March 2008 / Issue 1

In this issue:

• New Locations
• HDR Techniques
• Special Offers
• Top Tips
• Your Free Download

I have been planning all winter to provide you with some exciting new locations and some really interesting new course content. In addition we have new facilities, new workstations and a dedicated digital darkroom - all new this year!

NEW LOCATIONS: Forth Bridges including Crammond Shore and the Falkirk Wheel and surrounding canals - this is an evening shoot to capture the amazing lighting of this location. It will also introduce some long exposure techniques.

NEW CONTENT: This is the really interesting one - full HDR Software tuition. We will merge 5-7 exposures into one HDR image. Pinhole digital photohgraphy - how about learning how interesting digital pinhole photography can be? The course also includes use of Lensbaby and holga lenses on a digital platfrom. Some of the test images have been simple breathtaking.

The image on the right was a 50 second exposure taken at dusk using a Leica 4/3rds DSLR. The timing is critical to get the strong blue colour in the sky. The above image is a pinhole example. There is a special course running in April to celebrate pinhole day. read more....... Finally the Falkirk Wheel below

When I read through various forums, there appears to be some confusion regarding the expression 'expose for shadows' - the full statement is of course 'expose for shadows, develop for highlights'. The expression comes from the days of negative film where we would indeed expose for shadows and given the additional dynamic range lattitude afforded by film, we would then of course develop the film for a second time, this time under the enlarger. With digital the opposite is true as we should expose for highlights and then develop the shadows in post processing. It is remarkable how much shadow information your camera can actually capture. Please e-mail me if you require any additional information on this topic.

This months Digital Photographer Magazine has some great articles and reviews - the editorial improvement since Debbi Allen took over as editor has been huge - Highly recommended.
http://www.dphotographer.co.uk/

This download answers every question you ever had about colour management in a digital workflow, but were frightened to ask! A lot of reading, but easy to understand and covers both PC and MAC.

Useful Links Below:

Nikon UK

Canon UK

Olympus UK

Pentax UK

Lensbabies

Holgamods

Celebrate World Pinhole Day at Mark Cargill Photography

We have a special Course running on the 25th - 27th April that has some very unique content - this is not to be missed!! read more...

SUCCESS STORIES

I read a really interesting post on DP review (www.dpreview.com) regarding the new Nikon D3 where someone posted an image shot at 25600 ISO!!! While this is never going to deliver outstanding image quality,I was extremely surprised at just how good it actually was. The D3 on the face of it seems expensive (£3k) for a 12MP camera, however the flexability it gives you in the most demanding of situations makes it a professionals dream come true. read more
There is also another 25600ISO image posted on the Luminous Landscapes website here