The Wonders of Technology

The Wonders of Technology

Technology is truly wonderful, enabling us to do things that not too long ago were next to impossible, if not impossible. It's all there, and hard to know where to begin, the camera manufacturers have showered upon us so many goodies that change the whole perception of technique.

Weather resistance: No longer do we cower inside at the first sign of showers. Now we range outwards in torrential downpours, scoffing at the weather in all its adversity. Although we might worry as cameras and lenses are often described in wooly terms, and instruction manuals say "do not let the lens get wet" - an incredible contradiction when we've seen for ourselves on YouTube just what the kit can take.

Shake Reduction: Sue claims her cameras are bespoke editions just for her as they have "SR" inscibed upon them. I suspect that may refer to Shake Reduction, intended for both of us and everyone else probably. But this is one truly amazing feature. The images I'm showing today were shot on the Pentax K20D, which is going back to 2008 or so, but since then shake reduction can become even more effective. Do we still need a tripod? I would say we do, but not for reducing shake generally. The tripod is useful when lining up accurate close ups as shake reduction in lenses does lead to a slightly wandering image in the viewfinder. This does not aid accurate composition at the edges. It is also for very long exposures where clearly it is beyond what we could expect. A 30 second exposure is not for shake reduction.

The rule of thumb has always been to use a shutter speed at least the reciprocal of the focal length. So a 50mm lens needs 1/50s, in practice 1/60s as that is how shutters are marked. If you wanted critically sharp as against sharp, then 1/125s, or even faster. Of course, even at those speeds success was not guaranteed. Enter SR and suddenly that 1/50s requirement could be thrown away and ultra sharpness might be had at 1/8s, not every time but most of the time. Maybe even 1/4s and we're really into amazing territory. The key is to try it. Find a subject and shoot images at various shutter speeds and find out at what point sharpness can no longer be expected.

So, some pictures, usually low light, and using Pentax's in-camera SR system of quite a few years ago. It is much better today, and we might look at that in the near future.

Under Victoria Baths in Manchester



Low Light at Dr Who Exhibition



A very dark corner of an exhibition in a castle



Andrea by candlelight



Candlelit glamour



Red door at night