Outdoor Photography. Chiz Dakin

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      Black Clough, Forest of Bowland, Lancashire (Jon) Low light, no tripod: a good case for Image Stabilisation

      Accessories

      SLRs in particular are system cameras and there are myriads of accessories available for all manner of purposes. We’ll mostly deal with these where they’re relevant to particular activities. Here we’ll just introduce the main categories.

      Batteries

      Digital cameras need batteries. Batteries run down. Using the screen a lot for Live View, picture review or movie shooting runs them down faster. Carry a spare.

      Storage

      There’s no film but digital images still need to be stored on a physical medium. Some cameras have a small amount of internal storage, but mostly this means memory cards. Memory cards store huge amounts of images incredibly cheaply. Don’t skimp. And as they become the repository of irreplaceable images, handle them with care.

      With digital you can also back up those irreplaceable shots, and it is crazy not to. This usually means backing up when you transfer images to a computer (see Software), although some pro-level cameras have dual card slots so you can back up instantly. On longer trips and expeditions backing up to a separate device is highly recommended, whether it’s a dedicated photo-store or perhaps an iPod or iPad.

      Support

      Image stabilisation and high ISO settings allow much more freedom for handheld shooting, but there’s still an important role for camera support. Tripods give great support and allow you to put the camera exactly where you want it, but there are many other forms of support. The classic beanbag is light, simple, cheap and highly effective. Remote control by cable or infrared allows the camera to be triggered at a distance. This can cut down vibration and also allows you to put yourself in shot when you’re out on your own.

      Flash

      Most cameras have a built-in flash so why is it listed under accessories? This is a big subject and we’ll return to it several times, but in a nutshell: built-in flash is small, weak, and produces ugly light; it’s pretty awful for portraits and even worse for close-up work. Its one saving grace is that it’s handy for fill-in light (see photographs of Grize Dale in Chapter 3), but for most other purposes a separate flash gun is vastly superior, and does not have to be big, heavy or expensive.

      Filters

      Inbuilt colour correction means digital photography has done away with many filters that were once important. It’s still recommended to have a skylight or UV filter on every lens, mostly for physical protection. If it gets scratched a filter is a lot cheaper to replace than a whole lens. The other filter that many photographers, especially landscape photographers, still swear by is the polariser.

      Carrying

      You have to carry the camera somehow. Round your neck is fine on easy walks – until it rains. In the rucksack it’s well protected but inaccessible. The equation between accessibility and protection is different for every activity, so the best way of carrying the camera also varies; we’ll look at specific considerations for different activities.

      Canyon, Hancock Gorge, Karijini National Park, Australia (Chiz) Some images (like this one, with a 20s exposure) will always need camera support

      Care and cleaning

      Much of care is prevention – carrying the camera in the right way, protecting it from impacts, splashes and so on. Changing lenses also requires care, especially in windy, rainy and dusty conditions. Cameras generally don’t require a lot of cleaning but when they do, use products designed for the purpose–especially on lenses and LCD screens. And don’t, ever, touch the reflex mirror of an SLR in any way.

      Changing lenses creates the risk of dust getting into the camera and settling on the sensor. Cleaning the sensor (more strictly, its protective low-pass filter) is a delicate but sometimes necessary operation which must only be done with dedicated swabs and following the instructions carefully.

      Final Thoughts

      For Lance Armstrong it was ‘Not About the Bike’. For us it’s ‘Not About the Camera’. A good camera does not make a good photographer – and that’s a positive: taking better pictures costs nothing (apart from, possibly, the purchase price of this book!). However, a good camera can help; especially if we define a good camera as a camera that does what you want it to do. From which it seems to follow that knowing (realistically) what you want from a camera is a prerequisite to getting the right one.

      However, just for the record, we both use digital SLRs. One of us uses Canon and one of us uses Nikon and – although we watch technological developments with interest – neither of us are planning to change.

      3 PLACES AND PEOPLE

      Marshaw Wyre river, Lancashire (Jon) Shot with a wide-angle lens (16mm). The closest ice is in easy touching distance. Any small shift in position would have significantly changed the framing

      First Thoughts

      A good photo isn’t defined by being perfectly focused and perfectly exposed. It’s about feelings. What does it feel like to be in these places, with these people, doing these things? Of course if focusing and exposure are wrong they can ruin the picture, but today’s cameras are pretty good at getting them more or less right.

      Perhaps all photography is about feelings; photographing places and people certainly is. Technical skill is great if it helps you express your feelings more clearly, but it clearly isn’t helpful if fretting about white balance or depth of field gets in the way of those feelings.

      Places

      Humphrey Head and Morecambe Bay, Cumbria (Jon) In the outdoors it’s not just what you do but where you do it that counts

      In any outdoor activity, it’s not just what you do but where you do it that’s important. Even a short country stroll can take you to places unsuspected by those who never leave the roads. Mountaineers, cavers, sea-kayakers all get to places most people will never see and may never even have dreamed of. Whether it’s to show your less privileged friends, or just for your own memories, you’ll surely want pictures that capture the special qualities of these special places.

      On the face of it, shooting landscapes should be easy. Landscape doesn’t run away when you approach, or start pulling silly faces: it just sits there and waits to be photographed. You don’t need expensive specialised gear either: an ordinary camera and an ordinary lens will do fine.

      However, shooting landscapes well turns out to be less easy. There are a number of reasons for this. Some of them are technical, but a lot of technically competent pictures still don’t really get the message across. Indeed, in their obsessive pursuit of technical excellence some people seem to forget what the picture is actually about.

      It is about the place, but places change their face. It’s also about time and light, weather and season. Returning to the same place time and again, to photograph it in different СКАЧАТЬ