Boy's with new toys

On Saturday I wrote in the blog, the reasons for putting my hand in my pocket to buy a new camera.

Well I've finally worked my way through the 150 page instruction manual. Understood some of it, think with time I'll understand other parts, and know there are other sections that will continue to pass none stop over my head.

So I took the camera out for a test run.

For the summer (what summer?), a merry-go-round has been set up on London's South Bank. The shot on the left was taken with it going at full speed. I'm pleased with the crispness of the image.



Between the Royal Festival Hall and the London Eye, there are always buskers and "human status" entertaining the tourists.

The "Bubble-man" is a new addition. I like the way the camera captured the colours of the soap bubble; and the depth of field which allows the details of the building on the Thames north bank to be clearly seen.



On the way home I passed the National Theatre, where a Tea Dance was being held.

Elvis and partners dancing prowess matched their dress sense!


Finally there was only one more thing to test - the camera's video mode. And now that Mr Google has made it so easy to post videos on blogs I'll finish with the short clip of the merry-go-round.



I'm very pleased with my purchase.

YesBut you can catch time as it passes.

Click the “view show” tab if the slideshow doesn’t open automatically

On Sunday I posted the blog “YesBut nothing remains the same”, which illustrated how the London skyline had changed in a matter of months. Specialist time lapse cameras are expensive. But interesting results can be obtained with a cheap compact digital camera.

Suitable subjects:

Children or grandchildren - especially in the first two years of their lives. Take a photograph of them the same day every week. When you see them every day their growth and development, while noticeable, isn’t as dramatic as seeing a series of shots taken over three months or a longer period. As they get older, photos taken once a month can be equally enlightening.

The view from your home - even if there isn’t the dramatic changes as occur in a city. Take a series of photos to form a panoramic view on the first day of each month. These will show the changes with the seasons. And will be an interesting and in time valuable historical record of where you live.

If you have a garden keep a record of how it changes. Adopt a tree - there must be a tree near your home, (unless you are reading this blog in a desert). Photograph it once a month.

There was an interesting exhibit in Tate Modern in London. It was a time lapse video of a bowl of fruit slowly decaying. Use your imagination, look around you for subjects.

I assume you store your digital photographs in your computer. Create a file for each subject, then when you download your photos onto your computer drag the photos into their respective files. Important take a view moments to name each photo with the date it was taken.

Finally you can make a slide show of each file. Or even better download them to Photobucket, make a side show to share with friends and family or put them on your blog.

Click here to see YesBut's Image picture of the day and leave a suggested caption.

YesBut its a new world

About a month ago I started posting a new blog YesBut’s Images. Why did I start a new blog? Mainly as the result of David McMahon, who posts authorblog, suggesting I should show more of my photographs. But I could have done that on this blog. By starting a new blog, I could post a selection of photos independent of the content of this blog. But the driving reason for starting the blog was, because I had to! Just like mountaineers need to climb Everest, so too I have a creative desire that I must satisfy - I know, I confess, unashamed egotism!!!

About a year ago I bought a very cheap digital camera. Which I carry about everywhere I go. My life has changed since acquiring it. I no longer go for walks, shop or go to meetings. It’s not that I’ve stopped going out, the opposite I go out more, but now going shopping is a secondary activity, I am primarily looking for things to photograph - much to Mrs YesBut’s annoyance.

There she is walking down the street talking to me, but I’ve stopped 200 metres behind to take a photo of a reflection in a window. She doesn’t stop, and I have to trot to catch up, I get a scowl as a reward. I hear mutterings about toys for small boys. “Yes dear“.

Looking through a 3x4cm LCD camera screen, has changed my perspective of the world. It’s true, when you really get into looking, as opposed to just seeing, things around you, everything changes. Colours become more vivid. Shop widows reflect a distorted world. Paving stones form patterns. There are straight lines, angles, curves, shapes, solids, translucent reflections, so much more to see that previously went unnoticed. So much I never noticed before. "That’s beautiful". "Look how the light strikes the water". It’s a new world.

How things have changed with the development of computers and digital cameras. Before, people had cameras, photographs taken, films processed and photos put in albums or left forgotten in draws. Taking a photograph is now only the start of the creative process. Photo editing programs allow pictures to be cropped, colours changed, images distorted. Now every photograph taken has the potential of being a good picture, irrespective if it is out of focus, or whether the camera was held at an angle. More mumbles from Mrs YesBut about spending too much time in front of my computer. “Yes dear“.

Enough typing lets create an image.


Click here to see image of the day.

YesBut which camera?

YesBut’s Golden Rule of purchasing:

“If you can afford it, buy the cheapest”.

Contrary to popular belief the rule isn’t entirely influenced by me being a DOWM ~ “Devote Old Welsh Miser“. If you read yesterday’s blog you will see, it is based on experience and logic.

Film or digital camera? Do they still make film?

O.K. you want to buy a digital camera. Which one should you buy?

There are two main types: Compact and Single Lens Reflex (SLR). Applying the Golden Rule, on cost consideration alone, your first camera should be a compact. SLRs cost between £250 to over£3,000 (US$500 ~ $6,000). While you can buy a reasonable compact for less than £100 ($200). Also compacts as the name implies are small and easily carried in your pocket or bag, while SLRs are bulky and heavy.

Now for the first peace of techno speak. The choice of number of pixels - pictures are made up of a number of dots (pixels), the higher the number the sharper clearer the picture. Cameras range from 1M pixel to 10M. If you are going to view your pictures on a computer a 3M pixel camera will be adequate.

That’s all the technical stuff you need to know. But, just for interest you will come across reference to “optical” and “digital” zoom:

Optical zoom - you can zoom in on the subject of you picture, without loss of picture quality - useful but not essential.

Digital zoom - the image is made to look larger but at the expense of picture quality - completely useless, you will get better results later, using a basic picture editing program on your computer.

You go to the camera shop and there are two 3M digital cameras, one costs £50 the other £80, which one to buy?

Two questions to answer:

Which one feels most comfortable to hold and handle?

How quick is their response time?

Unlike a film camera, which, when you press the button, the photograph is taken immediately. Digital cameras have a slight delay between pressing the shutter button and the picture being taken. The response delay isn’t very critical, if like on Wednesday’s blog, you are taking a photograph of a monument - its been there for 150 years and is unlikely to move in the next 3 seconds! But if you are taking action shots, its crucial. I learnt this when trying to photograph the City of London Lords Mayor Show. Nice photo of soldiers on horse back, click - delay, result a photo of a horses tail!!!

How can you measure a camera’s response time?

If you have a watch with a second hand, or a digital timer. Take a photo of the watch, pressing the button when the second hand is pointing at 12. Put the camera in view mode and you will see in the camera’s LCD screen the photograph taken ~ you will see from the photo the length of delay to when the photograph was actually taken. Choose the camera with the smallest delay. A lot can happen in 3 seconds!!

You will note the olden rule also applies for the purchase of watches - cheap watch only tells the time, no: date, stopwatch, alarm functions. It cost £5, five years ago, since purchase its had three new straps and four new batteries, but it only loses 1 second a day.

So you’ve bought your cheap camera, what next? Use it! Don’t just use it on special occasions and holidays. Its compact, carry it around with you when you go to work, shopping or on walks.

If you soon get fed up of using it, then look at the money you have saved by applying YesBut’s Golden Rule - “If you can afford it, buy the cheapest“. However, if you really get pleasure from taking photos, even a basic camera will be sufficient to allow you to learn and improve your photographic techniques. You will learn what you like photographing, and should you decide to buy a more expensive camera, the experience gained will help you with its selection.

Click here to see a photograph taken using YesBut’s cheap camera

YesBut which one?

How do you choose which computer or camera to purchase?
The idea for this blog came to me earlier in the week, when I saw litter bins full of discarded self-destructing folding umbrellas. You know the type, made in China, one gust of wind and they turn inside out with the spokes buckled.

The choice is between buying a cheap umbrella for a £1 or a good quality folding umbrella for £30. Which one would you buy and why?
In the winter a cheap umbrella might last a month. So for a six month winter period you’ll have to buy six umbrellas. That means you could buy 5 years worth of cheap umbrellas for the cost of one good one. However that has to be offset by the annoyance of an umbrella junking itself in the middle of a rain storm. So it’s a question of balance between cost and satisfaction of usage.

The choice of umbrellas is simple and a low cost investment. But how do you choose a computer, or some other piece of technical kit?

I took for ages, (and I really mean ages and ages, measured in years rather than months) to decide which computer to buy. It was like trying to run up a down coming escallator. New computers with improved specifications were being released weekly. My eyes glazed over and my mind went into comatose state on reading:

Intel Celeron-M 370 1.5G Hz chip

1 GB DDR2 RAM, 60 GB hard drive

Multiformat DL DVD +-R/+- RW

What in the name of sanity did it all mean?

Pointless asking the “expert” in the shop or even a friend for advice. There explanations just flew straight over my head.

I finally did take the plunge and bought a computer. Based on that experience I discovered the Golden Rule of Buying:

If you can afford it buy the cheapest.

That’s it - If you can afford it buy the cheapest.

But you might say, the rule should be “buy the best you can afford”. Yes but what is the best?

Let me explain:

If you are buying your first computer or digital camera, friends and acquaintances can recommend the one they use. They can eulogise on speed, compatibility, functionality etc. But these are merely words. You will not know what piece of technical kit suits you until you try it for yourself.

What is the difference between a “Dummy” and an “Expert” - knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge costs time and money.

Hence the golden rule, buy the cheapest, use it become frustrated or satisfied by its functionality. Get to know, through experience what you consider to be essential, optional and unnecessary. Become aggravated or be contented on how long it takes to boot up, or how long it takes to do things. Learn about its limitations and importantly the reasons for those limitations.

For £250 ~ US$500 you can buy a very basic PC, £350 ~ $700 for a laptop. Even if within months you become dissatisfied with it, it will never be wasted money. You can always sell it, or keep it to back up (store) your files.

PC or laptop? If you are only going to use a computer in one location in your home, go for a PC. If you want mobility of use both in your home and at other locations then it has to be a laptop.

What about buying a digital camera? That will be the subject of tomorrows blog.

But in the mean time you can help me. Click here and suggest a caption for YesBut’s Image of the day.

YesBut Passing moment, present moment

When I go out I carry a small digital camera with me. I’m not a good photographer because I miss the moment. As I walk along I see an image and think:

“That will make a good photo, YesBut”.

But that’s as far as it goes, I don’t convert the thought into action. If I was a goalkeeper I’d see the ball being kicked, but would stand still as it rolled by my feet into the goal.

If only I had stopped and taken the photo I would be a famous photographer by now. But invariably I see the image and walk on. Sometimes I would try to salvage the situation and go back, but “The moment” has past.

Same with topics for this blog. Have a thought in the middle of the night, instead of writing it down on a notepad, I scratch myself turnover and go back to sleep. Another literary masterpiece lost for ever!

Life is like that, a series of missed moments. The only comfort is the realisation if I had responded differently to any of those moments I wouldn’t be where I am now - and frankly I am very happy with this present moment typing this blog - its just as well that I am, because:

“Right here, right now things cannot be other than as they are”

Click here to see today’s image - a bridge to culture