The Indecisive Moment

Friday, 7 April 2023

Beyond the Tripod

I do a lot of Architectural photography in old dark Italian monuments. At the moment I am doing a series on Romanesque Architecture. I always use a tripod when I can, but this is not always possible for a series of reasons. I do a lot of HDR and I needed some way of fixing the camera in position.

After a bit of lateral thinking, I decided to dig out my old Manfrotto monopod, that I used under my 300 2.8, when I did performing arts photography. It has three screw in feet that converts it into a free standing platform. Maybe using IBIS in the Z7 to compensate for the instability, I would have a solution.

I did a quick experiment locally, before a planned trip to Brescia, where I knew my tripod might get frowned upon in the Rotonda. It seems to work. I let the vibrations die down and with a cable release I arrived at 30 seconds in a place with no air movements. In Brescia, it gave me some good sharp HDR frames at slow shutter speeds. I obviously used a cable release.

After the Manfrotto experiment, I bought a "Three Legged Thing" Alan 2.0 Carbon Fibre Monopod . Here are a few thoughts about it after a few trail runs in real shooting situations. I always try out new gear this way on stuff I can shoot again

It seems to dampen vibrations a little better than the old one and is much lighter. But as I expected it is a bit unstable with a heavy lens moved to vertical position. Carbon fibre tubes are more flexible than aluminium tubes of the same size. So a foot pressed down on one leg is needed for security and the feet need rotation to keep the centre of gravity within the footprint of the feet. ( It is best to have the camera strap round your neck or some way that you can stop the whole rig overturning with a heavy lens). It was fine with the 14-30 F4. The Nikon F 24PC was at the limit. With the camera in the horizontal position the centre of gravity falls within the feet footprint, so even with the 24PC there were no problems. Anyway great care is needed!

A Manfrotto L bracket solved the problem elegantly. It keeps the centre of gravity of the camera centred above the pole, or at least in the circle traced by the feet.

IBIS in the Z7 works well to eliminate any small vibrations. It was fine for exposures up to 25 seconds. I presume it is the amplitude of the vibrations rather than the duration that is the limiting factor with IBIS. I guess nobody has ever considered the usefulness of IBIS on unsteady tripods. I use the in camera level, and it is a good indicator of the vibrations. When it is still I can shoot ( about 10 seconds).

The tripod will be obviously my first choice for Architecture, but for travel and places where a tripod might be problematic, this looks like a really good solution. It is almost impossible to get things perfectly plumb, so a bit of post is needed. But HDR frames are possible and I can shot at base ISO.

The Alan Monopod is made in the UK and seems to be well engineered, and at a price that was cheaper than some similar ones coming from the Far East, So far highly recommended. I had got the choice down to two models, so a pinch of patriotism tipped the balance. I might add their lightweight ball head, as my Manfrotto weighs more than the monopod!

Rotonda di Brescia

Duomo di Reggio Emilia

Duomo di Carpi

San Pietro Modena

Friday, 3 June 2022

Architecture. Shift lens compared to post processing test.

I took my 24mm TS lens to a local castle to see if there are any visual differences between using a shift lens, and correcting keystoning in post. The lens was on a tripod and in a fixed position. In one case the lens was shifted, in the other, shift was set to zero and the lens tilted to simulate a normal lens. I have never seen any sort of comparison in my textbooks or on the web, so I decided to do my own comparison to see if things change geometrically.

I looked at two cases: simple vertical shift and diagonal shift. I then made an approximate overlay of the images to get an idea of the differences using a pretty primitive hit or miss tool on the Web.

Simple vertical shift is pretty close, with very minor differences probably due to my approximations. Diagonal shift does have some more noticeable differences.

I just wanted to do a geometrical comparison. The merits of using a shift lens compared to correcting in post is an another interesting conversation.

The subject is the Rocca di Scandiano. Its ten minutes from home and I think its particular form will make a good test subject for some further self learning tests.

1- 24mm TS levelled and shifted upward. Camera centred perpendicular to the tower

2- 24mm TS levelled with zero shift and pointed upwards. Camera centred perpendicular to the tower . No correction in post

3- 24mm TS levelled with zero shift and pointed upwards. Camera centred perpendicular to the tower . Correction in post

4- Overlay - The match is almost perfect

5- 24mm TS levelled and shifted diagonally upwards. Camera centred to get the whole building into the frame

6- 24mm TS levelled with zero shift and pointed upwards. Camera centred to include the whole building . No correction in post

7- 24mm TS levelled with zero shift and pointed upwards. Camera centred to include the whole building . Correction in post in 2 directions

8 Overlay. This is pretty approximate as getting a good match was almost impossible.

9- 24mm TS levelled and shifted upwards. Camera centred to get the whole building into the frame

10 - 24mm TS levelled with zero shift and pointed upwards. Camera centred to include the whole building . No correction in post

11- 24mm TS levelled with zero shift and pointed upwards. Camera centred to include the whole building . 2 way correction in post

12 Overlay

Friday, 12 February 2021

Chick Corea

I was really sad to learn today that Chick Corea has passed away. A brilliant musician who's music I have followed in its many forms since my teens. I was lucky enough to photograph him in the early nineties. Just my photographic tribute to a great musician.

Sunday, 14 July 2019

Music in Zoali

We returned again this year to a small festival that is held every year down in Zoali in Liguria.

I had a chance to do some performing arts photography again, of Ethan Emerson a talented young pianist following in the footsteps of his famous grandfather and a group of musicians led by Paola Tagliaferro.

Paola was surrounded by a bigger group of musicians this year leaning more towards the World Music genre.

Here are the pictures.

Ethan Emerson

Paola Tagliaferro

Tuesday, 26 March 2019

Bread and Circuses Architecture

It is election time soon, and time for our local authority to swing into bread and circuses ( panem et circenses) mode.

Chiostro San Pietro, Reggio Emilia

A long neglected monastic complex, Chiostri di San Pietro was opened to the public last Saturday after a long and slow restoration. A new hyper modern conference block has been wedged into a corner of the site. Inside the obligatory multimedia light show was imposed over the Renaissance architecture.

Chiostro San Pietro, Reggio Emilia

The scene reminded me of those Architectural Autocad renderings that I see so often for my work, with lots of more than perfect trees and transparent people drifting though the shiny buildings. I tried to show this vibe in a couple of the shots in this set.

Chiostro San Pietro, Reggio Emilia

Putting people in the frame is a bit of a new departure for me when photographing architecture, the big problem is getting passers-by whose attire does not clash with the composition.