I had a very strange year as a photographer, and I would like to briefly reflect on it as I’m sure lots of us have years like this. It was a year in which I finally took my skills and carefully amassed equipment and pitted them against a few, three to be precise, weddings, and I am really satisfied to have put these three learning experiences behind me and I am excited about the year ahead as a semi-professional photographer. That sounds as if it is a positive year, but there are some major undercurrents that are worrying me. In addition to my 3 weddings and 2 associated pre-shoots, I didn’t take a lot of portraits. Underpinning my growing photo skills is a deep love of portraiture and a delight in capturing something of people I like or who interest me, if I don’t continue to do that, then I’m afraid I might lose something essential, and even if I become an accomplished wedding shooter, I might lose the style and approach that I have developed naturally so far.

Of course there are reasons, I’m really busy at work and enjoying the professional challenges there. I have also bought a house with my girlfriend which is still sucking up DIY time, although we are almost finished that now, There was Julie’s pregnancy and now the birth of baby Hannah leading to sleep being somewhat disrupted. In short, combining this list with the 3-hour commute Julie and I had to see each other for most of the same year, it isn’t surprising that I haven’t taken enough portraits. What I don’t want though, is for this to become a permanent state of affairs, and that is where I have to confess to my dear readers about a failing. One of my very favourite photographers, David Alan Harvey, when working with a student who wanted to do a photoshoot with someone, give the young man short-shrift and told him to stop agonising about it, and to just push the issue with this potential subject. I agree totally with this approach, most of my favourite portraits have come from me gently “pushing” people who claim not to want to be photographed into working with me. Of course I don’t advocate being too pushy, “no” means “no” of course, but between yes and no lies a whole world of “maybe secretly I would like you to make a nice image of me and social protocol says I have to self protect by saying i’m not photogenic” or similar. These people are absolutely my favourite to work with and my problem is that I haven’t been that guy this year!

So if I am going to keep true to myself and develop my style then, I need to grow that confidence in approaching people and cutting out the small amount of time to meet with subjects and to produce something they love. Expect a pushier Matthew this year. It is an interesting question whether my few years of being pushy and doing projects like my 100-portraits has developed a style that can be seen in my early wedding shoots, or whether they look just like everyone else’s? Like every photographer, I hope that some of my style comes through?

The picture is of my Sister in Law, who I love immensely, and who really didn’t want to have her photo taken!

My dad died on Friday night. On my way home from work, before it happened, I stopped to photograph this landscape. I know that every time I look at this image I’ll remember my dad and what happened on Friday. My dad was a good and kind man, who was flawed and challenged just like all of us. He put the best of his life into my brother and I. This picture will kind of stay with me now, that’s the power of photography; I hope I’ll be pleased about this image over the years.

I almost love this picture, but I’m afraid it falls short. Compositionally, the woman walking her dog is in the wrong spot. If I had pressed the shutter when she was nearer to the left and filling the empty space this would have been a stronger picture. It’s good to reflect on these things and learn from them I suppose.

Here’s a crude edit (the only kind I know how to do in Photoshop) to Illustrate my point. It looks like an edit, and I wouldn’t use it of course, but I think it looks more balanced:

I have bought a new camera! Everyone I know has said to me ” how can you possibly need another camera”? My photographic friend Shirley understood perfectly well when I told her. She said in a burst of great wisdom, you can’t have too many cameras. How right she is:-)

In actual fact, despite having two DSLR’s I only have one compact camera and that is the very desirable Panasonic LX3 about which I have blogged before. It really is a great camera with a great lens. The trouble is I have discovered that it is an awkward size. It is ideal for going for a walk with it over your shoulder, or even in a large coat pocket; it would never fit in an inside jacket pocket or even a shirt pocket. This means I can’t really use it as a compact in the true sense and so I needed just that, a compact.

I have no great faith in tiny compacts to take great pictures as they have tiny sensors and often overambitious lenses full of compromises. They can never deliver control over DOF due again to their pinkienail sized sensors, but a compromise had to be made. I wanted small, simple, decent lens quality and reasonably fast response, (I once had a Nikon S210 and it was too slow to respond to the shutter button for my taste). The compromise I settled on was the Canon Ixus 100. I really wanted a wider angle lens, but most reviews said the obvious rival, the Panasonic fx40 delivered softer pictures due to an overambitious wide lens. So, I’ll only occasionally use my compact, but it’ll be great to have one small enough to be with me at all times. A good compromise I think.

Yesterday was a case in point, I cycled to Largs and the Clyde coast, travelling light with just a cycle jersey and its back pockets for my raincape, phone and wallet. The ixus was so small as to be barely noticed in a corner of one of these pockets. Just for fun, here’s what it can do. “better than a slap across the back of the knees with a wet Glasgow Herald” as a friend of mine was fond of saying.

My beloved Carbon Trek that uncomplainingly carries my 1/10th of a ton around. (no really!) Largs behind.

The beach near Skelmorlie looking back downriver towards Arran again.

The UK can have no more beautiful river estuary than the Clyde.

It is often said that the best camera you own is the “one that you have with you”. In the ideal world you would take your DSLR with you everywhere, since it is probably optically and in terms of responsiveness your best camera; you don’t always carry it though do you?

Around town you would probably feel a bit of a prat, and opt instead for a compact in your pocket since you aren’t sure you’ll take any pictures anyway. This seems a reasonable strategy since none of us want to look like prats! (Actually I don’t need a DSLR in the middle of the queue at Asda (Wall Mart to US readers) to make me look a prat, I have that covered already). But what if you are going hillwalking or trekking? Should you take the compact instead?

If you take the compact you will be able to hang it on your rucksack’s waistbelt and it will be simple to whip out at a moments notice. This is an acceptable strategy but remember:

Compacts have:

• Poorer dynamic range and will blow out skies more readily. The new generation look like they may be tackling this by doing virtual HDR in camera. Eg Fuji F200
• The Depth Of Field will be enormous and so artistic selection of your partner’s beautiful chops against a blurred mountainscape will be impossible and you will look like a rank amateur. (Actually that would at least be accurate in my case, but why advertise the fact).
• The low light landscapes will be grainy and noisy since the small sensors in compact cameras can’t yet do low light to anything like the standard of even a cheap DSLR. The sensors are generally at least 10X larger, often 15X or 20X larger.
• You suddenly see an Ibex out of the mist. Your compact doesn’t have the telephoto reach, but you have a 200mm lens for your DSLR. If it is to hand, the quality and reach will always trump your compact.

So you know you really should carry and use that DSLR, but you are a walker and you have a rucksack with your flask and sandwiches, your waterproofs and other safety gear. There’s barely room for a DSLR but you conscientiously stuff it in there anyway. That’s OK isn’t it?

Actually , no. I tried that a few times, as did my friends and you know what? You hardly take any pictures. Its just a lot of hassle to take your pack off and unbuckle it, dig for the camera, undo its cover, remove the lens cap and take the picture. Then you reverse the process, and heft the pack onto your back again and start walking. At that moment you see some lovely light hitting the ridge your descending and it is perfect. Do you dismount your rucksack again and get your camera? No you say, “sod that, it’s too much hassle.”

1st law of walking or trekking photography: “The camera that’s hard to get at won’t be used when it should.”

So your camera needs to be near to hand. Perhaps you could carry it in your hand? No. It will be tiring, it might get knocked against things, it might rain. A mountain gorilla might snatch it from you and run away. So you try what we all think is the logical next step. You get hold of a “holster style” DSLR bag with a loop to attach it to the waistbelt of your rucksack. For many people this will work fine, but personally I find it a bit limited. On the plus side the camera is at waist level, one buckle unclipped and the camera is in your hand, but if it is at the front, it might limit your thigh movement and hit off your legs while you walk uphill and drive you crazy. If you move it to the side of your waist you might find that it stops you from swinging your arms like a proper baubly-hatted trekker should. Many packs won’t even allow this because of the trend towards putting large pockets into the waistbelt at the side of your hips. This enlarges the belts at this point and means the “holster bag” can’t fit over these pockets and so has to sit at the front knocking irritatingly against your legs. For some people this is clearly OK, but most people find it irritating and will gravitate back to placing the camera in the pack: This of course will break the 1st law of walking or trekking photography:-)

Only one of the two friends pictured her finds the holster pack comfortable. I won’t of course say which:-)

So you won’t be surprised to know that I have a suggestion based on a bit of trial and error and a few extended trips to try out different approaches. My preferred option is to carry a waistpack at my front. The nature of a small waistpack is that the camera sits on it’s side rather than vertically like a simple holster bag. This means that it is less likely to impede your legs when climbing hills. Now this is a great solution, but there are two problems which need to be overcome:

1. The waistbelt of the waistpack wants to sit where the waistbelt of your rucksack sits. They can’t comfortably sit in the same place.

2. If the waistpack is too large then it will sag down and hit your legs again. This limits how much gear you can fit in it.

So the solution is The Lamont System. (Named by myself and my friends after my wife who came up with it and lashed up my first go at it). Because the waistbelts have to be on the same position on your waist, you need to attach the waistpack belt onto the waistbelt of your rucksack. You do this by attaching two corresponding plastic buckles to your rucksack waistbelt so that you can put your rucksack on as normal, then clip your camera waistpack on to the front, tighten it up and then enjoy one waistbelt, high enough to be out of the way of your legs, and the whole thing of course supported by your shoulder straps. This of course means that the waistbelt doesn’t need to be uncomfortably tight. (If you have tried a waistpack before on its own, you may have found it slipping down unless it was uncomfortably tight). I have found the Lamont System to be the most comfortable and practical way to carry my camera by far. I was on a guided trek around the Matterhorn last summer, and the guide expressed concern before we started that photographers often slowed the group by going through the pack removal that I described earlier. She was intrigued by the Lamont System. Suffice to say that I take 700 pictures of the party over 5 days trekking and never had to do more than unzip the pack and drop the lens cap into the pack, all while walking. Then stand still for long enough to nail the picture and put the camera back in the waistpack while walking! Our guide was happy and I took pictures the instant a great moment occurred.

Here’s my favourite set up in the Swiss Alps:

This shows it in use. Note I don’t even have to down sticks!

And a brutally enlarged close up from the first picture showing the extra plastic buckles sewn on to the rucksack belt. These buckles are readily available at all good outdoor shops.

Many packs will not have a fixing point for the buckles, so not every rucksack will be suitable. The waistbelts that have built in pockets again will thwart you. If the waistbelt is just a straight belt round to the rucksack back, then it’s easy to stitch on a buckle with a couple of loops of strong thread. Every rucksack will need to be judged individually for it’s suitability for the Lamont System. I’m happy to advise anyone who gets in touch.

I tried a larger pack for a Lamont System for our recent Great Glen way walk. This pack allowed me to carry a separate lens and more room for polarisers etc. I took my 40D and it’s 17-85IS lens with my 70-300IS lens and to be honest, although it was OK over 6 days walking, it wasn’t as perfectly comfortable as my main Lamont system with it’s smaller Lowepro pack. Previously I have taken my 40D and a general purpose Sigma 18-200 OS. In retrospect I will go back to the single lens. This is in keeping with the:

2nd law of walking or trekking photography: “The simplest DSLR system that gives the widest focal range is best.”

Note: The waistpack I favour is the Lowepro Orion Mini the one that is too large for a comfortable “Lamont System” is the Inverse 100 AW

My 17-85 and 70-300 are optically superior to my Sigma 18-200, but looking through my Alpine shots with this lens from last year, the quality difference was too small to matter. The kind of quality differences that matter in a lab test in “Digital Photography Review”, don’t matter in a walking trip. Catching the moment on your DSLR sensor is everything, minor lens sharpness deficiencies are nothing here.

Following my own 2nd Law I am going to return to my 18-200 for walking with a plan to try buying a smaller body such as a Canon 450D since it will deliver 99% of the quality of my 40D in a much lighter body. I might experiment with a 1.4X tele-extender if it’s small enough to go in the same waistpack with ease. If it won’t then I might upgrade to a Tamron 18-270 to stick with the 2nd Law.

Anyway, If you are a walker and a photo enthusiast I hope you will find my solution useful. If you have any other ideas then please let me know. Don’t go walking without your DSLR, that “moment” might never happen again!

Oh, it has video too, that will help it to win market share, but It wouldn’t swing the choice for me.

In my view, Canon are losing the marketing war very badly for the following reasons:

1.    The gamble they are taking in positioning the 5D and 50D as higher resolution cameras than the competition at 15 and 21 megapixels means that the competition gets better magazine reviews for high ISO performance. Since almost no-one prints pictures at poster sizes, the reviews probably have the right priorities. These reviews influence the market hugely!  The 50D gets lukewarm reviews, the Nikon D300 gets great reviews at 12 Mp and better high ISO noise performance; the 5D has pretty good reviews, but the D700 at 12 Mp gets stellar reviews for high ISO performance. They made a mistake, the market clearly values slight resolution increases with large high ISO noise performance increases and that’s what Nikon has given the market.

2.   The sensor that we call APS-C in the Canon 100D through to the 50D is a little smaller than the Nikon; that’s why the lens multiplication factor is 1.6 for Canon and 1.5 for the Nikon. This means that the Nikon has a 370mm squared area and the Canon has 329 mm squared. The Canon pixels have 11% less area if the pixel count is the same. If the technology is similar, then Canon can’t compete on noise performance due to smaller pixels. Why don’t they make slightly larger APS-C sensors?

It occurs to me that Canon have an interesting sensor in the previous professional 1D mk2. It has a 1.25 crop factor, and amazing noise performance with 10 Mp (APS-H). Why don’t Canon put a camera together for amateurs looking to move up from the 40D  using that sensor, upgraded to 12 Mp or 15Mp like the 50D if they must; that could be camera to undercut the D700 for price that could come close for noise performance. They can’t compete with a smaller sensor and higher resolution.

WAKE UP Canon!

Anyway, we visited the “Eslie the greater” stone circle in a stunning setting above Banchory. Here are a few pictures:

This is the “Eslie the greater” stone circle.

I’m afraid I made the guys pose while using the timer so that I could leap into the posefest!

Finally the incorrigible portraitist came out in me. I made my beloved Bruv and Sisylaw tough out the cold wind to indulge my need for a dramatic background romancefest:

Just one more, I know it isn’t perfect, but I like this one with Linda’s eyes closed. I think I prefer the portrait format in compositional terms:

Sorry I haven’t posted for a couple of days. Between being away for a conference and then rushing back to hang the portraits in “Offshore cafe’s” exhibition space there hasn’t been time. On Friday night Catherine and our dear friends Gerry and Elisabeth got stuck into the task and discovered the true scale of hanging100 12″ x 9″ images; 500 sticky pads needing cut, 100 name and description cards as well as wrestling with newly painted walls where the paint has set with a powdery finish. A big thanks to my helpers. I wen’t back yesterday and finished the job as we only managed 70 on Friday night.

Anyway, the exhibition is up, and I’m really pleased to see it coming together. If you’re near Glasgow then head to Offshore Cafe, Gibson Street in Glasgow’s west end.

I have no idea what this strange growth on a twig is, but it wasn’t a native part of the tree. It looked parasitic.

These tiny fronds were growing on a rock and seemed a little like a forest in miniature themselves.

This waterfall was at the beginning and the end of the loop that we walked. I had turned my nose up at it because “the light wasn’t interesting”. On the way back my spirit of photographic contrition made me have a go with my mini tripod on a rock despite the near twighlight conditions. I dont love the result, but at least it was a more honest effort from me.

Moral of the story: Sometimes we can forget to make pictures for fun because the perfect setting or moment is not there. I won’t post these on my Flickr page, but they might interest a botanist at least.