OK, things have been a little slow, but I've been away on my holidays.

This time I took the camera.

I have some stories to tell, but they'll have to wait since I'm sleepy.

 

(F/7.1, 1/200sec, 250mm, ISO-200, 14/07/08)

 

Oh, does anyone know how to tell if this was a turtle or a tortoise?

I found him in Germany if that's any use...

I was out again on Sunday trying to take a photo of model cars racing. Yet again the wee blighters stumped me by being too small and moving too fast.

In no particular order I tried

• Pre-focusing on the track
• Using a really fast shutter speed
• Using continuous shoot mode on the camera
• Demanding my brother throw himself onto the track to make the drivers slow down

The first three had marginal successes. the last one, well let's just say the tire tracks on his head look well.

One shot I did get that I kind of liked was this. A little HDR to make it "gritty".

(f/8, 1/60sec, 55mm, ISO-200, 15/06/2008)

 

And yes, the car was stationary at the time....

"There be Dragons..."

Day 2 of this challenge and already I'm finding I'm spending hours thinking about the right shot before setting it up or doing anything about it. I guess that was the idea behind it.

Of course, today I think I fluffed it.

After Dermot's comments yesterday about backgrounds I spent a little more time considering what I wanted and made some adjustments. I also decided to get out my dragon so to speak.

 

(F/10, 1/160sec, 55mm, ISO-200, 24/05/08)

I'm not happy with this picture. I kind of knew as I pushed the button I wouldn't be and only afterwards realised my mistakes.

What I wanted was the head of the dragon with the sky in background. That was all.

But I got a few bits wrong that I can see.

1. the cropping is out. The little trace of the wing on the right and the dead space on the left. I think it would have been better in portrait.

2. ISO-200? Yeah, I forgot to change it back after yesterday.

3. The white balance was on flash. Somehow when I moved it from shade to daylight I got distracted and put it onto flash. I think this is what's left the odd fringing at the edges of the dragon, though that could be the excessive ambient lighting too (Damn you sun!)

4. The sky is blown out, possibly too over exposed

I like the depth of field in this, I wanted almost the entire head in focus, with the eye being sharpest. I also like the position, it gives a decent 3D perspective of the figure.

I guess if I was allowed two shots a day I might be able to correct a lot of this, but it's not anything I would typically have noticed until I was back at my pc (OK, ISO and flash white balance, maybe).

 

Right, I'm off out to see Satriani. Have a good one.

I've taken to carrying my camera when we go out at weekends. The little Slingshot bag I used (yep, papa's got -another- brand new bag. More on this later) was really handy for just tossing in the car or over the back of a pram.

Anyway, last weekend we were visiting some good friends for an impromptu BBQ and I noticed some excellent weathering on one of the patio chairs, so proceeded to snap.

Unusually, the original image from the camera was very constrasty and looked awful when I uploaded it (OK, it looking awful wasn't unusual but normally they look flat and awful). But I wanted to do something with the picture and felt it might look better in black and white. It's kind of ended up as something inbetween, but I do like the faded, weathered feel of it.

(f/4.0, 1/400sec, 50mm, ISO-100, 18/05/08)

For me, what's important about this image is the lines. I wanted to show the way the weather beaten lines are bracketed by the varnished areas - the back struts of the chair providing protection. I'm not entirely convinced I ended up with that.

I chose the angle for the shot to give it more of a 3 dimensional feel. The struts when shot stright on didn't seem 'interesting'. I also chose a small f-stop to try to keep the background out of focus as well as allow the struts to fall slightly into and out of focus.

What I'm trying to do at the minute is understand what I'm taking before I take it and to make a conscious decision about what I want to achieve. "ooh, pretty" isn't really getting me good pictures, so I need to get to "ooh, pretty... Because..." and that means thinking more I guess. Geoff's comment on the boat pictures a few days ago kind of brought this home and made me realise I was too busy playing with photoshop to actually ask what I wanted to show in the picture.

This picture is one of a few where I'd actually done that before pressing the button.

When is enough enough?

I never know when to finish with the post processing of an image and when to just call it a day step back from Photoshop or GIMP or any of the other tools I've used recently.

Here's a good example.

(F/4, 1/200sec, 70mm, ISO-400, 03/05/2008)

 

This shot has been pushed through the Photoshop mill a reasonable amount. Curves, a slight cooling filter and a few other tweaks have been applied to make give it a bit more life. The original isn't worth posting, it's very dull and lifeless (to be honest I wouldn't even have looked twice at this if it wasn't for my weird emotional connection to this boat).

Now, I quite liked this shot and figured it was as close to OK as I could make it...

 

Then I loaded it into Dynamic Photo-HDR (the tool I use for all my HDR shots) and ended up with this.

 

So, here's the thing. Was it a step too far?

 

I like the water, I like the colours. I know it breaks my own opinion on HDR needing to look 'real' to look 'good', but apart from that I'm damned if I can decide which I prefer.

 

Maybe they both suck.

I'm not sure exactly what they're for - I'd suspect Shrimp, but since that season isn't until August, they may be for Green Crab or some other local shellfish. Either way, I liked the semi-uniformity of the two stacks.

 

I thought I'd also post the unedited picture (below). I think this might be a case of a photoshop too far, but I'm trying to find the vibrancy and richness other people manage, both through the lens and in the post edit stage. It's worth looking at photographs by Oswegan, Dynamic Perceptions, etc for good examples of rich, powerful images which don't feel over processed (if they've been post processed at all - I honestly have no way of telling!)

 

Potpourri!

I was messing on Friday night and took this while checking lenses for dust/dirt/little green men.

It quite struck me with it's uniformity. I wish I could say it was planned.




And for the record. Andrew suggested I call this post "Photopourri". I told him I thought that stunk...

I spent the bank holiday weekend in Donegal basking in some unexpected, but very welcome, blue skies and soaring temperatures.

I was also lucky enough to get out a couple of times with my camera. the photos are currently uploading, and I'll get onto that subject in a moment, but for now... Some Seaweed.

 

(f8, 1/100sec, 181mm, ISO-100, 04/05/2008)

Yeah, it's not great (are they ever?), but I liked the liquid effect on it.

 

Anyway, onto more important matters. I remember a time when I made mention of taking 100 photos over a weekend. Well, this weekend I arrived home with not one, but 3 and a half full memory cards. That's 7Gig of photo insanity. This leaves me with a couple of important things to consider.

1. Do I buy more/bigger cards? I'd really rather not run out.

2. Am I being too proliferate* with camera? Taking too many pictures, or too many pictures of the same thing?

3. do I need to start deleting on the camera before uploading?

Any thoughts?

 

 

*I do not think this means what I think it means, but I think you know what I mean...

What is it about old boats and stories?

With my wife coming from a fishing village I've got used to seeing old boats around the headlands and in the bays. All beached, left to rust or rot. Unlike old cars, they still offer a sense of romance or purpose - even if only to remind us of different times.

I saw the "Spinning Wheel" and wondered about it. Especially at the colours and grain of the old wood.

(f/8, 1/125sec, 46mm, ISO-100, WB- Cloudy)

 

Maybe she'll sail again.

This is the second shot of the rifle from the local gun club.

It only struck me when reviewing the images that I never actually took a shot with the entire gun in focus. There was no reason not to. It simply never crossed my mind. I've all manner of macro shots of the trigger, the stock, the barrel and lots of these shallow depth of field shots, but no single rifle shot.

I mentioned this to the owner of the gun and he just laughed. Apparently the single most common picture taken in those circles is of the entire rifle in focus and side on, so he's happy enough that I approached it from a different angle.

Still, the shot might have been nice...

I guess if you're going to shoot pictures of something you should take the obvious shots as well as the less obvious ones. You might regret it later...

 

(F/4, 1/2 sec, 50mm, ISO - 100, 31/03/2008)