Astbury's Adventures in Photography

I've already spent some time investigating Lightroom alternatives and identified Capture One as looking likely but you can only get so far with reading reviews and looking at tutorial videos so it was time for me to get hands on with Capture One Pro. My intention is to put Capture One through it's paces for those aspects that matter to me but not to run through every single function or option and not to compare with Lightroom at a pixel by pixel level. I started out simply by going onto the Phase One site, entering a few basic details and then being emailed a download link. Capture One About Once installed I fired it up and created a new empty catalog (tip: I located this on my SSD drive to improve performance). Tip: once installed this is a good moment to review and edit preferences, you'll want to check the "Preview Image Size", it defaults to 2560 pixels, set lower if your screen resolution is lower to avoid having unnecessarily large preview files (NB...

Back in 2017 I upgraded my Lightroom for the last time , essentially this was a decision not to move to Adobe's subscription model , along with various miscellaneous grumbles about the quality of the application. At that time I planned to just keep running the old version of Lightroom and keep my options open. However a year on from that I found that my Lightroom Map module had stopped working ( https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/map-view-no-longer-supported.html ) and this prompted me to give the question of switching raw processing engine a fresh look. The map module issue was a simple one, the Google Maps API had changed and Adobe decided they would only fix this on their latest products. In itself this is not a massive issue for me, it's something I could live without but when and what else will stop working with my version 6 Lightroom, dating back to 2015, as my Windows 10 environment has regular ongoing changes and updates? LR 6.13 Map Module So what raw convert...

The most recent addition to my camera armoury is the Victure HC200 Trail Camera, at a special offer price of just £39 this seemed well worth trying. Victure HC200 Trail Cam What you get is a robust unit with waterproof IP66 camouflage effect finish. It can shoot stills as 12mp jpeg and shoots video at 1080HD (in AVI format). It has a PIR type movement sensor that triggers recording and can record at night using it's own inbuilt infrared lighting. Side opening clips with lock option Inside the display and control panel Battery compartment, takes up to 8 AA cells The instructions are not particularly clear but the camera operation is reasonably straightforward. First up is battery installation, it swallows 8 regular AA cells. It also needs a memory card and takes standard (UHS-I) SD cards up to 32Gb capacity, which can easily be formatted from the setup menu. There are various configuration options; shoot stills and/or video, shoot one still at max res or ...

Lathallan House, originally known as 'Laurence Park', dates to 1826 and is attributed to architect Thomas Hamilton (who, along with William Burn were the first Scottish members of RIBA). The house was notably home to Henry Salvesen who built Scotland's first steam powered car, which he used around the estate. The car, dating to 1896, still survives and has been known to appear in the London to Brighton veteran car run. Curious repair, just this one small wall section Front entrance Pair of safes, now sitting in the porch, contents unknown The house was stripped of much of it's timber fixtures and fittings and at one stage suffered a fire (possibly started accidentally by a rough sleeper). Lantern Bathtub, plug still in, located near the stable block Barbed wire no longer required, stable block door Sadly the house is now a ruin, listed on the Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland, and only frequented by occasional urbexers and the ...

I recently attended a two day training course at Stills Centre for Photography in Edinburgh for their training course " An Introduction to the Platinum/Palladium Print ". This is what would now be termed an alternative process (i.e. chemical not digital) although it works well as a hybrid process to contact print from digital negatives. As someone who is familiar with the Cyanotype process I already had some of the basic concepts around contact printing with a digital negative but the Pt/Pd print process is more involved and more exacting with chemicals which are much more expensive so it seemed like a good idea to get some training first. scan of Pt Pd print Day one of the training was very hands on and based in the darkroom, cutting and coating papers, learning some drop ratios, exposing to UV and then working through the various chemical baths to get finished prints. To prepare for this we had submitted image files in advance of the course start date, which had ...

My plan was to take some photographs of the pet (dog) graves in the gardens at Hopetoun House. I wanted to shoot the small headstones from a low position so chose a Fuji X-T1 for the job as this is the only camera I have with a flip out rear screen which makes shooting at odd angles and positions easier. Light levels were likely to be low in the location beneath a canopy of trees and so I was thinking of using a flash to illuminate the subject and also to help with contrast, giving a light drop off for the background. I'd be shooting from close up so the little Fuji EF-X8 shoe mount flash seemed ideal (guide number of 8, metres, ISO 100). However when I came to start I could not get the flash to fire. I ran through a number of menu options and the obvious turn the camera on and off etc but it wouldn't play ball. So I was forced to rethink the shot, ambient light, higher ISO and a wide aperture (luckily I was using a prime lens, the Fuji XF 27mm f2.8). At f3.6 I was getting en...

I'm looking forward to a house move next year and part of my planning is to have a dedicated darkroom so it was with some interest that I came across a recommendation for this book, Build Your Own Home Darkroom, by Lista Duren and Billy McDonald, published by Curtin & London, 1982. Build Your Own Home Darkroom - front cover Build Your Own Home Darkroom - back cover Although an old book it seems there's plenty of second hand copies to be found, I picked up mine via Abe Books and paid just £2.49 including postage, so good value for money. Improvised darkroom My current setup is to use our utility room, this gives a little bit of work space and has a sink. However it means I have to tidy up and make space before I can start. It's far from light tight, not so critical for UV based processes but I still need to block up the window if I want consistent UV exposures. Once I've done my printing I then have to pack everything away again and return the r...