Hello world! (Posted )
Welcome to my brand new blog! This forms part of my brand new website: joecurtisphotography.co.uk.
I plan to post useful things regarding; taking better photos; printing and framing images. Make sure to keep checking back in!
Don’t forget to check out my instagram for my latest image posts: joes_instography.
Sad News: Olympus Quits Cameras (Posted )
As of a press release on the 24th June 2020 in Tokyo:
“Olympus discloses the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the divesture of its Imaging business.”
(Link to original post: https://www.olympus.co.uk/company/en/news/press-releases/2020-06-24t08-30-00/divesture-of-olympus-imaging-business-to-japan-industrial-partners-inc..html).
This blog post will go through my thoughts and feelings about the news. If you want the factual information please visit the official Olympus post regarding the matter.
For those of you not into photography, you may never have used, or even heard, of Olympus cameras. The first ever digital camera I used was a point and shoot Olympus. More importantly though my first ever personal camera, was a 35mm film Olympus Go100 (The image below is of my actual camera).
Over their 84 year span Olympus produced some of the most iconic cameras ever made, most notably the Olympus Pen (launched in 1959) & the Olympus OM-1 (Launched 1972).
The Pen was a beautiful small & quirky camera that shot on half frames. This allowed it to take 72 photographs on a standard 35-mm 36 exposure film. The same design team then moved onto produce the full frame SLR style Olympus OM system.
So why are you telling me all this? Well because both these systems were revived in the digital age (and in an absolutely brilliant way). In fact they formed part of the original micro four thirds mirrorless movement wayyy back in 2009 when Olympus released the EP-1. I think its fair to say that Olympus were really pioneering those first steps into the mirrorless world (yes they weren’t the only one but still), that eventually lead to Sony, Fuji, Canon and Nikon all following.
Without Olympus initially taking the risk and trying to do something innovative, in an industry which all too often turns stale, who knows where we would be now. Would we have the infamous Sony A7 models? More importantly to me though: Would we have my beloved Fuji XT models? The Fujifilm XT-1 was released back in 2014, five years after Olympus released the EP-1.
The interesting thing, to me at least, is that Olympus bought style back into the camera industry. Since the 80’s cameras have been large, black, ugly, and plasticy, even my much loved canon 700D from 2013 follows this design aesthetic. And its bloody awful, as we have all come to realise with our thin aluminium and glass smartphones. Olympus decided to abandon this trend, instead opting to return to the vintage styling of cameras, back when things were smaller and made of metal. In fact much of the designs of the their new lineups of mirrorless cameras over the years were based on original film cameras from the fifties, sixties and seventies. Which is brilliant, I would love it if Canon released a full frame mirrorless camera in the style of the old AE-1. But no, just like Nikon they cling to the big, bulky, cumbersome, ugly, standard DSLR design introduced in the 80’s.
To illustrate this point have a look at these photos of two cameras I own:
The one on the left hand side was released in 1994 (Nikon F70), the one on the right was 2013 (Canon 700D). 20 years difference and the aesthetic is generally the same.
If Fuji didn’t make any mirrorless cameras, or had instead opted to design them in the DSLR 80’s look, then I would be shooting on an Olympus camera no doubt.
Anyone who knows me will know that I have a personal vendetta against anyone who uses the excuse of using a mobile phone to justify a bad photo. What I mean by this is if you have ever heard, or ever said the phrase: “Oh its not very good, I only took it using my phone”. No. The mobile phone you are probably holding right now has a better camera then what some of the greatest photographers of all time have ever used. So you may ask; “If that’s the case Joe why are you making such a big deal out of these cameras? Just use a phone and be done with it”. And you’d be right too, because the type of camera used makes no impact of the quality of photos you produce with it, give a phone to a talented photographer and you will be amazed at the photos produced. The benefit of a nice camera is on that of the photographers experience, inspiring and allowing increased creativity as they enjoy the process more.
Olympus provided this with their beautiful cameras, yes they went against the grain, yes they weren’t the cheapest cameras out there, but they were beautiful, stylish, inspiring and very high quality. At least in my option.
This is not to say that Olympus were a perfect company, in fact quite the opposite with them having scandals and drama. However this post is solely looking at the cameras they produced.
I hope somehow Olympus cameras will continue to be manufactured, and to the same quality as they have been since 2009. If this is the end though:
Goodbye Olympus we will miss you.
The Print Project: NO. 1: Intro (Posted )
Photographs, windows enabling instant travel across the globe, into space, into a feeling or emotion. 1826 was when the first photograph was taken, by a Mr. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Name a 194 year old technology that we still use today, go on I dare you.
I know, I know; its advanced since then; and it’s digital bla bla bla. That’s besides the point: Still photography will never become extinct, yes the way we capture those images may advance, but people will always turn to photographs. To remember, to reminisce, to feel, to love and to cry.
Well this is fantastic, everyone nowadays is carrying a superb camera, in the form of a smartphone, around with them everywhere.
And yet where are the photos??? Think of your favourite photos, where are they? Sadly they’re probably sat as a sting of zeros and ones on your smartphone or computer. Buried under a mountain of screenshots, coffees, memes and other rubbish littering your phones camera roll. And what good is that? Even if you posted it to your Facebook or Instagram page it soon becomes ‘lost’ to the stack of pointless posts crushing it.
Enter The Print Project.
Getting straight to the point: I want to encourage as many people as possible to go and get physical prints of their personal photos. And give them the knowledge to get this done as easily and cheaply as possible. This is why I have written a series of weekly guides in order to share this information.
Think of your favourite / the best / most meaningful 5 photographs to you personally. Firstly I bet none of these consist of fashionable coffees, new clothes, cars, watches / jewellery, or any other nonsense. I guarantee the images you’ve chosen consist of one or all of these: people, places and events. Your sisters wedding, your nephews first steps, that holiday you went on with your other half where he/she had ice cream all over their face. It’s these cherished moments that are the worthwhile moments to capture in life. Not your the high street brand coffee you had in 2015.
I’m going to ask you to do one thing for this blog post and its very simple:
Identify your 5 favourite / best / most meaningful photographs that you have stored away on your phone or computer. Write them down or make an album for them on your phone.
In future posts we will look at how to get these printed as cheaply as possible, where and how to get it done, and lots of other useful print advice!
Make sure you bookmark this blog and follow my Instagram & Facebook for the latest news. I will be releasing a new blog post for this every Saturday at 10 am GMT.
The Print Project: NO. 2: Quick Guide To Cheap Prints (Posted 11)
This instalment of the print project will be a quick start guide to get you cheap prints which look as brilliant as possible. If you haven’t read the first print project blog post I highly recommend you do by following this link: Print Project NO. 1: Intro. By the end of this blog post though you should be able to go out and get some cheap memorable prints.
Step 1: Choosing The Size Of Your Prints / Basic Photo Aspect Ratios.
What the hell does all that mean? Its not that complicated to put into practice so please breath a sigh of relief. You may be familiar with a standard ‘photo’ print. This is a 6 X 4 print (six by four print). Photo sizes are almost always quoted in terms of inches, so in this case that’s 6 inches along the long edge and 4 inches along the short. Due to this being the most common size of photo, it is extremely widely available and also very cheap to have printed.
However, as I’m assuming that most of the photos you want to have printed have been taken on a smartphone then you will be better off opting for the 5 X 3.5 size of print. In recent years this has become a very widely available print size and in most cases costs exactly the same as a standard 6 X 4. You may think this is a stupid suggestion given that a 6 X 4 is slightly larger however you wont have to crop the 5 X 3.5 print as much as a 6 X 4 photo. If your ordering from ‘Snapfish’ then you can use the brilliant 5.3 X 4 print size that basically doesn’t crop your phone images at all. Similarly ‘Photobox’ offer a similar size 5 X 3.75 which achieves the same effect.
If your happy to accept this, and don’t care about the explanation, then please skip directly to step 2.
What does this mean? Well its easier for me to demonstrate with a photo, below is a photo I have taken on my smartphone. My current smartphone (A Huawei P20 Pro) takes photos in a 4:3 ratio. Most phones take pictures in this aspect ratio (all IPhones, Google Pixels, Huawei’s), if your unsure you can literally google: “[My Phone Make / Model] camera aspect ratio”.
This ratio is why mobile phone photos can be annoying to print. If you try and print a standard 6×4 the image will be cropped in order to get it to fit on the paper. So you could end up with a strange looking image. To demonstrate this I have arranged a couple of example pictures below. These were all taken on my smartphone.
Example 1:
The first example above shows how the top and bottoms of the images are cropped out. For this specific example it doesn’t make too much of a difference to the overall photo, in the second example (see below) we will see how this can ruin the picture (this also shows how it crops when the photo is portrait in orientation):
Example 2:
Did you notice how the right side of the staircase gets cropped really badly in the 6×4 print but not as badly in the 5×3.5 print? You can still see a crop on the 5×3.5 print though so is there a way to avoid this crop entirely? The answer is yes.
In order to avoid the cropping entirely you have to use a print size with the 4:3 aspect ratio, below is a list of such print sizes:
- 4 X 3 (I have never seen this offered as a print size)
- 5 X 3.75 (I have only seen ‘Photobox’ offer this as a print size)
- 5.3 X 4 (I have only seen ‘Snapfish’ offer this as a print size)
- 8 X 6 (Common widely available print size, although more expensive then smaller 6X4 and 5X3.5 sizes)
- 12 X 9 (Common widely available print size, gets more expensive as print size increases)
- 16 X 12 (Less common)
- 24 X 18 (Less common)
The problem is that phones are not suited to large prints. Simply put the lenses they contain cannot resolve enough, in my opinion, to print much larger then 12 X 9, and even that can be pushing it. Remember they are designed to primarily post photos to Instagram and Facebook which are highly compressed and tiny.
Furthermore these larger prints usually cost more in terms of printing, paper and sometimes postage. If your wanting to do this as cheaply as possible I would advice just sticking to 5 X 3.5, 5 X 3.75, 5.3 X 4 or 6 X 4 sizes.
If you print your photos in the standard 6 X 4 or 5 X 3.5 format without editing, then image will be cropped in some way (as shown in both the examples above). Sometimes you can adjust this crop on whatever system your ordering your prints through, however not all places allow you to do this. Phones will allow you to crop to certain aspect ratios in their standard photo galleries, this is a fantastic way to avoid any surprises later down the road. Simply enter the image edit mode and open the ‘crop’ function, then choose a ‘3:2’ ratio if you are getting 6×4’s printed or manually enter 5 X 3.5 if you can. If you have any photo manipulation software like GIMP (Free), Lightroom, Photoshop, Affinity Photo, or any app that allows you to edit photos in a more advance way then these will definitely allow you to crop a photo to a specific aspect ratio.
Top Tip: Before you start editing photos make sure you create a “To Print” album on your phone / computer. Once you have edited a photo add it to this album immediately; so you can easily find the correct prints to order.
Step 2: Where To Get Photos Printed
If you now have 5 of your most cherished moments all ready to be printed then well done the hard part is over. Now where do we get it printed? This guide is targeted to people within the UK however many of the options available can be used internationally.
If you already have a favourite place then by all means use it, if you have seen someone else’s photos and liked the look of them then by all means use the same place they did. If your not sure though then to start with you have two options:
- Go in store and get some prints. Most places offer both instant prints, that cost slightly more, or prints that are ready within an hour or so.
- Order online, there are many online print places, some of which always have crazy price offers on. The catch here though is you have to pay delivery, also you have to wait a few days for the prints to be delivered.
If you know you definitely want to go to a shop then here are your options:
| Shop | Price (Per Photo) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 X 3.5 | 6 X 4 | 8 X 6 | ||||
| Instant | Delayed | Instant | Delayed | Instant | Delayed | |
| Max Spielmann (In larger ASDA / Tesco stores) | N / A | N / A | 55p | 35p | 70p | 50p |
| Jessops | N / A | N / A | 40p | 23p | 70p | 45p |
If however you want to use an online service they you have significantly more options:
| Shop | Price (Per Photo) | Postage Cost | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 X 3.5 | 5 X 3.75 | 5.3 x 4 | 6 X 4 | 8 X 6 | ||
| Snapfish | N / A | N / A | £0.10 | £0.10 | £0.59 | £1.49 |
| Boots (Fulfilled by Cewe) | £0.19 (Only Available in premium setting) | N / A | N / A | £0.15 | N / A | £1.99 |
| Photobox | N / A | £0.15 | N / A | £0.15 | £0.55 | £1.99 |
| Jessops | N / A | N / A | N / A | £0.10 | £0.55 | Free in-store pickup |
Take the above prices with a bit of a pinch of salt though as these sites, especially photobox and snapfish, which constantly have discount codes of around 50% off advertised on their homepages.
Top Tip: Always look for discount codes advertised on the print websites home page and make sure to make a note of them. Don’t forget to enter these codes at checkouts, they have literally halved the cost of a large photo order before which saved me about £20.
My Personal Recommendation:
Based on my experience using it in the past I would recommended making life as easy as possible for yourself and using Snapfish. If your photos were taken on a smartphone select select the 5.3 X 4 size of paper. It costs the same as 6 X 4 but you dont have to worry about your images being cropped or pre-cropping them. If you do decide you want a larger size the Snapfish cropping system is really easy to use.
Step 3: Enjoy Your Prints!
Once in hand you can start to enjoy your prints. Those special moments you choose you can now enjoy in a physical form. Don’t be tempted to look at them and then chuck them into a draw though. That would defeat the whole point of this exercise. Next week we will be going over options for proudly displaying these important photos so make sure to check back.
In future blog posts within this series we will be delving into simple wall layouts for these prints that don’t require frames, getting / hanging cheap frames and a bunch more useful information!
Please make sure to bookmark my site and check back here regularly. My social media links are below and these blog posts are set to automatically be shared to my Facebook page upon release, however you can check back on Saturdays at 10am GMT.
The Print Project: NO. 3: Aspect Ratio Guide (Posted 18)
The last instalment of The Print Project covered a quick start guide to getting cheap photo prints made. Within that guide I briefly covered how aspect ratios work, I wanted to discuss this in more detail though as understanding this makes ordering photos in different sizes much easier.
Why Aspect Ratios Are Important:
Every photo on your phone or computer has its own aspect ratio, if you try and print a photo in a different aspect ratio then your image will become cropped or have borders around it.
This is really obvious if you think of printing a photo from Instagram, which generally uses square photos (1:1 aspect ratio). Obviously you cannot print a square photo on a 6X4 inch rectangular paper without borders, stretching or some sort of crop.
Everyone who has attempted to print photos in the past from their phones will probably have experienced this issue in some form. Sometimes it can ruin a photo. So this post will give you the knowledge required to avoid any unexpected results.
Understanding Aspect Ratios:
Aspect Ratio Definition: The ratio of width to height of an image.
Below is a simple table showing the print sizes that a given aspect ratio produces:
| Aspect Ratio | Short Side Multiplier | Print Size (In Inches) For A Given Aspect Ratio | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 : 2 | 1.5 | 6 X 4 | 9 X 6 | 12 X 8 |
| 1 : 1 | 1 | 5 X 5 | 8 X 8 | 10 X 10 |
| 5 : 4 | 1.25 | 5 X 4 | 10 X 8 | 20 X 16 |
| 10 : 7 | 1.43 | 5 X 3.5 | 10 X 7 | 20 X 14 |
| 4 : 3 | 1.33 | 4 X 3 | 8 X 6 | 12 X 9 |
A table demonstrating various aspect ratios and how that effects print sizes.
The more you get photos printed the more you just remember these sizes, however you don’t have to, just bookmark this page and have a look at that table anytime you need to order prints.
The “Short Side Multiplier” column gives you a number to use to determine the long size. For example if you knew you wanted a 3:2 aspect ratio and you wanted the short edge to be 10 inches how long would the long edge be? You simply do the sum: 10 X 1.5 = 15 inches. And its that simple.
Bare in mind that there are ‘common’ photo sizes. So if you wanted a 3:2 ratio photo with a short edge of 9 inches you wouldn’t be able to get one unless you had it made bespoke or bought a larger sized photo, edited borders into it and then cut the photo down. I have tried to include as many examples of standard sizes in the table above however looking at the sizes offered by your photo printer service is the best way to get a feel for this.
How To Use This Information:
If you have a specific print size in mind then you can use your computer or mobile phone to crop the image to the correct aspect ratio, you can do this on all smartphones and computers nowadays without having to download anything. If you are unsure on how to do it on your phone then YouTube it or google it for a walk-through for your specific phone.
Make sure to bookmark this blog as I release a new print project post every week!