Month: May 2007

Photographing Aircraft

Photographing Aircraft

Photographing aircraft can be a bit difficult. Based on past experience I have had some success and also some failures.

The first thing is trying to get the aircraft in the viewfinder and focused. I found, that just to get the shot, without worrying about composition, I set the camera to AF Servo mode and centre point focusing. This way I know that the camera will focus for me, and if I keep the aircraft in the centre of the frame, that’s where it will focus and not hunt on the other AF points. (of course it doesn’t always work, but at least you know what you are working with!)

Then, instead of just pointing the camera at the aircraft and keeping your finger half pressed to track the plane, I’ll focus on the plane as soon as it is big enough in the focus point, then lightly half press the shutter button, again and again, focusing in small increments. I found this works well with flying birds and with aircraft, instead of the camera doing all the work. This way, if theS aircraft slips off the focus point, there is less chance it will start to focus on something that doesn’t exist and so waste valuable time refocusing.

Next, exposure. The aircraft will normally be back lit, so a bit of overexposure is required making sure the sky doesn’t disappear to white, particularly on overcast and solid cloud days. A bit of blue sky is good, although can be boring so a bit of both is better.

Now, shutter speed. Not too much of an issue with jets. Keep it high, which it probably will be on auto, pointing it into the sky, but for older planes, like WWII, then you have the propeller issue and need a slower speed.

Too fast and you freeze the propeller, making it look like the aircraft is a static model, too slow and the whole aircraft is blurred. I’ve found between 1/125 & 1/320 seems to do the trick. It also seems to depend on whether the aircraft is coming toward you or passing. The Mustang in yesterdays blog, was coming towards me, and had a shutter speed of 1/640, leaving a little blur. I was lucky for the prop not to be frozen.This image shows a photo with cloud in it, compared to plain sky. It also shows one aircraft where the shutter speed was slightly too high and frozen the prop. The middle photo, seems just right with a shutter speed of 1/200

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I think the above is a good guide, but you need to review your images as you take them and make adjustments to the conditions at the time. Of course, doing all of this, whist not missing the aircraft you are trying to photograph that is still flying above you! Thats what I’ll be trying to do this weekend!!

Biggin Hill

Biggin Hill

Well the weather is still wet, however at the moment it looks like Saturday may be ok. Lets hope so, as I am still hoping to go to the Biggin Hill Airshow which is on all this weekend.

Now, I have been to a couple in the past an been lucky with the weather, however one I went to it bucketed it down at the beginning and I remember this poor guy having to fly in an open cockpit WWI tri-plane! I had to try and keep the camera out of the torrential rain, then try and get a photo when the aircraft was in the correct position so as not to get water on the lens. Get an interesting grainy photo though, where the graining was the rain!

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I have quite good waterproof gear for myself, and some decent protection for the camera, put you still have to keep it off the lens. Luckily that time it didn’t last for long and made for interesting photos, but you don’t want it all the time.

This weekend at Biggin Hill, hopefully I should see, Spitfires, Lancaster, Mustangs, Red Arrows & a Typhoon. Never seen or photographed one of them! Ah, just realised, the Typhoon, is probably going to be the EuroFighter, not the WWII Typhoon, shame… Does a flying on of those exist?.. Short Answer: No.

1 Painted Hallway, 3 New Rulers Designs & 3 Rainy Days

1 Painted Hallway, 3 New Rulers Designs & 3 Rainy Days

Well I seemed to get the weather correct for the weekend. Wasn’t it miserable! I don’t think it stopped raining for more than a couple of hours at any one time! I think this week isn’t going to be any better either (except today, sunshine!). I hope it does get better, as there is an airshow this weekend that I would like to go to.

So, what did I do? Well the hallway now has 1 coat of paint on it. Wow, how interesting!

Yesterday, I designed a couple of new long rulers. I realised that after my trip to Painshill the other week, I now had enough good images to make a nice barn owl long ruler.

This was the result.

I also designed new Red Arrow & another World War II fighter ruler.

These are now on the rulers pages and I have also added some others

and the cat ruler, which I didn’t realise was missing!

As much as I enjoyed getting the painting done, and designing the new rulers, lets hope the weather cheers up soon!

Bank Hoilday, Bad Weather

Bank Hoilday, Bad Weather

As usual it looks like it is going to rain this coming bank holiday weekend. So, as it was nice yesterday, I popped at lunchtime to the local park.

There seemed to be a lot of what looked like small moths flying around, and a few butterflies. I was looking at what I think was a moth, when I suddenly saw a flash of bright orange!

It landed just long enough to get this photo.

Small Copper

Its a Small Copper butterfly, only approx 35mm in size.

It’s incredible how nature manages to make things so small but so pretty.

New Birds of Prey Coasters

New Birds of Prey Coasters

I have now added some new Birds of Prey coaster designs to the Gift pages on the website. Most of these came from my recent trip to Painshill Park, but some are from other places like Birdland and the Hawk Conservancy.

These are all available in other products, like the rulers, bookmarks, mousemats and fridge magnets. Visit the Gift page for more details.

A Lunchtime Walk

A Lunchtime Walk

As the weather was nice and I had the camera, I decided to go for a walk to Fleet Pond.

Despite having the small camera, I still managed to get a reasonable photo of the squirrel!

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I really like the lighting on this one by the pond.

What to do!

What to do!

I been trying to think what to write today but am having a bit of difficultly thinking of something.  I seem to be feeling a bit flat and missing the buzz I seemed to have yesterday.

Not too sure why, there is a bank holiday weekend coming up, so that should be good, but trying to think about what to do, and what to go and see. I feel I haven’t been able to do much over the last month and seemed to waste the last bank holiday.  It would be a shame to not go anywhere.

So, where can I go?  Depends really on how far I want to travel and for one day its a bit restricting.  So, I don’t know.  I’ll have to have a think about it and see if I can come up with something.  I have plans for the following weekend, but not this one! Not too sure on the weather either.  At the moment the forecast look like rain on Saturday, typical.  Thats always a problem not only from a photography point of view, but traveling there and especially if you are outside.

Saying that, it doesn’t really matter what the weathers like or what you do if you are with someone you like!  So thats the answer.  Spend the time with someone you like and who cares what the weathers doing!

Cutty Sark

Cutty Sark

What sad news this morning on the Cutty Sark. I initially heard there was a fire, and the Barbican was mentioned. Then I heard the it was the Cutty Sark, up in flames. For some reason that made it worse. A fire is bad enough at any time, but hearing it was that landmark was really sad.

Apparently it was under restoration and a lot of the interior had been removed, possibly making it possible to salvage it and restore the remains, but I have also hear reports that there was just the iron exterior remaining with no hull. If that is true, then that has got to be really bad, as that it really the ship. If you replace the hull, then a lot of it originality is gone.

There are also reports that Police are looking at cctv and not ruling out arson. Why would someone want to burn that?

The Cutty Sark is the worlds last Tea Clipper. Built in 1869 to transport tea from China to Britain. when the tea trade was taken over by steamers she transported wool to Australia. When she ended her working life Captain Downman decided she should be preserved and in 1922 made her part of his floating nautical school. His Widow donated the Cutty Sark to the Thames Nautical Training School at Greenhithe in 1938. After the Cutty Sark Preservation Society was formed she was restored to her formal glory.

In the 1990s the ship started to have serious structural problems in the hull. After years of lobbying a lottery grant was awarded and the ship was closed to the public in November 2006 due to be completed in 2009.

As part of the restoration process her rigging and lot of the interior was removed.  Lets hope that that will help with being able to restore what remains, but if her hull has gone, then she will never be the same again.

Excess Packaging

Excess Packaging

I have just bought myself a set of decent headphones for my PSP, to replace the cheapy cheapy 6 euro pair from the airport that didn’t work well on a plane!

These headphones were recommended to me and I had tried them out before buying them this time!

When the parcel arrived this morning, I thought great, this is really good finally a set of headphones that work well! And I was right, they do!

However, I was surprised on opening the envelope, to see this.

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What else was in the package? It looked like a carry strap, and maybe a leaflet of some sort in the top area.

I was wrong. Admittedly, I didn’t expect anything other than the headphones, but this is what I saw

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What a waste! These areas were empty and just extra bits of card. The bottom area of emptyness just had the manufacturers name, and the top part had some text in different languages about the product.

In this day and age of environmental issues and waste recycling this to me seems a waste. The product had the makers name and logo on it, which could be clearly seen. Why duplicate it? The info on the back could have been put on a leaflet inside, and the other bits could have been put on the plastic and in the hanging space.

Ok, maybe this package it also used for another product where the spaces are used, but how many of this are sold, with this excess plastic and cardboard? I am guessing a lot. New packaging costs money, but so does waste. Surely it is better to design compact packing for the product inside. People these days, also think about packaging and how companies are dealing with these issues. It may even put of some people from buying the product.

Now I know this is just one item from one company and that there are a lot of other worse package issues than this, but it did take me by surprise this morning. I think it was that when I opened the back expecting to see at least something in there and not nothing! I suddenly thought what a waste!

Companies in general really need to think, is it better to use 3 types of packing for 9 products with extra waste, or design the package to better fit the products. It does seem in general though that there is a lot of packing waste and excess packing. Its a trade off between, cost, environment, protecting the product etc.. I guess at least I can recycle the cardboard, not sure if the plastic is the correct type though. But recycling costs too!

Spiderman 3

Spiderman 3

Last night I went and watched Spiderman 3.

It was quite a long film and someone had told me that they thought it was a bit too long and that there were a few bits that could have been cut out.  When watching it, it did seem quite long, but I must admit, I couldn’t really see much that could have been removed.

It seemed to take a little while to get going with the main story line, and there did seem to be a plot that appeared from nowhere just fit in with the revenge theme, so that was a bit strange. Maybe all of that could have been done differently, but they must have felt it was needed.  This was something that just appeared as part of something that had taken place in the first film.

So, yes the film did seem quite long.  But as 12a action films go, it was quite good and I enjoyed it!

Prizes and Books

Prizes and Books

This is my prizing winning entry in the Farnborough Festival of Arts. I was lucky enough to also be given a rosette, which is something that doesn’t normally happen.

3rd Prize Owl

When I was driving into work this morning, the radio presenter was talking about writing a book. This got me thinking.

A few years ago I thought about writing a book, and a little while ago I downloaded some software to getting your photos turned into a hard back book.

I think I’ll have to try and give it a go at some stage. It takes quite a bit of setting and although its not a published book its a start. It would be nice to see some of my top images in a proper bound book. My only concern is colour matching. Although I haven’t tried these people before, I have had probelms with other online printing services.

So who knows, soon there may be a book: Lee Orchard Photography, the best of!

DPreview Website

DPreview Website

I have just read today, that one of my favorite website for looking up reviews and latest news in the photographic world have been acquired by Amazon.com.  This site is called DPreview.com.  I am sure that if you are interested in photography, then you will have heard of this site.

It was started in 1998 as a hobby, and is now visited by millions of people every day.

It will be good to see how this London based site can now expand even more with the power of Amazon supporting it.

May Craft Fair

May Craft Fair

Saturday was the Alton Craft Fair again. I was a little worried about the weather and thought we might have some really heavy rain, and not many people shopping.

It wasn’t quite as bad as I had thought and yes we did have a few heavy showers, but most of the time the rain kept away.  The main problem was towards the end of the fair when the wind started to get up and started to dismantle the marque around us while we were still in it!  The last 45mins were spent with myself, store holders and organizers holding the marque together and occasionally trying to serve when we got a customer.