PRO KIT
SPIRIT LEVEL
Jordan says... I can’t abide
off-kilter horizons! And while you
can straighten this in post, this
loses pixels. I don’t bother with the
spirit levels on the tripod itself, but
use a bubble level that slots into my
camera’s hotshoe. Using this
ensures my horizons are perfectly
straight at a glance. It’s an old-
school way of doing things, but it
hasn’t failed me since the film days.the ‘expanded’ settings. Normally, the
lower the ISO the higher the image quality,
but below the base ISO it actually starts to
deteriorate slightly again. However, the
difference is minimal and I’d choose this
above adding another piece of glass in front
of the lens. That, in my view, would have an
even greater detrimental effect on quality.”
“Another option would be to simply wait
for the light levels to drop, but we’ve got
more images to take and time is getting
shor t. It ’s time we moved on!”SUNSET AT TOWER BRIDGE
A brisk walk along the northern bank of the
river and they arrived at Tower Bridge,
approaching sunset and into the famed
‘golden hour’. The lights of the city were
coming on and the sky was taking on the
namesake golden glow – Steven set up
at The Maiden and Dolphin fountain.“I love the
layering that
you’ve managed
to get into the shot,”
praised Jordan.
“While Tower Bridge is
unquestionably the main focal
point in this photo, you’ve used the fountain
to create foreground interest, while The
Shard and city skyline beyond make for a
perfect backdrop. But one thing I would
change, just looking at your initial
settings, is the aperture.”
Steven had selected an f/13 aper ture...
“I just don’ t like f/13!” exclaimed Jordan,
“And it’s not because I’m superstitious- it’s the same for any third- or half-stop
set ting. I’d go to either f/1 1 or f/16. In the
film days, lenses could generally only be
adjusted in ‘ full’ f-stops, and so I know
pretty well off by heart how much
Steven composed his Tower Bridge shot with
both foreground and background interest.Jordan uses a cheap hotshoe bubble level to
ensure that his horizons are perfectly horizontal.TECHNIQUE
ASSESSMENT
ENGAGE MANUAL MODE
Jordan says... Steven had set his
camera to Aperture Priority mode,
but I suggested that he use Manual
instead. That way, exposures will be
consistent between shots – important
when taking several of the same scene- and the ND filters we’d be using can
throw a camera’s metering system.
PLAYBACK OPTIONS
Jordan says... I’m not a big fan of
constantly checking images on the back
of the camera – just a quick glance at a
test shot to check the exposure is okay.
I suggested Steven pare back the info
displayed in the Playback options, but
keeping Highlights checked – so that
overexposed areas flash as a warning.IN-CAMERA BACKUP
Jordan says... Steven’s camera has two
memory card slots and he had one set
record Raw images and the other for
JPEGs as a safeguard. But should one
card fail, then you’re still going to want
the Raw files to get the best out of your
images. As such, I suggested that he
instead set the Backup option so that
Raw files are saved to both cards.1
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CITYSCAPES