For the past 10 years I have been giving lectures on digital imaging for photographic clubs in the South East of England. (25 years ago I was giving companies talks and training on Photoshop, scanning and multimedia!).

I am available – for a small fee – to travel to clubs in the South East and given any one of the talks listed in the menu. Please contact me for further information. My details are in the Surrey Photographic Association handbook.

This is an outline of the contents of the talk and a summary of the findings with before and after images to help those that have been to one of my lectures. When I give the talks I include many different demonstrations, these will help to serve as an aid to those who have seen the talk.

The 2015 Technology Lecture at The Brighton & Hove Camera Club.

Technology Lecture 2015-1

This year covered

Digital Camera Sensor design including Moiré effects
Problems with ultra High Resolution Cameras
Shooting Motor Racing (Through a fence!)
Cameras for Street Photography
Vintage Film Technology making a comeback – Including Polaroid

Digital Camera Sensor design including Moiré effects

Fuji X100T shot of Lloyds Building

Moiré clearly visible despite Fuji X sensor design.

Problems with ultra High Resolution Cameras

The megapixel race now continues. I started with a 3MP digital SLR – now you can buy a 50MP camera, but there are problems with a sensor this resolving…

This is the sharpest lens….In the world

Zeiss Otus – hard to get focus

The Canon 5Ds/r required a new type of mirror mechanism to reduce vibration…

Shooting Motor Racing (even through a fence!)

It is becoming rare to find a racing circuit with an uninterrupted view of the track. Due to health and safety concerns catch fencing has been erected almost all around the circuits, including this one – Brands Hatch in Kent, England. A former Grand Prix circuit it is no longer used as the run off areas are too small for a formula 1 car.

Interesting the lap record is held by Nigel Mansel in a Williams Honda in 1986 – yes 1986!

Now it is home to events such as the British Touring Car Championship, the Porsche Cup and various historic races.

These shots were taken with the Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6 LIS – both mk1 and mk2 on a Canon 5dmklll to try out at Brands. As you can see from picture 2 if you set the lens up incorrectly you can get lots of pictures of fences!

The right way to setup your camera/lens…

Av Mode set f5.6 and the focus range on the lens to be 3m- infinity.I set an ISO to get the shutter speed in excess of 1/500 often 1/1000th or faster

The AF mode is set to “track objects ignoring obstacles” – which stops the AF attempting to focus on the fence, or marshalls etc.
I usually overexpose a little to move the histogram to the right.
At 400mm the fence is blurred to invisibility, but as I zoomed out to 100 the fence became visible again. I should point out that this only works if you are really close to the fence – inches, not feet!

Normally for motor sport I’d set the camera to Shutter speed priority, decide on the shutter speed based on the lens and speed of the action. However in this circumstance, if the aperture stops down to f8 – the fence becomes visible, hence I want to fix the aperture.

Shooing through the fence reduces contrast – but this can be compensated for afterwards.

I was able to capture the images of the cars coming up the hill. The heat haze and difference in sharpness between those in focus cars at the front and those behind contributes strongly to making the images work.

The images of the Porsche 911 were shot just over a fence – from a distance – standing as tall as possible. Alain Menu in the VW and Colin Tarkington in the BMW were both shot from Grandstand seats.

Unfortunately the way motor racing circuits are being designed now, it is becoming increasingly important to have a press pass, or be in a grandstand to get a good view.