(or how to photograph like J.M.W. Turner)

This is Creative use of Shutter and Aperture series no 1

We are great fans of super sharp images and usually do all we can to get things razor sharp. This could be by spending extra on lenses (we both use sony camera now with rather pricy Zeiss glass). Or it could be we sacrifice our health to carry a heavy tripod to our chosen scene to avoid any camera shake. Sometimes however, the subject calls for a more impressionist style and this is where some camera motion blur created by panning comes in.

The how and why of the subject

The subject I (Tim) choose for my panning for camera motion blur was old cars. Now 2 things you should know. Firstly both Ally and I really like photographing old stuff, be it trains, planes, boats or automobiles. Ally aIso like cruise ships and gets very excited whenever she sees one – real life or on the screen. This strange affinity for large floating hotels is because she spent some time as a photographer on the Caribbean cruise ships many years ago. That was about the same time as I was photographing crime scenes around London. Mmmm… I wonder who had the better gig? I digress, so on to the subject matter.

The second thing you need to know is that I absolutely love a painting by J.M.W. Turner called ‘Rain, Steam and Speed – the Great Western Railway’ that gives the impression of the movement in the painting. If you haven’t seen this beautiful painting then look here. Turner painted a slightly blurry impression of the train and then used the steam to add movement to the scene the and I hoped to create the impression of movement in my cars photographs.

London to Brighton Veteran car run

There is a ‘race’ every autumn for vintage cars that goes from London to Brighton in the UK. If you’re travelling around the UK November time, this is a really interesting spectacle to photograph. I use the term ‘race’ lightly as most cars go well under 20 mph and often break down several times along the route. There is no place order – if you finish before 4 pm you get a medal. The run has been going every year since 1927 but was first started in 1896 and is for cars built before 1905. There was even a fictional movie about it made in the 50’s called Genevieve. Now combine the beautiful autumn yellow leaves with a blue sky and an old car and you can see we are already set up for some amazing images especially when you add the steam of a cold morning into the mix.

Equipment

Now while I like to travel light I don’t always make things easy for myself. I wanted beautiful images of the cars with all the colour of fall so I went with medium format and colour film. A Hasselblad 500c/m with a standard 80mm lens and a Hasselblad SWC/M which has a super wide 38mm (by medium format standards) fixed lens. When I was standing at the side of the road watching a few cars go by I realised my mistake. Super sharp images of these cars wouldn’t show the movement. If you’re looking at getting into film photography, see our best film cameras for beginners guide, best black and white films for travel photography, and how to load 35 mm film into your camera.

Sharp but dull image

Not so sharp but an infinitely more pleasing image

Panning for camera motion blur

I decided to use the super wide Hasselblad to pan with a slow shutter speed to create movement. The SWC/m has a separate finder on top so it’s actually easier then you would think.

The technique

The way this works is to follow your subject, as it passes, with the camera and when you push the shutter button to take the exposure just keep following. Don’t stop the panning movement until well after the exposure is finished. Now combine this with a slow shutter speed – start with around 1/15 second. It’s best to practice this with a digital camera as it takes a bit of getting used to and there will be many ruined images. The longer the shutter exposure, the more blur you get, but the less sharp the main subject will be.

Panning with a slow shutter speed keeps subject sharpish and background a blur

Pan and blur for images with a JMW Turner like impressionism

Spinning wheels

The other thing that happens is that the car wheels end up with circular motion blur too. Cool!!

Circular motion blur created by the longer exposure

Wide angle

I used a really wide angle so I was really close to the cars. This meant that the blurs have this awesome distorted look to them.

The final results

I scanned the negatives using a flat bed Canon f8600f scanner and then cleaned them up with the Raw file converter. Sounds weird but I scan the images to tif files and then you can open both tif and jpg files into the Raw file converter in Adobe Bridge. Ctrl + R (PC) or Cmd + R (Mac)

A bit of dodging and burning and some sharpening helped the image to ‘pop’.

These then become non destructive edits.

Try it out

This technique works so well on any moving subject. Mechanical objects are a-given but panning for camera motion blur can create incredible images of people and animals with blurred backgrounds and interesting blurs on legs and swinging arms.

Take lots of shots, get a nice smooth panning action and finally experiment with different shutter speeds. Above all – enjoy every new technique.

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What is shooting Contre-jour? Well Contre-jour is a French term for “against daylight” and it is a technique where you photograph directly into the sun. The technique has been used for decades as it was originally a painting technique.

The New Forest in the UK just after dawn photographing directly into the sun

So what should you do to create awesome contre-jour images?

There are a few things to watch out for when you point your camera at the sun. It does however usually depends on the type of final image you want but here are our top recommendations.

Lens flare

Unless you want lots of lens flare on your image make sure your lens is scrupulously clean. Smudge and dust-free will make all the difference. Very often, we will take off the protective UV filters we use so that we have a perfectly spotless lens. You could also cary a spare clean filter for just such an occasion, say if you were photographing in a very dusty or sea spray environment.

Sunrise on our local river with a clean lens for very little flare

More lens flare

Of course maybe you want tons of flare. The same applies in reverse. Carry a spare old filter that you  have smudged with oily fingers. The heavier the smudge, the more flare you can expect.

Contrast

This also goes with flare. If you are shooting a contre-jour image it will have a lot of contrast as you are photographing and possibly exposing for the sun, and of course the objects in the scene that face you are in shadow. Think silhouette. Haze in the scene will also reduce contrast. If you look at our New Forest image above you will see where the light streams through the early morning mist there is very little contrast.

Shadow details

The issue with contrast is that it’s very hard to get all the detail your eyes see in the scene. Your eyes dart around the scene that you are photographing and your iris opens and closes to get you detail in all areas. In photography we don’t have that luxury, so in order to let the viewer see all the detail (in a suitably contrasty scene) we need to help things along. If you were photographing in a studio you would help things along with a reflector to get details in the dark areas. In landscape photography we dodge and burn.

How it works in practice when shooting contre-jour

We usually increase the shadow slider in Raw to claw back some of the darker details. However we then counter this by increasing micro contrast with the clarity slider. After doing the basic edit we will then use adjustment brushes to dodge and burn (as well as selective contrast) specific areas. Even the most basic Raw file converter will allow you to do these edits. Finally we resize and sharpen our images.

Original image exposed to get enough detail in the highlights and a bit in the shadows

After a bit of dodge and burn processing in Raw I retrieved the shadow details

What else can you do when shooting contre-jour images to improve them?

Hide the sun

One of the tricks we use most of the time is to hide the sun behind an object in the scene. It could be trees or even the mast of a boat. We find this technique for photographing into the sun leads to our most pleasing images as we can still see some details as the sun doesn’t ‘blow out’ (overexpose) the main areas.

Watch your exposure

In digital we tend to expose for the highlights and let the shadows take care of themselves. This is the opposite of working with negative film where you expose for the shadows and let the highlights take care of themselves. (Unless you are a zone system shooter like Ansel Adams in which case you control everything with development based on the contrast of the scene.) We also bracket a lot (bracketing is when you take a number of different exposures of the same scene).

New Forest early morning contre-jour pan with added texture layer

The New Forest

The New Forest in the images above is in the south of the UK about 70 miles south west from the centre of London. It was proclaimed a Royal Forest by William the Conquer (First Norman king of England). It was later used by the Royal Navy as a supply of wood for their timber based war ships built in the nearby ports of Portsmouth and Southampton.

So finally give contre-jour photography a try. Get out early in the morning and don’t be afraid of the direct sun. Keep your lens clean and bracket like a crazy person.

Mostly just enjoy yourself. It’s why we all create photographs anyway isn’t it?

The post Shooting Contre-jour : Photograph into the sun appeared first on ImageExplorers.

“But Tim, he is an environmental portrait photographer you know. What is he doing in a travel blog and why would you want to show us how to photograph like Arnold Newman?”

Yes, okay, you got us! We know that, but while most travel photography revolves around places and landscapes, one of the interesting things about travel are the wonderful (and occasionally weird people that you meet). While most photographs of people we meet when travelling are quick images, there are times when we have the opportunity to create more in-depth photographs. The more you know about different photographers’ styles, the more you can develop your own unique one. This is why we’d like to show you how to photograph like Arnold Newman.

Using Arnold Newman’s style to photograph the Pianist

One of the things that Ally loves, is talking to people. Put her on a train, plane or crowded bus and by the end of the trip she will have made a new friend and know their life history … well almost. I, on the other hand, in spite of spending my life talking to groups of people as a trainer, am not so sociable. This means that Ally is far more inclined to create the instant and spontaneous photographs of people whereas I prefer to get to know them first and then photograph them in a very set up manner, so photographing in the Arnold Newman way just works for me.

If you haven’t seen the other articles in our “How to photograph like …” series, we have Michael Kenna , Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.

Not in the Arnold Newman style, this Cape Town Flower Seller was photographed in under 5 mins by Ally, but you can see the beautiful rapport she has with her subjects.

So, here is how to Photograph like Arnold Newman

Now if you don’t know Arnold Newman’s work, then have a look here. I am sure you will recognise many of his images. Whilst he photographed a few images in colour, he is primarily known for his black and white work. See our thoughts on what makes a good black and white image.

So how do we do that?

Let’s start by looking at what makes an Arnold Newman photograph unique.

On looking at his environmental portraits, the first thing that struck me was the overriding dark and haunting feel  that many of them have. Not that all his images are dark per-se, but they ooze that moody and serious feel that seems to personify a lot of the great artists and political figures that Newman photographed.

The next thing that I noticed in his portraits was a wonderful 3 dimensional look that they have. No long lens, no wide aperture, so, very little bokeh here then! (Bokeh = out of focus-ness for those of you who are not au-fait with super-photographic trendy terms!)

His lighting is another area that is very Newman. Very deliberate light and shadows that are perfectly controlled to create the correct ambience and contrast for the individual subject.

So where to start

Let’s look at the subject in their environment.

There is more to an environmental portrait than popping the subject in a scene related to their hobby or occupation. Arnold Newman is a master at composition so let’s start by composing our subject in a pleasing way.

Design features to look for:

• lines that lead in to the subject
• symmetry
• repetition
• negative space
• rule of thirds.

For my pianist I saw the repetition of the strings leading to her, the reflection of her in the black piano lid and the lines as my main environment composition elements.

I also really like the large white negative space like silence just waiting to be filled by the piano sound.

Subject on the thirds

Lines pointing to main subject

Triangle holds the subject in the negative space

I removed the distracting wall hanging with the content aware fill tools in Photoshop

Lighting

To photograph like Arnold Newman you need to have control over your lighting.

Adding light

If like us you are traveling light you probably don’t have a full lighting kit with you however there are other ways to get light to do what you want it to do. Reflectors. Anything can be a reflector from a travel fold up circle type to an old white shirt you have in your backpack.  A reflector can be highly reflective and harsh ( think tinfoil) or soft and gentle (old white T-Shirt).

These reflectors can be used in your scene to add light to darker areas and augment details you wish to show the viewer.

Subtracting light

This is the opposite effect. Use a black reflector to remove light from overly bright parts of the image or to darken down areas to get that unmistakable Arnold Newman heavy shadow on face signature look.

We used a reflector to add to the face details and then used burning in at the processing stage to darken down some unwanted details. See our tutorial on dodging and burning.

Although we used softer lighting as we didn’t have a full lighting kit with us, these techniques enabled us to increase the image contrast. However, to truly photograph like Arnold Newman, we should have had more side lighting.

Silver reflector to add harsh light to the subject

Subject’s demeanour

Most of Newman’s subjects are serious to the point of being sombre. These images are not ‘happy snaps for the family album’ and the serious look, directly into the camera, helps us to see into the subject’s soul.

We find asking the subject to think about their art, music or profession usually brings a deep look into their eyes and also helps them to relax and not concentrate on what we are doing with the camera.

You are unique

As with all our ‘How to photograph like….’ series, use your favourite photographers to help you find your own style. Learning from them might mean mimicking their work at first, but after a while you will add your own uniqueness to your images. Arnold Newman’s portraits look the way they do, not because of his technique, but because he had an amazing way of seeing his subjects. Every one of us has a unique way of looking at people and we should embrace that difference and use it to create our own unforgettable images.

The post How to photograph like Arnold Newman appeared first on ImageExplorers.

“TOAST! Tim and Ally…. Really?” “Erm yes…It really does help with Dodge and Burn tools. We’ll get to that later but first things first.”

Dodge and burn tools have become a bit old hat to many photographers. With so many quick and easy digital ‘fixes’ it’s easy to see why, but these tools, although going back to traditional printing times, are some of the best ways to make your black and white images (and colour too) look amazing. We can safely say that there is not an image on our blog that doesn’t use at least one of these in some way or other. See our tips and geeky explanations for what makes a good black and white image.

Dodge and burn in traditional printing

In traditional printing, you have an enlarger which projects your negative onto paper. The more light you expose the paper to through the negative, the darker the print will be. After you’ve done a test strip, which helps you work out the required exposure, you would then expose the light from the enlarger onto your paper. Depending on the exposure, there can often be areas of the image that would be too dark or too light. You would then do another test strip over those areas to work out that exposure time. Dabbling or jumping into film photography – see our post on the best film for travel photography and filters for black and white photography.

Dodging

When it comes to the final exposure of the print, you would expose for the final image with adjustments, but for the area that was too dark and needed less time, you would use a piece of card, normally attached to a piece of wire to wave madly over that area to prevent light getting to it – well maybe not madly, but moving enough to prevent a hard edge being projected onto the paper. This lightening technique is called dodging.

Dodging the print with cardboard ellipses on sticks

The further away from the paper you manipulate the light, the softer the dodged or burnt area edges will be.

Burning

For the area that needs more light, you would expose the image with the normal exposure, then you would give the area the needs more light, the extra light that it needs. How do you do that? Well, depending on the size and shape of the area, you can use your hands cupped together to block out the light and only allow certain areas to get extra light, or you could also use a piece of card with a hole cut in it to give that area more light … directing (or burning) the light. Again you wave it gently between the enlarger and the paper (to prevent getting a hard edge).

Burning in areas by giving them extra exposure through the cardboard hole

Pro tip:

Now one of the advanced traditional techniques used by traditional film printers is to dodge or burn with a different contrast. This is done by using multi-grade paper and changing the grade filter on the enlarger lens before dodging or burning. This technique allows you to have a combination of high and low contrast so for example in your scene you might need more contrast in the sky to get awesome looking clouds but the foreground needs sensitive shadow and highlight detail so a lower contrast.

Dodge and burn in Photoshop or Affinity photo

Now digitally, the darkroom effect can be applied in Photoshop. In your toolbar, normally down the left-hand side, you should see what at first glance looks like a lollipop. This is in fact a version of the round piece of card on a piece of wire or stick, used in dodging. Click and hold that and you’ll see 2 other icons and the text. We’re not going to look at the Sponge tool but the Burn tool has a hand with a hole made with the fingers and the thumb. This is depicting one of the options you can use when burning in!

When you choose any of these you will see your options along the top menu change to something like this.

This means that you can control how much dodging / burning you will do to your image with the exposure, and what tones you will affect, such as Highlight, Midtones or Shadows.

Most of the time you will need midtones, but if the area you wish to adjust is in the highlights or shadows, you then choose the appropriate Range from here. Choose a brush size and click and drag around the area you wish to lighten / darken. Be careful not to overdo it and use a brush bigger than you think. Undo is your friend here!

So where on earth does toast come in?

Well a lot of people get confused with which one darkens and which lightens.

The easiest way to remember this is:

If you burn the toast it will go darker – hence Burn darkens – easy to remember now.

Dodge and Burn in Raw (adjustment brushes)

There are a number of reasons to dodge and burn using adjustment brushes in the Raw file converter but the 2 main ones ore these.

• This is a non-destructive technique so you can always come back and re -edit the image at a later stage.
• You can use the dodge and burn with contrast adjustments like the advanced traditional film technique mentioned above.

In Adobe Photoshop (CS6 or CC) Open your Raw image in the Raw file converter and navigate to the adjustment brushes. It’s along the top.

Paint the area you wish to dodge and burn and then adjust the settings on the right hand side. We usually use the clarity slider to add contrast when needed and the contrast slider to reduce contrast.

Do a new adjustment for each area you wish to work on. (Not sure about Photoshop or Affinity – see our post which gives the lowdown on them). See also our Top Photoshop shortcuts.

Putting it into practice

We photographed the tower on the City wall in Dubrovnik, Croatia, but the original looks so uninspiring that a bit of Dodging and Burning was required.

• The sky was quite tricky as while the whole area needed darkening, some parts needed less contrast and some more. We did this with 2 large burning in areas with adjustment brushes. Both darkened with the Exposure slider but one added contrast with the Clarity slider while the other reduced contrast with the Contrast slider. See our post about dramatic skies.
• The sea was burned in and had added clarity
• The tower was dodged to lighten it but with added clarity to show detail in the texture.

Original image

Areas we adjusted with the brush

Final result

Revolutionise your new images and give new life to old ones

Dodging and burning has been used by film photographers since photography was invented and it’s still one of the best ways to get what you want from an image. Give your new images that exquisitely beautiful look you have admired in the masters printers work or add new life to old photographs.

Mostly, enjoy what you do.

If you are in the London / Essex / Suffolk area, we run training at your office / premises in Photoshop. Want to buy Photoshop – click the Adobe image at the bottom of this page from this link.

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When you walk into a camera store or look at an online photographic shop there are so many filters for black and white photography that you could buy. The problem is, which one?! What actually makes a good black and white photograph and how can I achieve that? Do you buy into a filter “system” or buy individual filters? The people in the store might or might not know which ones are right for your type of photography.

When I first started photography in the days of film (click this link to see the best black and white film for travel photography), I was so overwhelmed by the vast array of filters that I spent a lot of money on buying up as many as possible. My thinking behind this was that it would improve my photography. I am now older and marginally less stupid but I have learned from years of trial and error.

Here are some of our really essential filters for black and white and colour photography as well as our shameful ones!

There are 5 essential filters for black and white photography that every photographer should own. I’d like to show you them now and explain what each one does and why you need it. If you’ve got some time on your hands and want to know tips and geeky explanations on how to convert colour to black and white, then click that << link!

Using Polariser to darken the sky

The UV or Haze or Skylight Filter

The first filter I am going to recommend is one I always buy for any new lens I get. This filter has 2 main reasons to live on your lens.

Firstly: Protection – I can’t count the number of times I have “dinked” the front glass on my lenses.

Sometimes it’s as simple as a quick knock against my belt when carrying the camera. (We use awesome sling type straps that go across your body. Ally swears hers is the best thing ever and is attached to it like an umbilical cord. She uses a Ladies Black Rapid. I have a Sun Sniper.) I once scratched my Nikon lens coating when putting the lens cap back on the lens. Having  just finished photographing, the rain was about to bucket down, and I was in a hurry. This does not excuse my not having a protector UV filter on the lens.

A filter is also easier to clean than a lens element. I have even dipped mine in water to wash off salt or dust after photographing waves or deserts.

Pro Tip: When photographing in areas that really dirty up your lens (like sea spray) carry a spare filter and change filters when the first gets dirty. It’s faster than trying to clean a lens in an inhospitable environment.

Whenever I buy a new lens the very next thing I buy is a UV filter. $50 to $100 for a high quality filter that doesn’t seem to do much might seem extortionate but if it saves the very soft (and very expensive) lens coating from just one scratch it will be worth it.

Secondly: Sharper and more defined details in the background – A UV filter cuts out the UV light and cuts through the haze making distance objects seem clearer.  With film it is more important to use a UV filter because film is extremely sensitive to UV light. However, digital sensors are generally less sensitive to UV.

This filter works the same with both colour and black and white photography.

Lastly, the UV haze filter is not to be confused with the UV transmitting filter. This only allows ultraviolet light to pass through the lens and blocks out all the other visible light spectrum.

See more useful photography articles here

The graduated filter (Grad)

The graduated filter is the next one in the list, for this filters for black and white photography post. A graduated filter is a neutral density filter that gradually fades to clear. The reason for this is that most skies are darker than the land so the graduated filter darkens the sky but not the land. See more explanations on this with our exposure compensation post, and ‘why your camera lies to you’!

Round screw or system grad filter?

These filters come in either a round screw in version or as a “system” version where you attach a filter holder to the front of the lens and then slot in the square filter of choice. The advantage of this type of filter is that you can slide the filter up or down depending on the amount of darkening you require. The other advantage is you buy different size adaptor rings for the system types that means you don’t have to fork out for multiple filters, only new adaptor rings. Both types of filter allow you to spin them around.

Graduated filters for black & white film photography

The Grad filters come in various strengths of darkening. Buy some cheap ones to experiment with first before spending a lot on one.

In my young college days these Cokin filter systems were all the rage, and from my extensive Cokin system, the grad was used more than anything.

While this filter works just as well in colour photography as it does in black and white there are a few other grads that work in colour too. I used to use a tobacco (orange/brown) to get warmer low sun photographs or a blue/purple to get more interesting cloudy skies.

The Neutral density filter (ND)

One of our favourite creative filters for black and white photography is the Neutral Density filter. It reduces the amount of light coming through the lens thus giving you longer exposures that you are unable to get in bright light even with an ISO of 50.

Why would you want longer exposures?

It will capture movement rather than freezing it. This could be either water, people, vehicles, clouds or anything that moves. On water this produces an ethereal misty effect and with people it can produce water-like blurs. It is very effective if some people are moving and some totally still. We have used this filter a number of times for dramatic effect on water. See our post on how we got on (or not) when we first used our ND filter recently.

Just make sure you have a very sturdy tripod as it’s so easy to get a blurry image with even the smallest bit of camera shake during a 30 second exposure. See our tutorial on how to photograph with an ND filter.

This filter works just as well in colour as in black and white photography.

Single colour filters for Black and white film

Black and white film uses a full range of the visible colour spectrum to create a full range of tones on your black and white negative. What a single colour filter does is to stop some of those colours from reaching the film and thereby making that area darker. For example, the filter we need to use to darken the sky would be one that stops blue reaching the film. Yellow, orange and red colours are opposite blue and so do this very effectively. A blue filter would darken reds and make the blues appear lighter. See our post on how to darken skies for more details on single colour filters.

Filter system of single colours for black and white photography

Buy a full range of cheap filters and try them out to see what you get before committing more money to them.

The Polarizing filter

There are 2 main uses for polarizing filters, reducing reflections and darkening skies.

Here is how it works. Light reflected from a non-metallic surface becomes polarized. A polarizing filter allows light to pass in only one direction. This allows us to reduce reflections on non-metallic objects.

Light from the sky is also polarized, so a polarizing filter will polarize the light and reduce how much light enters the camera. As a result this will make the sky dark in a photo.

Photograph taken without and with polarizing filter

A polarizer will darken down blue sky but not affect clouds. (The effect is most prevalent on the area of sky that is at 90 degrees from the sun – Look at the sun – carefully – and then the darkest sky will be at 90 degrees.) It will also reduce reflections which can make trees etc seem rather vivid in colour. To use the polarizer just turn the filter until the sky goes dark or the reflections disappear.

A few things to be aware of with polarizing filters

This polarizing filter technique will work with both film and digital, colour and black and white. In colour it also increases the saturation of many objects by reducing reflections.

There are 2 types of polarizer. A linear and a circular. A circular CPL polarizer is best for modern cameras as linear polarizers can affect exposure meters and autofocus adversely.

Filters can create so many effects and as we have discovered in our photographic adventures, not all are good. With these 5 essential filters to start your collection off though, you just can’t go wrong. What do you think of our choice of essential filters for black and white photography? Are there any you think we should add to the list? Do you have an embarrassing collection worse than ours? Let us know in the comments below.

Above all else, just go out and create photographs that make you happy.

See our Top 10 Essential Photoshop shortcuts.

Tim’s Adobe and Affinity courses

Click here to get huge money off savings on Tim’s Udemy courses for Photoshop on the iPad and Affinity Photo v2.

The post 5 essential filters for black and white photography you should own appeared first on ImageExplorers.

So you have bought your first ever film camera and want to get a new box of film ready to pop in so you can join the world of analogue photography. Let us show you how to load film into a camera. This guide is for traditional 35mm SLR (single lens reflex) cameras rather than the rangefinder (Leica) style body. If you’re not sure what camera to get, see our guide here.

So what film should I buy?

Photographic film comes in 3 main types. Colour negative, colour transparency (known as “tranny”) and finally black and white. The films also have various sensitivities to light. These are measured in ISO. The higher the number, the more sensitive the photographic film is to light but the more grainy the image will appear. Most black and white film starts from around ISO 50. This is known as a ‘slow’ or a ‘low grain’ film. At the other extreme there are ISO 3200 films. These are very light sensitive but have a very pronounced graininess in the image. These are called ‘fast’ or ‘high grain’ films. Most people tend to choose a ‘normal’ film of around 125 or 400 ISO.

35mm film brands

So what film brand? Well there are quite a few brands available and each has there own subtle characteristic but I would suggest starting with one of the main ones. Kodak Tri-X or T Max, Ilford FP4, Ilford HP5, Ilford Delta or even Fuji Neopan. Any of those will be an excellent start.

How to load film into a 35mm camera

Open the film from its iconic little black plastic container.

Pull the film just a little – about a couple of inches. Now open the back of the camera by pulling up the winder (rewind knob) – normally on the left hand side of the camera. It will give you a satisfying click and the back will pop open.

Now look at the sprocket on the right hand side inside your camera. You will see that there’s a slit in it. Place the cut-off end of the film, into the slit.

Then with your thumb, wind the bottom of that sprocket to the left, or using the film advance lever, just a little to ensure that the film has ‘caught’.

Place the film canister into the slot on the left hand side – you may need to pull it a little more to the left for it to reach.

Close the back of the camera – ensure it ‘clicks’ shut and ensure the winder is down. It’s a good idea to very gently wind the winder clockwise a little, to take up any slack of the film.

Then make sure that the winder is pushed back down in its place.

Now you need to move the film on a few shots to ensure that any exposed film is out of the way. Do this by pushing the shutter and winding on with the winder until the counter shows ‘0’. This will usually be about 3-4 clicks.

So now you know how to load film into a camera, get out there and create some awesome images! And remember … you can’t check the back to see how your image looks! If you’re not sure what makes a great black and white image, read more here.

How to unload film from a 35mm camera

When your film finishes, it will tell you as you won’t be able to wind it on anymore. Depending on how you loaded, occasionally you could get thrifty and manage to get an extra image out of your 35mm film.

To unload your film from a 35mm camera, turn it upside down and push the small button on the bottom right in.

Now wind the rewind knob clockwise until you feel the film release. You can now open the back and remove the film. You can wind the film all the way back in if you wish. BUT, if you do decide to leave a small tail, it’s best to fold it over, so you know it’s been exposed. Leaving a tail can help you or the people who process your film.

If you do shoot any film, do let us know. If you stick with digital, check out our post on converting colour to black and white.

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Watch Tim explaining the best practice to convert your colour images into black and white in only 30 seconds.

Adobe Photoshop has so many different ways of converting colour images to B&W. These range from changing to greyscale in the modes menu, using desaturate slider in hue and saturation, through to using the Black and White command in the the adjustments menu. If you find your Black and White command is unavailable try changing the colour mode from CMYK to RGB.

Click here to see Tim’s 30 sec guide to RGB and CMYK video.

Quick bonus tip not in video

In the B&W panel there is an option to Tint the photograph. By clicking this option you can then access the tint colour, click this colour square to go to the colour picker and choose a tint for the image. By choosing a more or less vivid colour you can vary the saturation of the final image. Even a small tint can just give the image a slightly warm feel. See Ally’s picture of the sax player in the Cape Town market, the image of the steam train on the Brecon Beacon Railway in Wales  or even the images at the Shongweni Farmers Market and the Shongewni Dam. As you can see, none of our black and white images are truly B&W. We tint everything.

Black and white panel with tint option shown in red circles

If you use an adjustment layer for your B&W conversion you will always be able to go back to it and update it. You will also be able to reduce the opacity of the B&W adjustment and get a combination of B&W and colour. See our post on what makes a great black and white photo.

Lastly you can use a mask on the adjustment layer to paint back your colour image. All these techniques will be covered in detail soon in a separate post.

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Very often as you fly over somewhere interesting you can be blown away by the view, but it can be quite hard to get a reasonable image through the nasty scratches and cloudy window. Have a look at how we create interesting aerial photography landscapes through a commercial aircraft window.

Providing the port hole window it isn’t tooooo scratched and not full of condensation you can actually get quite a good image. This is mostly due to the fab Dehaze tool in Photoshop.

Air landscape, Cape, South Africa

Air landscape Cape, South Africa – before dehaze

When framing your image check the reflections through the viewfinder to ensure they’re not too prominent. You can reduce them by tilting the camera a bit.

Once in RAW, make your initial Exposure adjustments. Then in the panel on the right hand side, click “FX” (7th tab along). Dehaze is at the top of that. Push the slider slowly to the right and watch the change in the image. As with all changes in RAW (and Photoshop) it’s always a good idea to push it too far and bring it back – this gives you a good idea of what too much looks like.

North Africa from the air

North Africa before

Aerial photography landscape – North Africa

North Africa airscape before

You’ll be amazed at how you can make a reasonable aerial photography landscape when flying thousands of feet in the air.

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