My winning image, below, was taken in Calcutta last September when I was there to experience and photograph the Durga Puja. Quite early one morning I visited the amazing flower market close by the Hoogly River.  This man with a few others were washing and cleaning their teeth with neem sticks.

Nikon D700 camera with Nikkor 70-200mm lens at aperture 2.8 at ISO 200 at 320th second. Exposure compensation -1

Calcutta Man with a Neem Stick

There was a surprisingly small crowd outside the Cathedral as the Bishop elect’s procession arrived at the the huge west door to perform the traditional entrance.  Security was practically non-existant, just two coppers pushing their bikes at the back of the procession.

At exactly 2.30pm, accompanied by the Archbishop of Westminster, the Bishop to be knocks on the closed door that opens to a fanfare from inside – and in they go.

Bishop Dakin is one of the Church of England’s most senior Bishops, a member of the General Synod who is entitled to sit in the the House of Lords, Parliament’s upper house.  I wish him well.

Images were taken with my new Nikon D800 fitted with a 24-70 2.8 Nikkor Lens.  The shot into the Cathedral was at ISO 800, the others at 200.

]]> http://www.taffyblog.com/?feed=rss2&p=663 0 http://www.taffyblog.com/?p=623 http://www.taffyblog.com/?p=623#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:58:04 +0000 admin http://www.taffyblog.com/?p=623 It always rains at Semana Santa, so they say here in Andalucia.  From last November until Palm Sunday, (Domingo de Ramos) it rained on just three days.  Since then it has rained every day with rain forecast daily until Easter Sunday in three days time, after which the ten day forecast looks quite good. A receptionist at our hotel in Malaga, where we stayed on Sunday and Monday nights, said a guest told him that God was punishing the Catholics of Malaga for only practicing their faith at Semana Santa whilst never going near a church for the following fifty-one weeks. That’s one theory I suppose.  What I did witness were very distraught Malaguenians weeping uncontrollably on learning their procession was cancelled and many thousands praying and crossing themselves as the thrones passed slowly by.  I guess here they would tell you you don’t have to go to church to be a believer.

In Malaga there are forty-one scheduled processions during Holy Week when a large throne (trono) weighing several tons is carried through the streets proceeded by the Guiding Cross, brothers of the organising Confradia, children, penitents and the ubiquitous brass band.  Over the centuries the thrones have evolved from the simple wooden structure carried by ten men to the elaborate constructions of silver, brass and gilded wood seen today carried by up to two hundred bearers.  On top are the life size statues of Jesus and Mary and attendants, beautiful works of art that depict scenes from Christ’s Passion, together with donkeys, palm trees etc.  Around the central platform and the flowing robes of the Virgin Mary are beautiful and elaborate embroideries decorated with gold thread, seemingly made without any consideration of cost

Whilst starting from a different location and following different routes each procession with the exception of the more solemn on Good Friday, are very similar.  This year I decided to follow and photograph the Gitanos, the gypsies.  They were scheduled to leave the temple where their throne is kept at 5.30pm on Holy Monday, unfortunately, due to the rain some hours earlier it was cancelled.  A large crowd gathered from about 4pm and stayed until several hours after the aborted departure time.  During this time the band played and the Gitantos sang, played their guitars and chanted as flowers poured down onto our heads from the temple roof.  Following the Gitanos, many still weeping, I was allowed to enter the temple, passing between the two thrones lovingly prepared with fresh flowers and candles for the journey through the city that was not to be. I could feel their disappointment.

Years back the Spanish Foreign Legion was formed to fight the Moroccans.  They had quite a reputation, much like their French counterparts, and in the early days the “recruits” were often criminals escaping justice.  These days their role is mainly ceremonial and they sign up for two or three years.  Barracks are in Cadiz and Casares and in Melilla, Spain’s Gibraltar like enclave on the Moroccan coast.  One of their ceremonial duties is during Semana Santa at Santo Domingo church in Malaga.  Here they guard a large crucifix that is laid out on the floor of the church where the cross is covered whereby only the body of Jesus is visible.  They ceremoniously change guard every fifteen minutes or so and then stand motionless with their heads inclined forty-five degrees, a feature also of their marching style.  On Holy Thursday they process out of the church and together with a troop of legionnaires form part of the Mena procession. With only two days in Malaga I didn’t witness the procession but I did see and photograph the ceremonies inside the church.

I am writing this in Spain, shortly before visiting old Marbella at 8pm this evening to see the “Cristo del Amor” procession.  This starts from a tiny chapel that is the oldest religious building in Marbella, a Mosque before the re-conquest in the fifteenth century. The photos from Thursday Evening are below.

Within the next month or so, after returning to the UK, I will be creating an AV slide show with ambient sounds recorded by me at Semana Santa. When complete there will be a link here.

As I write this my mind goes back to Saturday 17th March, St Patrick’s Day no less, when the Irish rugby team were absolutely destroyed by England.  St Patrick being a Welshman his mind was quite obviously on another match that day.  I digress.  What my mind did go back to was Cardiff, the quite amazing atmosphere and the match that gave our little Principality the Grand Slam for the third time in just 7 years.  It was a nervy affair that could have gone either way until late in the game.  France, having lost to England the week before, were playing to restore their pride and put in their best performance of the Championship. But it was not be be, the only try of the game by Wales’ Alex Cuthbert and Lee Halfpenny’s boot saved the day.

The final score was WALES 16  FRANCE 9

I have read that on that day 30% of the population of Wales were in Cardiff for the match.  The great majority without a ticket but happy to revel in the atmosphere, show support for the  boys in red whilst enjoying a light ale or a small sweet sherry in a local hostelry.  Hours before the kickoff there were long queues outside all the pubs with large screen TV’s, as the ticketless waiting patiently to exchange places with those inside leaving for the game.

I don’t know what it is about rugby that brings out the best in people.  In this strange age we live in 74000 fans and probably twice as many without tickets squeeze into the centre of Cardiff, drink more than is good for them, with no sign of tension or aggression and hardly a policeman to be seen anywhere.  What a credit they are to our beautiful game and what an honour it is to part of it..

All the photographs were taken with my Nikon D300 and an 18-200 VR lens.

Having beaten the Irish the week previous in Dublin this was our first home match of the competition, win this and it’s away to England next at Twickenham, or HQ as some English like to call it, and the Triple Crown, the accolade for beating the other three home nations, Ireland, Scotland and England.  Beat France and Italy too and we win the Gland Slam – and I am very happy. If you want to learn a bit more about Rugby Union, it’s here.

We set off for our Cardiff hotel on Saturday morning. It’s about 80 down the M4 Motorway, with a break at Newport to visit family. Just as we were about to leave the motorway there was a collision 6 cars ahead of us that brought us all to a stop.  Fortunately, and very luckily, nobody was injured but one elderly lady was trapped in her car. Whenever I travel I always have a camera handy and managed to get off a few shots before we moved off.  The second is of the two guys trying to force open the drivers door to release her.

Any golfers reading this might be interested to learn that the large building on the horizon is the Celtic Manor Hotel, the venue of last years Ryder Cup.

STOP PRESS.  Its Tuesday now and I have just heard that the driver of the other car failed a breath test.

Cardiff is a great location for an international rugby match. Unlike many other countries where the stadia are located away fro the city centre, or even way out of town, in Cardiff, the Millennium Stadium is right in the centre of the city adjacent to the main shopping streets and malls, the hotels and the pubs. With 20,000 Scots in town there were kilts everywhere and the skirl of the pipes never far away.  Unlike the other game played with a round ball, crowd violence is practically unheard of and there are probably no more police on duty on rugby days as any other weekend.

Fortunately we did win, by quite a margin considering how well match the two teams were and the half time score of just 3points each.  Final Score Wales 27  Scotland 13. England next.  Bring them on.

Below are are a few images from the weekend.

With the weather looking good we decided to head for the North Devon Coast.We spent the first night at Barnstable.  The first mistake.  Being the culinary dessert it is finding somewhere half decent for dinner proved impossible and at he best hotel in town, overlooking the taxi rank, sleeping was an even bigger problem.

We escaped early and spent an enjoyable hour on the wonderful Saunton Beach before following the coast east towards Ilfracombe, where we had intended staying on Saturday night.  Most of it was closed and the open bits were not very inviting, so after a short pow-wow we set the satnav for Glastonbury and headed inland.

Glastonbury was heaving with people so we parked up and walked up the Tor, took in view and headed for Wells – our intended destination.  It’s a while since I was in Wells and I had forgotten just how beautiful a place it is.  Fortunately, the Swan Hotel had a few rooms left and we chose room 40, the best in the house and with a lovely four poster bed.  We ate well that evening at a lovely little restaurant just across the street and slept well too.  The first picture below was taken from our bedroom window on Sunday morning.

Sunday was a great day.  Shortly after nine we we taking in the sights and atmosphere of this ancient cathedral city.  The streets were practically deserted apart from the faithful on their way to morning service and a fair few joggers, no doubt fulfilling their new year resolutions.

By noon we were off to Glastonbury where we spent a hour or so enjoying the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey and the quirky high street shops. Lunch and a leisurely drive back to Winchester.

The images below were taken with my Nikon D 700 full frame camera with the Nikkor F4 24-120 zoom.  A bit of a lump but a useful range.

This time it started off as a three night Wedding Anniversary junket with a West End show, a visit to one of our favourite restaurants, Moro, and a few exhibitions.  Yours truly had a lousy cold and we ended up going up yesterday morning and returning late this afternoon.  Were it not for the fact that we had two of the hottest theatre tickets in the world, we probably would have stayed home.

Jerusalem at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue has been awarded an unprecedented 5 stars by 12 newspaper critics. Tony and Olivier award winning actor Mark Rylance’ portrayal as gypsy Johnny Byron is being lauded as the best stage performance for a decade.  It blew me away.  I have never seen anything that comes close and I doubt if I ever will.  Just how any actor can perform with such energy six days a week, for four months is beyond me.  It finishes in January and is sold it.

With two photographic exhibitions to see, The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery and the Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Natural History Museum Moro’s great North African and Spanish fusion food has to wait for another day. Photography first.

I had my pocket sized Nikon 1 V1 with the 10mm lens with me.  I got off a few shots,  my favourite is the guy with the “fay” pose admiring a portrait in the ”First Actresses” exhibition.

We checked out a small exhibition of work by photographer Sandra Lousada in the Bookshop Gallery. Not very impressive at all. If that was her better stuff, well!  To me they were mostly 2 star photos of 5 star subjects.  So different the the Taylor Wessing portraits 5 floors above, 5 star images of the unknown.

Unfortunately the match, a re-run of this year’s Rugby World Cup playoff for 3rd and 4th place, ended the same way, with Australia just having the edge and the whole of Wales left gutted.  There was however another reason to be at the match, to say farewell to the diminutive and mercurial winger Shane Williams who yesterday retired from international rugby. Why, is a debate for another day as he still has the speed, guile, courage and the magic feet he has always possessed. In the match he saved a try with a courageous tackle right on the line  and scored a great try in the dying seconds of the game.

Shane has played for Wales 87 times in an 11 year international career and has toured twice with the British and Irish Lions. During his illustrious career he has been voted IRB World Player of the Year and in 2008 was RBS 6 Nations Man of the Tournament.  He is Wales highest scoring player with 57 tries (285 points), is 2nd in the highest scoring 6 Nations list behind Brian O’Driscoll and is the Ospreys highest scoring player with 54 tries.  It is such a pity he failed to reach the 100 caps he clearly deserves.  Unfortunately for Shane and for Wales Graham Henry, the retiring All Blacks Coach when head coach of the Welsh team, did not select Shane for 4 years believing him to be too small for international rugby, an omission I hope he has long regretted and apologised for. Had Shane played in all all the matches in those 4 years he would be retiring with about 115 caps, as the most capped Welsh Player of all time and third in the world instead of 36th.

Thank you Shane for the times you made me proudly Welsh and for the excitement you created on the pitch. Now don’t you go and retire from Ospreys for a while, we haven’t finished with you yet!

The following photographs were taken with my Nikon V1, in the street, the Millennium Stadium;  on the match screen, the TV screen in the bar after the game and from todays Sunday Times.  The old fella with the big smile I spotted in the Hayes, in Cardiff, playing the spoons.

For some time now I have envied shooters around me with pocket size compact cameras, especially when some officious ‘jobs worth” security person or official has ignored everyone else and told me to stop photographing, or be chucked out. There have been many other occasions too when a little “spy” camera would have been quite useful. Don’t get me wrong I love my DSLR’s and professional lenses and cannot imagine ever parting with them.  The Nikon V1 is for the times when nothing else will do the job and portability is a big issue.

I should just mention the viewfinder.  The cheaper and less specced J1 does not have one, just the screen on the back.  Great for reviewing your shots in a darkish space but pretty useless for much else – in my most humble opinion!  The problem with the screen for composition and focusing is that it’s lousy on bright days, you have to hold the camera out in front of you – like a beacon to the security men especially on darker days when it’s lighting up your face  - and it’s not that easy to keep it steady held that way.  The viewfinder is great, more discreet, steadier and full size view.  Afterwards and you can review your shots through the viewfinder to check shooting information, the histogram and more and zoom in throughout the image. When you put the camera to your eye the the screen blackens immediately, unless you have chosen to keep it turned off – which saves battery life big time.

So don’t buy the J1, you will spend the rest of your life regretting it and being envious of everyone with the V1 – but note you will need a bit more cash to buy a designated flash because the VI doesn’t have one whilst the J1 does.  See, they’ve got you all ways.

My writing about the V1 will be my practical assessment and experience of using it and the resulting images – namely, how it works, what’s wrong with it and how to get the best from it.  If you are looking for an all “whistles and bells” analysis with sexy graphs and the like you wont find it here.

Having bought it, my first impressions were not all positive.  I like to be able to react quickly and make very rapid adjustments to focus, aperture and exposure compensation, a breeze with the DSLRs.  With my big fingers and the button locations it was very frustrating and I lost more shots than I captured. I am still missing a few but it’s getting better.

There are two great features that I really like.  Alongside the shutter is a second button so at any time I can swop over to movie mode simply by pressing it, without having to make any other adjustments to the settings.  Likewise when in movie mode I can press the shutter and take a still photo without interrupting the movie. Clever thinking Nikon!

I am not the kind of guy who painstakingly keeps his cameras in a case with the lens hood on, as my repair bills with Nikon will bear witness.   As the VI is pocket size thats where I want it to be, most of the time.  Thats OK but, when I wanted to use it quickly I often found the shooting mode dial, that protrudes outside the width of the camera body had rotated onto movie mode or some other setting I have yet to learn about.  A small piece of matt black adhesive tape has solved that problem.

To be ready for most opportunities I have set up the camera as follows;

• Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
• Image Quality: Raw – more about this later.
• Shutter Type: Electronic – Silent
• Metering: Matrix
• White Balance: Auto
• ISO: A800 – Camera decides between ISO 100 to 800 (100-3200 also available).  With time I prefer to set the ISO myself and as low as possible.
• Picture Control: Neutral
• Colour Space: Adobe 1998 – same as Photoshop and Monitor settings
• Active D Lighting: Off – can be activated post capture
• AF Area: Single Point

When shooting I like to be able to focus on my subject and then re-compose the scene, keeping my subject in focus.  I achieve this by programming the AE-L, AF-L button to lock focus and exposure.  It works like this:

• Focus on subject by pressing shutter half way.
• Press and hold AF-L button to fix exposure and focus.
• Re-compose the scene.
• Press shutter to capture the image.

The final adjustment is Exposure Compensation, activated by the + – button on the right of the command dial.  I use this when I know the camera will be unable to correctly analyse the scene and that either blown highlights or blocked shadows will occur. Simply press the button and up pops a scale.  Rotate up for increasing the exposure or down to decrease.  If I know I will be shooting shortly – and where, I normally set this adjustment in advance.  On a brightish day or when there is a lot of white or reflections I will set at -.7 to -1.  I almost always take a couple of shots before the event to check and then adjust if necessary.  Do remember that excessive underexposing will lead to inferior images when you adjust post capture.

So that’s it.  All set up and ready to go.

Lots has already been written about the small sensor the consequences of which are that 10mm lens will perform like one of 28mm and the maximum print size, without stretching the pixels, will be 3870 x 2592.  So at 300 pixels to the inch the maximum size print is 12.9 inches x 8.64 inches (33×22 cm), and as we see the aspect ratio is 3 to 2.  So I was a little worried about what to expect out of the printer.  Yesterday I printed  a few images at the maximum size of 33×22 cm .  These were shot in raw, converted to tiffs in Nikons ViewNX 2 Raw Converter, a little sharpening and colour adjustment in Photoshop and printed on an Epson 3880.  I was pleasantly surprised by the result, the colour and detail were excellent and better than I expected. However, as a photo club member who exhibits and participates in print competitions 33×22 is just not big enough!

For some time now I have been using a Photoshop plugin from OnOne Software called Genuine Fractals.  This magical software, recently renamed Perfect Resize, is used to increase the size of an image without losing quality.  It apparently replicates pixels and rebuilds the image to the desired size.  So I increased the size to fill an A3 sheet (39 cm wide) – the result was amazing.  I could see no artefacts, grain or distortion anywhere.  The bokeh (out of focus areas) were good and the image was sharp and bright and of exhibition and club competition quality.  In future, if I need to extract a part of an image for printing I will first increase the size with Perfect Resize, so that the extract will still be at 300 pixel to the inch or thereabouts. If you shoot with a mobile phone Perfect Resize is for you too.  You can watch a movie about it and get a free trial here.

One really major disappointment was when I tried to convert the Raw files in my Adobe Raw Converter (ARC). They files were not recognised. Instead I was forced to use Nikon’s ViewNX 2 software that came in the box. It’s OK, but very lightweight compared to ARC and doesn’t feature in my normal workflow.  I guess it needs the photo press to start taking the V1 seriously before Adobe will do the same.

10mm lens, camera held within biting distance! Auto ISO 100-800 at f3.5

Unlike most cameras the V1 (and not the J1) has an infra red receiver both on the front and the back of the camera. With the ML-L3 remote (about£10 from Amazon) I can control the camera from about 20 yards away from both in front and behind. I am sure this will prove very useful, I just hope I don’t  get caught!

So after mixed first impressions I am feeling more positive and looking forward to using this little silent spy in my pocket more and more.  It will never replace my Nikon D700 and D300 and Pro Lenses, I never expected it to, but I will be getting shots that were previously not possible.  In the coming weeks I will write more about my V1 and might even do a movie or two!  So come back and check me out when I hope to demonstrate that Size Does Matter – when it’s small!

You can get the full monty Nikon V1 interactive brochure here.