Blog Post #54

Unlearning what we know

In life we are constantly learning new things every day. You will probably have heard the saying “Every day is a school day” and realise that it is very true. It is this constant thirst for knowledge and new skills that drives us forward, but what if at some point in time someone shouts for a time-out so that we can unlearn some of the information we no longer need? This happened to me a few weeks ago and it made me take stock of some things.

The person that called the time-out was Anthony Morganti, a chap I follow on YouTube as I like his post-processing technique videos. He also does a weekly email newsletter and it was in one of those that he posed the question about unlearning things. I suppose the concept can apply to many walks of life but in photography it is certainly true and I will go through a few examples of what I am currently unlearning.

No more film canisters.

From 1975 until around 1998 before heading out to take photographs I would load my camera with a canister or “spool” containing enough film for 24 or 36 exposures on my 35mm camera. I would probably have a few more in my camera bag, but not many as film could be expensive. My mind set at that time was that every exposure is precious, costs money and therefore had to be spot on focus and exposure wise. I would therefore be very selective about what I took photos of. When I got my first digital camera around 1998 I was no longer constrained by the 24/36 exposure canister and now had a 250Mb card that could hold lots of photos. To this day I am still frugal when it comes to taking photos, even although I have fast SD cards of 32Gb that can hold hundreds of photos. I have been on photo-shoots where other photographers would rack up shots in the hundreds and I’m sitting on 50 or so. Only the other day I was taking photos of fast fighter jets and still had my camera on single shot mode and timing my shot so that I got what I wanted. It was at this point I remembered that (on hearing all the other photographers cameras singing like sewing machines), I have a motor drive on my camera that can take about 20 frames per second! I am definitely struggling to unlearn the frugal shooting style and plan to take lots more photos and make use of the continuous shooting feature on my camera when the time is right.

Resolution

So this is another aspect of photography that I have had to unlearn. When I was shooting on film, there were basically two film speeds (sensitivity levels) available to me. Both Ilford and Kodak sold 125 ISO (ASA in old money) and 400 ISO. There were other specialist film speeds but these were the most popular. The 125 ISO film had finer grain but needed bright lighting conditions. The 400 ISO film had courser grain but could be used in lower lighting conditions. There was therefore a trade off and this could be seen in the finished print. The 400 ISO “grainy” prints could be very atmospheric whereas the 125 ISO prints could achieve sharp low grain photos when printed. Then along came digital photography and all of this went out of the window and we were now talking about sensor size in the camera. Modern cameras, including my own, are capable of shooting images over a huge ISO range and in the case of my Fuji X-T5 the ISO dial is marked from 125 to12,800 ISO, but using the command dial this range can be extended to 64 and 51200 ISO. That is insane compared to my film days. This, coupled with the 40.2 megapixel sensor can provide razor sharp images, even in low light. What this basically means is that I can set my ISO level to “Auto” and not worry too much about the images being grainy or lacking in resolution because the camera will adjust the sensitivity to suit the requirements. There are however a number of people who look at digital images and immediately zoom way in to examine the resolution, the two finger swipe in a camera phone is a good example. We call these people “Pixel Peepers” and they require every pixel to be clear and sharp which is of course a complete nonsense. Would they take a big x5 or x10 magnifying glass to an exhibition of black and white prints? Ironically, camera manufacturers now provide the photographers the opportunity in the camera software to shoot with a certain film effect and even to add back in some grain. It’s not all plain sailing though, shooting in very high ISO levels on digital cameras introduces a “noise” effect that can degrade the image but there are software applications like Topaz DeNoise that can remove this effect almost completely in post processing. It is important though to know what the effects of ISO changes have on my images but unlearning the requirement to always shoot at low ISO levels to get detail and sharpness in my images is something I have had to un-learn.

Chimping

Chimping gets its name from the noise Chimpanzees make and is associated with the immediate review of just-taken photos on the digital camera’s rear screen. People who do this tend to apparently make the Oo-Ah-Oo-Ah sound when looking at the photos they have just taken. It’s not a new phenomenon though. I can remember standing outside the Chemist shop just having taken delivery of a bundle of 36 photos I took the week previous and going through this review process. The problem with Chimping is that if you are looking down reviewing the last shot you took, you are not looking up and could miss an even better shot. There are times when it is useful, particularly with static subjects when you can check focus etc before you move on, but for street photography and action photography it can be the enemy. I was a Chimper up until recently and I have had to unlearn it as it is bad practice when shooting on the move. I have actually switched off the review feature on my camera that shows the last shot taken for about 5 seconds on the rear screen. I am managing to unlearn Chimping and I think it helps to maintain concentration on the task in hand.

These are just three of the things I am working on unlearning as technology moves forward and recognising that the tried and tested “rules” don’t necessarily apply any more.

Last Week

Last week we spent some time over in Lincolnshire, based out of an Airbnb in Louth. It was really cold and grey most of the week and not very conducive to photography. I did manage to get an hour or so over at RAF Conningsby hoping to get some fighter jet action shots. We arrived at the spotters car park and it was full but we were lucky to get a spot when someone left the car park. I then joined the dozens of photographers and aviation enthusiasts on the runway approach and had arrived at a good time as many Typhoon jets were coming back from training sorties. It was bitterly cold and the snow came on not long after we left the car park. Here are a few of the shots taken in the hour I was there.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and thank you for reading it. If you want to comment on this blog post please do so below or you can contact me by using the “Contact Me” facility in the website header.