Buying Calendars from the Photo Themes

Hi All,

I have a way for you guys to order your calendars through me which means I can take your orders on a separate site but I will then have to send off for calendars to be printed so it will most likely take til mid January for calendars to get to you all.

If you would like a calendar, please follow the link below and put your order through. I will stop taking orders on Wednesday the 3rd of January and will order the calendars on this day. Hopefully they will get to me in speedy time and I can get them to you quickly. I know I haven't given you very long to order them but I don't want you to miss out on the first month because of deliveries.

I will be happy to take orders after the 3rd but I can't guarantee their delivery date before January if you are not in the UK!

Thanks all!

http://fatdragon100.bigcartel.com/

Animating in Photoshop

I have been playing with Photoshop CS6 at work and learning how to animate with their new Motion layout.

I have animated in CS5 but, unless I have missed something, the timeline is a lot better in CS6 and the only downside I can see is that you can only make a 10 second clip. This is as far as I know anyway but as my clip was only 10 seconds I didn't pursue it. I guess if that is the case it is always possible to make a string of 10 second movies and put them together in simple video editing packages.

Either way it was great fun. I may do a tutorial at some point if people are interested in it, or just because I enjoy it anyway ;) It's a great additional feature to an already intense program.

One thing that is great about animating in Photoshop is the ability to change layer opacity which means that you can 'onion skin' (see the frame before and after the one you are drawing) to be able to animate a lot easier. I really like it and it's a great resource if you want to play with animation without committing to buying a whole package of animation software!

Here's my rough run through of a 10 second clip from The Count of Monte Cristo:

Understanding aperture and background blur

A lot of people keep asking how you achieve good background blur with the SX40 - the quick answer is that you can't. Or at least you can't do it in the same way you can with an SLR.

Background blur is your depth of field which refers to how much of your image is in focus. The Aperture is a big part of this in SLR cameras however it does not seem to do the same job in the SX40. I hope by now that a lot of you know I won't go into technical detail, mainly because I don't know the exact technical reasons for the aperture behaving differently on the SX40 but I would assume it is down to something in the camera being digital rather than a mechanical function.

But I digress... the aperture, as I have explained before, behaves very similarly to our eyes. When we open our eyes wide, a lot of light gets in and it's harder for us to focus. Vice versa, squinting our eyes often allows us to focus more and limits the amount of light that we are receiving.

When we use a low/wide aperture with an SLR, the background blur is also affected in the same way our eyes blur the scene when we open them wide. So taking a picture with a low/wide aperture on an SLR, enhances the background blur and gives us more light.

Taking a picture with a high aperture on an SLR decreases the amount of light, but also allows for more focus which means our image is focused over a bigger space so background blur is limited.

The SX40 doesn't behave in the same way. I took the following examples to demonstrate:

This is a side by side comparison of images taken on the Canon 400D SLR. The image on the left has a low aperture of F3.5. Notice the background blur and the focus on the foreground.

The image on the right has an aperture of F8.0 so the background is more in focus whilst the foreground remains in focus.

This image is from the SX40. As you can see there is little difference between the two images even though I used the same settings for the SX40 as I did on the Canon 400D.

Whilst the exposure is a little off on the 400D thats because I wanted to keep the same settings as the SX40 so I couldn't balance the light completely.

So when you are stressing over getting good background blur, do bear this in mind. I did make a video about creating Bokeh (which is essentially creating background blur) which you can see here. But it's not as easy to create as it would be on an SLR as these examples will demonstrate.

I apologise for the camera shake in this video, it was tough juggling three cameras! :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpMDiEbIJ3g

I just upgraded my SLR...

I was trying to make a video last night making aperture a lot clearer and explaining what it is that the SX40 is missing when it comes to creating background blur when the SLR can do it a lot easier. So I had the two cameras side by side on the bed and my demo set up to show that one lot of photography settings has a much different affect on blur with one camera than it does on the other. I was trying to preview my Nikon pictures (I have a Nikon D70) and the screen was so tiny I couldnt really see them without moving the camera and ruining the shot.

I realised that I really don't use my SLR because it's just so difficult to see through the viewfinder and the back screen and navigation around the camera isn't the easiest. I still love my SX40, it is a lot easier to carry around and the zoom is epic, but it is nice to have an SLR for special occasions and for more photography experimentation so it was about time I upgraded!

I stuck with Nikon as I already had the lenses for the camera and lenses are so expensive that it wouldn't make much sense for me to switch to Canon unless I had a lot of money to spare which I don't. As I know the Canon models better, having worked with them every day, I decided that I knew I liked the 50D and 60D in the Canon range so I looked up the Nikon equivalent. The D90 is the apparent equivalent to the Canon 50D but with the option of video which the 50D doesn't have.

So it was the D90 I eventually picked and I am waiting for it to arrive. Hopefully when it does I will will have some good time to play around with it and start to explain photography in more depth. Don't fear the SX40 videos won't be completely out of mind but as I have covered a lot of information on them already, it will be nice and refreshing to show some other parts of photography that are still relevant in terms of learning and relevant to both the SX40 and the D90.

So there's an update on my SLR situation, I'll be back soooon!!

Huge Apologies, I've been off the radar!

Hi All,

I'm so sorry I haven't been updating my blog. I deserve a good old slap on the wrist as I really do appreciate that people read my blog.

Last week I had Tonsillitis which I was trying to deal with without going to the doctor for four days before I gave in and went anyway. Following a week of antibiotics I am now back and ready to roll.

I am still looking to move house which is another reason why I am finding it hard to make more videos. I'm in a bit of a pickle as I need to look for jobs so I can move, but once I find one, I won't have access to the video camera I make the videos with which means making new videos could be a pain.

I was going to start doing a series of videos about SLR cameras and also I was considering doing some animations to talk through Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO to help those who are still struggling with the theory of it. I think the animations may be easier for me to complete at this point in time as doing the other videos requires a lot of set up which I don't have the time to prepare!

I did do a vote on the facebook page to see what people were interesting in seeing from my Youtube channel and the top suggestions were:

• +28+28

Concert/low light photography

• +18

How to get better sunset pics

• +13

Raynox DCR250? :-)

• +4

Zoom blur effect (in Photoshop)

• +4

Fireworks pics

I have taken this into consideration. The tough part is really being able to suggest the settings for concert photography without actually having a concert to go to. I previously mentioned in a video about changing your white balance to help in low light situations, it tends to bring in more light but it does remove that atmosphere that the concert lights can give.

In terms of low light, I will need to employ one of my family members again to try and get them to help me demonstrate photography in low light.

Sunset pictures is also a tricky one at this time of year as I am leaving work in the dark so I don't get a chance to capture many sunsets. Also with it being winter, the chances of nice clear skies and sunsets are limited here. I'm hoping that the next time I go to Wales on the weekend I will be able to grab the opportunity for sunset shots out in the hills and I can bring both cameras to talk through it!

The Raynox is one I am admittedly slow at moving my butt into gear on. I do own a Raynox and it's a great tool, I just need to get a bit more time practising with it and I will be able to talk through it as an accessory and the best ways to use it.

The zoom blur effect in photoshop isn't something I am familiar with so I will need to find out what effect it is exactly that you want to achieve and I can demonstrate that in Photoshop with no probs.

Fireworks... again a shot that isn't easy for me to do a demo with as the opportunities I get to see fireworks don't really allow me to take two cameras and to talk through a demo with so it would be a case of showing pictures I have taken and explaining the settings but I can do that if it's needed?

So there's an update in the world of Fatdragon100!

Lastly, I have been running a weekly photo theme over on Facebook which is proving to be quite fun and popular. I noticed that this weeks theme is the 11th week we have been doing it and I was thinking of making a 2013 calendar using the photo theme winners for each month and perhaps popping a Fatdragon picture in on each month too. Is this something people would be interested in? I will run a vote over on Facebook too to find out and to see if the winners would be happy for their photos to be used.

I hope everyone is well and looking forward to a nice Christmas break!

All the best,

FatDragon :)

Taking long exposure night shots using CHDK

My most recent video is up on YouTube and it's all about using CHDK to override the ISO for night time photography.

As the SX40 limits the ISO to 100 when you are taking a long exposure, the images are often too dark to really capture night time scenery and star scapes.

When we override the ISO a lot more light can enter the image and we can see a lot more stars/scenery than if we were limited to an ISO of 100. In the video I demonstrate using an ISO of 500 and of 800 to show just how much you can expand the light

Some things to remember:

• When you take a 15 second exposure, it takes 15 seconds to process afterwards.
• Use a tripod/stable surface, when you take long exposures your camera is taking in light and detail for the whole 15 seconds and if you move slightly, it will cause a blur. 
• Use the 2 second self timer option so that there is time between you pressing the shutter and the image starting. This will eliminate blur caused when you let go of the shutter button
• To focus on night skies it's often easier to maintain focus if you can find a bright star to zoom in on slightly and to keep it in the center of the image, once the focus is locked on that star, the rest of the night sky should be in fairly good focus.

Anywho, any more questions let me know. I will upload examples of the pictures from the video later.

Fat Dragon's Super Duper Simple SX40 Manual

This is still a work in progress but please feel free to have a browse through my simplified SX40 manual based on the videos from my YouTube channel.

I will expand it more as time goes on but obviously it takes time and I want people to be able to use it as soon as possible so I thought it couldn't hurt to start posting and updating :D

Nip over to my website http://www.fatdragon100.co.uk/ and you will see the manual available in the Downloads tab :)

Comparing the SX40 to the SX50

As of late, everybody is excited because Canon have released the new model in their SX range which is the Canon SX50. Now I am not one to dash off and buy the latest model just because there is a new model out and really, if I can get past the bits about the SX40 that niggle me (especially using CHDK) then I don't see the point in spending another £400 just because the new camera is out.

However, given good reason and advanced features I may be swayed so as I am typing this new post, I am checking out the specifications of the new camera compared to my beloved SX40 to see what it really offers.

Now, I love to share what I learn in photography for the SX40 but as it comes to the end of the series when I have exhausted all topics, I will eventually have to look towards new things to chat about and as I plan to move house to a different part of the country and a different job, I will eventually have to invest in a new video camera. I am half considering using my SX40 to film if I get a new camera so we will see what my new purchase is. But anyway I digress, point being, I am in a position where a new camera would be nice in terms of technology and new tutorial series but also I need to consider what would be ideal for my own needs and I think that investing in a camera that is pretty much the SX40 would be a bad move, I may as well venture out there and see what else is on sale but nevertheless, lets look at how the two compare!

So first off, megapixels. 12.1megapixels on the SX40, 12.1megapixels on the SX50 - no changes there, I have never felt that the SX40 particularly needs more but I know that a lot of people will be itching for more! From the reviews I have read, it seems that overdoing the megapixels can just result in slower camera performance anyway so really, I wouldn't be let down by the lack of extra megapixels, as I say, there's not really anything wrong with the SX40 quality anyway so why change it right?!

Looking at the image processor, the two cameras are listed as having the same image processor as each other. Now as I have said many times before, I don't know everything technological about cameras, I am not a whiz kid and I learn most of my information from others who know more than me and from the research I do on the internet. So bear with me as I try to explain how the image processor will affect the images as we can then see how the new model will remain consistent with the SX40 seeming as they are using the same image processor.

So the image processor affects the following areas:

• Colour and brightness information - Filtering the correct colour and light to each pixel in an image and comparing them to the neighbouring pixels to ensure the correct colour value for each pixel.
• Assessing the pictures overall contrast to ensure tones are realistic. It does this by adjusting the mid-tones using the gamma value.
• Reduces noise in the image. Noise is otherwise known as grain and looks as if the picture has blocks of colour in places where there should be more variety. The image processor tries to remove areas of noise that are appearing however, it can be quite a difficult process as it may remove areas of the image that have fine detail but appear as noise to the camera.
• As the camera assesses colour and light as mentioned before, the adjustment of colour can sometimes cause an image to be too soft. The image processor will enhance image sharpness to maintain any depth and detail that can be lost when fixing the pixel colour/light and to do this it must correctly detect the edges that need sharpening and avoid making them too sharp. This is all analysed by the image processor.
• Speed of image processing. The speed at which the camera completes the above actions is determined by the image processor in the camera. Canon have named their processors DIGIC and the most ideal processors don't really show a noticeable delay between taking the picture, processing it and allowing the photographer to carry on shooting. You will notice more of a delay with longer exposures.

Now I personally don't have an issue with the speed of the SX40 however I know that there are quite a few people who were frustrated in the delay between shots when they want to take burst mode especially at a distance. It doesn't seem like this is going to change with the SX50 as they are keeping the same image processor so for a lot of us that won't make a difference but for those who want faster processing, perhaps this isn't an ideal feature in terms of 'upgrading' aspects.

Keeping with the subject of speed, the SX50 has a very slightly improved continuous mode shooting at 2.2 shots per second compared to the SX40s 2.4 shots per second so no real huge improvement there. However the High Quality burst mode which does a pretty good job on the SX40 at 10 shots per second (which actually gives you 8) has been bumped up to 13 shots per second (which actually gives you 10) so a couple of extra shots per second which isn't too shabby at all.

So now for that all important zoom!

The SX40 has a 35mm equivalent zoom of 24mm - 840mm and they have bumped this on the SX50 to a whopping 24mm - 1200mm which is absolutely crazy. I hope the image stabilisation does its job well as that is a very large zoom for handheld photography! I am curious about those new moon pictures for sure! They have also bumped up the digital zoom from 140x to 200x which means you will get that extra bit of distance on top of an already crazy zoom size.

The image stabilisation remains the same which is handy and hopefully still enough to maintain good quality with the extra zoom. I find the image stabilisation excellent on the SX40 so it's good to know that they are maintaining a good standard on the lens if it can handle the extra zoom.

One potential downside to the SX50 is the cut in Aperture where the SX40 could range as low as f2.7 - f5.8, the SX50 starts at f3.4 - f6.5 so there's a slight cut on how low the aperture can go.

However, their ISO range is increased by quite a large amount which will compensate the lack of aperture in a way. Considering that the aperture doesn't necessarily affect background blur the same way it would on an SLR, the lack of aperture isn't the end of the world. However, relying too heavily on the ISO would introduce a fair amount of grain but as a bigger picture, the cut in aperture is probably not as bad as people are thinking.

The ISO of the SX40 ranges from 100 - 3200 whereas the SX50 has a range of 80 - 6400 doubling the top ISO of the SX40. Canon claim to maintain the best quality possible when choosing their settings limits so I assume that even with an ISO of 6400 the quality shouldn't be compromised to a point where the image quality is bad and therefore, with the extra range of ISO this is definitely a handy tool to have.

In terms of focus, Canon are carrying across the Face detection, tracking and central focus features which are handy and do the job just fine.

One good change in focus settings is that the SX50 can run continuous focus in all modes whereas this feature is limited to certain modes on the SX40. They have also maintained the use of flexizone focus, which is a feature I haven't really used too much but it is handy to use when you want to focus on one particular area of the frame.

On to Shutter Speed. Now I think Canon really should have thought harder here as one of the main complaints I have heard about the SX40 is the limitation of the 15 second shutter speed as the maximum time. Now I know that the camera will only be able to deal with a certain amount of time for a shutter speed as we don't want to over heat the camera or anything like that but I'm pretty sure they could have considered a longer shutter for at least 60 seconds or so. That little bit extra would have made those night shots a little more satisfying for sure.

Not too much has changed in terms of white balance but to be fair on the SX40, it pretty much had everything covered anyway. The SX50 has an extra custom White Balance option which could come in handy when photographing at events with different lighting in different places/rooms.

Using the viewfinder seems to be staying the same which is ok although I'm not sure on other peoples thoughts but I sometimes find that the viewfinder options can be a little small. I don't know how easy it would have been for Canon to make that more user friendly but it puts me off using the viewfinder. That's just me though.

They have doubled the resolution of the SX50 LCD back screen so that  you get double the pixels for a more accurate display if your images. I like this idea but I wonder if I will really notice by just looking at it, I'd imagine it is a noticeable difference but would like to have a play with an SX50 in a store to see.

The only real difference in Flash options is that the SX50 at wide angle doesn't actually cover as far as the SX40 does. The SX40 at wide angle covers between 50cm and 7 meters (700cm) whereas the SX50 only covers 50cm - 5.5 meters (550cm). I'm not 100% sure why this is, if I find out more information I will add it into this blog post!

One smart move they have done is to remove the sports mode on the newer SX50 model. I really didn't think much of the sports mode and although I originally reviewed it to be quite good, I grew to dislike it and struggled to get many decent shots with it. It's overall removal is a good idea in my opinion, waste of a good Mode switch!

With regards to the other modes, I'm glad to see they have kept all of the standard modes such as AV, TV, Manual, Custom 1 and 2 and Auto (with enhanced scene detection). They have also added in a smooth skin mode which sounds like it could be quite nice for portraits, although they have kept in the portrait mode too so will have to check that one out in more detail if I get a chance to play with one.

They have put in a new HDR (High Dynamic Range) creative filter which would be interesting to see. I know that they are introducing RAW so I'm not sure if this will be real HDR or just simulating what HDR can look like. I would assume the latter as the amount of processing for a HDR image is probably to much to do directly on the camera. These are my assumptions though.

It was only upon looking at these comparisons that I even found out the SX40 could film with a lot of the colour effects. I've recently made a video about this and they have carried this feature over to the SX50 which is great, if only I had discovered this earlier!

One thing that I know will make a big difference for a lot of users is the introduction of RAW files which I mentioned previously. RAW allows you to keep your files uncompressed which means the file has all of the pure data that is captured in your shot without the camera compressing it into a smaller file such as JPEG. This means that you can manipulate your images a lot more and keep the quality higher whereas editing JPEGS can degrade the quality quite quickly in comparison.

Canon have also introduced the Superfine quality mode which they neglected from the SX40. This is an option Canon have used in past cameras and is pretty popular with Canon users. It uses a lot more memory as it is a larger file size but you will notice the difference in sharper edges and clearer definition of subjects however most would probably not notice this immediately when just looking at the image by eye. The difference would be more noticeable when editing or taking images of objects with more refined edges like text.

You can still customise your startup image and sounds which is a nice little extra on the SX40 but not vital of course.

They have also maintained the image tagging feature which I will mention in the near future in a video which allows the user to put the images in the memory card into categories based on the type of picture they are or if they are a favourite. This is good when you want to quickly play back through your images however my images don't tend to be on my camera long enough for that feature to be necessary.

The self timer is also unchanged but I don't really know how much more you expect the self timer to do. 10 seconds to let you get in the shot, 2 seconds if you just need to take the picture without wobbling the camera and custom if there's a specific time you want and multiple shots.

They have also kept all of the plugs the same, standard USB, AV lead and HDMI cables are all still useable with the SX50.

Software wise, the SX40 and SX50 do not differ when it comes to PC computers however on Mac computers, the SX50 will work with the newer operating system whereas the SX40 won't necessarily. I don't know a great deal about these aspects of the camera as perhaps this is just down to using the software rather than the camera being acknowledged by the computer. I will see what new information comes along and update.

The SX50 takes the same battery as the SX40 however the battery life drops a little with the SX50. Perhaps this is down to the use of the larger zoom or down to the larger image sizes or something along those lines but I don't think it's anything to panic about. It's just an average but it seems that the SX40 can take approximately 65 more shots before running out of battery and approximately 80 minutes more footage. Looking at it, it looks like SX40ers have something to smile about but really... it all depends on what functions you are using and how often etc so these averages shouldn't be taken too specifically. Just remember if you are moving from the 40 to the 50, this may be a little annoying if you are used to a little more battery power.

However a spare battery is not expensive and could solve that problem easily :P 

The SX50 does come with a piece of software to help with development of RAW images which is nice. I don't know anything about it but I'd imagine it's a good added feature if it gives you a nice bit of control over your RAW images.

You still need a filter adapter for the SX50 as you did on the SX40. This is such a silly feature, Canon should have rectified this when working on the SX40. There doesn't seem to be a logical reason for having a filter screw thread that doesn't work with filters properly but hey... I got the adapter and didn't think about it twice so I shouldn't get too stroppy :P

It seems that the SX50 is a little smaller and lighter than the SX40 but I would want to go and look at it to see if that made a real difference. I doubt it will be a huge change.

So any who, there's a not so short, and definitely not technical run through of the SX40 and the SX50. If I were to get the SX50, I think it would be because my SX40 died (god forbid!) but for now I think I am happy and if anything, if I look towards a new model, I think it will be from another brand to see what else is on offer.

Good luck with your decision making!

Using Long Exposure for Light Trails

I have just uploaded a new video about using Long Exposure to create light trails.

We have already covered this topic when we were experimenting with light writing in previous tutorials but this just shows how any moving light can create it's own light trail. All we need to do is set up the shot and stay as still as possible!

With traffic, you get a great mix of headlights and taillights and the occasional indicator which, on a moving car, will show up as a dotted line as it flashes on and off.

When we set our shot to 15" (seconds) the SX40 automatically limits the ISO to 100. As annoying as this is, it doesn't really affect us too much when we are playing with light trails as the focus of the image is the moving light which provides us with the extra illumination we need. It is also handy in a way as then the only things we need to adjust are our shutter speed and aperture according to what settings are more appropriate.

My examples are based in a well lit street and therefore I don't actually need the lowest aperture number and the longest shutter speed to achieve my light trails because there woudl be too much light in my image. However, I want to keep my shutter speed fairly long so that I get a good amount of time capturing the light trails. Therefore, my first step, when knowing that my settings are letting in too much light, is to increase my aperture from the lowest, up towards the highest f number in order to block out a little more light.

Whilst this would probably be sufficient in a lot of evening street scenes, I have a lot of lights and a lot of cars in most of my shots, so there is still too much light entering the shot. Therefore, I cut my shutter speed down to 8" (seconds) and then down again to 6" (Seconds) in order to get the right balance of light in my shot to keep the scene illuminated, but so that the car lights don't over expose the image too much.

I left the images on my other computer so I will upload them late on but I just wanted to update the blog for the moment to keep you in the loop.

Things to remember:

1 - Always use a tripod. 15 seconds is a long amount of time to keep still and likeliness is, you will move and blur your image if you aren't careful.

2 - On a similar note, set your self timer to go at 2 seconds. This gives you enough time to press the shutter and either leave the camera on the tripod, or steady your hand, whichever method you are using and let the camera take the picture.

3 - Put your Shutter down to 15" (seconds), your ISO will be limited at 100 and put your aperture as low as possible. If you zoom, your lowest aperture will be higher up the aperture scale as it can't go aas low as f2.7 if you are zooming.

4 - If you image is too bright, change your aperture to a higher number. This will maintain a long exposure for the light trails but block a little of the light out. If this isn't enough, start to shorten your exposure time by a couple of seconds until the balance of light is right.

Step Twenty Seven - Using long exposure to create light trails

CHDK Override ISO Video Up

The next video for Overriding ISO using CHDK is up.

It's pretty straightforward and is really handy when you want to capture pictures of the night sky without the SX40 stumping you with the ISO limitation. Even though you can mess around with longer exposures, this is probably the simplest way to do it however it will cause more grain than using a long exposure.

Facebook based photography theme

I decided to run a photography theme over on the Facebook page just to give us something to challenge ourselves with! See Below for the post:

"Light and Shadow!

I'm thinking that's it's time to get our thinking caps on for some photography fun. If anyone is up for it, why not join in just for the challenge and if we enjoy it, we can make it a regular thing.

So let's do a photo theme! I can't really do prizes but it's really just for fun and practise and a change to get creative!

I think this week (may as well finish it on Sunday) can 

be related to light and shadow. Have you taken - or can you take - a picture that gives the feeling of the contrast between light and shadow?

It can be anything you like, and anywhere, from the shadow of trees as the sun goes down, to torches behind glass bottles or strange shapes you can turn into interesting shadows. Something like that.

As I said, a bit of fun but we will see how interesting everyone finds it ;) Enjoy!

P.S Don't forget to write in the description what you did to achieve the picture ;)"

Good Luck!

Whoops!

Just a quick note to say that I have had to temporarily take down the Step Two for CHDK on Shutter Speeds as another user has informed me that my maths is off. Need to review the video but as I have made the rest of the series, I will continue to upload those whilst Im figuring it out :/

Huh? ND In or Out? What's the deal?

So, for those of you who are venturing into the big bad world of CHDK and all the wonders it reveals, you will have seen the option in the Extra Photo Operations Menu for ND Filter State.

For those who don't know, an ND filter is a Neutral Density filter and is essentially darkened glass that is placed over the front of your camera lens. This glass allows you to take a photograph in a brightly lit environment without over exposing your image.

The most common example is with Waterfalls and rivers. Have you ever seen those pictures where the water looks so smooth and silky? This is done with a long exposure. Taking an image for approimately 1.5 seconds or more, allows the photographer to capture the motion of the water which leads to this very silky looking water.

However, if you have ever tried to take a long exposure of even half a second, in daylight, that image will be incredibly over exposed/too bright. So we place this dark glass over our lens. The dark glass means that light slowly creeps into the image, without flooding in too fast. This allows our picture to capture the movement of the water over time, e.g for 2 seconds, without too much light hitting the sensor too quickly.

The result? A nice balanced exposure, but that great smooth looking water from our long exposure.

Some cameras have a Neutral Density filter built in and those cameras apply the filter to images in this sort of situation. The camera is quite often doing this for the user without the user actually being aware of it.

When the camera has a built in neutral density filter, it will swing the filter down between the lens and the camera sensor to act the same way a filter in front of the lens would work - stopping too much light hitting the sensor too fast. The SX40 doesn't have a built in ND filter but the override in CHDK allows us to have a bash at it!

The options for the ND filter state can sound confusing but now we know how a built in ND filter works, we can understand the odd phrasing. The options for the Neutral Density Filter are Off (self explanatory), In (The filter is swung down in front of the sensor) or Out (The filter is swung out and not in use).

Assuming we had a camera with a built in ND filter we would have the following options with CHDK:

Off - Let the camera choose whether or not to use the ND Filter
In - Force the camera to swing the ND filter down in front of the sensor
Out - Force the camera to stop using the ND filter and swing it out of the way

As the SX40 doesn't have one built in, all we really need to see is Off and In options as Out will essentially be the same as switching it off for us.

When CHDK activates the ND filter state, it overrides our camera to allow a long shutter speed but maintains a darker image. As we don't actually have a built in filter, it can't work miracles and if you were trying a 15 second shutter in daylight, it can't actually override our settings in a way to stop that being over exposed but it certainly works to a point as I demonstrate in the new video.

I hope that's pretty clear and have fun playing around with it :)

Exposure Value and balancing light - Prepare your brain!

I have just uploaded a new video about Exposure Value and balancing the light in your image.

When we use the exposure meter on the camera it gives us an average balance of light to work towards to match the light in the room for an accurate picture. In a lot of situations, we may want this light to be a little brighter or vice versa but it's always handy to be able to find an average exposure level to begin with.

The exposure meter changes depending on what settings we are using, so when we make an adjustment to our Shutter Speed, Aperture or ISO, the light in the image changes and the meter will show us if those settings are causing the image to be over exposed (too much light) or under exposed (too little light).

The measurement of exposure is often referred to as a 'stop'. This is not referring specifically to just shutter speed, just aperture or just ISO, it is a combination of all of them. However when we are changing our exposure, the change we make is measured on a scale that uses the 'stop' system.

Stops for Shutter Speed are seen as this:

1/8000, 1/4000, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1" etc

For Aperture:

f22 (f/22),16 (f/16), f/11, f/8.0, f/5.6, f/4.0, f/2.8, f/2.0, f/1.8 etc

And for ISO:

100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200

So each of these numbers are a stop measurement.



If I had a shutter speed of 1/60 and I was told to increase my shutter speed by two stops, I would then change it to 1/250 as this is two numbers up the scale.

Sometimes we need to use a specific setting. As an example, if I wanted to take a slow exposure of water, but I had already balanced my exposure to 1/250 and f2.7 and ISO 400 then I would need to adjust my shutter speed - this would then put my exposure out of balance. But if we use the stop measurements as a guide we can easily get back to a balanced exposure without guessing at our settings.


So we have 1/250 SS, F2.7 A and 400 ISO but we want a shutter speed of 1/4000. So we are moving 3 stops up the shutter speed scale:

1/8000, 1/4000, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1"
                           +3          +2        +1

So we have moved 3 stops and our image will be too dark as we have sped up our shutter and not compensated for the lack of light.

We can then balance this out by moving either out Aperture or ISO an equal amount of stops. In this situation, we started off with an Aperture of f2.7 and as this is the lowest we can go on the SX40 we won't be able to move this setting to let in more light. This leaves only our ISO to change, so we move our ISO 3 stops up the ISO scale in order to compensate for the Shutter Speed and to let in more light:


100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
                        +1      +2      +3

So we now have a new setting for our image of 1/4000 Shutter Speed, f2.7 Aperture and 3200 ISO which allows us to take that picture with a faster shutter, and to maintain a good level of light in our image.

It seems a little complex but it's actually quite straightforward.

One last thing to mention is that on the SX40 you can also do fractions of a stop so instead of our Shutter Speed jumping from 1/30 to 1/60, the SX40 allows us to use 1/40 and 1/50 too. These smaller fractions are not part of the scale to measure light changes. Only the parts of the scale that have a number above them are full stops. You'll see what I mean in the new video.

I hope that is fairly easy to follow as it isn't so easy to explain!!

Meeting fellow SX40ers and making those videos!

I was out in London Zoo (ZSL) yesterday afternoon and came across a fellow SX40er from youtube. It was a really nice encounter and quite a surprise but it's probably a good thing I was fatdragon as I can imagine a stranger being asked that question may have wondered why they looked like a fatdragon in the first place haha!

But back to business... I have made the most ridiculous mistakes in the la

st month or so that are stopping me from making videos. If it's not cloudy, I have forgotten my charger or I have forgotten the battery or something like that and when I say I forgot them, I was moving around during the weekends and trying to get videos made on the move and as you can see... not working out too well.

So anyway, I am hoping that I have time this week to finally finish off the two videos I have been working on. The first was about using CHDK to take long exposures at night time, particularly for taking images of the stars. This was all going well until every night clouded over and I wasn't able to take demo shots so once I get those, that video is done.

The next video is talking about CHDK in more depth and my my there is a LOT to learn! I have been going through the menu thoroughly and there are many things I have to learn, practise with and look up before I can demo them in a video, hence why this video is taking longer to make.

Add on top of this, the fact that I am travelling every weekend and busy most weeknights and making videos becomes a little more difficult, but persistance is key!

I also have a giveaway video coming up after those two so keep your eyes peeled ;)

It's great to see everyones posts and experiments with photography so keep them coming!

HQ Burst Mode Vs Sports Mode

I have often found that, when trying to use the Sports Mode on the SX40, the focus is too slow and the amount of frames per second the camera captures just doesn't do the job.

Well I was out for a walk this afternoon in an area with a lot of bees and thought about how I could really do with a camera that can do lots of frames per second so I could capture the bees in flight. Well along comes HQ Burst Mode which I had neglected to try out since getting the camera really.

This mode shoots 8 frames per second and continually focuses during the picture taking process which means that likeliness is... you will get at least one decent picture of the 8 that you took.

So I went chasing after the bees and managed to get some pretty decent shots:

I went to a Rodeo in Wyoming a few months ago and the sports mode couldn't get one shot in focus... if onyl I had known about this setting then!!

Anyway, just sharing some thoughts ;)

Canon gave a response! (+ new upcoming video)

So exciting times indeed when Canon respond to a question!

I wrote to Canon to ask them if it was likely that they would release an update for the SX40 that allowed us to have a higher ISO when we are using a slow shutter. This would improve night photography and instead of giving us a couple of dots on a black background... we would actually start to see constellations and clear stars.

I didn't expect and answer but Canon kindly responded to explain their reasoning for locking the ISO on the SX40 and potential plans for changing this in the future. Note that I say "Potential" plans as we all know it would be much better for Canon to just wait until the next model so that it includes one more extra thing that seems superior over the SX40!

So here's Canons response anyway:

"I am pleased to advise that I have received a response regarding the ISO limitation on the SX40. I have been advised that this feedback has been provided before, and therefore Canon Inc are aware of this request from customers. As suspected, unfortunately we do not have any further information on if this will be changed - either by firmware for this model, or if it will be removed in subsequent models. They advise that this limitation has been placed on the SX40 due to the small size of the sensor, and the fact that this combined with higher ISO's will mean that the noise/grain will be significant. They have therefore decided to restrict the ISO to guarantee a certain standard of image quality. I appreciate that this is disappointing for you, I apologise for this and hope that this is of some use to you." So whilst they aren't guaranteeing anything, they have explained the thought process behind the limitations and they have acknowledged that it is frustrating for SX40 users. So rather than wait to spend another 400-500 pounds on a new camera and wait another who knows how many months for its release... we are going to have a play with CHDK to unlock that ISO and get ourselves some good old night photography. As we all know by now, the SX40 only allows a 15" shutter speed and when we use that 15 second our ISO is limited to 100. So we are going to use CHDK to unlock our ISO and capture that night sky whilst still keeping our pictures at 15 seconds. Now, CHDK can unlock shutter speed as well, and to be honest, the picture quality will be better with a slower shutter, than it would with a high ISO but we are going to take this one step at a time. So the plans for the next video is to show how to use CHDK to override the ISO and take long exposure night shots. And then we are going to top up that knowledge with how to extend the shutter speed instead to get the same result with higher quality. I hope that hasn't baffled anyone too much and keep your eyes peeled for the next video.

Photoshop Tutorial: Using Actions to Batch Edit - Black and White

Here's a new video for Photoshop running through the methods you can follow to get Photoshop to edit lots of pictures in one go for you. Sit back and let Photoshop change all your pictures to Black and White whilst you go have a dance in the kitchen and make a cup of tea!

How do you get that background blur?

Here's something for you SX40'ers to think about.

It can be really confusing when it comes to Aperture because our SX40 doesn't respond quite how an SLR will to changing Aperture.

When you change the aperture of an SLR lens, it essentially widens the hole that light passes through when you use a low number like f2.7. This allows more light to pass in and therefore helps us take pictures in lower light conditions.

HOWEVER, there is another aspect of our picture that is affected by this. In the SX40 it is incredibly subtle, whereas an SLR responds very strongly to it and it is the amount of blur aperture controls.

When all of that light floods in, the focus is on the foreground and the background is blurred out. If the aperture was at a higher value such as f8.0, the light is travelling through a much smaller gap and the focus is more concentrated allowing the background to be more in focus.

So with an SLR, a small aperture number like f2.7 lets in more light and causes more background blur. A higher number like f8.0 lets in less light and causes less background blur.

This is how many pictures are taken where the photographer has blurred out everything but their main focus - they set their aperture to a low number.

A lot of people are asking how to do this on the SX40 and the truth is, it just doesn't respond the same way an SLR lens would and makes that effect a little more out of reach.

Best plan is to use the Bokeh tips. Keep a big distance between you and your subject and another big gap between your subject and it's background. Zoom all the way in and it should throw the background out completely.

You can also try using macro mode and getting up close but that isn't always ideal.

I hope that clears up some peoples questions about background blur.

Just a last note to mention the recent lighting guidelines helpsheet I posted. That is only really ideal for the SX40 because of the issue with the aperture varying between cameras so bear that in mind ;)

So what did I learn whilst away?...

Hi All!

So I realize I have been ridiculously absent since I came back from my trip. Main reasons being, getting back into work and the need to travel away from home the last few weekends (and every weekend in the foreseeable future at the moment).

I have a list of new videos in mind, it's just getting the time to do them. If I don't get one done tonight then we're probably looking towards Sunday or early next week but I will be doing them again for sure.

But returning to chat about my trip, there were a million different things I wanted to get pictures of and some pictures were a real challenge but I had successes and failures throughout - mega learning curve in terms of photography.

One thing I didn't manage during the trip, was a decent night time shot of the sky which was gutting because the sky was so clear. Some of the areas we stayed in were amazing at night. We stayed at this Navajo Indian site in Monument Valley and slept out under the stars in our sleeping bags.... what a view. I basically fell asleep looking at the stars. However.... it wasn't the best experience camera-wise as I managed to run out of battery and lose my spare battery (which I still haven't found!). So whilst I could have got some amazing night shots... I had no battery left.

I had a bit of a fight with CHDK while I was away too, I kept finding it made my screen go white when I activated it and I had to keep resetting the camera until it showed up properly. I don't know if it was something to do with the memory card, the version of the hack or the camera but I'm hoping it was the hacks fault!

As most Facebookers will probably know I also had a bad time with CHDK in terms of HDR. I took sooooo many HDR triple exposures when I was away and the RAW files were saved as CR2 files which don't open in photoshop... usually they do, but not when CHDK creates them for some reason. This was my fault as I didn't check what file type I was saving but it was totally gutting that pretty much all my HDR images are gonna have to be done with JPEGS now. Nevermind... we live and learn right!

One thing I did discover in my photography was a far nicer image ratio of 16:9. I always knew the camera could do this but I never thought to use it as I was always one to stick with a much more "square" shaped image.... no idea why really. But we went out one night, someone had got hold of my camera and accidentally changed the ratio to 16:9. I hadn't noticed for ages until a couple of days later I was in Bryce Canyon I believe and I saw one of my scenery images on the camera and realised that it looked much better than a lot of the pictures I had taken previously. The new ratio gave it a more widescreen look which seemed to get far more of the scene than I was expecting. I really loved the setting that I left it like that for the rest of the trip and was really happy with the results. Even the images of people and small objects were taken with that setting and they still looked good.

And now for my guilty confession.... I used Auto quite a lot when I was away :P. Whilst it was nice to work on my photography and mess around with the camera, for most places I was being hurried along by the group and leaders and just didn't have the time so sit down for some proper photography. However the pics I took on auto came out really well and those that didn't were an indication for me that I needed to switch to Manual.

I went down to Miami beach quite early on in the trip and had a great evening taking pictures down there. I did some 10 second exposures which came out really nicely. I had a similar experience in Chicago. The fountain there is absolutely gorgeous next to the harbour and turning around you just see this stunning city skyline. Chicago was certainly one of my favourite places. I took some pictures down by the fountain there and they also came out quite nicely.

So that's the short version of my photography experience. I'm sure you will hear more snippets about things I learnt in America/Canada but for now I won't chew your ears off!

I will post some pictures into this blog so you can see what I am talking about but they are at home at the moment.

Ciao for now :)

New Website!

I'm so sorry for being so quiet since I've been back.

I have been taking all of the requests for new videos down and I haven't forgotten about the potential giveaway I was planning :) (I just need to make sure I can afford to do it :P)

My new website is: http://fatdragon100.weebly.com/

It will keep all of the links and downloads and videos etc in one place so you don't have to look through a million different links to find everything.

Back in the UK

Hi All,

I am back in the UK after a 3 month break to the USA. I have many many pics to show and lots more to mess around with in Photoshop so hopefully they will be up here soon!

Just dropping in for now to update everyone so keep your eyes peeled for new stuff coming soon :)

Flickr Group

Hellooooo!

Long time no speak.

I haven't had a chance to update my blog as I have been manically sorting my life out before I head off to the USA for 3 months!

This is just a quick message to mention that I am now on Flickr with a Flickr group where we can share images at full resolution so there's no Facebook compressing and quality degradation or anything of that malarchy!

Please do feel free to come along and post your pictures to the group if you have some images you want to share!

Click HERE for the link to the group or search for FatDragon100.

See you there :)

Intervalometer!

I have been looking into the CHDK lately and what it can do that our camera can't offer on it's own.

A while ago I realised that there was no option to plug in a remote trigger to the SX40. So this meant that to trigger the camera without touching it, I would need to set it to self timer. This doesn't really help when you want to take a continuous set of images to create a lime lapse effect where you can see something moving over a long period of time.

My main goal was to create star trails. At the moment, I have about 300 images sitting on my computer that I took last night. I haven't yet composed them into one image but I'm hoping they achieve the star trails I wish to capture.

Quite often people take long exposure images for hours at a time and they get the star trails that way. However I don't really like this idea for the SX40. I had a go with it. Now granted I didn't have my settings perfect and the image was pretty over exposed, but my main worry was how hot the camera got. It was just sitting there in the garden in the evening so it wasn't sitting in direct heat and when I got it back in afterwards it was pretty heated. On top of this, the image usually takes the same amount of time to process as it does to take, so a 1 hour shot takes about 1 hour to process which obviously takes a lot of waiting time for something which may not have worked out. (It is also very annoying when your battery cuts out during the picture processing).

So in general, long exposures over many hours seem to be something best kept on SLRs in my opinion - at least I hope it's not only my camera which overheated!

There is also the option of time lapse by leaving the camera filming and then speeding up the footage in  programs like Premiere Pro or Windows Movie Maker. Whilst this does work, the camera limits the films clips to around 4GB per clip which means that you then have to sit with the camera so that you can restart the filming when it cuts out so you don't miss anything. I tried this method at Frensham Ponds about a month ago and I really liked the results, but it just wasn't practical for a long time of say, 2 and a half hours.

In addition, filming takes up a lot of memory whereas taking multiple pictures means that you can fit around 2 hours of pictures on a 2GB card, rather than having to use a 16GB card for the 1 hour of constant video footage! (These are rough amounts from my experience)

I have gone on a tangent.

My point being, I looked into the Intervalometer because it does all the hard work for you! Once you have set it up, you can leave your camera star gazing in an evening and with a well charged battery you can get around 2.5 hours worth of stars passing by and capture their movement.

A normal intervalometer would be built into a good remote trigger which would just plug into the camera and tell it to take a picture every <enter number> seconds/minutes. But as we cannot plug in a remote, we need to use CHDK in order to achieve this.

One of the Facebook page followers cleverly suggested something as simple as tying an elastic band around the shutter button so that it would continuously take pictures as long as you have the camera set to multi shot. I haven't tried it but this seems to be a good idea if you wish to avoid CHDK.

Personally I am growing to really like CHDK so I decided to go for it.

So I set up the SX40 yesterday, set the focus to infinity so it didn't bur any of the images (Infinity focus is done through the hack kit), set the shutter speed to 15 seconds and did an override of the ISO using the hack kit (however the ISO wasn't quite high enough to capture the stars). I'm going to cover all of this in a video tutorial because I am doing the one thing I hate which is talking techno mumbo jumbo without actually explaining how to achieve it.

So the camera sat in the garden taking a new picture every 30 seconds and this was the result (Try watching it full screen as the detail is small and quite dark - my bad!):

Don't be put off by that awful thumbnail... I have no idea why it shows up like that.

As you can see, I obviously had my ISO too low in the end as the stars sort of disappear however I wanted to share it to show how it came out. So I will try again tonight with slightly different settings and will make a video to show how I did it.

For those who are wondering why I would use a higher ISO instead of using a longer shutter speed, it is essentially because, the picture takes 15 seconds to take, so it needs 15 seconds to process. If the picture takes 30 seconds in total to take and process I will only just get enough pictures without getting gaps in the movement of the stars. If I did a 30 second shutter speed, it would take 1 minute in total to make the picture if we include processing time.

1 minute per picture would leave quite a big gap between the stars movements. The very first test I did of the intervalometer took one picture every 2 minutes and looked like this:

So you can see the gaps in the stars/moons movements where there were no pictures being taken. Ideally these would look like streaks and would look quite surreal.

So I now have 300 images from last night which I need to compose together so make the star trails I have been aiming for! I will update to see if it worked and I will post a tutorial on the Intervalometer and time lapse photography in the next couple of days!

Ciao for now!