Lighting

• Contrasting light and shade
• Shooting into light for silhouettes
• Strong side-lighting

Framing

• Reflections
• Subframing
• Shooting through things

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So, post-event, what did I learn from this outing?

1. Hyperfocal distancing fail

I only took the 7Artisans 35/1.2 with me. This was intentional as I wanted to concentrate on back-to-basics practices and use the manual zone-focusing technique that I’d relearned recently. It transpires that the focusing scale on this lens is purely for decorative purposes! I lost several possible good frames because I trusted the hyperfocal distance to be what was indicated on the ring – a fatal mistake that left the images that I’d used this technique on very soft.

Later, at home, I set up a test rig with a tape measure and set the camera on a tripod with the focal plane aligned at 10′. At f/8 the high-contrast spines of the books in the bookcase test subject should have been in critical focus with 10′ indicated on the red line on the focal ring. It actually read somewhere short of 7′. Hmm.

Having subsequently read others’ experiences around this issue, the concensus seems to be that it’s a design flaw, and that we should use more trusted focusing methods (zoom focusing, focus peaking) to pre-focus in this situation. I agree in hindsight that given the lens’s other, more positive characteristics. I’ll have to get another lens to play with MZF.

2. Colours

There weren’t really any large swathes of colours to play off against for example, someone walking into the scene wearing a coat of the same colour.

There was an area in Deansgate where there was a lot of the same shade of rusty red on a building, the bridge overhead and a wall. That would have worked well, and I got some people entering the frame in a nice position. These were ruined though, thanks to the aforementioned focusing fail.

3. Reflections

There were quite a few reflections around. Lots of the older buildings and hotels had shiny brass plaques outside. Most of the large window panes weren’t really reflective enough thanks to the dreadfully dull, overcast light. There were a couple of opportunities but I didn’t come away with any useable images.

The one exception was a shiny chrome menu frame outside a Chinese restaurant in Albert Square. I used it as a frame to photograph someone approaching on the street. That worked quite well.

4. Shooting though & foreground objects

The intention was to practice giving depth to frames by having OOF objects as frames or partial borders. Again, the dull, flat light didn’t really help here but I intend to give more attention to this in the future. It’s a simple, easy thing to do that I’ve really neglected so far.

5. Lighting

So far as natural, daylight lighting goes it was a bit of a flop. The weather forecast promised a break in the clouds in the afternoon and I hoped that would give us some more contrast and detail. However the sky remained leaden and dark grey, leaving everything flat and subdued.

I could’ve paid more attention to shop lighting perhaps. However this was shortly before New Year and there was lots of gaudy, overdone xmas lighting that I felt just got in the way of what I was looking for. It just looked to unnatural to me.

6. Framing

I’ve talked about shooting through and reflections. My best photo of the day was a frame-in-frame, though. I spotted it just off the pavement on Deansgate. I would’ve really loved someone to walk closer to the window, or even stop right behind it to light a cigarette (does anyone do that any more?) or something, but a mother and a pram were the best opportunity.