Mono Monday - Technology

With so much of modern technology the actual controls are hidden away under bland exterior so I chose subjects where the controls were more apparent. My first choice was the winding gear on the harbour bridge between the main harbour (Victoria Dock) and the small harbour behind (Cromwell Dock). The victorian winding gear raises the bridge on both sides to let taller boats pass through. Though there were some nice geared wheels unfortunately they were painted white which did not make for an attractive monochrome.

My second choice was my manfrotto tripod head and geared camera mounting plate complete with mounted camera and lens. I chose my 70-200mm lens mainly because of the contrast colour (white) but in reality I only used this complicated set up when I am taking super-macro shots with extension rings so normally my set up would be either my 100mm macro lens or a reversed manual wide angle lens but that would have been yet another predominantly black item. The purpose of this set up is to place the camera in exactly the right place relative to the subject (e.g.. ice crystals) as it is the distance between the object and the camera which is critical rather than the internal focussing of the lens. In order to do this technology gives me a whole range of controls. Obvious things like the length and pitch of the tripod legs and centre column height and pitch. The manfrotto geared tripod head which gives me horizontal, vertical and pitch adjustment of the camera and then the geared mounting plate which enables me to move the camera backwards and forwards by minuscule amounts in order to get the critical focus. All in all this means there are ten control levers and gears just to get the camera in the exactly the right place and that's not even counting the camera controls. Such is the sophistication of technology ! In order to tame all these controls you need plenty of time so such macro photography becomes are rare experience. I am just so amazed at photographers who specialise in insect photography and often manage to do it hand held.