Technology, it’s the Future, (apparently).
I tend to watch a lot of YouTube tutorials, mainly on Fujifilm camera techniques and Adobe Lightroom. These are usually very informative and shine a light on features of the camera or software that otherwise would go unnoticed and I would remain completely ignorant of them. Our cameras and post processing software have many features and hidden gems that are there to improve our workflow and make picture taking and production a lot easier. There is another side to this though and sometimes too much information can be a bad thing.
When I watch these YouTube video tutorials I often take notes and look back on them from time to time to jog my memory and this often tempts me to try something different in my shooting technique or when using Lightroom or other post processing methods. This was the case last weekend when I went to London last Saturday with my daughter. I offered to take her a walk around my usual haunts for street photography and let her see what it was about. I also decided to set my camera up a bit differently to test out one of the techniques I have learned from the YouTube sessions. I was quite comfortable with this and proceeded to walk and take photos as I would normally do. Big mistake.
In my eager attempt to try something new I ignored the basic rule No.1 “If it’s not broken then don’t fix it”. My camera is a Fuji X-T3 and has wonderful features that the photographer can take advantage of if he/she so wishes. I had set up my camera differently from what I have been used to and hoped that I would get similar or maybe even better results to previous sessions but in effect I had handed over control to the camera technology and ignored my years of experience. I don’t go in for “chimping” much ( looking at the taken image on the back screen of the camera right after it has been taken), so I happily ploughed on taking pictures.
When I got home and uploaded the photos to Adobe Lightroom, I got a shock. Apart from about two shots, all the rest were rubbish. When I say rubbish I don’t mean boring, I mean technically poor. Some were way underexposed, others were soft or blurred and others were a combination of both. The changes that I made are irrelevant, the failure lies fair and squarely with me. Whether I set the camera up wrongly or didn’t fully understand what the likely outcomes would be, the fault is all mine and not the camera’s. I should have checked as I was going along, but more importantly, I should have stuck with my tried and trusted settings for street photography. Experimentation is fine but maybe in a more controlled environment to see if the outcome is what I was expecting. I know I have only scratched the surface of what my camera is capable of, but I have learned that the technology can destroy as well as improve the work flow, and overall quality of my images, if not applied correctly.
Technology, take 2
In Blog Post #40 I spoke about the origins of modern photography and Henry Fox-Talbot’s “mousetrap” cameras. As we all know, the concept of the camera has now gone way beyond the film negative and print stage. We see cameras everywhere now from dash cams, CCTV, body cams etc., to vision systems that give us a view beyond our solar system. I thought I had seen it all until an experience last weekend in London confused the hell out of me.
We were walking down Leman St. and my daughter pointed out an Amazon Fresh store. I enquired what it was and she said it was a general grocery store but with no check outs, you just picked up what you wanted and walk out the store. I said, “ We call that shop-lifting, don’t we?”. I had to try this.
On arriving at the door, a sign instructed me to open the Amazon app on my phone and scan the QR code on the sign. Having done this I proceeded to the barrier, presented the QR code on my phone and the barrier duly opened. So far so good. We walked around the store, picked up a couple of soft drinks and asked the guy minding the store where we scan our items to check out. This is where it got spooky. He looked at me and said, “You don’t scan anything, the shop knows what you have selected, you are now free to leave'“. I couldn’t get my mind around this…”the shop knows what you have selected”. My inquisitive mind was in overdrive at this point and I asked him how it knew. He pointed to the ceiling where a myriad of small discrete cameras all at different angles were constantly scanning the shop. As I left the store I got an email from Amazon informing me that I had been in the store for 2 minutes and 8 seconds, had purchased these items and spent this much which was now charged to my bank account lodged with Amazon.
I still cant figure out how it works but it blew my mind.