Photographers – David Nightingale – Chromasia Photography Training and Workshops

A day of one to one photography training with David Nightingale

I spent a day last year on some photography training with David Nightingale who runs the Chromasia website. I’ve long been a fan of Davids as I just love his unique style of shots and the fact that he enjoys a wide variety of images, from weddings, through portraits and into landscapes. I remember him saying that he’d probably never tire of taking photographs while wandering across a beach, undoubtedly something I’d share with him.

So we spent the morning wandering across Fleetwood beach a place seen many times on his photo blog. We talked about about photography in general, lots about composition and seeing an image before taking it. He takes a lot more shots lying down than I do so I gained a somewhat different perspective as well as using a cheap spirit level in the hotshoe mount and holding the camera just above the ground. Then discussed more about business, blogs, his upcoming work with Chase Jarvis, and  monetising an online photography presence.

In the afternoon we did a review of some of my images over coffee and a cup cake, and then on to an afternoon of post processing. This is where I gained most value. Davids images contain a significant amount of post processing and his work with HDR photography led me to sign up for his tutorials some years ago. The image of Blackpool Pier and Tower on his website is probably one of the most striking HDR images I’ve seen, having tried to reproduce it myself as a learning exercise, its an incredibly complex process. Details of this can be found in his book on HDR. Probably the key lesson for me here was the use of layered gradients and curves and how some simple techniques can be applied over and over to build up a more complex photograph.

I’ve added a few images taken on the day, that hopefully do his style justice.

A brief review of the Fuji X-100

The Fuji X-100 – Opening the Box

One of the first things you notice when opening the box is the feel of quality. The Fuji x-100 camera is beautifully presented in the black lined box, and picking it up for the first time not only shows its quality retro look, but a nice heavy feel of a quality item. Given that this now retails at £849 or thereabouts, its a reassuring thing. In terms of the retro look, it reminds me of some of the gorgeous Leica rangefinders, and the finish itself takes me back to my first ever film SLR the Fujica STX-1. The black rippled surface I’m sure is the same. Everyone who’s seen this beauty, photographer or not, without seeing the LCD screen, will ask if its a film camera.

Why did I buy the x-100

I guess at least half of my reason were the other favourable reviews by wedding and portrait photographers alike. Damien Lovegrove being my greatest influence as I borrowed his Fuji x-100 as we sat through lunch on an Into the Light course. He’s even given up his 35mm lens as the Fuji now substitutes it. There are also favourable reviews by Zack Arias and wedding photographer Kevin Mullins. All of which talk about the camera’s ‘quirks’ some of which take some time to get used to.

The other half of the reason is that as with many professional photographers, lugging round a big ‘in your face’, SLR with battery grip and 70-200mm lens generally is a little more than unobtrusive. My previous compact camera, the few I could find with manual mode, the Canon Powershot A620 rarely leaves the shelf as its just not responsive enough, doesn’t shoot RAW and, well, just doesn’t cut it in terms of a reasonable SLR substitute. The image quality just isn’t there.  The Fuji x-100 has all of the control you need, and doesn’t get you noticed.

First Use

Getting the hang of the controls really is a doddle. Simply set the aperture on the lens, and the shutter speed on the speed dial. Setting either to ‘A’ gives aperture priority, or shutter priority mode. There’s a really handy exposure compensation dial on the top, and the two screens are easily selected by the view mode button. The hybrid viewfinder is crystal clear and is a really nice touch for those of us who don’t want to be ‘camera zombies’ sticking our arms out and staring at the viewfinder. Given its retro feel, and my own love of Black and White photography, I’ve set the display to black and white mode.

My first set of images were, in fairness, disappointing. There was quite a lot of motion blur, both from the subject and from hand-holding in low light. The focus is undoubtedly slow, and I’ve found myself switching into macro mode regularly to get a quicker response to focus on close subjects. Zack Arias wrote about this in detail, as I think earlier models were far worse and subsequent firmware updates have made vast improvements. Having used this for a number of weeks now, learning the ways of the camera, and tweaking the settings, I’ve arrived at images I love.

Ongoing Use

One of the great things, and certainly a real leap in terms of my happiness with the final photographs, was getting the auto settings correct. I learnt about these from Damien Lovegrove’s Blog and I’m sure he’s found the same issue that I have in that I find 1/60th sec is still a little slow in terms of minimum shutter speed for general use. My settings are now: Auto ISO with a maximum of ISO 3200, a minimum shutter speed of 1/80th sec and I always shoot at f2. You do of course need to be careful of the lens distortion when shooting portraits close up. The effect of the 23mm ( 35mm equivalent) can make people photographs less than flattering.

I remain using this in Black and White mode, and I would guess that 90% of my images stay this way. I’ve created a few Lightroom Presets to add noise, vignette and a cream tone to give it that real film look. Once a film shooter, always a film shooter perhaps, and having thought about it, its been a while since I’ve brought out the Ilford FP4 film. The built in ND filter is a great addition for using the lens wide-open in bright light.

Conclusions

Its slow to focus, a little quirky, the battery life isn’t that long. But once you get used to it, its an awesome little camera. I’ve found I’m using it more and more for my personal work, and the great thing is, you can pop it in your pocket or rucksack and take it pretty much everywhere and remain unobtrusive. Its every professional photographers opportunity to be just like everyone else for a change.

Gallery Photo – ‘Sunrise’

It seems that these days sunrise and sunset photographs aren’t quite as popular as they once were in the photography community. I can’t think why given that mother nature presents us with some marvellous photographic opportunities. This photograph is one taken in a similar position about this time last year. The change into autumn sees the appearance of mist and fog and I think it just adds drama to any composition. In this case just blending the field into the hedge in the foreground and then blending the first tree line into the group of trees in the background.

The key to a good sunrise shot, other than getting up early to take the photographs of course is to ensure the sun and the sky don’t get burnt out and overexposed. To avoid this you may need a graduated filter, or as in this case take a bracketed set of three shots, to either ensure one is well exposed, or to combine them later in photoshop and create a mask to reveal only those parts of the photograph you need.

As you can see from the metadata below the scene itself was actually quite bright allowing a fast shutter speed and allowing the camera to be hand-held. If I’d arrived at the scene half an hour earlier I think I would have needed a tripod to avoid any camera shake. Bearing in mind I almost always use a cable release when the camera is mounted this way to avoid my pushing of the shutter button to add any further vibration.

Technical Details

ISO 200, 105mm, f8, 1/320 sec

Tools Used

Lightroom 3 , and Photoshop. In Photoshop I created a graduated layer to just darken down the top of the sky.

Gallery Photo – ‘Look Up’

This photograph was seen just by looking up at something maybe no one else had noticed. Again this is probably a shot only a photographer would have noticed. I think with a bit more time I would have probably cloned out the clothing on the handrail at the very top of the stairs.

Technical Details

ISO 400, 24mm, f4, 1/25 sec

Tools Used

Lightroom 3 , I used a conversion to black and white and then added just a subtle bit of split toning to give the photograph a lift. Then finally added some film grain and a vignette to give it that older look.

Gallery Photo – ‘Pipes’

I think this image is really more about composition and framing rather than the subject itself. After all is not a particularly exciting photograph. I think this is what they’d call a ‘photographers image’. The sort of thing that only a photographer would notice.

Technical Details

ISO 100, 105mm, f4, 1/250 sec

Tools Used

Lightroom 3 , I used one of my Lightroom presets to reduce the yellow cast, and add a vignette. I’ve boosted the red, orange, and yellow to make the brass connections stand out a little. Then finally added some film grain to give it that older look.