We Had Some Great Adventures!

Ah, my first DSLR, a Canon 20D, it is time to part company. I will miss it, but the truth is I have not used it since I got my 7D. So it is up on eBay now, to be recycled into something new and shiny! Check it out here.

UPDATE: Sold and dispatched.

This collection features images from the Vatican Museum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, St. Peters Basilica, and the Coliseum. If you are visiting Rome, here are some tips I would offer:

• Don’t fill everyday with museums and sightseeing. One of the best ways of getting under the skin of this city is sitting in cafes, or in a Piazza, and watching the world go by.
• Skip the restaurants on the Piazza’s, especially on the Piazza Novona and the Campo Di Fiori. While the food may be good, it will be overpriced. Search down the side streets for the small local trattorias where the locals go.
• Walk or use public transport. Rome is easy to get around by anything other than car!
• The Vatican museum is worth a full day on its own.
• A tripod will not be welcome in the Vatican, nor will you be able to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel (though many do).

While the gallery contains some of my favorite images, I have posted additional images in my Flickr Set.

All images taken with a Canon 20D, and post processed in Adobe Lightroom.

The eccentric Duke Special now features as a new gallery on JonathanBourke.Com. This is a repost of an earlier Flickr based Gallery as I slowly migrate my portfolio content to my own website. In this gallery, I try to capture the eccentricity, the motion, and the colour of Dukes’ performance at Dolans that night. Some of the images could be perceived as being blurred… but for me this accurately reflects the feeling of the gig.

Back when I originally posted this I said:

Duke Special wowed the midweek crowds at Dolans Warehouse in Limerick on Tuesday 9th of December. This time he had his band with him, and the percussionist, “Temperance Society”, entranced people with clattering, banging, shaking, twisting, roaring, scraping, and more. He was brilliant. It was a poignant night for Mary and I, as it will be our last concert in Dolans for some time…

In some ways, “Temperance Society” stole the show, using everything from pots and pans, assorted sticks and whatnot to create an eclectic sound. From Wikipedia:

He is most often accompanied by percussionist “Temperance Society” Chip Bailey, who plays cheese graters and egg whisks, a Stumpf fiddle and a Shirdi drone box, as well as the more typical drums and cymbals.

Jack L @ Dolans Warehouse

Jack Lukeman (or Jack L) is pretty much unique amongst the artists I have seen perform… he can hold a venue on the power of his voice alone. I must have seen him perform 10 times now; he certainly ranks as one of my favorites. Check out his music at www.jacklukeman.com.

Mundy in Profile @ Dolans Warehouse in Limerick

I know that I posted this gallery previously, but I am taking the liberty of reposting it as it is now the first collection within my Gallery on JonathanBourke.Com. Please feel free to check it out!

Apart from loving the music, and Dolans Warehouse for that matter, I love concert photography. It is by far and away one of the most challenging genres within photography. One second you are dealing with extremely low light levels, and the next, you are blinded by light. And all the time, the artist is jumping around stage like someone possessed. Compact cameras will not cut it in this environment. They are just too slow.

Digital SLRs with standard lenses might manage one or two lucky shots. Image Stabilised lenses are not going to help either… you might be able to hand hold the lens in the low light, but the rapid movement on stage will still be a blur.

High ISO’s and Fast Lenses are your friends. Most of my concert shots are taken with a Canon EOS 20D at ISO 1600, and a Canon 50mm F1.4. Even then, I am happy if I have 10 shots out of a hundred which are acceptable. My settings are pretty much:

• Aperture Priority, set to something like F2.8 max, sometimes right down to F1.4
• ISO set to 1600, 800 if I can get away with it
• Focus mode set to AI Servo… i.e. will attempt to track moving objects
• Centre Focus point selected
• Metering normally set to Evaluative, but I sometimes use Partial
• Drive mode set to continuous

And here is the kicker, White Balance set to Auto. this is an issue which is often discussed in relation to concert photography; i.e. how do you get accurate colours with all those crazy lights? My response to this is “Who cares?” In my mind, the crazy colours add to the drama and excitement of the event. I would never want to subdue them…

Mundy, introducing a little feedback!

Jack L @ Dolans Warehouse

On October 17th, Jack L made a triumphant return with his new album “Burn On” to Dolans Warehouse in Limerick. Of course I was there to grab a few shots… While I took over 100 shots, I have whittled them down to a more manageable 20 or so. I particularly like the deep, low-key, blue man shots. Again, all shots were taken with a Canon EOS 20D with  50mm F1.4, mostly at either 800 or 1600 ISO. Check them out on Flickr, or click on the thumbnails below:

A great concert as always, all the more so when you see how much the band are enjoying themselves. They looked to be getting a real buzz from the crowd. That said, could the muppets who talk and make noise and show disrespect please fuck off! Why do ye bother going… at least ye eventually shut up when Jack came out on his own at the end to play “Rooftop Lullaby”. Also, Jack, consider this a standing request for:

• The Man Who Couldn’t Cry
• So Far Gone
• Don’t Fall In Love

Mundy @ Dolan’s Warehouse

I just posted some new shots on Flickr from a concert by Mundy at Dolans Warehouse in Limerick. Enjoy!

Yet again, this is the place to be for intimate live music. All shots taken with a Canon EOS 20D using a 50mm F1.4 lens.

Feel free to comment on these here, or on Flickr.

Who is this world wide No. 1 artist playing support at Dolans?

Dolans Warehouse is one of my favourite places on this earth. It’s a small, cosy, concert venue on the Dock Road in Limerick and it puts on some great acts. The mere mention of Jack L, The 4 of Us, The Walls, Mundy, The Stunning, The Hothouse Flowers, or Duke Special playing there, and you will find me in the front row!

Unfortunately, it is often the case that the support acts get little respect as people get the drinks in before the main event. But perhaps we should pay a little more attention…

This artist just happens to be Duffy, who has had a worldwide No. 1 song with “Mercy” and No. 1 Album with “Rockferry”, and has won 2 MOJO awards… Not too shabby! Here are some other shots of the shoot:

BTW: Shot with a Canon 20D and 50mm F1.4. Magic!

1) There are NO GOOD DEALS IN IRELAND:

Just in case I didn’t make that clear enough… YOU WILL BE RIPPED OFF IF YOU BUY A CAMERA IN IRELAND!. Never mind the bull about local support, warranties, etc. peddled by the various dealers. It cannot make up for the 50–100% markup most of them charge. Case in point, I recently bought a Canon IXUS 860IS for a friend at just over €250 within Europe, a saving of exactly €100 on the online price from a Camera Shop on Burgh Quay, Dublin. For purchasing cameras, I recommend the following:

• In the US: Adorama, B&H Photo
• In Europe: Pixmania

2) Megapixels are overrated:

I could go into detail, but an 8 megapixel picture will result in a professional quality print of 11+ inches by 8+ inches. Do you print to that size? No? Well any compact digital camera with more megapixels than that is nearly always going to result in a poorer quality picture. It is the tradeoff of the “Megapixel Myth”.

3) You simply want to take pictures:

Now that the first two fallacies are busted, on to the meat and potatoes. You want a simple camera for holiday snapshots, weddings, etc. You are not interested in custom settings, RAW files or any of that baloney. Ok… here are some things you do not need:

• Anything over 8mp (see item 2)
• An optical view finder (i.e. something you look through… you will never use it!)
• RAW file capability (if you don’t know what it is, you don’t need it)
• Internal Storage (Trust me on this one… any storage included with the camera is a con. It is insufficient for any purpose!)
• A bloody great zoom range — guaranteed to produce crap photo’s.

So what do you need?

• A decent battery. In fact, buy a spare, but absolutely make sure that they are re-chargeable batteries. AA batteries last no time!
• A large screen. You will use it to take and display 90% of your photo’s.
• A reasonably big memory card, 2GB should do the job.
• Image stabilisation would be a bonus.

My recommendation — The Canon IXUS 860 IS. I bought this for my wife, and have pointed others in its direction. Superb camera.

Canon IXUS 870 IS

4) You need something to carry around, but wouldn’t mind a bit more power:

Ah, the memories. MY first proper digital camera was in this category, an Olympus 8080, and some of the best shots I ever got were with this camera. This category is the answer to the photographers saying “The best camera is the one you have with you…” Expensive professional camera’s are heavy. They tend to be left at home a lot of the time. So what do you need in this category?

• Custom controls, Aperture, ISO, Shutter speed
• RAW file capability might be handy
• A big screen. Nope, you still don’t need the optical viewfinder.
• A reasonably big memory card.
• Image stabilisation again.

My recommendation — The Canon G9. I have the G7, which is essentially the same. The Sigma DP1 is flawed, but is a promising concept.

Canon G9

5) You want to take pictures at sporting events, concerts, dawn, night, etc…

Ok, when you using a compact digital camera for any length of time, you become aware of two major shortcomings:

• You point, you focus, you wait, you take picture, of nothing. Compact digital cameras are not fast enough for sports or action.
• The small “chip” in them makes shots taken in low light / night look terrible. Welcome, my friend, to digital noise!

Now we enter the realm of SLR’s. SLR stands for “Single Lens Reflex” is a fancy way of saying “you look through the lens you take the picture with!”. They typically have a much bigger chip, often described as being “full frame” (full size of 35mm film frame), DX (size of APS film frame), or somewhere in between. They are also much, much quicker to focus and operate. There are many worthy cameras in this segment of the market; Olympus, Nikon, Canon, Sony, Samsung, Pentax, etc. The only really solid bits of advice I can give are:

• The lenses are the most important part of this purchase — if you buy one good lens and use it well, you will be happier (such as a 50mm F1.4)
• You are buying into a system at this level, i.e. the lenses, the accessories, the batteries, etc. are expensive and long-lasting. It is expected that you will reuse most of them when you upgrade your camera. Make sure you trust that the vendor will be there, and offer a product that meets your needs!
• Research, research, research. The best web site: www.dpreview.com

My recommendation — I am a Canon user, so the Canon EOS 450D.

Canon EOS 450D

6) Beyond that… either you have more money than sense or you know what you are doing:

Just to let you know, I drive a Canon 20D, and would love at some point in the future to upgrade to either a 40D, 5D, or 1Ds MK III. Here’s dreaming. 

Canon EOS 20D