New Horizons #35 “Littlehampton”

January 13, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

Littlehampton on the River Arun, just down the coast from us.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50831281193/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Best wishes,

Leigh

“Old but new”

January 12, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography, Porto, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I take a lot of shots that I don’t do anything with. These are two shots taken in Porto in the Summer of 2019 that I processed today.

Kind regards

Leigh

“Midnight Rider”

January 12, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in digital art, Leigh Kemp, Paintography, photography | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

“Midnight Rider”. Green screen combined shot using E-M1 mk 1+M.Zuiko 30mm macro lens of an Elvis Presley knitted figure riding a wooden model motorbike. Helped me to pass a bit of time this morning as it’s raining and I’ve not got anywhere interesting to go.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50828186826/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Stay safe everyone, best wishes,

Leigh

NIK Viveza 2 demo

January 10, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

Sometimes a video is better than words :). A quick run through of NIK Viveza 2 my favourite tool.

Kind regards

Leigh

Silent Sorrow in empty seats

January 10, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Monochrome, photography | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

I came across this old shot of deserted tables and chairs outside a local restaurant that I originally titled “Silent Sorrow in Empty Seats”. Old but somehow taken on a new poignancy at the moment. I just liked the rain on the tables and the various textures.

Kind regards,

Leigh

Dream Aquarium screensaver, brilliant!.

January 9, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in digital art | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Dream Aquarium screensaver spanning multiple monitors, I can watch this for ages which is good because that’s all that I can do . You can add different fish to your liking, change the tank layout and no fish food expenses required as it’s a built in function. For some reason the HD doesn’t kick in for a few seconds?.

Kind regards,

Leigh

Greetings from my bunker.

January 9, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment | 6 Comments

Hi folks,

Hope that everyone is staying safe, greetings from my “Bunker in Bognor” or so it feels as I’ve not left it for over a week now, AKA my Man Cave 🙂 and I’m going more than a little stir-crazy. As I can’t get a haircut I’m also starting, more and more, to resemble a Yeti. 🙂 .

I’ve been giving some thought to my passion for processing my images (still hate the word). If someone offered me some money to spend as I wished on photographic equipment, as unlikely as that ever might be, I’d choose to spend the lion’s share on software. My passion for photography really starts when I’m working on my images, Subjective as of course it is, I just couldn’t go out, take some shots and not work on them. I’m fortunate that I don’t have deadlines to meet or have to mass-produce images to a formula but even a few simple adjustments will bring one’s imagery to life. I’ve raved several times before about Viveza, part of the NIK collection of software plugins now owned by DXO with it’s selective adjustment control point technology and I think that it’s an absolutely fantastic piece of software that has been the most useful and creative software that I’ve ever purchased, I use it at some stage in every image that I work on.

Stay safe, kind regards,

Leigh

For those interested in video streaming/capture etc..

January 7, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

A while back I started experimenting with video streaming. I bought a couple of bits of kit that work very well. As some of my cameras don’t allow one to monitor the video in live view with and HDMI cable plugged in I bought a plug in HDMI to USB video capture device and also a 1 in 2 out HDMI splitter. This works very well as I can plug the HDMI output from the the camera in to the splitter with a suitable HDMI cable, plug one of the outputs to a small HDMI monitor and the other output to an HDMI cable plugged into the HDMI to USB capture device and this into the computer. The HDMI splitter device has a micro USB socket so that it can be powered by USB and includes a cable for this. This combination works great and allows me to simultaneously monitor the picture whilst streaming to the computer. So far I’ve used this setup with ZOOM and also with OBS Studio and it cost me approx. £33 UK plus a suitable HDMI cable to fit your camera’s HDMI output.

I have no affiliation with the companies that manufacture these products, as always, I share because I hope that it is of interest.

Stay safe and kind regards,

Leigh

“Camera Eye”.

January 6, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography | Leave a comment

Hi folks, hope everyone is keeping safe and well,

“Camera Eye”. Shot this morning, TG-5 microscope mode. Novelty camera lighter, part of my eclectic collection (try saying that fast three times)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50807046302/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Best wishes,

Leigh

“Fading memories of a bright Summer’s day”

January 5, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, Fine Art, Fine Art Prints, HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Paintography, photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

As I’m not able to go out I’ve started to look through some of my unpublished shots and found this one of the view from Lewes Castle, East Sussex to work on.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50803699308/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Best wishes,

Leigh

As I sit here looking at my modern digital cameras I’m reminded of my first camera and, in particular, the first photograph that I ever took. Nowadays we take cameras and camera technology pretty much for granted but when I was a child I can’t remember many photographs. The only time our camera saw the light of day, and it had to be the light of day, as there wasn’t a flash, was on a few family occasions, the usual thing, school sports days, birthdays, etc.. My interest in photography didn’t start until my grandfather “loaned” me his camera to take with me on a week-long school trip, sleeping under canvas, in Snowdonia, North Wales. It was a somewhat battered old twin-lens reflex camera in which one looked downwards in to the viewfinder when taking a photograph.

I remember being very excited at being entrusted with the family camera, film wasn’t cheap and I had very little to no idea how to use it. The experience must have made some kind of impression on me as, after all these years, I still remember taking my first photograph. The coach stopped en-route at Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill and it became the subject of my first photograph. Although, sadly, like my other photographs from the trip, it has long since disappeared, however, I really don’t need the photograph to remind me as the experience is indelibly etched on my mind. I wonder if this is perhaps where my interest in landscape photography stems from but that’s probably too much of an assumption. As far as I remember I was the only kid on the trip to have a camera, that’s how different things were, nowadays, just about everyone has a camera of some sort built in to their mobile phones. It also taught me to be disciplined to the point of being frugal when taking photographs as the trip was for one week and I only had a 12 exposure black and white film in the camera.

Some years later I really got the photography bug and bought my first camera, an Olympus OM-1 35 mm film camera and I went on to own their OM-2 and OM-4ti cameras and a range of lenses. Film was still pretty expensive considering I earned about £20 a week in my first job so I got in to developing and printing my own black and white and, later, colour films to help keep the costs down and make things more affordable. Not only did this experience teach me an awful lot about image-making start to finish, many of the techniques and skills that I learned in my makeshift darkroom, a small room adorned with genuine World War 2 blackout curtains fitted to keep out the light, another hand-me-down from my grandfather, these skills would re-surface and be invaluable some years later when I started working on processing my digital images.

I put myself through University as a mature student and I badly needed the money so I had to very reluctantly part with all my photographic equipment, but needs must. After I graduated I bought my first digital camera, a small fixed lens Kodak compact camera, reduced in a sale. It had, by today’s standards, a laughably small maximum image resolution of 640×480 pixels or, to put it another way, a stunning 0.4 Megapixels!. For all of this and further equipped with screw on wide angle and telephoto lens attachments, it proved to be a fabulous little camera which I took all over the place with me. Put simply, digital photography was a revelation, to me, no requirement for film, no real running costs and a lot of image capacity on a small memory card which I found absolutely liberating.

A few years before that I had discovered some free graphics editing software on the cover disk of a computer magazine and that started off my real passion for working with graphics and, ultimately, photo processing. So I then had all the tools I required to develop, pun intended and further, my interest in digital photography. Processing is where the magic starts for me, I am totally absorbed in and fascinated by the range of options that digital processing affords me. It encourages me, if, that is, I ever need encouragement, to constantly experiment with new styles, new techniques and is such an important part of my enjoyment and interest in photography.

I went on to own several DSLRs but, as I got older I began to find that they were simply too heavy and bulky. I switched over back in 2013 to Micro Four Thirds cameras and lenses. My choice of MFT system was heavily influenced by my experiences with my Olympus film cameras, maybe it was, in truth, part based on nostalgia that I decided on their OM-D system. As a landscape/travel photographer I have to carry my gear around all day and the weight and bulk saving is highly significant. I’ve been very impressed with the image quality of my Micro Four Thirds equipment, it has traveled with me extensively, never let me down and I have never had cause to question my decision to go over to that format.

So my 50-plus year photographic adventure has led me from twin-lens reflex and single-lens reflex film cameras to digital cameras, from stumbling around in a dimly-lit darkroom to working with my images on my computer. I’ve heard it said on occasions, including a comment I read some while back by a very famous photographer, that cameras being so much an every-day item now and available in mobile phones etc. devalues photography. I feel quite the opposite, I firmly believe that it empowers everyone with affordable technology to take photographs and enjoy photography and that, in my opinion, is fantastic. Although I’ve very much enjoyed my personal photographic journey I do confess to feeling a slight tinge of regret that the technology wasn’t available when I started out but one can’t put the clock back and I intend to keep on embracing all these great technological advancements, experimenting and enjoying my work.

Cameras:

Olympus: OM-D E-M5 Mk II (titanium) & HLD-8G grip, OM-D E-M1 Mk I (black) & HDL-7 grip, OM-D EM-5 Mk I (silver) & HDL-6 grip, PEN EPL-5, PEN EP-5 (silver) +VF-4, PEN E-PL8 (Silver) +VF4, Tough TG-5 (red), PEN-F (silver), Canon Powershot G10, Nikon Coolpix A100

Lenses:

Olympus: M.Zuiko: 12 mm f/2, 17 mm f/1.8, 25 mm f/1.8, 45 mm f/1.8, 30 mm f/3.5 macro, 9 mm f/8 body cap fisheye, 15 mm f/8 body cap, 9-18 mm, 12-50 mm, 12-40 mm f/2.8 PRO, 14-150 mm II, 40-150 mm II, 12-45mm f/4 PRO, MCON-P02.

Sigma: ART 60 mm f/2.8.

Samyang: Manual focus 7.5 mm f/3.5 fisheye.

TT Artisan: Manual focus 17mm f/1.4, 23mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4.

Panasonic Lumix: 14 mm f/2.5, 20 mm f/1.7, 12-32 mm x2 (black and silver), 12-60 mm, 14-42 mm II, 35-100 mm, 45-150mm.

PEN E-P5, 9-18mm,12-32mm, 40-150mm II. A lightweight kit with virtually continuous coverage from 18mm wide angle to 300mm telephoto.

OM-D E-M1 I, 14-150mm II, 12-40mm PRO. . Heavier than my other kits but with complete weather-sealing. Coverage from 24mm wide angle to 300mm telephoto with some overlap for backup.

OM-D E-M5 II, 17mm, 35mm, 12-60mm. A balance of two fun manual focus lenses with a weather-sealed body and zoom lens.

PEN E-PL5, 9mm, 15mm, 25mm, 60mm, 12-50mm. Another lightweight fun kit with a zoom option.

TG-5, OM-D E-M5 mk1, 7.5mm, 12mm, 17mm, 45mm, 30mm macro. M-CON.

PEN-F, 14mm, 20mm, 12-32mm, 35-100mm. Probably my favourite lightweight day-to-day kit. Two fast primes and two zoom with almost continuous coverage from 24mm wide angle through to 200mm telephoto.

Software:

Corel: Paintshop Pro Elite 2020 & Video Studio 2019.

Skylum Software: Aurora HDR 2019, Luminar 4, Luminar AI and Luminar Neo.

DXO Labs: PhotoLab 5 Elite, Viewpoint 3, NIK Collection 6, Film Pack 5 and PureRAW.

Anthropics Technologies: Landscape Pro Studio 3 and Portrait Pro.

EyeQ: Perfectly Clear

Topaz Labs: Studio 2, Sharpen AI, A.I Gigapixel, AI Clear, AI Adjust, DeNoise AI and Various legacy plugins.

Adobe: Lightroom.

GreenScreenWizard Studio Pro.

Serif: Affinity Photo

Microsoft: Image Composite Editor (Free).

Darktable (Free).

Olympus: Olympus Capture, Olympus Workspace and Olympus Webcam (Free to Olympus owners).

Sony: Movie Studio Platinum.

Lighting Gear:

Godox TT350o flash, Godox X1T radio flash trigger, Godox Lux Junior flash, LED ring flash, GVM RGB LED light, Olympus MAL-1 Macro Arm Light. Two Godox LED36 lights, Godox Litemons LED6R light. Three Bowen studio flash heads, barndoors, honeycombes, umbrellas and flash meter.