Keeping dry while waiting

Posted by John Leech (Grange-over-Sands, United Kingdom) on 30 June 2009 in Cityscape & Urban and Portfolio.

I'm sure most visitors to my pages will be familiar with Ian Bramham's photography Ian Bramham. I've followed his emerging talent since he first bought a DSLR - not that his talent took long to emerge. I'm sure any viewers who have not seen his work will appreciate this link.

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Comments (10)

Ian Bramham from Manchester, United Kingdom

great 'street' shot John!....I find this kind of photography very difficult and overall a very frustrating experience when I try it for myself.

30 Jun 2009 10:10am

Ian Bramham from Manchester, United Kingdom

....Steady hands by the way! (have you been practising? :-)

Knowing you, this was photographed using a tripod :-)

I've just looked at the exif. Auto iso is really useful for these kind of situations. I have mine set to a max of iso1600 and a minimum shutter speed of 1/30th second. The VR on my longer lenses means that I'm able to safely handhold those at 1/30th as well as my 10-20.

30 Jun 2009 10:14am

@Ian Bramham: If street photography was just about photographing people facing the other way, then I'd be in with a shout! This one is amusing in that I took a first version and walked on, then saw this other guy walking up with a massive umbrella, so nipped back down the road into position. Its like Alex says, you find a location and background, then wait for the elements. The original two blokes had not moved - they could well still be stood there now for all I know. No tripod, I was too cold to really care about exif - having been soaked through, but yup, 1/25th is a lot slower than I'd normally be happy with. Auto iso is a great feature, I used it once, then reset it to fixed 200 for tripod work and haven't got back round to trying it again. Its one of those menu settings which deserves a more accessible button, such as tagged on either end of the ISO button dial - or maybe better near the mid setting. Ohh, forgot, your cheap toy only has a shutter release button on the body - or do you have to use the menus to do that too? :~)

flyingwind风飞扬 from Taiyuan, China

Nice B/W shot! This is a triangle frame which shows hints!

30 Jun 2009 1:29pm

@flyingwind风飞扬: Thank you Flyingwind

Ian Bramham from Manchester, United Kingdom

yes, you're right :-) my D40 does have a shutter button but occasionally I find myself shouting at the thing when it won't take a photo even after i've pressed it like you're supposed to!

The last time that happened was just this the weekend when I was trying to take some close-ups with the 50 f1.4 lens- I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't take a photo when i was pressing the button until I realised I was a bit toooo close and it didn't have a focus lock....doh!

30 Jun 2009 1:32pm

@Ian Bramham: Its that moment that Bresson described as the decisive pain in the arse. That's why he didn't use a modern digital camera with a chip in it.