M & J Bloomfield - Blog

RAW processing software

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:03:26 +0100

What RAW processing software do you use? No matter what your answer I bet it is the best software currently on the market. We all tend to be a little possessive about the decisions and choices we have made. If you want to start an argument of monumental proportions, here’s how. Find a gathering of computer users, if a few designers are present so much the better. Now in a very loud voice rubbish either a MAC or PC. Once the debate has started take you leave and let them get on with it.

The more we spend the longer we take to make that critical decision the more likely we are to defend that decision process. This is why when people ask us about the software we use, we try and be as evasive, as politeness will allow. Why? Well for us the software we use is not that important. I can hear the sharp intake of breath as you read the last paragraph but let me explain. This is how we choose which software we use to process our RAW files.

Does it provide adequate quality? Look back seven years at the software used to process RAW files. The changes and improvements are outstanding. For us it is important keep any software up to date. We want to produce the best quality pictures we can. Up to date and relevant software can help us achieve that.

We are always reluctant to change software. It takes a great deal of time to learn new ways and to get the most out of new software. That time, is time we can’t use to take pictures or promote our images. Also the cost of buying is important to us. Upgrades are substantially less than buying a completely new package. So unless new software has substantial benefits we will keep using what we know.

The old adage time is money, is a good one. Not so much money, but time we can’t spend in the field taking pictures. So how quick it is to process RAW files is an important factor. It doesn’t matter if you are doing it for a living or as a hobby your time is precious. If you can achieve brilliant results while saving a bit of time then we say go for it.

So which software do we use? I can reveal that we use the best, cheapest and quickest yet made software. And next month we will be doing the same, no matter what it is called.

Until next time.

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April Showers

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Fri, 4 May 2012 15:57:24 +0100

April Showers, I hear you laugh. I know it wasn’t quite like that more like April deluge, in certain parts of the UK anyway.

We did get a lot of rain in during the month, so much so that it was the wettest April every. But did it do our poor parched ground any good, no! So dry from two dry winters and not a lot of rain during the spring that the rain is not soaking into the ground, just running off it and causing flooding.

Daytime temperatures were reasonable, but there were still some cold nights. Mean maximum temperature was 14.7°c while the minimum was just 2°c.

All this unseasonal weather is partly due to our old friend the jet stream. A shift in the jet stream has brought us this unusual weather pattern; it was also the reason why we had such a dry and warm March.

New Countryside Code for 2012

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Wed, 2 May 2012 13:42:55 +0100

Natural England who produces the code have updated advice on rights of way and preventing fires. New information on coastal safety and keeping dogs under control around livestock and wildlife.

Get out and enjoy the countryside, but please remember to refresh your knowledge of the Countryside Code. The motto is "respect, protect and enjoy"

More information available at http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/enjoying/countrysidecode/default.aspx.

Airlines and your overweight problem

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:35:26 +0100

Small compact camera owners please note this blog does not apply to you. Slip your camera into your bag along with book, compression stockings and nice comfy blow up pillow. Skip through check in and security. Do some shopping and relax. If you get time whilst sipping on the second or third Latte look up and you may see a red faced, stressed to breaking point, dishevel fellow traveller, crawl past the coffee shop. Smile in the knowledge that they may have a bigger camera but you got to relax and drink coffee.

Moving house, divorce and marriage are according to research the most stressful events in our lives. I would like to add to that, trying to get on an aircraft with a camera and a few lenses. For those unlucky few who want to take more than a point and shoot on an aircraft, air travel is your worst nightmare.

Let me explain. For most of us there are only two ways of traveling by air with cameras. One is to put them in your checked in luggage. The other is to take it as hand baggage.

Putting your cameras in your checked luggage is a bit like playing Russian roulette with three rounds in the chamber. You have to be very, very lucky to arrive with a camera. Heathrow or should that be Thiefrow is once again becoming notorious for the amount theft from passenger’s baggage. Recent news reports suggest Terminal Four is the worst. This and the ability of all airlines to send you to one destination and your luggage to another, and deny any knowledge, makes the chances of you being able taking pictures when you arrive or for that matter change cloths very limited indeed.

If you are going the checked luggage route, check with whoever insures your cameras. The chances are that they will not insure your cameras if they travel in the hold. Airlines will compensate you for loss of luggage and theft but, and this is a big but. The compensation limited by International Treaty and will not cover anything like the cost of today’s cameras.

Next option is to try and get your camera in the carryon baggage. Check what the allowance is on both your flights, if you have a return ticket. Same airline different type of plane and the allowance can be different. The your allowance could be as low as 6Kg. Having booked your once in a lifetime wildlife photographic adventure, thinking of taking that new 500mm lens you just bought? Put a lens and camera on the scales. What does it weight? That’s right you are now at the limit of your allowance. Don’t even think about spare batteries and a laptop to download and store the thousands of images you are going to take. They will have to travel in your checked in luggage. The bag you last saw disappearing down that black hole at check in.

You have arrived. The nightmare of air international travel lies behind you. If the gods have been kind all your gear will have arrived with you. All you have to do now is to board that internal flight to get to your final destination. Have you checked what their luggage allowance is? You could find yourself in a whole heap of trouble or a whole lot more out of pocket. Some in country airlines will allow you to travel with more luggage as long as you pay. It could be a small bribe or you could be asked to buy what seems a half share in the aircraft. I hope that your god smiles on you and that you don’t find out that they won’t let you travel.

So what can you do? The simple answer is research. If you are going to carry the cameras yourself then hand baggage is the only way to go. Try and book your flight with an airline with a camera friendly policy, they do exist. British Airways at the time of writing has one of the best carry on allowances available. You get a bag up to 23Kg and a handbag or laptop bag. This is the airline we always try and book with.

Sometimes this can however lead to problems. It maybe that the tour operator you have booked with had a particular airline in mind when creating the tour. An example of this is Kenya. At present the BA flight arrives in the evening. Whereas the Virgin and Kenya Airways arrive in the morning, if you book BA and your tour starts in the morning you need overnight accommodation in Nairobi.

If the tour you have booked includes flights then you are limited to the allowance the airline gives. It is almost impossible in our experience to buy excess carryon baggage allowance. Whereas most airlines you will be able to checked in excess allowance. First thing to do is to go and buy yourself an accurate set of luggage scales. Put all that you can in the checked luggage.

One word of caution, airlines have difference polices on carrying camera batteries. Some require they travel in the cabin others that they travel in the hold. Again all I can recommend is that you do your research.
If you are traveling with someone try and persuade them to carry some of your camera equipment. Don’t forget that at the drop of a security guards hat you may be required to prove that laptop and cameras can be powered up and work. Charge all your batteries before you go and make sure you have enough charge to do a power up test should you be asked.

One last thought when you finally get to you aircraft seat. Hot bothered and in a foul temper with nothing but camera gear for company. Look around the cabin at all those other travellers with books, blow up pillows toiletries and home comforts. Here is one thing to cheer you up. They can’t get anything in the locker above your seat as its stuffed full of camera gear.

Until next time.

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Pinterest and your copyright

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Thu, 5 Apr 2012 14:41:06 +0100

Ever heard of Pinterest? Well it is a virtual pin board. That allows its users to organise and share images and photographs they find on the web. To photographers like us it is a nightmare. Our pictures are our living and are protected by copyright. We have the final say as to where are photographs are used and importantly to our bank manager, and us how much we charge for that use.

Pinterest on the other hand encourages its users to copy pictures, they find on any website to their pin board. The owner of a pined picture, losses control over how the picture is used and is not credited with creating it or ownership.

The uproar from the photographic community has prompted Pinterest to come up with a solution adding a meta tag to the header of your website.

If you know a little HTML you should be able to place the above meta tag somewhere in the tag at the top of your web page. It is not fool proof but it will alert anyone who tries to pin one of your websites images to Pinterest, that it is not allowed. Not fool proof, as there are ways around but better than nothing.

We would still suggest at the least make sure your details are in the IPTC data and that you watermark your images and Digimarc them as well.

Until next time.

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Wildlife and the drought

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Mon, 2 Apr 2012 14:45:42 +0100

If like us, you live in the South East you will be aware of the hosepipe ban being introduced on Thursday 5 April 2012. From then you will be prevented from watering gardens, cleaning cars or filing swimming pools. This hosepipe ban is set to cause a lot of people significant amount of worry. For us the amount of worrying is limited as the wildness that is our garden is normally quite drought tolerant, the car is normally so dirty that if I cleaned it I would never be able to find it in the car park and we don’t own a swimming pool. But what does worry us is the effect that the drought is going to have on our wildlife and countryside.

From the south coast to parts of Yorkshire and as far west as Cheltenham drought is now a problem. Chalk streams here in the south are already dry or flows have shrunk to mere trickles. The Environment Agency is already removing fish from some rivers that can no longer sustain them. This will hopefully save the fish; it however can’t hope to save the eggs, larvae and nymphs of the species that go to feed those fish in their home rivers. Once the rivers run dry species like the Mayfly will not hatch and lay eggs for next year. The fish if returned to the river will have nothing to feed on as the Mayfly will take time to come back to the river.

Rivers, streams and reservoirs are just the tip of a very large problem we are facing. They tend to attract the most attention because people can see them running dry. But spare a thought for our water meadows, marshes and wetlands. The lack of water is these areas will affect many of our 119 breeding species of birds such as Redshank, Curlew and Lapwing that rely on this wetland habitat, may not be able to breed this year. We could be looking at the number of birds here in the South crashing to levels never seen before.

Drought will also claim a number of tree species. Birch and Beech are shallow rooted, low levels of rainfall causes these trees a great deal of stress. Their shallow roots are not able to tap into water deeper in the soil layer as some other species of tree and therefore they are more prone to drought. The woodland we visited recently had tinder dry under growth. One cigarette or glass bottle thrown away carelessly would be enough to start a major wild fire. Last May, we saw local woodland Swinley Forest suffer a devastating fire. The situation has not improved and we have already had another small fire this year. I suspect that we will see much more woodland destroyed by fire this year.

As much as I hate to say it lets all pray for a very, very wet summer. That at least may help just some of our wildlife survive. Oh and it will help wash at least some of the mud off our car.

Until next time.

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Warm and dry March

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Mon, 2 Apr 2012 14:43:16 +0100

Spring started early for many, but will there be a sting in the tail?

It was a very warm and dry month for many areas of the country. The warmest daytime temperature of the month was unusually in Scotland. This unseasonal warm temperature has brought everything to life in the countryside. Some areas of the country are seeing the emergence of wild garlic flowers, not normally seen at this time of year.

This very dry weather is not good for nature or people. Farmers are worried out how crops will fare if we don’t get some rain soon. Although rain has been predicated for April, not enough to make a significant difference, I fear.

Looking at the mean temperature readings there was quite a difference between maximum and minimum. We recorded a maximum high of 19°c and in contrast a low of -0.4°c.

How will April be, will we get the much need rain?

Mean maximum temperature	16.8°C
Mean minimum temperature	0.5° C

Five week month

February weather

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:13:52 +0000

Weather blog is a bit late this month, but better late than not at all.

February was weather was cold here and dull here in the south and not many parts of the country faired any better. With daytime temperatures near freezing and in some cases below it was not a very pleasant month. We still didn’t have any significant rainfall and as we see now in March, hosepipe bans are being put in place.

Much of our countryside will be suffering this year. Two dry winters will have a significant impact on our wildlife and countryside.

Mean maximum temperature	9°C
Mean minimum temperature	-6.7° C

Kenya Wildlife Photographic Tour - 2012

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Tue, 6 Mar 2012 16:04:24 +0000

Stop press..... Exciting news - Join us in Kenya September 2012 for a trip of a lifetime, photographing the icon wildlife of East Africa.

Rated as one of the greatest wildlife destinations in the world, will be visiting two world famous reserves, Lake Nakuru with its pink flamingos and largest number of rhinos in Africa, and Masai Mara Reserve home of the wildebeest migration. This spectacle is something not to be missed and is one of the greatest wonders of the natural world. Seeing up to 10,000 wildebeest crossing the Mara River is something that we will never forget.

Also available is a 12 day tour in which as well as Lake Nakuru and the Masai mara we will be visiting the Kenya coast for the myriad of colour fish, dolphins and turtles; also Shimba Hills National Reserve, which contains the largest density of elephants in Kenya.

You don’t have to be an expert photographer. We are on hand to give hints and tips so that you get some great pictures while in Kenya. We will cater for all levels of experience from novice to expert. Non photographically minded partners are very welcome there is plenty for them to see and do.

Do come and join us in Kenya and experience these natural wonders for yourself.

Book through our travel partner Livingstone’s World of Travel

Watch a video advert Kenya Wildlife Photographic Tour - 2012

January Weather Blues

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Fri, 3 Feb 2012 09:35:51 +0000

Unfortunately, due to a problem with our hosting company we were unable to bring a December weather blog.

Into 2012 and January is over, can’t believe where the time goes. January weather has been mixed for all parts of the country. The north of the country has experienced some very cold and snowy weather, while in the south we have had it mild and dull with some very windy days. However, the end of the month had a sting in its tail with some very cold nights and days.

I don’t think winter has had its final say yet. Nature is a great leveller and puts things in balance; February could see some old fashioned weather of snow and ice.

Website gremlins again have delayed posting this blog.

January blogs

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:49:41 +0000

Regular visitors will have noticed the lack of new blogs this month. For this we can only apologise. During the first half of January we had problems with the website. The company we use to host the site Fasthosts had a problem with one of the servers used by the site. This simple problem, took over ten days to find and fix? While this was happening we and lots of other users were unable to see the site or make updates.

The second half of the month has been a struggle. The problems with the website meant we were not able to send out links to light boxes for our clients. If you were affected we apologise once again and assure you that we are trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

So the second half of the month has been spent trying to catch up. With only so much time, one thing that got put on the back of the stove was our blog. But now everything is back to normal, fingers crossed we will be back blogging as normal.

So here is a quick round up for January.

Adobe released a sneak peak of what we can expect from the forthcoming Photoshop CS6

Lightroom 4 Beta is available for download from Adobe Labs.

Don’t forget that if you took part in last weekend’s RSPB Garden birds watch to get your results recorded either online or by post.

Perhaps the most important news is that we now have a Facebook account http://www.facebook.com/MarkandJackyBloomfield we are both new to Facebook and only just getting started, so any help, comments you give will be very welcome. Thanks to Hazel for helping us with getting the pages set up.

Until next time.

The Big Garden Bird Watch 2012

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Sun, 1 Jan 2012 14:46:29 +0000

The RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch takes place on 28 and 29 January. How can I help you might ask. It’s simple. You need just a pen, some paper and an hour to spend watching birds in your garden or local park over the weekend of 28 & 29 January. Record the highest number of each bird species you see on the ground, not flying. Then go to the RSPB birdwatch website, and record your sightings. You will also find other useful information on this website.

Please do take part in the survey. You will be helping to give an idea of what birds are appearing in a given area of the country. This information helps look at population numbers and highlights any problem areas, so please give an hour of your time. It is fun too.

The BBC and the Polar bear cub scandal

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:30:58 +0000

The media is still full of revelations, about theBritish Broadcasting Corporation BBC using zoo bread Polar bears to get pictures of cubs, in its latest series Frozen Planet. It makes me wonder about what has become important. More time, effort and space has been devoted to this story in the past few weeks than the issues, surrounding the future survival of the bears has received in months.

For those that have not seen Frozen Planet, some background. In one of the seven one hour long episodes the BBC used a 30 second clip of two new born Polar bear cubs in a den. When we saw the footage, it was obvious it was impossible to film in the wild, without endangering the bears, so they had to be captive animals. Sure enough, the BBC produced a clip on their website featuring Kathryn Jeffs one of the producers, in which she explained how the images were obtained, using an animal park. A female Polar bear used a specially constructed den to give birth in. However, when the media discovered this, it sparked a frenzy of reporting about the integrity of the BBC and the methods used to film the series. How viewers were duped into believing that it was all real.

When I read the story, it didn’t surprise me that the images were of captive animals. If you have ever tried to take wildlife pictures, you come to realise that something’s are impossible. The alternatives are either not to record the behaviour or use captive subjects filmed on a stage or set. Regular nature program watchers can also spot where archive footage is used or where clips are reversed so the animal walks out or into shot in the right direction for the next sequence. This is especially easy to spot on things like big cats and ear and muzzle markings are a dead giveaway.

I suppose the big question is, do we condone the use of captive animals. As wildlife photographers, it is something that we try to avoid at all costs. The number of pictures of captive subjects in our database is probably less than 20. Captions attached to these images clearly state that the subject was captive. Where possible, we try to make sure that the end user marks the images as of captive subjects. We are not alone in this practice. Ethical wildlife photographers the world over have a similar policy of identifying images obtained using captive subjects.

TV and film is different. Normally the audience is not told if a subject is captive or not. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes not so. I know there is a lot of difference between film and still images, just ask Jacky how many times I have complained about a sequence on prime time television showing a rare animal half hidden behind a branch. A quick bit of panning and you have a usable shot. We poor photographers would be cursing our luck about not having a sellable image. Don’t get me started on the money spent getting these images. Just give me a tenth of their budget.

I do think the BBC should have made it clearer at the time of broadcast that these were captive bears. I don’t agree with the hysterical outrage by the media that the BBC set out to deliberately miss lead the public. In trying to tell a story, they did the safest thing and used captive bears. Any other solution would have endangered the lives of the animals they set out to film. But, please can they make it plain to audiences when these techniques were used.

What I fear the most from this type of footage is the example it sets. People see images like this, think that getting close to a subject is all right and by getting too close, disturb their subject. This can lead to endangering the animal either directly or by lessening it chances of survival.

Until next time

Wind turbines and wildlife

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Fri, 9 Dec 2011 13:48:05 +0000

In a recent report by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, it states that the United Kingdom needs a huge expansion in its wind generation capacity. This is if Britain is to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets. To help cut the emissions Chris Huhne, the energy secretary wants to convert all vehicles and homes to run on electricity by 2050. If this policy goes ahead, Britain will need to generate double the currently predicted amount of electricity needed by 2050.

This extra generating capacity would come from low carbon sources such as nuclear and wind power. What this means is a huge increase in the numbers of wind turbines. Currently we have around 3,000 onshore turbines and 500 offshore. These provide about 1-2pc of the nation’s power requirements. To achieve the level of power generation required for the government’s plans, current estimates are, we would require building another 6,000 to 10,000 onshore and 25,000 offshore turbines.

In the future, it appears that as soon as you leave urban areas you will in effect be stepping into a wind farm. A wind turbine will dominate every open space. Whatever is left, covered by electricity pylons, needed to carry the electricity from the countryside into the urban areas.

Electric vehicles will produce a quieter environment in towns and cities according to Mr. Huhne. The countryside however, it seems is to be dominated by the noise of turning turbines and maintenance crews repairing the infrastructure.

We all realise that we need to cut carbon emissions, but at what cost to our nature and countryside? And that is the problem. Like many solutions of the past, coal, town and natural gas, wind power generation has not been fully researched. Debate still rages over the amount of wildlife that is killed by the turbines and the environmental damage being done to our upland areas.

If we don’t understand the impact these technologies will have by the time we have built 30,000 – 40,000 our environment could be decimated with no hope of retrieval. The scientific communities are still debating if wind power is the way forward. Some people supporting wind power others more sceptical that it will never be a good method of generating power. Choices are being made as grants to other forms of power generation are being cut.

As for us, we are also against the pollution of our natural environment with large wind turbines. Space is a very limited in Britain. We already share every square mile with 650 other people. Soon, if wind generation goes ahead we will be sharing that square mile of wilderness with 4 wind turbines as well.

Until we have a better picture of the impacts, large numbers of wind turbines have on the terrestrial and aquatic environments. Continuing to build 800 new turbines a year would seem to be an error of judgement.

Until next time.

Our mild autumnal weather

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Thu, 1 Dec 2011 09:59:38 +0000

November has proved another mild month, making it the warmest autumn for a long while. If you think back to this time last year, it was snowing and many parts of the UK were suffering badly.

A year on and things have been turned on their head. Good for us perhaps as we don’t need the heating turned up. But for the trees and animals it is confusion all around. Reports abound of Blue tits nesting, migrants, who should be in warmer climes still here. Flowers and trees have started to grow and flower as though it is spring rather than mid-winter.

We experienced glorious weather on a recent trip to Scotland. The Glens looked stunning in the autumn sunshine. However, it’s a different story now. The last week of November saw gales and rain in abundance. The West Country has received plenty of rain too.

The weather conditions we have been having are all down to pressure. Usually at this time of year, we have low pressure coming in from the near continent and an area of high pressure sitting over the western edge of the UK; dragging cold winds from the north. However, this year the areas of pressure have been reversed causing southerly winds across the country bringing the mild weather.

What will December and winter be like?

Trees and Woodlands, they need help

admin@mandjbloomfield.com — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:22:21 +0000

Leading forestry and wildlife groups have joined forces to draw attention to the challenges and opportunities that our forests, woods and trees face.

These groups have collectively produce a report "The State of the UK’s Forests, Woods and Trees" to show the state of as well as future of our woodlands.

It is hoped that with the publication of the report it will urge government bodies to secure a future for many much loved and productive areas of woodland.

To read the full release please goes tohttp://www.woodlandtrust.presscentre.com