Materials
All prints on this site are normally produced using premium semi gloss paper (currently either Epson or Ilford) and the Epson ultra chrome K3 ink set.
Epson claim that images produced using their materials will last for several generations if suitably protected behind glass and displayed out of direct sunlight.
This is substantially longer than a colour photograph produced by the traditional paper and chemical method in a darkroom and displayed in the same way.
Equipment
Cameras and lenses ~ I use a Canon EOS 5D, which offers excellent definition and low noise characteristics, along with a Sigma 20mm f1.8 wide angle, a Canon EF 50mm f1.4 lens, an EF 100mm f2, (a lovely lens and my favourite), an EF 28 to 135mm image stabilised zoom, an EF 200 f2.8 medium telephoto and 1.4x and 2x converters.
Tripods and camera mount ~ The tripod is a Gitzo carbon fibre. This is really light and rock solid. Believe me, any weight saved in camera kit is a blessing when there is a couple of thousand feet to climb.
The camera mount and panoramic head is Manfrotto. This is used for precise positioning of the camera/lens combination on the tripod to minimise parallax error when shooting panoramic images. This makes it easier to stitch together many separate photographs to build up the wide angle pictures you see on this site.
Filters ~ Photoshop has removed the need for most photographic filters, particularly those for colour correction. However, I still use UV filters (primarily to protect the front element of the lens) and rotary polarising filters. Occasionally for a bit of fun I borrow my wife’s Lee graduated ND filters if the sky is a bit bright.
Printer ~ my main workhorse is an Epson R2400 which I use to produce most of my work, though, if things get busy I can use an imaging house to help out. (these are also the guys with the 48 inch wide printer)
PC ~ stitching images is very processor and memory hungry. I use a PC with a dual core processor, 4 gigabytes of ram and a high end graphics card. The monitor is by IIyama.
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Software
Photo editing ~ almost exclusively done on the latest version of Photoshop (currently CS4).
Raw file conversion ~ either Adobe Bridge or Bibble. Bridge is also a database, is very easy to use and is my preferred raw converter. Bibble is very good for preserving detail where highlights are nearly blown but I’m not so keen on its interface.
Printing ~ primarily Photoshop CS4. This is happy enough with conventional size prints and can also handle the large panoramas.
Stitching ~ PT GUI pro is my current favourite though I try other software which appears on the internet from time to time.
Colour management ~ all images are produced using a fully colour managed workflow. Camera and Photoshop workspaces are both Adobe 1998. (Though, I am looking at the Prophoto workspace in Photoshop). Photoshop is also set up to colour manage printing. The monitor is calibrated using the Gretag MacBeth eye one system.
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Quality of Images
The size of images represented in the galleries range from about 10 megapixels for smaller single shot pictures, to over 300 megapixels for the very wide angle pictures that comprise many photographs seamlessly stitched together. The definition, sharpness and clarity of detail really have to be seen to be believed.
Where possible, images are produced in 16 bit.
The pictures on this site have been adapted for display on the internet and as such can never really be fully representative of the image quality when printed on high quality photographic paper. A computer screen just cannot fully do them justice. You really have to see them ‘in the flesh’, on paper, as to say.
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Editing
Apart from normal photographic editing (i.e. adjusting exposure, contrast, colour correction and maintaining detail in highlights and shadows) my pictures show landscapes pretty much as you would expect to see them in real life, in all their natural glory.
I most certainly do not add any components to a picture, which is all too easy to do in Photoshop and only remove objects if they are visually irritating. By that I mean an obtrusive mobile ‘phone transmitter mast or power cables. Anything else is left well alone.
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