M & J Bloomfield - Blog

Gear Review MacWet Gloves

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:03:26 +0100

We are trying something new, video gear reviews. Hopefully these short videos will give you a better idea of the gear we use in our wildlife photography and why we use it. We hope you like our first video which is all about MacWet gloves.

We found these gloves by pure chance and have been using them ever since. Cold hands are not only uncomfortable but they divert your attention from your subject. And no matter how quiet you think you are being, all that rubbing and blowing is like a pop concert happening next door to the local wildlife. The other major factor in these gloves being our favourite, is that no matter how wet they become you still have a grip. Cold wet hands are a nightmare when handling expensive camera equipment. Ask your insurance company!

Sit back hit the play button and we hope you enjoy what should be the first of our gear review videos.

Time Lapse

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 17:13:59 +0100

Over the summer we have been looking at new ways to tell the story of wildlife. One of these is video. We are keen to explore the possibilities of shooting video at the same time as we shoot stills. The first technique we are exploring is time lapse. Watch our efforts visit our YouTube Channel. It may only be a sunset but it is a first step for us.

Weather Watch

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 11:19:31 +0000

We are now into spring and looking back at our winter weather. What can we say? In a word, wet. It was a miserable winter for everyone. I don’t know anyone who has not been affected in some way.

Personally, we seemed to have not come off too bad, missing most of the bad weather in late December and only a few odd branches down in the high winds.

Is this a factor of climate change? Many other countries around the world experienced bad winter weather. We in the UK are not isolated from the vagaries of our weather systems.

How will the rest of the year unfold? Many questions and not too many answers, but certainly we can anticipate our weather being in constant state of flux.

A battery of questions

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 11:49:43 +0000

Have you tried to buy a battery for your Canon EOS 1D MkIII or MkIV lately? If the answer is no then you maybe as unaware, as we were, about the confusion that seems to have arisen. If you are looking to buy a replacement battery for your Canon EOS 1D MkIII or MkIV, read on and all will be revealed.

Your MkIII and MkIV were supplied with LP-E4 type batteries. Great, so they are getting a bit old and you need to replace them, here’s the problem. If you look on the internet, you only find LP-E4N batteries, notice the cunning addition of a capital N to the name. These power the new Canon EOS 1D X and C. But when you look on suppliers’ websites, you find a whole host of conflicting warnings and advice about what you can and can’t do with the new LP-E4N batteries.

Now we are not going into all the permutations you will find on the internet basically, it boils down to either you can or can’t use LP-E4N batteries in MkIII and MkIV cameras and whether you can or can’t re-charge them, using the charger that came supplied.

With such conflicting information, who wants to spend £149 on a battery that you can’t re-charge or does something nasty to your camera. So we got in touch with Canon and asked them. If you are in the same situation as us, need new batteries for your cameras here is the answer.

"Thank you for your request and for contacting Canon regarding the batteries for your EOS 1D MK III and MK IV.

Please be advised that the LP-E4 battery has been discontinued since the release of the EOS 1DX, and the LP-E4N can be used in its place. The LP-E4N can also be charged on the original LC-E4 charger."

Many thanks to Lauren Dicker, Canon Services & Support for her help.

We have our Batteries are on order and if you are in a similar situation hopefully this information will be of use.

Weather apps on the iPad

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 10:21:33 +0000

If you’re a photographer who is working outside a lot, one thing need to know, especially here in UK is when it’s going to start or stop raining. One thing we found invaluable for predicting the weather is a weather app for the iPad or iPhone.

When you are out, it is nice to know what the weather is going to do. Our current flavours of the month are two apps from Met Desk, Home and Dry app, (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/home-and-dry/id654608885?mt=8) and UK Snow Radar app (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id792694774?mt=8&affId=1860684) These are available via iTunes, at £1.49 each.

Home & Dry
The opening screen displays the rain radar, allowing you to see where rain is falling now and where it is going to fall in the next couple of hours. This is invaluable if you are working outdoors and you need to know when it’s going rain. It allows you to plan your day’s work with a lot more certainty. As well as showing where the rain is currently, via the menu you can look up weather forecasts for your area and UK as a whole. The other useful feature we found is the Jetstream forecast. The Jetstream brings most of our weather to the UK; keeping an eye on its position allows you to predict when storms are likely to hit.

UK Snow Radar
This app is slightly different from the Home and Dry in that on its opening screen it show both where snow is falling and the rain radar. The slider at the bottom of the screen allows you to predict if you are going to be caught in any snow.

A recommendation, the choice is yours. Pick one or by both at only £1.49 each, they are excellent value. Type in Met Desk into iTunes and you’ll find both apps available to download for the iPad or iPhone. Here’s to dodging the rain.

Wildlife Trusts App

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 11:29:32 +0000

When you are going on a trip, how much planning do you do? Whenever go to take pictures we like to try and make a comprehensive plan. This will include a list of sites we know and a second list of sites we will visit to see what we can find. Planning can be one of the most important aspects of taking wildlife pictures. Now you could argue good wildlife pictures are found all over the place. One way to try and improve your chances is to visit nature reserves.

A new Apple app produced by the Wildlife Trusts has just made the task of finding their nature reserves and whole lot easier. You can download the app for free from the Apple Store https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wildlife-trusts-nature-finder/id720696183 onto your iPhone or iPad.

So what do you get when you download "Nature Finder"? The app contains a map of the UK with the location of over 2000 of the Wildlife Trusts nature reserves covering all different types of habitat from moors, heaths, meadows, woods and lakes. In addition to this valuable guide, the app also has a directory of all 47 Wildlife Trusts and information on some of the species you can find at the nature reserves.

The Wildlife Trusts nature reserves are not the only reserves available when you are out, but this app gives you a great head start in finding wildlife.

Business blog

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Wed, 8 Jan 2014 12:35:19 +0000

Running a small business can be tough at times, especially if you are on your own, but help is at hand. You just need to reach out a grab it.

Networking is all about getting out there and seeing what works for you. There are so many different groups and not all are the same; you just have to dip your toe in the water.

10-12 Business Club does it for me. It doesn’t matter which group you attend you will always be greeted by a friendly group of business people who want to help one another achieve their goals.

The format of the meetings, for me, is just right. I’ve gone away from each meeting with some fresh ideas, business leads, and spent an enjoyable morning with some brilliant people.

Give it a go; dip your toe in the water. You will receive a warm and friendly welcome.

http://www.10-12businessclub.co.uk/

Weather Watch

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Wed, 1 Jan 2014 05:05:44 +0000

Having taken a short break for Christmas, autumn Weather Watch is a little late. Our temperature averages were a high of 16.3°C and low of 2.9°C, giving an average of 9.6°C.

The spectacular autumn colours were late for us here in the south and not as good as previous years. Although we did have a bumper autumn fruit crop, much needed for humans and animals alike. Compared to previous years autumn 2013 was mild and a little damp. Heavy rain and high winds over the holiday period have caused much disruption. It looks set to continue into the New Year and beyond.

Heading into winter and the mild damp weather continues. Will this lead to a colder than normal winter?

Wishing you a Happy New Year and keep your eyes on the skies.

Car exhaust fumes affect our pollinators too

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Mon, 7 Oct 2013 12:04:55 +0100

This might seem an odd title, but think about. Bees and other pollinators breathe the air we breathe and can be affected too.

A recent report has shown how chemicals in diesel exhaust can effect the floral scents a bee uses to homes in on a flower. You might say why should I worry. Without bee pollinators many of our crops would fail, we would have to import much more food, if we could and prices would rise. Read the following articles, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/03/traffic-fumes-honeybees-scent-flowers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/24364637

Now you can see why this is such an important subject. Not only do humans suffer from the increases in exhaust fumes. These pollutants can lead to Asthma and other fungal related illnesses. My Oma (Dutch grandmother) always reckoned her asthma got worse when she visited England and particularly the Thames Valley.

Be aware of what goes on the countryside and how this impacts on our daily lives.

Weather Watch

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 10:32:29 +0100

After last’s year awful summer weather, some sunshine at last. For some a little too hot, temperature averages some weeks hit over 30°C. For the season, average temperatures were a high of 28.3°C and low of 9.5°C.

The late summer sunshine has given a boost to the harvest. Many crops have given much better yields. Some crops suffered the effects of the late cold spring, hampering seed germination and growth. Rapeseed crops have been hugely successful; perhaps we should all start using rapeseed oil for cooking.

Our UK weather as we know always balances itself out, the start of September being quite cold and several of our friends started up their open fires.

Heading into autumn, we have the trees changing colour to their red and gold uniform, always a great site to see and photograph.

Lee filters Big Stopper

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Thu, 5 Sep 2013 09:32:12 +0100

Do you take landscapes? If the answer is yes, then you may be interested in the following.
Although landscape photography is not the main stay of our output, we do find ourselves in some lovely locations and it is wonderful to be able to record our experiences for others to see. Like most people who take landscapes we use a variety of techniques to try and record what our eyes and brains saw.

What we always try and do is to record the scene in camera with as little post processing as possible. Now, I should add that if we are shooting panoramas or HDR pictures we have to do a lot of post processing, but for a single frame landscape we always try and capture it in camera. Because we try and capture in camera we use Lee filters, always have done, both grads hard and soft, polarisers and Big Stopper Neutral Density filters.

I know we are not the only photographers out there to use Lee filters. In fact from their advertising it would appear that we are just one of a large group of amateur and professional users. So imagine our surprise when we rang our suppliers the other day to order a Lee Filter Big Stopper only to be told that we would have to wait 4-6 months for delivery. Yes, that’s right 4-6 months. After a double, double check, it appears that our suppliers are on the ball as usual and the problem is Lee filters themselves.

An email to Lee Filters brought about the following response.

The Big Stopper has been incredibly popular this summer and worldwide demand for this filter has meant that many dealers are operating waiting lists.

LEE manufacture and despatch many hundreds of Stoppers per month and this will increase substantially towards the end of 2013 as we have moved production to a new facility with much higher capacity. In the meantime we can only recommend that you contact a local dealer and get onto a list - as if you wait for that dealer to get stock on the shelf, you will be constantly behind those customers that have pre-ordered.
Please feel free to contact any of our recommended dealers.

LEE Camera Filter Dealer Map [http://leefilters.com/dealer-camera.html]

We appreciate that this is not an ideal situation and are racing to increase supply and to meet demand for this incredibly popular product.

Many thanks for your understanding.

LEE Filters.

It’s a bit like Canon saying there cameras are a bit popular. What can we say? Is this company actually on the same calendar as the rest of us who are trying to make a living from photography in this economic climate?

Clear and simple message is you can’t use Lee Filters to take pictures this autumn so find another manufacturer.

Using Eye Fi cards

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Fri, 9 Aug 2013 13:32:40 +0100

How do you show a small group the picture you have just taken? Previously we have used a system to show a customer the pictures we were taking, using a laptop,Adobe Lightroom and a USB cable.

The camera is connected to the laptop via a USB cable, and set to save pictures to both the card and the laptop hard drive. It is then a matter of configuring Lightroom to Auto import any images it that sees in the folder the camera is saving them to. Press the shutter and the file is saved to the computer hard drive and a few seconds later Lightroom will import the image and you can view what has just been taken.

This worked very well; we could shoot RAW as we normally do, then automatically import them into Lightroom. The client could then review the images on screen and we could even carry out some processing, plus having all the normal Lightroom functions of slideshows, email and export to a website. It worked very well and we would use it again.

Why not use the same set up that we know works. Our training course, “Using Photography in Business” has a different requirement. The majority of the time we give the course at the client’s premises, of which we have little prior knowledge. What we need to show the client is not a finished result, but the steps you need to take to get to the finished picture, e.g. putting in a reflector or move a light. We don’t need to shoot in RAW as the pictures are not going to be used again.

At first, we were still looking at using the laptop and Lightroom system, but the thought of setting this up and the trailing wires was going to be less than ideal. By luck, we saw an advert for an Eye-Fi card and this sparked a memory of being able to use Eye-Fi cards and an iPad. A little more investigation on the Eye-Fi website and we realised that the Eye-Fi card was the way to go.

We ordered an Eye-Fi Pro x2 + Wi-Fi. The Pro x2 is the slightly more expensive than the Mobile version but has greater options, which we thought could be useful in the future. First thing is to plug the card inserted into its holder into the USB port of a computer. This installs the desktop software necessary to configure the card and creates an account on the Eye-Fi website. You need to have internet access and create the account.

Once installed the Eye-Fi software opens up and you can start configuring your Eye-Fi card. It all seemed straight forward and the support on the Eye-Fi website gives step by step instructions that worked first time. We set up the Eye-Fi card in the direct mode when it can’t find a known network. In other words, if the card can’t log on to your network it creates a network of its own, allowing other devices to connect to it.

The second step is to get your pictures to an iPad or smartphone. Eye-Fi have an app for both Apple and Android. So far we have tried the iPad version. Again, installation went without a problem and took about five minutes in total.

Put the card into a camera and started taking pictures and hey presto you can see them on the iPad from within the Eye-Fi app. We have been shooting JPEG’s and using the direct mode and so far, they transfer within a few seconds to the iPad, and the system appears to work even through walls and over 20 feet away. This is just what we need for our training courses.

We also have the option of using our office network to transfer RAW files from the Eye-Fi card to a PC or Mac. So when we are working in our studio we can process the pictures using Lightroom as we have done in the past.

The conclusion is that it is a great bit of kit and should be of great use to us in the future. We already have come up with other uses for the card. All in all, if you want to review your pictures on a big screen as you take them and you don’t have a camera with Wi Fi built in then the Eye-Fi card would be the way to go.

Weather Watch - Spring 2013

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Wed, 3 Jul 2013 13:52:26 +0100

A week into summer and we are all looking forward to some long awaited sunshine, but what of our spring weather.

Overall, it was a cold spring; March the coldest it has been for a many years. The average temperatures here for spring were a high of 20.6°C and low of 2.3°C. The warmer weather we experienced recently pushed the average temperatures up. We recorded a high of 26.9°C and a low of 3.2°C over the three months of spring.

Our weather patterns are certainly changing. Recently we appear to be having harsher winters, later springs and shorter summers. This odd weather brings highs and lows for all concerned. Farmers are still suffering, not able to plant crops. Those they have managed to plant have been giving low yields.

Our own personal high has been the number of different animals attracted into our garden. For the first time in 20 years, we had a Woodpecker, Squirrel and a Magpie. This year we decided to keep up the feeding during the summer months because of the lack of natural food. Our garden visitors seem to like the arrangement but it is a task and a half, but one that we thoroughly enjoy. Please keep putting food out in your garden too; it can be a life saver.

Adobe Creative Cloud why we signed up

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 11:21:08 +0100

The photographic press and the internet are full of the decision by Adobe to rent its software by a process known as The Creative Cloud [https://creative.adobe.com/]. Before continuing reading, I should explain that this blog is about our experience of using Creative Cloud for best part of a year. It is meant to be informative and helpful, but it is not intended to try to persuade you to any opinion. This is our take on the Creative Cloud and what it means to us, yours maybe very different.

Traditionally small users buy software. You got a box with a CD/DVD inside. However, increasingly common practice is purchased software is downloaded onto your computer over the internet. Large companies on the other hand tent to rent their software either by the number of concurrent users or the number of installed instances. This gives them flexibility and cost savings, as they are not paying for unused software. Installed on in-house servers a usage report is sent to the software publisher and a charge is made depending on the contract.

With Creative Cloud, Adobe has extended this model to small users. Join Creative Cloud and you pay a monthly fee, which allows access to a selection of Adobe software products. If you want to use Photoshop, you sign into your account, click the download link and the software is installed on your computer. Once installed, the software periodically checks your subscription is up-to-date via the internet. If you cancel your subscription then after a grace period the software on your computer will stop working.

So that’s the mechanics of how Adobe’s Creative Cloud works. Now for the important bit, why did we decide to go the Creative Cloud route?

First priority was day to day photography. We process using Lightroom and finish using Photoshop. There are other solutions to this everyday task but we have been using this combination for a while now and it works. Not only does it work but we have learnt how to get the best out of this system changing would be a whole lot of pain.
Second priority was that we wanted to use InDesign for design and document production.

We were considering buying a copy of InDesign at the time the Creative Cloud came along. We carefully weighted up our options and came to the conclusion that it was a no brainer to join the Creative Cloud.
Why go with Creative Cloud, (CC)? Before CC, new software versions occurred about every 12 to 18 months. Some of these updates were less than a hundred pounds some well over two hundred pounds. We use Lightroom, Photoshop and InDesign on a regular basis. Using these we would be looking at three hundred to four hundred pounds per year, to keep the software current. To us Creative Cloud looked like a good deal just on these figures.

The simple math was that using Creative Cloud for these three bits of software would save us money. So we joined.

Creative Cloud also had the advantage that we have access to not only Lightroom, Photoshop and InDesign, but we also had the opportunity to use other software. Subsequently we have downloaded Illustrator CS6. Without our Cloud membership it would have been impossible to justify the cost of buying a copy of Illustrator CS6. The turnabout however is that now we have Illustrator CS6 we are using is a great deal. It’s great for drawing info graphics and the like. Our current project is a set of maps that we use in our talks. It is not impossible to draw these maps in Photoshop; in fact, we have done it before. But the speed of doing it in Illustrator is saving us a bucket load of time.

What else have we downloaded? We now have two copies of Lightroom. One on a desktop machine the other on a laptop. It means when we are away, we can start editing pictures when the weather is being unkind. The same laptop now has a copy of Photoshop. In the past it would have been very difficult to justify outlaying eight hundred pounds on Lightroom and Photoshop when we weren’t using them every day. Again it allows us to process images when we are out of the office and upload them.

What other goodies have we found ourselves using? Acrobat is incredibly useful when you need to make corrections. Convert the PDF into Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint, make the changes and save back as a PDF. Again we don’t use this very often certainly not often enough to justify buying Acrobat Pro, but being able to do this simple conversion has saved a ton of time editing documents.

Is Creative Cloud for everyone? No, is the simple answer. We have specific needs of our software. When we are training we need to be using an up to date version of the software we are teaching. Do you need to update to a newer version every time? No, we know photographers that are using three or four version back of software and are happy with the results.

If they are happy then why change. Our opinion is that software is always improving; it keeps getting better and better. If we think that a new feature, gives us better results then we will upgrade. For us we always upgrade to the newest version to try and leverage the best pictures we can. On a regular basis, we now reprocess images that have been developed using old versions of Lightroom because the results using todays version is so much better.

For us Creative Cloud has made good economic sense. The updates we would have bought for the software we use regularly are the same cost as the Creative Cloud membership. We now have the added bonus of being able to download and use expensive software tools, which would be impossible to justify. These tools allow us to save time and time is our most precious resource. Every hour saved in front of a computer is an hour we can be out in the countryside watching and photographing wildlife and nature.

Charging your portable devices

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:24:21 +0100

Our lives seems to have been taken over with rechargeable devices. Every were you go in our house you find a charging station or a black wire with some sort of plug on the end. It is difficult enough to cope with in a house but it is an absolute nightmare when you travel.

Traveling for us involves a suitcase full of battery chargers, power supplies and assorted cables. It takes three different types charger just to keep the cameras going. Combine this with two laptop power supplies, AA battery chargers and mobile phone and iPad chargers. It has now got to the point where this lot gets a bigger suitcase than I do.

Carting all of this around is only the beginning of the fun. It really gets hilarious when you arrive at your destination. Many a happy hour has been spent crawling under furniture trying to reach the only free socket. Only to find when you actual manage get the dam plug into the socket for some unexplained reason this socket is not connected to any source of electricity. That’s why nothing was plugged into it.

No matter how many extension leads we take they are always too short or have too few sockets. Try using a laptop, charging a camera and AA batteries whilst recharging your phone and all this while lying prostrate under some bit of furniture. The joy of traveling is short lived when you have to have everything powered and downloaded by the next day.

Now anything that helps has to be a good thing. The other day we were looking for USB (Universal Serial Bus) chargers online, due to a sudden influx of smartphones. During this search, we came across a company called Portapow (http://www.portablepowersupplies.co.uk/) who sell the PortaPow Quad USB Mains Charger.

Revelation, here is a small USB charger with four, yes four USB sockets. What’s more it can output 2.5A (12.5W). See I knew you would be impressed.

Here is a charger that occupies only one 13A socket and will let you charge your iPad and Smart phone at the same time. Take the iPad out of the equation and you can charge four USB devices at the same time.

Not only do the company sell this charger but they also sell dumb USB cables. These cables can’t be used for transferring data but will charge your smartphone or iPad a hell of a lot faster than a normal cable. I know its more cables to carry around and the day will come when we try to download cards using it. But it is brilliant. Can’t recommend it enough. Plug your Quad USB Mains charger into a working socket and you get four blue LED’s light up. As soon as you plug a device in the corresponding LED turns pink and you are away.

I don’t know the science behind the charger but what I can tell you, phones and iPads seem to charge a lot faster. Once charged the batteries seem to hold a charge for longer. The Portapow Quad USB Mains Charger knows when your battery is charged and goes into trickle charge mode, which seems to condition the batteries better. You can see this in action with an iPad. A fully charged iPad gives you a blue LED, switch on the iPad screen and the LED turns pink again. Shut down the screen and the LED returns to blue. So many hours of simple amusement can be had.

The Portapow Quad USB Mains Charger is great when you have mains power the PortaPow Dual USB Car Charger allows us to run phones and iPad on the move. Using the car accessory sockets, along with a selection of cables and interchangeable tips we can now charge on the move. Portapow has found its place in our life it is a great step forwards.