“On the rocks”

May 29, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in digital art, Leigh Kemp, photography, Travel | Leave a comment

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/49949148961/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Hi folks,

Another chrome-key macro. Rocks from Italy, Whiskey from the supermarket 🙂

Cheers,

Leigh

So bloody bored I’m going to have to shoot myself! :).

May 29, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in digital art, photography, Travel | 1 Comment

Hi folks,

After more than 9 weeks confinement with only repetitive boring walks round and round my local suburban neighbourhood, with no personal transport to get anywhere scenic and devoid of any more things to shoot at home I’m reduced to having to shoot myself even thought I’m not much interested in portraiture. 🙂

Best wishes,

Leigh

Macro lighting, greenscreen and post processing video (1 Hour long) !

May 28, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in digital art, Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

A mammoth video today, 🙂

An hour long video, a quick run-through including my macro lighting setup, Olympus Capture and Workspace, Green Screen Wizard Studio Pro, DXO Photolab 3, Luminar 4, Topaz Sharpen A.I and NIK Viveza 2 Software. I’ve not attempted to detail all the many powerful features of the software but rather to describe a few of the features that I frequently use and find the most useful.

Kind regards

Leigh

Let there be light

May 27, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in digital art, Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

I have a new addition to my macro lighting, a battery/DC adapter powered RGB LED light with Android control App. The unit has power output setting from 0-100% in +/- 5% adjustments and one can adjust the colour temperature, saturation, hue etc..

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

gvm light

I have also upgraded my Green Screen Wizard software to the Pro Studio version which includes a very useful and well-featured editor.

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Bus on the shore

Kind regards

Leigh

My personal tribute to our NHS Heroes

May 25, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography, Travel | Leave a comment

A simple thank you doesn’t seem to come close to saying nearly enough.

NHS Tribute

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/49933693047/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Best wishes,

Leigh

“I’ll only be five minutes”

May 24, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

I shot the backdrop especially for this blue-screen composite macro shot. I wanted the car parked right in front of all of those no parking notices. 🙂

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/49931298157/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Best wishes, stay safe guys,

Leigh

Blue screen macro

May 24, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography, Travel | 1 Comment

Hi folks,

A blue-screen macro of a London bus model and a London Street background. Combining all my various photographic interests, landscape, macro and painterly work.

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/49929304161/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

bus

software

Best wishes,

Leigh

“When in Rome” Macro

May 23, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

A green-screen shot of Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa model and a backdrop of one of my shots of Rome. What better setting for it.

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/49926544108/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

green screen

MACRO FOR BLOG

Although the backdrops that came withe the light tent are okay they are a sort of lint material that attract dust like it’s going out of fashion and show even the tiniest scuff mark and there’s always the problem of wrinkles and getting an even lighting. With this in mind I bought a pack of 25 sheets of A4 green card and the same in blue for about £2.00 each. I’ve also used some wood block to raise the stage a bit to allow for better camera angles. Lastly I bought one of those cheap “helping hand” things which I’ve not used here which can hold small things like flower stems etc. or one of my sheets of coloured gels.

The Greenscreen Wizard software (which also does blue screen) allows for scaling and positioning of, in this case the model car, but one has to experiment with getting the perspective, lighting and shadows right to suit the background image. I discovered a very useful feature of the Olympus Capture tethering software is that one can display and overlay image (the background) and this makes these thing a bit easier to setup else it’s down to trial and error.

Best wishes,

Leigh

“Iconic in red” / “Stuck behind the bus”

May 20, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

A bit of fun, Routemaster bus and Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa models.

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/49916647883/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Best wishes,

Leigh

My Ferraris have arrived!

May 20, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, photography | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa. 1/43 scale model of my favourite Ferrari, built in 1959, just like me 🙂

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/49915283518/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Ferrari 360 Modena. 1/43 scale model macro.

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/49915801471/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

macro gear new

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/49915416093/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

E-M5 Mk II, M.Zuiko 30mm macro lens, Godox TT350o flash, Godox X1-T radio flash trigger and LED ring flash. I’m waiting on a power supply and grip so that I can power the camera from the mains electricity.

That’s as close as I’ll ever get to owning one :).

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 a few years ago 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 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 body), Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mk I (black body+grip), Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mk I (silver body+grip), Olympus PEN EPL5+EVF-4, Olympus Tough TG-5

Lenses:

Olympus M.Zuiko 12 mm, 17 mm, 25 mm, 45 mm, 30 mm macro, 9 mm body cap fisheye, 15 mm body cap, 9-18 mm, 12-50 mm, 12-40 mm PRO, 14-150 mm, 40-150 mm.

Sigma ART 60 mm.

Samyang 7.5 mm.

Panasonic Lumix 14 mm, 12-32 mm, 12-60 mm 35-100 mm.

Olympus MCON-P01.

Software:

Corel: Paintshop Pro Elite 2020.

Skylum Software: Aurora HDR 2019 and Luminar 4.

DXO Labs: PhotoLab 3 Elite & Viewpoint 3.

Anthropics Technologies: Landscape Pro Studio 3 and Portrait Pro.

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

NIK Collection.

GreenScreenWizard Studio Pro.

Affinity Photo.

Darktable.

Olympus: Olympus Capture & Olympus Workspace.

Other Gear:

Godox TT350o flash, Godox X1T radio flash trigger, LED ring flash, GVM RGB LED light. Three Bowen studio flash heads, barndoors, honeycombes, umbrellas and flash meter.