News and views about photography, cameras, social media, as well as pointers to Dave Bradley’s photographic output. You can also find me on Imaging Storm, Instagram and Flickr as “sciencebase”
TL:DR – I prompted ChatGPT to write me a personal brand pitch.
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I haven’t mentioned ChatGPT for a while. There has been something of a backlash against the hype and the scaremongering. But, I have still been using it for various small jobs, such as quick website tweaks and summarising documents that are TL:DR (too long, didn’t read). Latest prompt I gave it was to act as my personal brand manager and write me a pitch based on the Sciencebase homepage. This is an edited version of what it came up with:
David Bradley Science Writer
As a multi-award-winning freelance science writer with over three decades of experience, David Bradley has a unique talent for making complex scientific concepts accessible and engaging. He has written for a diverse range of outlets, including countless newspapers, magazines, research, industrial, educational, and academic organizations, and websites, covering a wide range of topics from astronomy to zoology and almost everything in between.
As a wannabe polymath, he is also an accomplished musician with an enormous passion for photography. He combines his science, snaps, and songs to create a website and blog that offers a fresh perspective on the natural world, showcasing his stunning wildlife photography, and sharing the latest cutting-edge research as well as occasionally offering incidental music. With his wife, Mrs Sciencebase, he is a keen allotmenteer, wildlife garden pond manager, and garden rewilding enthusiast.
David’s writing style is approachable and engaging, and he loves to sprinkle a little Geordie wit and charm into his work. He has bylines in New Scientist, Science, Nature, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Popular Science, American Scientist, and many others. In 1995, he set up the first-ever chemistry webzine, which morphed into the Sciencebase site in 1999.
If you’re looking for an experienced freelance science writer with a passion for making complex concepts accessible, look no further than David Bradley. Connect with him on social media, or shoot him an email at [email protected] to start a conversation…
UPDATE – I installed Adobe Photoshop Elements on William Gunn’s recommendation and set it to import my almost 200,000-strong photo archive (a quarter of a century of photography!) on my desktop PC while I carried on with normal work on a laptop. 24 hours later and it’s 93% done…so another few hours and I can open the organiser and hopefully begin to sort my photo archive. Fundamentally, those 200,000 photos are sitting in virtual shoeboxes in the packs they came in, some are labelled, many are not. It’s a nightmare to search for anything as it stands…
TL:DR – Organizing a collection of tens of thousands of digital photos can be a daunting task, but there are some steps you can take to make it easier and more efficient. Here’s a workflow that might work for you.
A simple photo organiser
Gather all your photos in one location: It is important to have all your photos in one place so that you can easily see what you have and begin organizing them. This might involve copying photos from various devices or external hard drives onto a single computer or cloud storage service.
Remove duplicates and unwanted photos: Go through your collection and delete any duplicates, blurry or out-of-focus photos, or images that you don’t want to keep.
Sort your photos by date: If you have photos with dates embedded in the metadata, you can sort them by date to create a chronological timeline of your images. This will help you easily find photos from a particular event or time period.
Tag your photos with keywords: Assigning descriptive keywords to your photos will make it easier to search for specific images later on. Keywords could include names of people or places, events, or even colors.
Create folders by topic: If you have photos that fit into specific categories or topics, create folders for each of them. For example, you might have folders for “family,” “travel,” “landscape,” “moths”, and so on. Be sure to move any photos that are currently in miscellaneous folders into their appropriate category folder.
Rename your files: If your photo filenames are uninformative or consist only of a camera-assigned number, consider renaming them to include more information. This could include the date, location, or a brief description of the photo.
Use software to assist with organizing: There are many software options available that can assist with organizing large photo collections. Some popular options include Adobe Lightroom, Google Photos, and Apple Photos. These programs allow you to tag photos, create albums, and search for images based on various criteria. That said, apparently the “organiser” component of Adobe Photoshop Elements is the way forward.
Back up your photos: Once you have organized your collection, be sure to back up your photos to an external hard drive or cloud storage service (I do both!) to protect them in case of computer failure or loss or ransomware attack.
The above workflow suggested by ChatGPT would be viable for a small collection of photos. Unfortunately, some of us have tens of thousands of photos, so at least some of the process needs to be automated, I asked ChatGPT to give me an idea on how to do that:
Removing duplicates and unwanted photos: There are many software options available that can help you identify and remove duplicate and unwanted photos automatically. For example, Duplicate Cleaner, VisiPics, and Awesome Duplicate Photo Finder are free software that can help you find and delete duplicate photos. I bought Duplicate Cleaner Pro to carry out this task.
Sorting photos by date: Most photo management software can automatically sort your photos by date. These programs can also help you filter photos based on date ranges or other metadata.
Tagging photos with keywords: Many photo management software programs can help you assign keywords to your photos automatically. For example, Google Photos can identify objects, people, and locations in your photos and suggest relevant tags as can Adobe Photosop Elements, I believe.
Creating folders by topic: You can use software to create folders and subfolders for your photos based on different criteria such as date, location, or metadata. For example, Adobe Lightroom allows you to create folders and subfolders based on keywords or other metadata.
Renaming your files: There are several batch file-renaming software options available that can help you rename your photo files in bulk. For example, Bulk Rename Utility is a free program that can rename files based on various criteria, including date and time, metadata, and sequential numbering.
Using software to assist with organizing: As mentioned earlier, photo management software such as Adobe Lightroom, Apple Photos, and Google Photos can help you automate many aspects of photo organization, including tagging, filtering, and creating albums.
Previously, I had asked ChatGPT to give me some ideas on useful photo organisation tools. William Gunn suggested the best non-cloud option is Adobe Photoshop Elements.
TL:DR – Long list of software that might help you organise a large collection of photos. But, William Gunn suggests simply turning to Adobe Elements to get the job done quickly and well.
I have tens of thousands of photos in my archives, some stretching as far back as the pre-digital era (working in and touring the US in 1988, touring Australia in 1989, southern Africa in 1992, and so much more in between, mostly prints, but lots of scans too). My first digital camera (an Agfa ePhoto 307, provided by Agfa itself in 1997). It had a VGA sensor (one third of a megapixel) and no screen. After that I progressed to pocket digital cameras, notably the Canon Ixus 500 and from there to the digital SLRs (Canon 20D to 6D to 7D mark ii. Before you ask, I’ve not gone mirrorless and don’t yet feel the urge to do so given some of its limitations.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I have tens of thousands of photos and fundamentally they’re not very well organised. So, with a prompt from a contact on Mastodon, I thought I’d ask ChatGPT to help me organise my photos by asking it for software recommendations.
You are to act as an expert in software used by digital photographers. I need a list of the state-of-the-art applications in photo organisation. The software must be able to handle tens of thousands of photos and to be able to identify the dominant colours in them, to identify faces, and to identify the main object in the photograph. The software must be entirely free, no subscriptions, no freemium, no premium. It must work on Windows 10 and be intuitive and easy to use as well as very fast.
As an AI language model, I can provide you with a list of state-of-the-art photo organization software that meet your requirements. However, I must inform you that there is no free software that meets all of the features you mentioned. Some software may have a limited free version, but to unlock all the features, you may need to purchase a subscription or pay for a license. That being said, here are some options you could consider:
Google Photos – While not entirely free, Google Photos offers unlimited free storage for high-quality photos (up to 16 megapixels). It can handle tens of thousands of photos, and it can identify faces and objects in photographs. It is also intuitive and easy to use. However, it may not be able to identify dominant colors in photos.
Digikam – Digikam is a free and open-source photo management application that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It can identify faces and has some object recognition capabilities. However, it may not be able to identify dominant colors in photos.
XnView – XnView is a free image viewer and organizer that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some face detection capabilities but may not be as advanced as other software. It can also batch process images, making it useful for large photo collections.
Shotwell – Shotwell is a free and open-source photo organizer for Linux, but it also works on Windows. It can handle tens of thousands of photos and has some basic face detection capabilities. It also has some editing capabilities, such as cropping and color adjustment.
Darktable – Darktable is a free and open-source photo editing and management software that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic face detection capabilities and can identify some objects in photos. It also has advanced editing features like color correction and noise reduction.
FastStone Image Viewer – FastStone Image Viewer is a free image viewer and organizer that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic face detection capabilities and can batch process images. It may not be as advanced as other software but is fast and easy to use.
Windows Photos – Windows Photos is a built-in application on Windows 10 that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic photo editing capabilities, and it can organize photos by date and location. It may not have advanced features like face or object detection, but it can be a useful tool for basic photo organization.
Mylio – Mylio is a free photo organization software that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic face detection capabilities and can organize photos by date and location. It also has a syncing feature that allows you to access your photos on different devices.
Zoner Photo Studio – Zoner Photo Studio is a free photo organization and editing software that can handle tens of thousands of photos. It has some basic face detection capabilities and can organize photos by date and location. It also has advanced editing features like color correction and noise reduction.
Capture One – Offers advanced features for photo organization and editing, including automatic organization by color, subject, and face recognition.
Amazon Rekognition – Amazon Rekognition is a cloud-based image and video analysis tool that uses machine learning to identify objects, scenes, and faces in photos. It offers advanced face recognition capabilities and can identify emotions and facial attributes as well. However, it is not a standalone application and requires an internet connection to use.
Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services – Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services is a cloud-based collection of AI tools that includes a computer vision API for analyzing images. It offers advanced object and face recognition capabilities and can identify emotions and facial attributes as well. However, like the other options, it is not a standalone application and requires an internet connection to use.
Adobe Lightroom – Adobe Lightroom is a popular photo editing application that also offers some AI-based organization and search capabilities. It uses machine learning to automatically tag photos with keywords based on their content, including objects, scenes, and people. It can also search for photos based on keywords and location data. However, it is not a standalone tool and requires a subscription to use.
ON1 Photo RAW – ON1 Photo RAW is a photo editing application that offers some AI-based organization and search capabilities. It uses machine learning to automatically tag photos with keywords based on their content, including objects, scenes, and people. It can also search for photos based on keywords and location data. ON1 Photo RAW can be purchased as a standalone application or as part of a subscription bundle.
ACDSee – ACDSee is a photo editing and management application that offers some AI-based organization and search capabilities. It uses machine learning to automatically tag photos with keywords based on their content, including objects, scenes, and people. It can also search for photos based on keywords and location data. ACDSee can be purchased as a standalone application or as part of a subscription bundle.
I’ve looked at some of these tools. Digikam looks promising, especially as I don’t want to pay for a Lightroom subscription. But, none of them are quite as advanced as I was hoping. More to the point I cannot see a simple route from my disordered collection to any of them working to give me a tagged and categorised gallery. I shall ask ChatGPT if it can give me a workflow to do that. Maybe there is a way.
TL:DR – My step-by-step approach to processing my photos.
I recently discussed my photo processing workflow and gave a working example using a photo I got of a beautiful Short-eared Owl. I’ve now summarised that workflow into a step-by-step system for fellow photographers who might want to compare their approach and see if they can get better results with their photos.
Here are the basic steps I usually take with an image downloaded from the camera to give me a photo that’s ready for my blog or to share on social media. Fundamentally, you should be shooting RAW and using the RAW file from your camera.
Feed the RAW file to a denoise software like DxO PureRaw3 to remove noise and apply basic corrections. With my camera setup this is almost always a required step in low light. I reckon PureRaw steps you back about three stops of ISO without compromising clarity and detail, which can be very useful. Topaz Denoise AI or Sharpen AI work very well too.
Open the denoised image in your photo editor. I use PaintShop Pro, which is very much an inexpensive clone of Photoshop, but GIMP is good too. Adobe Lightroom might be a better alternative if you want a non-destructive editor.
Crop the image to the desired composition and make any basic adjustments to brightness, contrast, saturation, etc. You can use masks to control which areas are adjusted rather than applying global changes.
Apply an unsharp mask to make the image crisper but always draw back a little from any automatic adjustments or settings the software offers. Use targeting or masking to sharpen specific areas if you wish.
Remove any distracting elements using smart cloning or object removal tools, but don’t overdo it, don’t over-edit, and don’t make your photo too artificial.
Save the final image to the appropriate size, compression level, and format for the intended output. As a rule-of-thumb an image destined for social media needn’t be more than 1024 pixels wide. Indeed, most sites resize and compress images that are not already optimised to a specific pixel-width and compression ratio (JPEGs)
Add your logo or watermark. I usually apply my “dB/” logo as a small, translucent mark in the bottom right of my photos rather than a distracting or image-covering stock photo type watermark.
I might add that all of the above is only really worth doing on a decent, well exposed image of good composition of an interesting subject, but that’s to be taken as read. The process can, however, rescue record shots that have not come out of the camera well because of low light or other problems. I saved a flying Peregrine photo that had a lot of motion blur by using Topaz Sharpen AI (motion blur correction).
In the wake of controversy regarding Samsung’s purported manipulation and “enhancements” of user moonshots taken on Android phones, I asked MidJourney to “Generate a photorealistic image of the full moon that might have been augmented by controversial mobile phone camera enhancing technology.” Is this better than the faked moonshots users have been reporting? I think so…especially that one bottom-left which looks like a gravitational lensing image superimposted on a mobile phone!
Faked moonshots
If you want to see some real moonshots I’ve taken occasionally with a dSLR and a 600mm zoom, sometimes with a phone attached to my telescope, then follow me on the Sciencebase Instagram for the latest.
Meanwhile, I asked ChatGPT about this controversy using the following prompt:
You are to act as an expert in Android phones and in particular Samsung phones. There has recently been some controversy about the camera technology and how it can “process” a photograph of the moon and enhance it beyond reality. The processing was called out as fake when people were taking photos of low-resolution printouts of a photo of the moon and getting near-perfect higher-resolution output. Please tell me more about this and why it is simply wrong for a company to fake its users’ photos like this.
This is what it had to say:
In recent years, Samsung and other smartphone manufacturers have been adding advanced camera technologies to their devices, including features that can enhance the quality of photographs taken with the device. One such feature is called “Space Zoom,” which is designed to allow users to take photos of faraway objects, such as the moon.
However, there has been controversy surrounding Samsung’s camera technology and its ability to enhance photographs of the moon beyond what is possible with the naked eye. In particular, some users have claimed that Samsung’s camera technology is “faking” the details of the moon by artificially enhancing the image.
It is important to note that any form of photo manipulation or enhancement that misrepresents the reality of the scene being photographed is ethically wrong. It is the responsibility of manufacturers to be transparent with their users about the capabilities and limitations of their camera technology and to ensure that their users are not misled or deceived by the features they offer.
In addition, it is important for users to understand that the quality of a photograph depends on a variety of factors, including lighting conditions, camera settings, and the skill of the photographer. While advanced camera technologies can certainly enhance the quality of a photograph, they cannot create details that do not exist in the original scene being photographed.
TL:DR – The Brecon Beacons are a delightful place to visit any time of year, but a winter visit is magical when the sun shines on snowy caps.
Just back from a lovely trip to the Brecon Beacons in Cymru to stay with friends. Didn’t do as much walking as we normally would because I have an obstinate ankle injury. It was a bit awkward getting into stable positions to photograph wildlife or indeed anything else, but I had a go, as you do.
Snow-capped views of Pen y Fan and Corn Du as seen from our friends’ back garden – what a view!European Dipper, Cinclus cinclus, perched on a mossy stump. The Dipper is so-called because of its bobbing action when perched like this or on a rock, although it also dips its head under water to hunt invertebrates, fish, and amphibia for food, diving in and swimming with its wings underwater.Grey Wagtail, Motacilla cinerea, perched a branch overhanging the River Usk between Trallong and Penpont, South WalesFlyfisher on the River Usk between Trallong and Penpont, South Wales
If you’re ever in the area and unable to scale the peaks and you’re into beer and music, then it’s definitely worth visiting the Antur microbrewery in Three Cocks, Haystacks Music and the Wye Fret guitar shop in Hay-on-Wye. The Gwernyfed Walled Garden (also in Three Cocks) and Hay Castle, obviously also in Hay, are worth a visit too.
I asked ChatGPT to tell me more about the Brecon Beacons, here’s what it had to say, lightly edited:
The Brecon Beacons is a mountainous region in South Wales that offers a unique blend of rugged natural beauty and fascinating history. This stunning area is located in the southern part of the country and is a popular destination for outdoor enthusiasts and history buffs alike.
The Brecon Beacons is a range of mountains that is part of the larger Brecon Beacons National Park. The park covers an area of over 500 square miles and is home to some of the most breathtaking scenery in the United Kingdom. The highest peak in the Brecon Beacons is Pen y Fan [picture above], which stands at 2,907 feet and offers stunning views of the surrounding landscape.
The geological history of the Brecon Beacons is as fascinating as its natural beauty. The mountains were formed during the Carboniferous period, around 350 million years ago, when the region was covered by a shallow sea. Over time, the sea receded, leaving behind layers of sediment that were eventually compressed into the rock formations we see today.
The Brecon Beacons are also home to a variety of wildlife, including Red Kites, otters, and badgers. The area is also home to several rare plant species, such as the purple saxifrage and the lady’s slipper orchid (successfully reintroduced after it was lost to the area).
For those interested in history, the Brecon Beacons has a rich and fascinating past. The area was once home to numerous Iron Age hillforts, including the impressive fort at Pen y Crug. The region also played an important role in the Roman occupation of Britain, with several forts and roads still visible today.
One of the most impressive historical sites in the Brecon Beacons is the ruined castle at Carreg Cennen. The castle was built in the 13th century and was once a stronghold for the Welsh princes. Today, visitors can explore the castle ruins and enjoy the spectacular views of the surrounding countryside.
In addition to its natural beauty and historical sites, the Brecon Beacons is also a popular destination for outdoor activities such as hiking, rock climbing, and mountain biking. The area is crisscrossed with numerous hiking trails, ranging from easy walks to challenging multi-day hikes.
For those interested in exploring the area on two wheels, there are several mountain biking trails that offer a thrilling ride through the mountains. Rock climbers will also find plenty of challenges in the Brecon Beacons, with several world-class climbing spots located throughout the area.
If you have your sights on the stars, it’s worth noting that the Brecon Beacons has a Dark Sky Reserve status, making it an ideal destination for stargazing enthusiasts and amateur astronomers.
In conclusion, the Brecon Beacons is a stunning mountainous region that offers something for everyone. Whether you’re interested in exploring its natural beauty, delving into its rich history, or seeking outdoor adventure, the Brecon Beacons is a destination that should not be missed. So pack your bags and come discover this mountainous gem.
TL:DR – Tips on choosing which photo to process how to denoise and sharpen software, adjust levels, and crop.
Recently, I wrote about the beautiful Short-eared Owls that turned up on our patch over-winter in the slightly warmer climes of the Cambridgeshire Fens. I got photos of three hunting in the hour before dusk. The photos were okay, but I knew I could make them better with a few simple tools.
UPDATE: The SEOs are back. At least six of them on the fen. I got a few more shots late November 2023 including this one of a grumpy-looking Shortie that had just missed catching a vole.
Short-eared Owl hunting (unsuccessfully at this point) over the fen
The problem is always hand-holding a big lens when the light’s fading. There’s camera shake and a short shutter speed is also needed to freeze the action. This adds up to the camera switching up the sensitivity, the ISO, and that makes for more photographic noise.
So, what can you do to improve a noisy photo that might also have a bit of motion blur. First off, you must make sure you’re shooting in RAW mode. RAW mode lets you download what is essentially an unprocessed digital negative of the photo you took.
I’ll run you through what I do with the RAW files out of my camera. First, I select from the photos the one I think is the most dramatic or has the most character, the best light, the sharpest. I also try to pick one that doesn’t have distractions like foreground twigs or foliage or a cluttered background. Often your choices are limited with bird flight photography as the birds appear on their own terms and where you happen to be standing at the time determines a lot of that. A slight movement left or right might help sometimes in terms of foreground and background.
So, I’d picked this photo as the best of one of the owls flying in front of me. It was fairly close. Background isn’t too bad. The blurred building in the background almost adds to the composition although might have been more appropriate if it were a Barn Owl. That stem in the bottom left is a distraction and could do with being removed. We’ll see.
The original photo was shot at 600mm zoom, 1/3200s shutter speed, f/6.3 aperture and ISO 6400. That ISO number is way too high and I might’ve got a similar result if I’d used a slower shutter speed to get the ISO down a few stops.
I resized the photo to fit the website, but other than that with this first view it’s not cropped nor processed or edited other than a basic RAW to JPG conversion to make it displayable and to add my logo. The website loads the image as 1024 pixels wide with a JPEG compression of about 90%. It’s quite noisy, not as sharp as it could be, the levels (contrast, brightness, saturation etc are not optimised). And, in terms of composition, it’s not how I’d want the final photo to look.
TOP TIP: Push the sliders on whatever adjustment you’re making to the point where it is immediately obvious that you’ve made an adjustment and then claw them back ever so slightly. This way you will hopefully avoid making the photo too painterly. If you’re having to push anything beyond about 12% of the way up, then it might be worth abandoning the photo, unless you’re after a painterly effect.
So, stepping back I first feed the RAW file to DxO PureRaw. This removes a lot of the noise from any photograph really well. It also applies basic corrections that are known to be needed for the specific camera and lens setup used. I’ve zoomed in on the program in action so you can see, on the left just how noisy the photo was originally, and in the right of the frame, how well the noise reduction works.
The frame below is that same image saved in DxO PureRaw. Hopefully, you can already see some improvement from the original RAW capture above and displayed at the same composition. PureRaw lets you export as a DNG file, which is like a generic RAW format so you can do the subsequent processing as if the file were fresh from your camera.
At this point, I generally make an important choice. I can either simply open the denoised image from DxO in my photo-editor (PaintShop Pro) or add another step and open it in Topaz Sharpen AI. This software does denoising too but it can also sharpen and remove motion blur. Either way, at this point, I would first crop the image to give me the composition I would like in the final image and perhaps mirror the image so that the subject is facing in a more pleasing direction (flying left to right is better to my eye than having the bird fly off to the left.
The following photo is cropped and reversed to give me the composition I am after. I’d usually do a square crop for Instagram.
I am quite happy that this image is fairly sharp and so I won’t apply Topaz in this instance. Instead, I will use PSP to adjust various parameters: Overall brightness (raised 14%), shadows (up 10%), and highlights (no change). Saturation up 8%, Focus/sharpening up 66%. I’ve left the white balance as it was. I then brought in the blacks by 6% and the whites by 4%.
I then raised the vibrancy, which is an adjustment related to saturation but slightly subtler, I gave that a 12% boost, which I think gives the photo even more of a “golden hour” glow. Also added a few percent of “fill highlight” and boosting “clarity” by about 10%.
That grass stem sticking up from the bottom right is a bit of a distraction, so I removed it using what PSP calls the Scratch Remover tool. PSP also has a tool called Magic Fill which can do a much better job of removing objects from a photo if they’re not simple, thin lines.
Once all that’s done, the final couple of steps are always to apply a moderate “unsharp mask” to make the final image even crisper and then to add my dB/ logo.
So that’s probably as far as I’d take it. To my eye, it looks fine. At the very least, it looks a whole lot better than the RAW original, but that’s to be expected, you don’t expect to look at negatives instead of prints of photos. All photographs have to be developed, they always have been, in the digital age, we have more sophisticated tools to do the job for better or worse.
When looking close up at the originals (pixel peeking), I can see marked improvements with each stage of the above processing and would be confident that cropped closer it would still print nicely in a print magazine, screening at 300 dpi, at up to 6 inches width, but perhaps no bigger in this case.
Just for completeness, I did do a Topaz process on the DxO output and it does reduce the speckles of noise still further. However, there was also a bit more of a loss of detail. The image below was DxO then Topaz and then the same PSP processing as before. I cropped it a bit tighter for what I might use as a photo to accompany an article about this species, or owls in general, showing a bit less of the fenland background.
Instagram-ready version below
DxO and Topaz are the leaders in terms of denoising at the moment, I’d say. I prefer what DxO does though, but Topaz has the sharpening options that DxO PureRaw lacks. I trained on Photoshop but have stuck with PaintShop Pro for editing for many years, PSP has almost all of the same tools as Photoshop for the basic processing I do. Lightroom has advantages and there are, of course, many alternatives out there to all these programs. I must confess that I usually use SnapSeed for photos on my phone and sometimes for a landscapes, architecture, flowers, moths etc. I might do use the above workflow but then open the file on my phone in SnapSeed to bump what that app calls “Ambience” and “Structure” and adjust saturation a little more.
TL:DR – A quick summary of how I set up for bird photography.
I get asked a lot about what camera (and lens) I use to take my bird photos. It comes with a simple answer. Most of the time, I use a Canon 7D Mark ii (a model first launched in 2014). I bought the 7Dii during the first COVID-19 lockdown (March 2020). It was cutting edge when it was launched and was a leader for the top-end pro-sumer wildlife photographer for many years because of its focusing abilities and burst mode rates. It’s very susceptible to noise, more so than the Canon 6D I used for a few years before buying that camera.
I have various lenses, but the one I use while birding (or strictly speaking togging) is the Sigma Contemporary 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM. This lens was launched in the same year as the camera, I bought mine in January 2017. It is a relatively slow lens in terms of aperture and that combines detrimentally with the noisiness of the camera. But, the total cost of my kit was far less than if I’d gone full professional Canon for the camera and a big aperture zoom, four or five times cheaper in fact.
I have to admit, I am rarely 100% happy with the photos I get with this equipment but I shoot RAW and software can counter the kit’s limitations to a degree. I’ve mostly used PaintShopPro (PSP) in recent years although I did some Photoshop training many years ago and used that for several years. I recently turned to RawTherapee for converting the camera RAW file into an editable format that I could then tweak with PSP, but I moved over to the Topaz AI software for a time. The Denoise AI is very good at removing motion blur, as I reported here some time ago. I’ve looked at Adobe Lightroom once or twice, but never stuck with it, see also the open source alternative to Photoshop known as GIMP, GNU Image Manipulation Program.
However, I discovered DxO’s PureRaw, which does denoising rather better than anything I’ve tried before. I would say applying it to a fairly noisy photo is equivalent to having been able to stop down three stops (akin to going from ISO 3200 to 400 but without the loss of sensitivity) of ISO with the same aperture and shutterspeed. That makes a big difference with my Canon 7Dii and the Sigma lens, it has to be said.
My developing process usually follows a sequence whereby I use the denoising in DxO Photolab (which is the same as in the standalone PureRaw software) to remove noise as best it can and to apply some basic levels and sharpening adjustments. The software also makes standard adjustments for known aberrations in the camera-lens combination. I then export the resulting file and then open that in PSP to do final levels tweaks to adjust brightness, contrast, pull in the blacks, bring out the whites, lift the shadows and vibrancy, do an unsharp mask and then add my dB/ logo and add it to my online galleries, social media, or use it to illustrate an article or blog post or whatever. Sometimes, I just show the result to Mrs Sciencebase and then archive the image.
A few people have expressed surprise at the quality of a particular photo given the vintage of my camera and the type of lens I’m using. I think I could do better with a professional digital SLR, but they’re expensive and it’s not three years since I replaced my 6D with the 7Dii and I don’t feel like I can justify an upgrade. As to lenses, I’d love to be able to splash the cash on a big prime telephoto or maybe just a fast zoom with a big focal length, but again…cost.
As to mirrorless, I’ve handled one or two, I really don’t like looking at a screen to take a photo, maybe that’s old school, but I want to feel like I’m looking at my subject through glass rather than pixels, at least for now. Moreover, I’ve not seen any results with mirrorless cameras that better the top-end professional shots taken with dSLR.
Give it a year or two and things will have improved and my viewfinder stance might have changed, I suspect I will get myself some better kit for my 60th birthday, but then there’s always the urge to get a new electric guitar too…
TL:DR – I compiled a sampler for a newbie birding book with ten chapters, but I am yet to write the remaining 90.
Back in August 2017, I was all hyped about putting together a new book. It come up with a title, Chasing Wild Geese, and the plan was to write a short piece about the hundred birds a novice birder might “tick” first in the UK. Each item would be illustrated with one of my photos of said bird.
Chasing Wild Geese, the gosling feather book cover
I put together a taster, with the first ten written and formatted and even did a spoof bio page in the same style about yours truly.
I gave the cover a silly acronym: FEATHER. This stood for “Food Environment Aural Type Habitat Etymology Resemblance” and was a summary of the contents of each page.
I shared the sampler widely on social media and estimate that between six hundred and a thousand people downloaded the PDF file from my website. It’s still available if you’d like to take a look, here. I spoke to my publisher and ideas were batted back and forth. Ultimately though, the likely costs of producing a full-colour photographic book of this sort we agreed were likely to have been prohibitive at the time, so sadly, I put the Geese on the backburner and turned my attention to other writing, photography, and more songwriting.
In the meantime, there have been several similar books on the market from far more expert birders and better photographers than me, any one of which would easily have outsold the honking Geese. I do now have better photos of all the birds in the sampler, and at least a couple of hundred other birds that might have featured in a follow-up…maybe if I stop chasing it, it will come home to roost. We’ll see…
TL:DR – I used to really enjoy using Spirograph to draw mathematical patterns when I was a child in the 1970s. We didn’t have video games back then.
As a child, I was always really pleased to get a Spirograph as a Christmas present. With its cogs and pens it allowed you to create what you might call mathematical art. You set up the frame and the cogwheels, poked a pen into one of the holes and whirled the pen round and round until it had drawn out a complex-looking spiral on the paper. You used different sized cogs and shapes and different holes to generate different patterns, which you could overlay.
1970s Spirograph set, photo c/o VintageToys.com
I even had one that used paints and tinfoil instead of pen and paper. I remember rattling off dozens of these things, I suppose it fed both my young artistic and scientific brain at the same time. I reckon I had three or four Spirograph sets over the years. And, I was fascinated when I first encountered the Julia Sets and Mandelbrot Sets in my late teens, there were like an infinity of fractal Spirographs.
Moreover, in the parallel world of my love of music, it’s probably why I got into the music of Rush in my early teens with their occasionally highly repetitive, complex and mathematical riffs (Jacob’s Ladder, Cygnus X-1, La Villa Strangiato, for example, not only in odd, mixed keys and compound time signatures, but simultaneously repetitive and minimalist).
Pin and String Diamond by David Bradley ca 1979
At the age of 11 or 12 or so, my mate Phil and I used to ride our Raleigh Grifters up the Coast Road to visit his Dad’s new family on Sundays. We imagined we were on motorbikes, as young lads often do, and even riveted an extension to our rear mudflaps not just to reduce rain spatter from the road on to our Parka jackets, but so they could be bent under to make an engine-like growl against the tires as we rode along.
Phil’s stepmother was very into arts and crafts and used to encourage us and her own bairns to0. She introduced us to what you might see as being the pins and thread version of Spirograph. Rather than cogs and pens, you spent your time tapping in dozens and dozens of nails into a felt-covered wooden board using a paper template. You then followed a mathematical rule to create a pattern or image by winding a thread from nail to nail. Phil and I got very into this mathematical art creation and did several images.
Pin and String Oil Lamp by David Bradley ca 1979*
Amazingly, the main ones I did – the first, an abstract diamond, the second an oil lamp, and the final one a Chinese junk, have survived and have pride of place in my Dad’s garage to this day; they used to be in the house, but were usurped by prints and family photos and such, hahahah. I took some snaps of them the other day and just thought I’d share them with you now. I must admit I don’t think I’ve done anything quite so arts-and-crafty since.
Pin and String Junk by David Bradley ca 1979
*Spot the Twenty-plume Moth on the Oil Lamp picture!
