography.
The Images in the below Gallery are all taken inside some of the sheds around the farm yard and even on a wet day the light through the windows and doors here is just perfect. I love the way the light falls through the windows and into the rooms, falling onto objects that have been hanging here for many years.
I feel that photography and the images it captures is a great way to explore subjects like light, capturing in an instance the light in a room or how it is falling over a landscape.
Finding light on the Farm , Gallery
Getting close in the landscape
Following the fence
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel Borrington
Way back in 1986 I purchased a Tamron SP500 f8 Mirror (Telephoto) lens from a camera shop in London, it was second hand and cost around £150 back then.
The lens is reviewed very well here : Photozone review
I came across this lens again while sorting out some equipment last week and could not resist taking some images with it, so I put it onto my Sigma x3 camera and took a walk with both through some local fields.
I am not going to reviews the lens as such here as this is done so well in the above review, what I would say however is that this is a manual focus lens that is able and very capable of producing some very detailed and delicate images.
I really enjoyed using it again, if you are looking for a lens that is quick to use then this lens is not for you. If you take your time while creating your images however then this lens offers some very different and interesting results. I very much liked the shallow depth of field, there is something about the design in a mirror lens that produces a very find focus area in the image results.
I also felt that the combination of this lens alongside the sigma x3 sensor, produced some of the closest results to using film that I have noticed while using a digital camera.
The lens is very sharp, it produces wonderful colour and contrast, focuses down to 1.7 meters from the nearest subject and has a very shallow depth of field through out its focus range. Photographers spend a lifetime looking for lenses that have these features along with very distinctive results, if you can give this lens the time to learn how best to use it, I feel you will love it !
These lenses are often for sale on Ebay, if you want to purchases one and try one out !
Gallery
Far away lake , Poem by: Beckian Fritz Goldberg
Irish Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
Far away lake
By, Beckian Fritz Goldberg
We can’t get there
by road, by rope, by
wing
by time—
though time would be the way
by boat
by please please
.
time would be the way
then the reed-quiver
a cloud of gnats
mumbling its hypnotic suggestion
by sleep, sleep
until you say
lift my elbow straighten
my legs
And I
straightened you in this life
like flowers
but the little water
there was
went to air
where it came from
And all my love for you
came back—
you couldn’t take it where
you were going
you’d get halfway there
and then you’d drift
arms by your side
like a clock
plucked…
Canon G1x
Canon G1x
So since I sold my Contax G2 kit on ebay.ie last summer and then purchased a Canon G1x what have I be using it for and what’s my feeling about this Camera.
I am a big believer that a camera has to fit its owner before good images can even be approached, if you’re going out to get images with something that you just don’t feel good with then yes you may still get some good photos but you will always feel that bit removed from what you’re taking pictures of.
To me when you get your camera out of its bag and move toward the things you want to record, if you just don’t feel good about the camera in your hands then any issues you have with it will be in the front of your mind and not your subjects. Good photography is all about mind just like any other areas of life.
So what about this little Canon, I have to say from the first time I held and took some shots it was clear that I could just get on and use it. I don’t care that much about camera spec’s. It’s been a long time since any camera lacked a feature that I needed and I think that most photographers just know the kind of camera to pass on.
What counts for me is how the camera feels in my hands and how simply I can make a change to a setting that I need. The Canon G1x is about as good as it gets in both these areas. Yes its different from an SLR but not so different that it takes more than ten minutes to feel at home.
I can only point out one thing that I didn’t like, this being the placement of the video button. It’s far too simple to press it when you just holding the camera and walking around. You will also find that its not fast to cancel this mode when you want to, it takes at least two second to get out of recording and go back to stills mode. Next to the video button is a rubber rest for the thumb, make sure your thumb stays on this and this problem won’t happen.
The one thing that I felt I would have a problem with was the viewfinder or lack of it but even after using 100% view, optical viewfinder cameras for so long like Slr’s or rangefinder cameras I did’nt have any problems from the start. The single reason for this was the LCD screen, its crystal clear and I have always been able to see it in any lighting conditions.
The process of holding the camera in front of yourself is very different but I felt that it went hand in hand with the type of photography this camera is so good at, this being photography in the environment. Just being outside and going on a walk about, heading in town and doing some street photography or up the top of a mountain with a camera that’s not so heavy that its all you can think about. Using the LCD screen to frame your shot somehow keeps you feeling involved with the very things you’re taking pictures of.
I will post much more about this camera and talk about the C1 and C2 modes and how I have set them up to store things like my preferred focus length (35mm) and how to use the front dial to zoom to fixed focus positions.
The following pictures below are just some samples from the first few weeks I have owned this camera, as you can see its got me out taking lots of subjects. The image quality is second to none when put against the size and usability of this type of camera.
If I had one simple comment it would be, well done canon for making a camera that with no fuss gets people involved with the subjects they want to photo, while not spend any-time thinking about the camera you just sold them. Well done!
Black and white landscapes
Canon G1x
Nigel Borrington
Nigel Borrington 
Film Photography, Was it as good as we think ?
Thanks to Sharon Walters Knight a fellow WordPress blogger and Facebook friend , I have in the last three weeks started to take a look again at 35mm film photography.
Over the last three years or so Film is starting to make a big come back, mainly with the help of film suppliers and film fan supporters lomography, they sell and process films along with camera bodies and offer some great new ideas as to how to use film and get some creative results from it.
I have just finished shooting my first role of 35mm black and white film supplied from Lomography Europe, using my Nikon FM2 and when I get time this week I will post this roll of film off to them and wait for the negatives and online scans to appear!
For the moment I have been looking at some of my old negatives and scanning them, the results are good I feel for these old black and white frames, My impression of how film compares to current Digital cameras is one of surprise, I love the grainy and organic feel to black and white films!
I had not realized since I stopped looking at film as my main photography medium, just how much digital has moved forward year on year! I feel that even when scanning a film frame at 10 megapixels with a good scanner, even with ISO 100 film the detail is so much less that can be found in todays digital sensors. Film grain is loved by many, yet when you look closely a lot of the image details are lost in this grain. A simple fact however when using film is that while digital cameras have kept developing all the time, film scanner have not. Another fact often lost today is that film was not designed with scanners in mind but with wet/dark room printing on light sensitive photo-papers, often designed by the film suppliers to match the film being used. Thus it could still be true that the best results when printing from film can be achieved in the dark room and not using a scanner at all!
I still love the idea of using a film camera at times when you want to use a simple process and travel light, just packing a film camera, a few lenses and rolls of film, without the need to take battery chargers and laptops with you. Another fact is that Film cameras work better when your outside and need to keep changing lenses, you never have to worry about dust and dirt getting to your sensor!
Here are some film shots I have taken over the years, at some point this week I will post more on them, including some closer looks at just how much detail is in the full sized images and just how film grain looks at 100% print size.
Ilfords Black and white film Gallery
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April 23, 2018 | Categories: black and white, Camera Equipment, Comment, Film Photography, Landscape, photography | Tags: 35mm film, black and white photography, Film come back, Film photography, Film scanning, Ilfords films, Lomography, Nigel Borrington, Nikon, nikon fm2 | Leave a comment