Rain saturates colours, and me!
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- čas přidán 13. 09. 2024
- Whilst a fan of film, and B&W at that, I do find that sometimes a digital camera is the best way to go.
On this trip to the Northern Lake district in the UK I make the most of the rich colours whilst also trying to stay dry!
Equipment Used
Nikon D810 with 24-85 VR lens
Velbon Ultra Luxi L tripod
Preview App
Mark II Artists Viewfinder (iOS only on the App Store)
Vlogging Equipment
GoPro Hero 10
iPhone 12Pro
Incidental Music (Epidemic Sound)
Etsy Shop
steveonionspho...
Contact Details
Email: youtube@steveonions.co.uk Twitter: Steve_ONions / steve_onions Instagram: steveonions1 / steveonions1
CZcams: / @steveonions
What I value most about your videos is watching and listening to you think through your shots, and this video is exceptional for that. It's inspiring. And, of course, I always enjoy your images. Thanks.
Thanks Johnny.
I like your umbrella holder.
Great video, Steve. I agree, I'm old school, get it right in the camera , saves work later. Or back iin the film days, saves money at lab with corrections.
Absolutely Ken, the post processing work from this trip was very minimal.
What a great outing where the color made it apparent what would work best for the day. I believe your intentionality is one of your greatest strengths as a photographer. This applies to both your compositions as well as your decision making process regarding color/b&w or digital/film. By being so intentional, one exposure is all you need due to the care taken prior to releasing the shutter. Twenty or thirty careless and rushed shots will not yield the satisfaction that one good one will when you know it's the right image. Of course that requires a well-trained eye along with a mindset that embraces patience. Thank you for being such a good example.
Thanks Bob. One of the worst things I find about taking too many shots is the additional work I have once home. Not only do I have to pick the best compositions but if I have multiple frames of a scene I’m always worried that one might be sharper than the others.
I've been procrastinating about going through a batch of photos from our recent vacation for that very reason. Most of them were rushed and examples of "snap" shots. Unsurprisingly, they're not very good beyond documenting where we were and what we saw. That waterfall or rock formation did not need 12-or more-exposures.
Very enjoyable, great to see your work in colour
Many thanks 🙂
I watched yesterday! The colors, Oh! the colors. I love color. I got my dose yesterday. I cannot comment on my sattelite TV. My laptop sound is curtailed by Microsoft and Google. If I cannot hear you, I cannot hear the ads! Brilliant. I see a big picture! I loved it! I love BW, yours esp. But I slide to color an awful lot. Bravo. Bravo.
Thanks Jason, I find the pull of colour hard to resist sometimes.
I have to say that I rather like your first couple of shots Steve 📷👍
Thanks Eltin 🙂
Wet weather always brings the colours out.
It does indeed Jim.
Excellent video !
Glad you liked it!
Point of no return. Nice job.
Thanks Steve - and no apologies necessary, the video and audio were perfectly fine. Your two square-format photographs were wonderful, and being in color was the right choice. I'm nowhere near as good as you with my photography, but I find black and white excels with bright days and silver nights - and color every time else. The Lake District is gorgeous - I spent some time there in 2010 and it was never near long enough!
Thanks Roger. The conditions really did cry out for colour. Mono would have worked but only with a very soft effect, perhaps even a high speed grainy film like Delta 3200.
Love your videos, very inspirational.
Glad you like them Paul.
I notice a different umbrella clamp from the one that you used in your Intrepid video......... looks stronger. great video as usual Steve, always look forward to your trips on screen.
Thanks Malcolm. I’ll be trying out an even lighter clamp the next time it rains 😊
What a beautiful area, full of opportunities!
It is indeed David, all year round too.
" Because of the rain , not despite of ..." Great colors, compositions, finally a walk with DSLR 🙂
Stunning video, Steve.
I am soo much in love with the square format, my friend.
Thanks a lot for all the work you put into this video.
Antoine
My pleasure!
That final square image is lovely indeed, and what a fabulous day to be out and about in the Lakes, I did love my years there. A hugely interesting video, thanks for posting.
Glad you enjoyed it Trevor.
Lovely images. The "safety shot" is important and saved me countless times in bad weather. Having said that, I tend to stick around when the weather deteriorates to see if I can spot dramatic shots. I've adapted the idea of the brolly-tripod connection . That is invaluable. Thanks
I love using the umbrella when there’s no wind, it makes working in the rain quite enjoyable and I feel less hurried.
A great trip there. Often when it rains a scene becomes uniquely vibrant even with no sun. I love the vibrant greens of Spring leaves, some even look autumnal, then there’s the dappled light. I’ve just come back from the Peak District. Luckily the clear blue skies and Mediterranean heat had passed for something more akin to British weather. Your tripod umbrella holder is a very useful device. I see Robin just braved the rain with no umbrella. I love that little round window in your office. I was trying to decide whether you were in the attic or in an out house /office in your garden. Every man’s dream. The garden shed is so last century.
Thanks Simon, I’ve also found the recent hot spell very difficult for photography and hiking. Whilst I don’t like clear blue skies they do give the option of infrared.
I’m hoping the upcoming spell of sunshine and showers opens up a few possibilities for couple negative work with my Bronica.
Most interesting and very helpful. I suppose I have about 30 vintage cameras now open brackets corvid stroke eBay stroke gas being the culprits). This has made me feel I must use them rather than clutter up the house with them and so my colour photography has taken very much second place. This video is going to encourage me to take out my digital cameras together with the old girls. When the laptop drops into random slide mode it brings back photographs that I enjoy seeing again, which is nice! Thanks again. Mark
Thanks Mark. I also go through spells of buying old cameras then wondering why 🤔
Enjoyed the photos and the outing. I think you were right about B&W that day. Without all the color for separation everything would have been essentially the same or very identical shade of grey. There didn't seem to be enough texture or form separation to make B&W standout. Thanks for posting.
You’re right Erich, mono wouldn’t have worked unless I boosted the contrast considerably and that would have spoiled the mood.
Lovely color images, I admit I'm partial to color, when it rains it's the best.
Many thanks 🙂
Yes Steve, these conditions are ideal for colour landscape photography. I don't shoot colour very often, but in heavily overcast and wet conditions, like you I tend to gravitate to colour. In conditions where the light is soft and diffuse I like to shoot using the Olympus/OM System partial colour modes and when the light is harsh and bright I tend to move more to black and white. The partial colour picture modes in the Olympus cameras effectively limit the colour range seen in the image where colours not in the selected range are seen as black and white. I just love what partial colour can do to an image. It sounds strange, but if the conditions are right, it works incredibly well.
I like the sound of that restricted colour option. I think shooting the likes of Kodak Portra 160 would also have a great effect in softening the palette.
A lovely ramble to watch from the dry comfort of my couch. Your thoughts about radically culling your catalog make me think I should do the same. Frankly, the thought intimidates me, but I know you’re right when you speak of the proportion of rubbish.
I’ve got the whole lot down to well under 4000 images from the last 20 years and it’s still full of rubbish! I did a similar exercise with my negatives about 12 years ago, threw out thousands of so so frames and I’ve never missed them.
@@SteveONions You do a great job of critiquing your work in your videos, so I'm sure that talent has been honed by that purging exercise. I'm sure there's the added benefit of a more responsive Lightroom catalog.
Wonderful conditions Steve. At 8:20 I couldn't help but yell out "turn around!" Those trees up on the hill looked great in the wet conditions with the stark white bark. They stood out nicely from the moody background. Some nice rocks in the foreground to boot. Funny how we can "see" when we're not out trying to make images, but when out with the camera it seems much more difficult.
I always see things later on the video Larry, sometimes I think I should take a break while shooting to review the footage 🙂
While I shoot primarily color, I think there are images that are stronger in B&W than color and of course the opposite. I probably fail to take B&W when I should.
I had the same issue, and for me in the end it was just to treat the addition of colour as i would any other type of compositional element. So i'd look for the form of the shot, then ask myself what exactly is the colour adding to the composition, effectively giving B&W the default status. I found this actually made me appreciate colours in a scene far more than before, particularly inspired by abstract works, and i'd start seeking out things that specifically produced strong colours and contrasts, in much the same way i look for strong textures in a B&W shot. Sometimes a little adjustment in mindset forces you to recalibrate your eye for things.
I usually make a decision to shoot colour or mono before I set out but the choice is better made once I’ve arrived at the location.
Tell me more about that excellent brolly holder you've got on that tripod? Oh my, how many times have I wanted something like that on a landscape shoot. Pretty please :)
I’ve actually got three different brolly holders now Huw. I started with a big hefty clam that’ll accept a golfing brolly before moving into the lightweight affair shown in this video. It’s not bad but a little tricky to pack away so I’ve recently got another very simple plastic clamp affair that I need to try. It’s tiny and lightweight but I’m not sure if it’s up to the job.
Thanks for another great video. Liked your compositions. I'm a bit more relaxed about cropping these days as long as the end result isn't too far removed from the original intention, It's rarely the case I'm using a (film) camera able to take different format backs, and with your D810 you've got plenty of pixels to juggle anyway. Just had a cull on my main project image files too. Put them all on a memory stick and viewed on the LED TV screen to help decide. Sadly the two 6 x 7 shots taken this morning aren't likely to be joining that folder!
It’s a tough decision to get rid of images (and film frames) but ultimately it makes us better photographers I think.
It's not often we see you in "full colour" & extolling it's virtues. ☺ Grand location and good watch & listening to your thought process on images. A lightroom clearout is something we all should undertake I think - I certainly would have my pc back if I did, lol. I don't mind a bit of moistness in my videos. atb Al
Thanks Alan. It’s a horrible job spending hours trawling through a catalogue but we’ll worth the effort.
I also make a little marker when I've scoped out a shot.
👍
Hey Steve, I really enjoyed this video. Two things that stand out for me today are, one, the idea of treating a digital camera as though it were a film camera, and two, the value of "culling the herd" so to speak; cutting out all of those nothing images one keeps because storage is so cheap these days. With a digital camera it can be too easy to just shoot away; something I am quite guilty of. Treating the camera as a film camera would tend to slow me down a bit to consider in greater depth the nuances of the composition. A nothing image is a nothing image. Advances in editing software is not going to transform that image into a good one. So, get 'em gone. Slogging about in the rain there has got to be fun. Right. But it's those who endure the conditions who come home with a catch. Cheers.
I’m so glad I took the time to radically cut down my catalogue James. From 25000 to 5000 yet there’s still more I could do. Having done the work I can now clearly see the best images and have gone through picking out the 4 and 5 star shots, the only ones that really matter. I sometimes look at them and some move up or down, it takes time to really get to the tiny fraction of shots that mean something.
Hey Steve, another really interesting conversation once again. Your dedication to black'n'white over the last few years, and now your readoption of colour, leaves me with a question. I'll do my best to pose it to you.
If black'n'white is all about tone and contrast, and colour is all about… well, colour, do you think working on one improves the other. Or, do you think they are two completely separate mediums? Does working on tone and contrast improve your colour images, for example? Do you look for contrasting tones or opposing colours in the same way? Thanks for the 'vlogs', as always.
A very interesting question James. For me the bias towards mono has definitely improved my eye in that medium, I know when a shot will work. It has also made me more selective when picking out shots, I don’t just shoot anything and try to fix it in post processing.
Another benefit has been recognising when mono just isn’t a good choice. Sometimes I’ve persevered and come away with lacklustre images when I knew it was a colour scene. This has definitely made me more attuned to scenes where I’m shooting the colours and not the shape and form.
I am hopeful that you will elaborate a bit on future videos. The Color vs. BW decision is one I debate ad-nauseam and I really don't have any guidelines for deciding. It is usually only after seeing them on the computer that I decide and that leads to muddled thinking in the field.
I’m never keen on deciding the direction in post processing Philip, it has to be done up front. Converting colour to B&W also needs to be a conscious decision at the shooting stage for me although I know that other people are happy to decide later.
I love color, but I find that it can make me 'lazy' about the photos I take. Great colors =/= great photo. I have gotten much better images by being strict and shooting RAW with monochrome picture control when out in the field, seeking out images with strong composition and good separation of tonality on the back of the camera first. Once it's passed the "works in black and white" test, I convert it to Standard color (in-camera usually), and the results are much stronger photos.
Interesting approach. I suppose a strong mono image is a good starting point, much like an artist sketches out initially in pencil.
Thank you for another interesting video. Like you I think I will take fewer photographs, and better ones. I am off on holiday to Holy Island soon and am determined not to come home with giabytes of poor quality files and films with so so immages.
Tricky one that, Holy island can be very rewarding and so many things to shoot I really like the old priory with the remains of the impressive arches.
Yes, we are very spoiled to be in a time where we can do so much! Digital, B&W, Film or not! I'm a ways behind you in that I'm only now re-acquainting myself with film and taking the step into into medium format that I never really took 40 years ago because of cost. The most I did was once barrow a Mamiya rb67 from the man who shot my wedding in 1988. It actually went on the honeymoon with us to Yosemite where I found it too cumbersome compared to my two Canon 35mm cameras.
This time around I'm trying to play a little with folding cameras and TLRs. The idea of 4x5 large format is also looking very appealing based in no small part to your videos. It has all really peaked my interests! I like your approach to your photography and very much like the images you find in the beautiful UK.
I’m glad you’re finding the journey back to film enjoyable. Medium format system cameras were never really designed for carrying long distances but TLR’s and folders are a great alternative.
Do you still have Velvia in your fridge or are you just done with colour film entirely?
I do have some colour film and even bought some new stuff recently. Just need to find the right subjects to use with it now.
I adore the first image that you don't like. I guess there is no accounting for taste. I also liked the top of the frame on the second. I feel slighted when the top part of the tree is clipped out, if it almost fits. It's almost like taking a picture of a cat and everything above the eyes is cut off. But that's just me. I think the mood of color and black and white are very different. Color tends to be more upbeat, and black and white tends to be more stark or gloomy or nostalgic.
I’m thinking the Bronica might have been a better tool on the day Dann. I prefer the native 1:1 aspect ratio and perhaps a roll of Portra 160?
That's not wet and drizzly for the Lake District. I have been living here for four years and now have webbed feet.
😸
I think that if you used the digital rather than the film camera, those scenes would have worked. I find that digital adds a certain amount of contrast ( false contrast, to be honest )to dull scenes that film can not do. I have also finally managed to dial in a half decent B&W profile on my EM5 MKII and EM1 MKII, using the Monochrome mode, plus the Highligh /Shadow controls and in camera filter. Great video, steve. Thank you.
He did use digital
@@jhenline7813 I was talikng balck and white, and how I mix colour and B&W photography together using the same camera.
Looking back I think I’d have been better served by the Bronica and a colour film. I don’t like cropping down from one aspect ratio to another and the scenes I was drawn to were mainly 1:1.
@@SteveONions It may just be that you have used the Bronica for so long that seeing in square format has become second nature to you. As for my D800 and D810, I am mostly in the native crop mode of 4X5. It is still 30 MP of data but much more like shooting a 4X5 camera.
While you take one picture I take hundred. I look in the viewfinder. Its called viewfinder for a reason. I don't think, I feel.
👍
@@SteveONions it was an in sult you i diot
When are we going to see some of Ronin’s work?
You’ll need to go over to his videos Robert
youtube.com/@RobinWhalley
@@SteveONionswhat is Robin’s last name?