Showing posts with label digital photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital photography. Show all posts

Friday, 30 August 2024

What focal length is a 35mm lens on an APS-C camera?


When you use a 35mm lens on an APS-C camera, the effective focal length is determined by the camera's crop factor. The crop factor for most APS-C cameras is typically around 1.5x (for Nikon, Sony, and others) or 1.6x (for Canon).

To calculate the effective focal length:

Effective focal length = focal length X crop factor.

For a 35mm lens on a 1.5x crop factor APS-C camera:

35mm x 1.5 = 52.5mm

For a 35mm lens on a 1.6x crop factor APS-C camera:

35mm x 1.6 = 56mm

So, the effective focal length will be approximately 52.5mm on a 1.5x crop factor camera and 56mm on a 1.6x crop factor camera.

The simple reason why I have written this short post is because I just did a quick search on the Internet for the 35mm equivalent on an APS-C camera (popular on mirrorless cameras) and the answers that I got were confusing as far as I am concerned 😊. They were back to front. It looked chaotic to me. Maybe its me! It is the way you present the information and I hope this way is good.

In short, the answer has to be that if you use a 35mm lens designed for a full frame camera the effective focal length on a cropped sensor camera has to be longer because you're taking out the middle of the frame. It's a bit like a digital zoom. You are cropping the picture digitally in effect. 

This means that you are zooming-in which means that the focal length is longer from 35mm on full-frame to to a little over 50 mm on APS-C. 

So a 35mm lens on a full frame camera which is a wide-angle lens, becomes a standard lens on a cropped sensor camera such as the APS-C format.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Tuesday, 12 March 2024

Overzealous furore over Princess of Wales's botched photo-edited picture

The picture by the Prince of Wales for Mother's Day which was photo-edited by his wife the Princess of Wales has hit the headlines in the wrong way. Firstly, there was a lot of hypocritical - as far as I am concerned - criticism of the photograph by picture agencies. They pulled the picture once they understood that it had been photo edited.

Within 12 hours of being notified of the botched photo editing (which they should have spotted in the first place) they issued a kill notice advising editors and librarians to delete the image because it had been "manipulated".

Yes, it has been manipulated in a bad and amateurish way by the Princess of Wales who was just experimenting (but shouldn't have been) but the basic substance of the image, the content, has not been changed in any fundamental way at all. It is still a charming photograph of her family. It's a good picture.

Note: I cannot publish the photograph here because it is copyright protected. The copyright is owned by the Princess of Wales and I guess her husband because he took the photograph. I'm afraid you will have to refer to the picture from a different source if you're reading this article.

Catherine, the Princess of Wales. See credit at base of page.

Photo-editing is the norm nowadays


All she was doing was tidying up bits and pieces and trying to to make the picture look 'cleaner' and more organised. This happens all the time. These photo agencies receive pictures from hundreds of thousands of photographers who have assiduously and with great expertise photo edited their images to make them look cleaner and aesthetically beautiful.

It's all part and parcel of modern day photography. You always clean up the images by removing little defects in the background like a bird in the sky or a electrical socket on a wall; that kind of thing. Kate, the Princess of Wales, went too far and she wasn't skilled enough to do it for a picture that was destined to be published worldwide.

Mistake - apology


She should have experimented more at home and become more proficient before she issued a photograph for worldwide publication.

That's a mistake and she apologised today. In a statement she said "Like many other amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother's Day. C".

Pulled


Some big news agencies pulled the photograph. Some claim that it did not meet their photo standards. Fair enough. But the public doesn't mind. It is still a good photograph.

Reissue the original photograph


Why couldn't the news agencies have asked the Princess for the original, unedited version of the photograph and used that instead? If the news agencies had been more assiduous they would have spotted the problem initially, telephoned the Princess's staff and asked for the original instead.

Or perhaps they could have patched up the photo editing themselves. It is entirely possible to re-photo edit a botched photo edited photograph to make it more acceptable. There were ways around this but I would argue that the photo agencies are complicit in some way in this mistake.

Overzealous criticism - crazy response


And in The Times today we have a massive overreaction by overzealous journalists to this image from across the world. With some newspapers saying that they can't trust the Royal family any more which I think is absurd.

For example, American newspapers suggested that the episode may have inflicted lasting reputational damage. Ridiculous. This is simply an example of poorly done photo editing by an amateur photographer. That is all it comes down to. No attempt to manipulate the public or fundamentally change the image.

It appears that many newspapers have reported on this botched photo edited image but always it seems to me in an overly zealous manner. For example, in Italy, the newspaper La Repubblica said: "This is one of the biggest and most embarrassing controversies in the recent history of the Royal family." Ridiculous again.

Six areas of photo-editing


Apparently there are six poorly completed photo edited sections in the photograph which The Times have highlighted. But that newspaper's analysis is that these basic errors "should have been spotted by the Palace". I agree that. The picture should have been more accurately assessed by somebody at the Palace but once again I would lay the blame partly at the photo agencies for not assessing the picture themselves accurately.

They have the staff and the expertise to assess the images that they receive. Why weren't they more careful? A lot of the blame needs to fall upon them in my opinion.

And the Princess should not be so heavily criticised like this. I am not a royalist. I don't actually like the Royal family. But I also don't like unfair behaviour and criticism in this case of an amateur photographer who tried her hand at minor photo editing at the wrong time and in the wrong way. That's all.

Image credit: By Ian Jones - Buckingham Palace reception, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=131607684

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Saturday, 12 June 2021

Picture of a cat on the shoulders of a young man

This is the kind of cat picture that I like which is why I have published it here. Regrettably, I have forgotten the name of the man and I don't know the name of the cat. That's my fault for delaying in publishing it. But whenever I see a photograph where there is obviously a lot of love between a cat and a person, I warm to it and want to spread the word by republishing it provided I'm allowed to under copyright laws. 

But copyright laws have been trashed by the Internet, particularly websites such as Pinterest and Google Images. They publish billions of photographs all the time and they are all, strictly speaking, copyright protected but nobody does anything about it because copyright is over in respect of images on the Internet in my honest and considered opinion. That's boring. But the affection between cat and person is not. It is delightful and emotionally warming photo.

Picture of a cat and a young man.
Picture of a cat and a young man. I don't know the name of the photographer. Sorry. It's a good cat pic though.


How do you take a good cat photograph? Well, firstly, you have to have a camera at the ready because these moments to capture photographically are fleeting (no problem with smartphones). They are called 'decisive moments' in the photographic genre. You have to have a good eye to spot them and be ready to capture them. And it goes without saying that you need some grasp of photography but this has become dramatically less important nowadays because smartphone cameras have become so sophisticated that even on automatic mode, they cope admirably with difficult lighting conditions. 

There is one issue which needs to be taken care of and that is the shutter speed. If you are taking photographs indoors, as is often the case with domestic cats, it is likely that the automatically set shutter speed will be quite slow at about 1/30 of a second which is too slow to capture fast-moving objects like domestic cats.

Therefore, you should be prepared to manually override the shutter speed and crank it up to about 1/200 at least and adjust the aperture accordingly. You may have to adjust the sensitivity of the sensor because indoor lighting is naturally much darker and therefore what photographers used to call the ASA speed needs to be increased to around 1500 to even 5000 which is possible in smart phones and modern digital cameras with only a marginal loss in image quality.

Thursday, 21 January 2016

What is Good Photography?

Good photography is not just recording what is in front you. It is seeing merit in what is front of you and then transforming that into an image which speaks to all about life so that it touches the emotions of viewers.

My Cat

To see merit in the subject is itself a skill. To then enhance and transform the record/image to something which powerfully speaks to viewers is creating art (sometimes). Not many people can do this. Those who can are good photographers.

Photography is about communication. It is about touching the sensibility of viewers whereby they learn more about themselves and the world they live in.

In creating "art" there is usually a lot of thought. It does not come easy.

Note: the photo is by me of my cat. I don't profess to say that it is good photography. Just fun.

Thursday, 27 October 2011

Turkish Angora Pictures

Two splendid Turkish Angora pictures by the great cat photographer Helmi Flick. The Turkish Angora is a very distinguished looking purebred cat with a long natural history in Turkey. This cat really does originate in Turkey. In Turkey this cat breed is not selectively breed as much to be slender as is the case in America. It is quite normally shaped (semi-cobby) in Turkey and usually white with preferred odd-eye color. This post discusses what they look like in Turkey.

White cats with blue eyes have a high incidence of deafness caused by the same gene that makes the cat white.

Turkish Angora - Photo copyright Helmi Flick

This cat has startling eyes. They are a gorgeous pale green that is so well matched to the steely gray coat. He has a quizzical face.

The photos on this page are protected by copyright ©. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA).

Next we have a plumed tail that is a big WOW!

Turkish Angora - Photo copyright Helmi Flick

This is a silver tabby Turkish Angora (TA for short). I think he or she is a mackerel tabby. The spots on the back merge to stripes on the flanks. The tail has one large band or blob at its end.

The eats are straight up which must be a requirement of the breed standard. They have slight lynx tipping which gives a sharpness to the shape. The eyes are also a pale green or is it hazel? The accepted eye colors for the TA are: copper, gold, yellow, hazel, green, blue and odd-eyes.

See a quick guide about this cat.

Balinese Cat Pictures

Two really nice Balinese cat pictures by the celebrated Helmi Flick. The Balinese is a long haired modern Siamese cat. The CFA do not categorize this cat as a separate breed. This cat has a delightful plumed tail. It is a plumed tail cat. There are a few. The Somali comes to mind immediately. The Somali is a long haired Abyssinian. The Maine Coon has a plumed tail too as do many moggies.

Balinese Cat. This is Kareem. Photo copyright Helmi Flick

As for Siamese cats there are traditional and modern Balinese cats. The cats on this page are what I call "modern" in conformation. The CFA would not describe them as that. For them a modern or oriental conformation is the standard. Kareem looks like a lynx point to me but I will accept being corrected in a comment! You can see some banding on the forelegs.

The photos on this page are protected by copyright ©. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA).

Balinese cat "Samson" - Photo copyright Helmi Flick

You can see the refined elegance of the Balinese cat in the photos. Breeders have selectively bred for what they consider a more elegant appearance. This means more slender (foreign or oriental in cat fancy language). Samson has very delicate pointing. The coat is sleek and lies close to the body. The tail is fine but plumed. You can see how the tail fans out it the photo of Kareem. Samson's tail has tabby in it as you can see the banding. The modern Balinese has huge ears that I personally find unnatural. Cat breeders also like to develop large ears for some reason. It can look strange. These cats have straight long noses (no nose break). In profile it looks quite distinguished. They have high cheek bones too - quite bony faces in my view.

Associated page: Cat Anatomy.

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

Ragdoll Cat Pictures

Here are three Ragdoll cat pictures. The first one is by the celebrated cat photographer, Helmi Flick. The second is by Dani, a breeder and great cat photographer in Holland and the third by an amateur photographer, Flickr username: quatre mains who has kindly licensed use of the photo under creative commons.

Ragdoll cat - seal point - Photo copyright Helmi Flick

The photos on this page are protected by copyright © except where indicated. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA).

Ragdoll cat "Myst" - Photo copyright Dani

The next photo is of a Ragdoll show cat at a cat show in Holland:

Beautiful Ragdoll cat - Photo quatre mains (Flickr)

You can read about the Ragdoll and see more photos by Helmi on this page.

Saturday, 22 October 2011

Cougar Picture

I like camera trap wildcat pictures because the cat is where it should be, in the wild. The quality of the image is invariably less good when taken with a camera trap camera but this is counteracted by the reality of the image.

Here is a cougar picture taken in the Saguaro National Park. The photographer was SaguaroNPS (a Flickr username).

Cougar Picture
The camera was a G6.1 CUDDEBACK.

The map shows you where the Saguaro NP is:


View Larger Map

Monday, 22 August 2011

My 19 Year Old Lady Cat


Nothing special. It is just a photo I took today of my old lady cat. She looks like a lady but a bit confused, which she is. You can see her bent back in the photo. She has had a bent spine for a long time in fact but it is more noticeable in this picture.

Posted by Picasa

Thursday, 14 July 2011

An Aspect of Cat Photography



Cat photography is often challenging if you want to create something special. Cats, particularly active cats such as the Savannah, need to be entertained with a cat tease (a feather on a stick) while photographing them. This way you can manoeuvre them into a good position. But not always. It can take two people. One on the tease and the other taking the photo. This is how Ken and Helmi Flick work.

Kathrin Stucki, owner with her husband, Martin, of A1 Savannahs, does her own cat photography - on her own. That is tricky. It is high class photography of high class cats.

Below she describes how she managed to get Jazz, the cat you see above, to cooperate

"Jazz:Well, Jazz’s pictures are deceiving. He isn’t the mellow couch potato that he appears to be. The images are a result of hard work and a lot of sweat, well, at least for me.

Jazz is very active, curious and fast moving. When I first started taking pictures of him, I had either only a part of the tail or nothing at all on the picture. Teasing a cat with a feather stick during a photo shoot usually gives the photographer some control over the movements of the cat. Not so, if the cat is a Savannah and thinks that it can never let go of the feathery thing in its mouth no matter what happens around him.

Savannah catTrying to take pictures without a feather teaser didn’t work either because sweet Jazz was jumping down the “cat walk” to rub on my legs and look for little red “Tweetie” again.

I ended up going in the yard to exercise Jazz with the red feather ball on a string. He jumped like a rabbit, higher and faster and full of energy. Chasing his toy, grass hoppers and his own tail at the same time until he crashed in the tall grass, panting and with his broken off feather stick trophy right beside him.

That was my time. Now I could pick him up and put him back on the “cat walk”. He wouldn’t get back up again but at least he laid there for me, proud and with his head up high like a male lion that has just brought home dinner for the whole pride. The photo shoot went smooth and the pictures came out quite nice, I think......"

I think they came out better than nice - they are great!

Michael signature

Tuesday, 28 April 2009

Flip Camera Problem

This is a report on a Flip camera problem. The problem is that after some use the amount of recording time available left is reduced. It can be significantly reduced to the point where the device is unusable. The Flip camera is a fantastic video camera for the reason that it is very small indeed (something like 5" x 2" and about half an inch deep, so it is very portable) yet produces HD video of good quality. This post is not about the camera but the flip camera problem.

Flip camera
photo by photine

This is the problem in more detail:

You buy the camera. You make a video. You store the video on your computer and delete the videos on the Flip camcorder to allow more videos to be made and stored on camera. The maximum amount of recording time is 60 mins. You expect to see 60 minutes of record time available after all the files have been deleted from the Flip camcorder. But on some occasions this isn't the case. The problem seems to be dependent on how the video files are saved to the hard drive from the camera.

Update late March 2011: At the date of this post (see date above), there was and perhaps still is a problem. It may have been fixed. If that is the case, great. 


Note: In discussing this "problem" (and I am not completely sure that it is a problem) does not mean that I don't like the camcorder. I would highly recommended this video camera. It is very easy to use, the quality it very good, it is very tolerant of poor or color cast lighting and is extremely portable. Portability is very important as it means you can capture those shots that would otherwise have passed you by. It is also inexpensive. Mine cost £147 at Heathrow.


There are two ways to save the video files:
  • In my case, when I first used the camera, I saved all the videos on the camcorder in one go using the icon within the Flip software (bottom left of screen) and I then deleted the videos on the camcorder. The files are saved in a new folder created by the Flip software. The manufacturer says that the files are saved deep within the hard drive for security. When the files are saved and deleted this way the camera doesn't seem to recognize the fact that all the files have been deleted and only allows less than the full 60 minute recording time. In my case this was about 30 mins. This seemed weird. For some reason there were files left in the camcorder.
  • The next time I saved the files I did it this way. When the videos show up in the Flip software I click on the video (or a large number of them by clicking on the first one and then clicking on the last one while holding down the "shift" or capitals key). This puts a blue frame around the video. I then right click and a menu comes up. I select the "export" function in this menu. Click on this. I then save the selected videos to a folder that I have opened on the desktop. Once saved (you can see progress on a bar that is bottom left of the screen) I deleted the files using the same menu referred to above (there is a delete function on it).
OK, the second method (a more manual type method) avoids, it seems, the Flip camera problem. A full 60 mins of record time is available after the process. This method of saving files is also required if you are going to make a video with software other than Flip video making software (e.g. Windows Movie maker).

If the problem does come up however, for what ever reason, I have found that the simplest way to solve it is as follows (using MS Windows):
  1. Make sure there are no videos in the camera..
  2. Connect the camera to your computer.
  3. Go to "Computer" and you will see the hard drives including the Flip storage drive (a flash card I believe). It might be labelled, "FLIPVIDEO (G:)".
  4. Right click on the FLIPVIDEO and select "format" from the menu.
  5. A small window comes up. At the bottom of the window click on the check box labelled, "Quick format" and then click on "Start".
  6. It takes about 3 seconds to format.
  7. Then disconnect the camera in the usual way.
You will have a full 60 mins record time for use. One last point. There may be an update to solve the Flip camera problem.

Michael Avatar

From Flip Camera Problem to Home Page

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