76 PRACTICALPHOTOGRAPHY
Know Your Stuff
I’ve recently got into
astrophotography, and
I’m having issues with
moisture forming on my lens.
Is there a good way to stop this?
Barbara Dixon, NottinghamLouise says: Lens fogging is
frustrating and can damage a lens
th at is not weather sealed. The
issue is caused by temperature
changes, especially on more humid
ni ghts, such as in late summer. The
fir st step to take is to ensure your
kit acclimatises to the conditions,
so take your camera bag outside
well before you intend to shoot and
le t it gradually reach an ambient
temperature. Use a lens hood,
and attach a small battery-powered
fa n to the hood to keep air flowing
ac ross the lens – this stops
droplets from forming. Hand
warmers can be secured to the
lens with elastic bands in order
to keep the temperature constant
and, finally, invest in some proper
anti-fog gel or wipes to safely
remove any condensation from
the front element of your lens.How do I stopmy lens fromfogging up?Above Cheap hand warmers can
be strapped to your lens with
elastic bands to prevent fogging.Do we really needediting software?Having started out using film,
I have resisted any editing of
my digital images as I consider
it cheating. Why do so many people
champion these ‘dark arts’?
Walter Johnstone, South WalesRichard says: A quick question for you,
Walter – when you shot film, were you
happy for a high street developer to print
your images, or did you have you own
darkroom or use a pro lab? I’m going
to guess that you wanted to get
the best out of your
negatives, and
that’s exactly what
post-processing
offers the digital
photographer.
Your camera
can do a pretty
decent job of
processing JPEGs
to deliver perfectly
acceptable shots
st raight out ofthecamera,
but you will neverappreciatethe
full range of tonesunlessyoushootin RAW
and carry out some post-processing.
Many ‘analogue’ photographers are put
off by the more extreme examples of photo
manipulation that digital editing can
produce, but if you think of software as a
di gital darkroom, and keep your editing
subtle, then you will see that there’s really
no difference between what you can achieve
in post and what you used to do when you
were printing your shots from negatives.
Get yourself some software, read upon
the basics from your back copies of PPand
we’re sure you’ll soon be hooked on editing- it’s a vital part of the process.
Above The top image here is a JPEG
that has been processed by the
camera. Below is a very quick edit of
the shot that only took a few minutes.TIP
WORK
INL AYERS
AdobePhotoshop’s
non-destructivelayers let
youmakechangesto your
imagewithoutaltering
thebasefile.