Dublin Photography School

New Site is now live http://www.dublin-photography-school.com, so far it has been a huge success with high numbers applying for courses.

Looking forward to some more good news as we annouce some new courses we have been designing

Facebook groups, RAW vs JPEG

join our face book group, add us as a friend and receive information on special offers on prints and courses. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=152059868151312

or check out our sites directly, http://www.stewartkennyphotography.com or www.dublin-photography-school.com .

The RAW vs JPG format debate has come more to the fore in recent times with the introduction of specialized software for handling RAW images. If you use a digital camera and the camera is a SLR (I use a Nikon D2x) then it most likely can record images in the RAW format. In that case you should shoot images at the highest resolution possible. If you have a small memory card and are worried that you can only record a few RAW images on it, then its time to buy a bigger card! (They don't cost much these days) You can always shrink an image after you have taken it but you cant enlarge a smaller image with introducing pixel distortion. At the very least, you should have your camera record images in Hi-Res JPG format but RAW is even better.Any kind of JPG written to your camera’s memory card will be processed in some way. JPG’s by their very nature, lose information in an image. If you repeatedly save JPG’s,you’ll lose more and more detail in it and see more pixel distortion appearing. Also, if you've set your camera up to do some image manipulation (e.g. contrast / brightness adjustment) these will also be applied before your camera write the image out to the memory card. In such cases, you could end up with images that have burned out highlights or shadows that are so deep that they contain no detail. Such areas of an images may be irreparable even with the likes of Adobe Photoshop. This is where software such as Adobe Photoshop CS comes in. This software lets digital photographers of all abilities import, view, edit and convert large batches of RAW files (to TIFF files)With your converted raw files, you have full control over what manipulations will be carried out to produce the final image, using packages such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro. The better RAW conversion packages also include basic contrast, brightness and colour management controls, so you may not even need a separate image manipulation package. Some even provide tools for compensating for over – or – under-exposed images.

By shooting RAW images, you give yourself complete control over colour and exposure and it’s you, rather than the camera, that decides what adjustments are applied to reproduce the tones and contrast of the original scene. It also lets you maximize the quality of the final image for whatever output you want, whether that’s on a monitor, as in ink jet print or sent to one of the digital photo labs for printing.

RAW images, on the other hand, are simply that – raw. What the camera sees is dumped (without any manipulation what so ever) onto the memory card. RAW images also tend to contain more information and detail and have larger files sizes than similar resolution JPG’s. The problem with RAW files is that they’ve not been the easiest to work with; for example, Window Explorer cannot show RAW files as thumbnail images so, unless you’ve renamed your image files with meaningful names, you wont know that the images are when you came back to them a couple of months later.

Dublin Photography School

Welcome:

Welcome to the Dublin Photography School. No matter what your level is, from a beginner to an advanced student we have a Digital Photographic course or workshop that will suit you and your creative needs. You will learn all the latest techniques from getting more out of your compact camera to mastering your SLR. We run both day and evening courses in Dublin city centre, and some surrounding areas. Our tutors have a hands-on approach within a fun and friendly atmosphere. We keep our class numbers restricted so that you will always receive the attention you need to get the most of our sessions.

Digital Photography night course for beginners

Get the most out of your camera by learning all that it has to offer. This course will show you tips and techniques on how to achieve the photographs you have always wanted, from landscapes to portraits and flash to lowlight. If you want to be able to understand and use all the functions that your camera has to offer let us show you how to achieve this.

This is a 7 week course. 6 sessions will take part in a classroom environment lasting for 2 hours each. The course also includes 2 photography fieldtrips, 1 night shoot and 1 landscape.

All compact, bridge or digital SLR cameras are suitable for this course.

The course fee is €185 and includes detailed handouts and tutors notes and all your work critiqued by experienced photographers.

Creative course

Get the most out of your DSLR or Bridge camera by learning all that it has to offer. This course shows you creative tips and techniques to get the photographs you desire, from portraits, landscapes and night shooting, to street photography to black and white. This exciting course also includes 3 photography fieldtrips where our tutors can show you how to apply all that you have learned. This class will offer an introduction to Digitial imaging and processing. You will learn to create the effects you see the professionals use like, sweeping clouds, silky water and how to use flash photography creatively. Create stunning images by altering your camera’s white balance and much much more.

This is a 7 week course. 6 sessions will take part in a classroom environment lasting for 2 hours each. 3 sessions will be photography fieldtrips, 1 night shoot,1 dawn shoot and 1 landscape shoot.

Only Bridge and Digital SLRs can be used on this course.

The course fee is €225 and includes detailed handouts, tutors notes and all your work critiqued by experienced photographers.

Photoshop course

If you are looking to learn Photoshop then we are here to teach you everything you need to know and how to get started. From cropping and sharpening, black and white photography techniques to how to make your images stand out and almost pop. This course is digital imaging at its best.

This is a 7 week classroom based course.

The course fee is €185.

All courses currently take place in Dublin city centre.

Please contact us at http://www.dublin-photography-school.com or on http://www.stewartkennyphotography.com to find out when the next course begins and to secure yourself a place.

Night Photography in Ireland

This Blog is intended to be an extension to my Irish Fine Art Landscape Photography web site http://www.stewartkennyphotogrpahy.com from this blog i will hope to update discuss & review the various locations around ireland i photograph and the techniques i use, both in point of shop and post processing, from this blog i will also announce any new workshop or classes that i am hosting.

now to the matter at hand, in the first of the serious i will discuss the point of shot camera techniques i used to create this image. it was taken at midnight on a full moonlight evening, in brittas bay, in co wicklow ireland.

i often only shot night photography in the days each month around the full moon, i find that issues such as Hot Sensor noise often crop up due to extended exposures over ten minutes, when not shooting on a full moon, but more on this later.

so in a basic introduction the equipment & settings i used were

Tripod,

Remote Trigger,

Canon 50D

Sigma 18-200mm os f3.5-6.3 DC Lens

No Filters

MagLight Tourch with Full Spectrum Bulb Fitted For painting in the shadow detail

Settings

Manual Focus set at infinity or the horizontal eight on the end of your lens.

8 minute Exposure,

F13

iso 125

Well First things first,

Where to go & what to shoot at night?

Great shots dont happen by accident.....well sometimes they do:) but for the most part they take careful planning. the best way to find a location to shot at night is to:

A) check out other peoples shots in your area on say Flickr? or Dev Art you can be very surprised and inspired by what other people are doing.

B) Drive there and have a look around, check out structures, landscapes, rock formations,

C) if you have shoot there previously during the day, then return at night and take a chance.

So you know what your going to shoot now what?

So now do your home work,

Plan your driving route,

Check out weather conditions? cloudy, rainy cloud, and dress accordingly, good way to check weather conditions is met check

check out tidal conditions if your shooting seascapes there is nothing more depressing to turing up to shot a pier etc at night and find the tide is out:(

to be continued in next blog,

What to Pack

Location Review,

Stewart Kenny Photography Workshop & classes

Painting with light

what apertures to use in night photography

What iso to use in night Photography

Star Trails

Motion Blur

Blurring & misty water at night

Contrast & noise

and other Post processing tips hints & techniques in night photography.

Irish Landscape Fine art & night Photographer

Stewart Kenny.

(sorry need the hits on my site:))