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)

 

Waiting...

... for his ship to come in?

Actually, just waiting to see if the clouds will clear and give me some sort of sunset or if the storms will get that little bit prettier before the rain starts to fall again.

This is another of those tone mapped images using the HDR tool that I found. To be honest, it's pretty much what I would have tried to do manually anyway as the original pictures were either to dark or had the sky blown out.

And yes. This is the first time a 'person' appears in a photo on this blog. It's also the first time 'I' appear on the blog (told you there was a self portrait coming Dermot).

The power of the shutter timer is a glorious thing.

Yes, I is giant. I also wear very baggy jeans for some reason...

Like I said yesterday, I went out over Easter with the attitude that I would try some new things and experiment with some stuff I'd heard of over the past few months.

One of the things I did was to set my camera to do some auto exposure bracketing (AEB)*. For those that don't know, or got bored before that part of the manual (and who can blame you), AEB on your camera sets it up to take three photographs. The first is at the exposure you select, the second is under exposed and the third is over exposed. The amount of over and under exposure is up to you.

It's a useful facility for shooting landscapes and other static scenes and allows you to do things in post processing like tweak some levels or replace an over exposed sky (kind of the same way you might use an ND filter I guess). Whilst not a great example, the picture I took of the Rock of Cashel used the effect - basically the sky was cloned from an under-exposed version of the shot.

Anyhow, I took a range of pictures of a life buoy on Dungloe pier as I really liked the colour against the stormy sky.

The image I got was OK.

(1/15, F/4.5, 22mm, ISO - 100, 23/03/2008)

In itself, I guess the image isn't bad. It's probably better than stuff I took 6 months ago, and I'm happy enough with it. But as usual, I got to playing around and remembered a technique a bluegrass loving bloke I work with told me about called HDR.

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is a process which allows more tones in an image than would be usual. Essentially shadows are reduced and highlights less blown out... or something like that... Essentially it takes a range of exposures of the same image and mixes them up to produce an interesting composite. Here, let wikipedia explain....

Well, I pushed my three exposures of the life buoy through an HDR engine and got what I think is an interesting result. I'm actually kind of taken with it, so expect more HDR type images soon!

 

 

*For those of you with Canon 400D's and who can't be bothered reading the manual, the AEB setting is on the second menu tab. It's worth noting it resets every time you power off the camera, change a lens, etc etc etc... Also, it behaves differently when using remote or timed release of the shutter. It is worth playing with though...

 

Oh, and the astute will notice that the HDR image is number 1 and the original number 2. Nothing sneaky, just the sequence number that was added when I exported the pictures for upload..... Honest!

If you've read this months Digital SLR Photography, you'll have seen the challenge is for water pictures. Now I'm not generally into entering competitions where I have to "be creative", but I liked some of the pictures of the water drops. So, being off work and having camera, flash, lights, tripods and a kitchen sink (yes, finally I can say I used everything including the kitchen sink!) I gave it a go.

(1/200, F/11. ISO-400, 21/03/08)

This image is still a little shallow (water, shallow! Geddit?), though I think it's probably due to it being shot at F/11 on the macro end of a 200mm lens, instead of something more F/16 or F/22. I'm also not totally convinced I like the yellowish highlights caused by the flash and the spotlight I was using.

 

(1/200, F/11, ISO-100, 21/03/08)

This second shot also has the same shallow depth of field issue, but it's a lot more noticeable due to the size of the splash. Looking back over the magazine article I see it does say that the aperture needs to be pretty wide due to the macro aspect of the shots.

Both pictures have had some tweaks made, most noticeably the second one which had the exposure increased to kill of some of the shadow problems I was having. It's left it a little flat.

 

As an experiment, it was useful. It's shown me a couple of things I either didn't know or did know but wasn't paying attention to.

1. At the macro end of a zoom lens, you need a really small aperture (big number, little hole)

2. you need to find a way to manage flash reflections

3. Don't pack up all your kit before reviewing the photo's on a big screen. Seeing the shallow depth of field, it would have been the work of seconds to try again if I hadn't already put the camera stuff away

Ah well, we live and learn...

Did I mention I was in Tipp last weekend?

Well, on the way home we passed through Cashel. Now those of you with an Irish bent will know it for the big castle place on top of the rock. Those of you who don't will find out more here.

I wasn't able to stop for more than a few minutes, and it was the day after some big fireworks show so the place was chaos. It did, however, seem like a good opportunity to try out my new 10-22mm wide angle lens.

I didn't have a whole lot of time to set up or take pictures as I'd my wife in the car, and this (though not great) is the best I got.

 

However, what it does show is just how wide 10mm is. Even on the APS-C* sensor in the 400D it's still pretty impressive.

I'll try to do a more formal review of the lens itself after Easter, but my first impressions are it's well worth the money.

 

 

*I'm still getting to grips with this full frame versus APS-C stuff, but here's what I know so far. Digital SLR cameras can either be full frame or reduced frame. Basically, the sensor in them is smaller than the equivalent bit in a film camera. When it comes to my Canon, it uses an APS-C sensor, a full frame sensor is 1.6 times larger(?). As a result, when I talk about a lens at 10mm on my camera, the equivalent size on a full frame camera would be 16mm (10mm * 1.6). I believe the entry level Nikons are 1.5, but don't quote me on this.

Full frame digital SLR's are available, but are expensive right now. Of course if you're a camera company and you're reading this, I'm always available for sponsorship!

Dusty Branch, that sounds like a porn star name. Not that I'd know of course, not that I'd know.

... Anyway...

I got some offline feedback on yesterdays picture of the branch. Interestingly a number of people commented that they felt it was over exposed. Whilst I'm not sure I agree with them, I thought I'd reduce the exposure a little and see if it had any effect.

So, here goes.

For reference, Version 1. The photograph from yesterday.

Version 2. Exposure reduced by 2/3 stop.

 

The problem I had with this is that whilst the branch itself is quite nice, the background is very tinted.

In an effort to fix this, I've played with the Tone Curve and increased the intensity of the light tones. This is the result. Version 3.

 

I think version 3 might be the best of the bunch. I guess version 4 would involve loading this into Gimp or Photoshop and creating some sort of mask to fix out any residual colour in the background. I'll try to find a tutorial to that effect for the weekend. (If you know of one, please tell!)

For those of you not in the know, The NIPA 2008 exhibition starts on Monday night 3rd March. It runs until the 20th March.

You can find out more details here.

I'm planning on attending on Monday night, all being well. Maybe I'll see some of you there?

The Sean O'Casey Bridge, Dublin

(6secs, f/8, 31mm, ISO-100, 18/2/2008)

 

 

I was sitting here, working on this photograph whilst finally getting some progress with my Unbuntu backup server. I'd finally got the thing to see my main pc, I'd even reconfigured some things to make general computer fun more, well.... fun.

...and then...

The disk in the Ubuntu box eats itself.

Yup. The backup server I'm building to backup my photographs, my documents, my saved games! It's eaten itself. Not quite smoke and a three fire engine call out, but still pretty annoying.

Come to think of it. This photograph was the last one I took before I broke my tripod. Coincidence???

 

... yeah probably.

The Custom House in Dublin, constructed in 1781, situated on the banks on the Liffey. Probably one of the nicest buildings in Dublin. And it's even on the north side...

(2.5 secs, F/8, 18mm, ISO-100, 18/2/08)

I quite like this picture. Of the half dozen or so I tried of this building, I think this is about as close as I got to a decent shot. Fitting the building in was a challenge for the 18mm end of my lens and what's not shown here is the aggressive crop to remove the railings and footpath on my side of the river (I had to stand quite far back). As with all my shots recently, there has been some white balance adjustment.

One of the problems with this building is the non-uniform light along the front. Whilst it gives it some feature, it's a git to give a level exposure as a result. In any of the shots I took where the dark areas were properly exposed, the bright areas were totally blown. I know I could have taken two shots and pasted them together, but I decided against it for now*

The other shot of the building worth showing is this one...

(15 secs, F/11, 18mm, ISO-100, 18/2/08)

But, I reckon Dermot got a cleaner sharper version.

 

 

 

*Though it may appear in the future when I get some experience with that sort of activity in Photoshop/GIMP...

Monday night saw me back on the mean streets of Dublin with the master of understatement (but over exposure) himself, Dermot Greene. After a decent bout of pastamongery, we hit the streets and worked over the lower banks of The Liffey.

I'll be posting shots from that wander over the next few days.

I thought I'd start with the most emotive of the pictures I took that night.

Just beside the financial district (the IFSC?) in Dublin there are a series of statues remembering the Potato famine of the mid 19th centaury.  I'd seen these statues many times while passing through Dublin and only ever considered them as slightly odd, maybe even a little eerie. I'd never really looked at them by night though.

What I found was probably the first piece of art that ever moved me emotionally. The gaunt, weather beaten look and the faces carved in expressions of desperation really do emphasise the horror of the times. I'm not going to try to describe the famine and its effects on Ireland, it's not that sort of blog. If you want to know more, read this. Suffice to say, if you ever end up in Dublin then take a look at this work and consider for a minute just what it must have been like.

I hope these shots convey something of the place.

   

     

(I haven't given the settings for these as individual shots, they're all around F/8 and between 8 and 10 seconds. In an effort to get the colouring, white balance was set to Tungsten - they really are this sort of colour in real life)

Dermot and I have an ongoing discussion about the merits and flaws of exposure in night shots. He stands, a bastion of light and brightness. I stand... well, I stand much closer to the dark. I genuinely think this might be one of those times when the shadows make the pictures. You can read Dermot's account of the statues here.

During a walk in Hillsborough Park today I took this...

 

(1/60sec, f/11, focal length - 31mm, ISO - 100, 17/02/08)

I quite like it. I still feel it's falling far short of 'artistic' photography, but the structure is getting better... maybe.

If I had to do it again, I'd try to get more 'umph' into the sky - maybe Photoshop or Gimp can help there, maybe I should have tried to get the same sky on a different exposure (but I was shooting freehand).

I did manage to clone out the two old biddies on the path (no prizes for finding where they used to stand).

The park itself is lovely. Those of you who expressed interest in another trip out with cameras, I'll be in touch. I reckon a morning spent in the park with lunch at The Plough might just be what the doctor ordered.

Inspired by the Macro article in this months Digital SLR Photography and conversations with Stuart (who's thinking about buying a macro lens and has hopefully mentioned this to Louise) I decided to have a play with my Tamron 55 - 200 lens yesterday.

I'm still not completely clear on what the difference is between a proper macro lens and a really good zoom - I'll need to read up on this a little further I guess. But, since my Tamron has the word macro printed on the barrel it drove me into the back garden for a play.

One thing I did notice is how hard it is to focus at extreme zoom. Even when I resorted to using a tripod I still had some problems with sharpness (and the bugger of it is I could only see the problems when I looked at the picture on my monitor later).

Whilst outside playing around, I ended up taking some pictures of some clothes pegs on the line. The initial objective of the photo was to get a nice 'macro' style shot of the spring, but the breeze, the difficulty focusing and the fact I kept accidentally hitting the line meant it never really worked out. However, I did end up with a nice depth of field shot (or at least I think so) of the pegs on the line.

There is some softness in the picture and you can see the vibrations in the line to the right of the shot, but I kind of liked it.

(1/15sec, f/8, focal length - 200mm, ISO - 100, 19/01/08 15:50)

In terms of post processing, the exposure has been increased slightly, plus small increases to contrast, vibrancy and saturation. Just because it looked nicer.

If I'd to take it again, I think I'd try to get a different coloured peg, either as the first one or for somewhere down the line to add contrast. I'd also be a bit more patient and let the line settle before clicking.

Hopefully you survived turkeyfest 2007 and are now in last minute training for achieving the end of the year? As an aside I always find New Year to be an odd celebration - Whoopee it's a new year? OK, yes it's good that by celebrating it you can safely say you've survived (2007 in this case), and OK you can say you're looking forward to a new year of dreams, promises, chances and such. But... Why not celebrate everyday if that's your thing? I mean, Whoopee it's Tuesday morning! I've survived the first day of the week and all that... Then again, maybe it's just me in my post festive blues. I'll just go back to bahing my humbugs*.

Anyway...

Christmas passed in a blast of Turkey, Santa, kids and weather. Since the turkey was for eating not photographing and I have this thing about not wanting to post pictures of people here, and since Santa waited till I was asleep before forgetting to leave me any presents, here's some pictures of the weather...

I was in Donegal for a few days at the inlaws and the weather was gray and blah. That said, the wind on Boxing (St. Stephens) day was kinda cool. I ended up out on Cruit Island again and managed to take a few pictures whilst standing in what must have been a force something wind.

They aren't great, but I thought I'd share them anyway. Hopefully the show some of the intensity of the waves. At the very least, they'll probably show how much the tripod was getting blown about.

 

(1/8sec, f/22, focal length - 30mm, ISO - 100, 26/12/07 13:31)

(1/6sec, f/22, focal length - 55mm, ISO - 100, 26/12/07 13:40)

 

I've a new appreciation for people who take fantastic pictures of oceans and beaches and such during storms. Not only do the have to contend with 'weather', but they also have to get to the spot to take the picture - something that can be one bugger of a challenge. I ended up staying quite high and dry on the day as it just looked a little too dangerous down on the proper shore line. That and the fact that I fell anyway...

 

In case I don't post again this year - Happy New Year.

 

 

 

*Yes, ok I know 'Bah Humbugs' more to do with Christmas spirit , but I only came up with that 'bahing my humbugs' phrase tonight and there was no way I could sit on it for a year! And yes, technically I 'enjoy' new year but I felt I needed to let off steam and it was a good line. Besides, it's new year - may old acquaintance be forgot and all that stuff.... See, you have to forgive me.

It's been 5 months since I started this adventure. It's been a fun 5 months.

One thing I've noticed though, is the willingness of other photographers to help, give advice and share tips. Whether it's been the guys in Belfast, Geoff with the blog space or Dermot in Dublin, every single person has stepped up when asked or volunteered when they've seen me struggle. I thought I should take a moment and say thanks.

So, thanks.

Today was another example of the willingness of photographers to help. John (a friend of a friend) was shown my blog through the week and contacted me by email to give me his number for a chat. I gave him a call and spent an excellent hour or more chatting through the basics of photography, with him giving me lots of tips and advice based on the things I'd posted so far. His experience was obvious in the stuff of his I've seen and I look forward to trying out a lot of the things he suggested. The conversation has left me thinking I need to get involved in this hobby at a more social level, not just in books and the occasional walkabout.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you've stumbled across this blog and have some comments, please make them. I'm pretty new to this stuff and I'm keen to try and learn as much as I can.

Anyway...

On another note, with the Christmas festivities round the corner, I wanted to close off the Dublin walkabout pictures with a few more of my favourites.

In no particular order.

The Lights Under Ha'Penny Bridge

(2.5secs, f/8, focal length - 96mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 21:38)

O'Connell Bridge Ornament

(0.8secs, f/1.8, focal length - 50mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 21:27)

The Liffey Upstream

(10secs, f/8, focal length - 18mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 21:23)

(Turns out my over use of f/8 is probably a bad thing. I did know the depth of field effect of larger and smaller apertures, but had really only been applying it in shots like the bridge ornament above to educe the background visibility. Expect to see more use of aperture ranges for landscapes going forward).

I took this shot while wandering through Grafton Street with Dermot last week.

Nothing really to detailed to say about it. It suffered from the tilted tripod problem and the white balance issues I posted about before, but I liked the blurred crowds.

I straightened the image and tweaked the white balance a little. I have a feeling the image straightening is what's given the building on the right that odd tilt. That's just a little frustrating.

Nothing says Christmas like panicking shoppers....

...which reminds me, I should really go and buy some Christmas presents...

 

(5secs, f/20, focal length - 31mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 20:35)

Oh, for those of you who might be interesting, I'm going to try and get out to shoot the Belfast Christmas frenzy on Friday 21st. Same drill as last time, no real leadership just meet and wander and see what we find. Let me know if you're interested.

Nope, not the latest instalment of 'Vampire the SomethingorOther', but the next set of pictures I'll try to post over the weekend.

I'm in Dublin a lot at the moment and managed to get out last night with Camera and (more wonky than I realised) tripod. I was lucky enough to be joined by Dermot Greene, a mate, work colleague and general photography nice bloke who's just joined the digital dark side with a Nikon D80.

Dermot's been taking photo's for many years at this point and, as well as being a Dubliner by choice, was on hand to take me on a tour of Grafton Street, The Liffey and keep me safe from the odd little drunks who wanted us to "Hey mate, take our picture". You can see Dermot's work in both his website and his blog and all I ask is that you make 'ooooh' and 'aaaaah' noises, then remember that I'm still learning.

I picked up some good tips last night and it's definitely secured the social aspect of photography in my mind. I'll work through some of what I saw and learned in the next few posts. Suffice to say, Dermot's mantra of "Over expose by 2 stops" and "Post processing is work of the devil"* will feature heavily.

Anyway, like I said, photo will follow. For now, have come Grattan, wife says he was some political bloke she used words and dates... but I just take photos.

(15 secs, f/8, focal length - 18mm, ISO - 100, 11/12/07 20:59)

 

* Dermot probably didn't phrase it quite like this, probably more along the lines of "I prefer to get the picture right using the camera, not post processing software", but I felt some artistic license was allowed. And besides, I heard words like devil would up my google search results!

I was never planning on posting this, but Geoff's post about the Belfast Ale festival (somewhere I've yet to manage to get to) put me in mind of a picture I took last week while out and about.

A few weeks back, I decided to start carrying my camera as much as possible. My rationale simply being I'm trying to learn how to take a picture and a lot of that is the ability to spot one. If I have the camera, I have no excuse but to play with it...

Anyway, last Monday I got coerced into a 'single' pint after work and before my train. Well.... several pints and missed trains later... I give you

Beer, Nectar of the Gods.

 (0.6 secs, f/1.8, focal length - 50mm, ISO - 100, 26/11/07 18:36)

Before you ask, yes I may have tweaked it a little. Essentially I reduced the colour thresholds to intensify the colour of the beer before using that selective colourisation trick to mask it through onto a black and white foreground.

The edging of the beer isn't great, it really was just me messing for five minutes. But, as I said, Geoff's beer post made me decide it was enough of a brew to put up.

Oh, and in case you're interested, mines a pint of Stella...

"Shoot for the moon and if you miss you'll be among the stars" - Les Brown

"Poetic, the stuff of romance and mystery. A bugger to capture on picture" - Learningtosnap

During the night shooting trip a few weeks back, one of the things I tried and failed to do was to include the moon in a picture. Now, you’d think a big, reasonably static lump of “space stuff” wouldn’t be that hard to picture, but damned if I could get it.

I tried again last night.

 

I still couldn’t get it.

 

In despair I used google and found an interesting web site talking about how to shoot the moon. Seems I’d been making a few simple mistakes.

1. Autofocus doesn’t. Because the moon is bright and the sky is dark the camera will over compensate and you’ll get that shiny nonsense.
2. Actually trying to zoom in on the moon using a lens is much better than trying to pull the detail out with crops later

 Sounds simple doesn’t it?

 

Well, I went outside and tried again. The results this time were much better.

The first shot is of an un-cropped, un-tampered moon and the second is post manipulation to tweak the crop and the colour thresholds etc.

 

(1/100, f/16, manual, focal length - 200mm, ISO - 100, 25/11/07 23:50)

 

 (1/100, f/16, manual, focal length - 200mm, ISO - 100, 25/11/07 23:50)

 
There are still a few issues with this, mostly because I couldn’t get the tripod to the angle I needed for the shot and so wasn’t stable as I would have liked. The image is also a little on the soft side I think (which might be down to the lens being at its outer end). I’ll try this again in weeks to come.

 

Anyone else tried this or have suggestions?

I’m going to be away for a few days this week and, having just packed my bag, I made the executive decision not to take my camera.

I’d always planned that it would become part of my standard kit, but I’m guessing an industrial estate in Staines isn’t likely to give me a lot of time or opportunity to take good photo. I have packed my current photo read though, so expect a review of it when I get back.

In the meantime, since there are flowers in the house at the moment…

 

 (1/400, f/2.2, manual, focal length - 50mm, ISO - 800, 18/11/07 13:33)

 This was taken with the canon 1.8 lens that I’m playing with at the moment. It’s taken a while, but I think the whole aperture thing is finally sinking in and I’m finally getting away from the “must use extremes” approach that’d I’d defaulted to on this lens.

In terms of post processing, this shot is based from the raw image with the white balance (left on auto on the camera) changed to auto using Lightroom. You’d think this wouldn’t make a difference, but surprisingly it does. Geoff mentioned a few posts back in some comments that the cameras all use their own algorithms to decide on colours etc, and he’s right. Take a look at the original below.

 

I’ve also cropped the image to push the rose out towards the top right corner. There is a whole theory about this in the various magazines and books and I’ll try to explain this sometime soon in “snap speak”.

I'm quite concious that all photographs are subjective and that people will prefer the second over the first (or just hate them both). for me, I feel the first one draws you in more and maybe gives a softer feel - course I'm an IT geek, so what would I know about flowers...

One final thing... Having just grabbed the camera settings for this shot I look in horror at the ISO figure. Once again I’ve fallen foul of a night of messing - ISO 800 was not intentional!

I finally got out last night to try something I’d been planning for a while.

So, if you were “exceeding speed guidelines” on the M1 last night and saw someone standing on a bridge with a fluorescent jacket and a tripod mounted device, don’t panic – it was just me and my Canon*

What I was specifically out to try was playing with the manual and shutter speed settings of the camera. Up until now (with the exception of a disastrous day at a RCC race), I’d purely used the aperture speed setup (or automatic) on the camera. But, since seeing them on the web and in DSLR magazines I’d wanted to try my hand at those “Rivers of Light” shots.

I found this to be very much a case of trial and error. After getting the camera rigged up on the bridge, I played with a series of settings and shutter speeds ranging from 1/250 up to about 30 seconds and briefly into bulb mode (oooh look at me).

At 1/250 my picture of the black object in the black night surrounded by black stuff was…erm….very dark.
 

At 27 seconds, things were much prettier…

(27secs, f/8, manual, focal length - 24mm, ISO - 100, 13/11/07 18:40)

Interestingly, I also tried the same shot using aperture priority and it came out like this after 30 seconds (camera set) exposure.

(30secs, f/8, manual, focal length - 24mm, ISO - 100, 13/11/07 18:43)

It’s noticeably darker (to me anyway). This confused me briefly until I realised that all the light in the shot is provided by the traffic and as a result completely dependent on the number of cars, the brightness of their lights and the speed of their travel. 

If you live near a bridge or busy road, this is a good experiment to try yourself. Though, I warn you – you will look like a loon running backwards and forwards trying to see how much traffic is coming and when to press the button!

 

*Though the least you could have done was waved hello.

Not a long update, just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who came out tonight. I hope your photos turned out as good as mine and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

I'll review the shots I took in more detail tomorrow and maybe do some playing with Gimp then, but for now...


(20secs, f/9, aperture priority, focal length - 18mm, ISO - 100, 24/10/07 18:53)

The angel of Belfast? No image manipulation, just a slight crop to make it fit 10*15. And yes, I like the flare in the picture.

Edit: I've been reliably informed that this statue is in fact called "The Beacon of Hope"... and not "The Belle with the Ball" or "Nuala with the Hula"

I just took this as part of my experiments with that f/1.8 50mm lens I mentioned.

I set this up in a dark room with my trusty desk lamp lighting system and the hot shoe flash pointed towards the ceiling.



(1/160, f/1.8, aperture priority, focal length - 50mm, ISO - 200, 17/10/07 19:47)

To my mind, it's another one of 'those' pictures I take that is close but still just mweh. In this case I think the reflection of the flash on the top of the globe ruins it. But, having tried this a couple of times (OK 30, you know me....) I'm still not sure how to get enough light onto the subject to give it that 'live' feeling without ending up being able to see my kitchen in the reflections and a dubious great flash spot to boot.

I guess making use of a proper blacked out environment would help keep the reflections in the globe down, but how do you get direct light onto something for shadows without ending up with that sort of flash feedback effect?

Bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy

Fun fun fun fun fun

The most wonderful thing about Tigger is!!!!!!!!!!!

  I'm the only one!

I've been given the opportunity to play with a 50mm f/1.8 lens (this one), so expect some fun and games with it over the next few days.

Last night I only got 5 minutes with it, but while messing about I discovered I could peep into Tiggers house and see what he was up to. What did I find? Yup, he seems to be peeping on someone else.

Bad Tigger.



The image itself is quite noisy because the camera was on ISO 800. (Not because I'd planned it, but because I forgot to change it from some disastrous night shots I'd taken earlier in the week). That said, I thought it was an OK example of the crazy depth of field possible on this lens. More will follow!

And remember, it's Tigger spealt...

 T, i, double g, errrrrrrr

You can be sure of a big surprise.

Yup, that's right. I might be hiding in the trees with a camera....

erm....

anyway....

Not so much the woods, but the local park for this shot. I remember these trees as a kid. They were young and vigorous and the path between them was neatly mowed and just pretty. I decided a few weeks back I'd go and get a snap to see how they were doing now.

Boy, what a change. I kinda like the slightly more sinister look they're going for these days.



(1/60, f/4.5, aperture priority, focal length - 18mm, ISO - 400, 05/10/07 17:49)

The only change from the original image was a slight bit of cloning to remove a set of goalposts and some bloke playing football. You'd probably need to see the original (full size) image to make him out, in the smaller (webbed up) versions it was just noise, so I deleted him. Yes, I am a cruel master.

...would be called something else.

A good weekends snapping this weekend. I took maybe 80 - 100 pictures. I have maybe 3 I'll post. Dear lord I'm glad I'm not paying for developing!

I spent Friday afternoon in the park with the nipper and got some nice shots of her and my missus on the swings (the child was on the swing, not the missus. She made me tell you that bit). These need a little post processing so expect them later in the week.

Yeah, post processing. How about that huh? Whats to say. I think it's growing on me as much as the actual photo bit. Even slight changes to an image make amazing differences to the finished product. I'm still undecided if it's cheating.

Anyway...

This rose bloomed in my back garden over the weekend, now anyone that's seen my back garden will know that it's probably as conductive to flowers as the central reactor in Chernobyl. Which just goes to prove that (to quote the guy from Jurassic Park) "Life will find a way"

The image has been cropped in to show just the flower and then I used a similar process of the dice to reduce the brightness of the background while keeping the rose bright.



(1/200, f/3.5, aperture priority, focal length - 24mm, ISO - 400, 07/10/07 13:10)

The only other change to the natural state of the rose (apart from some leaf pruning which doesn't count, does it?) was some gratuitous effect modeling. Yup, that's right, next stop Digital Light and Magic for me.

I used my latest toy (supplied by the repository of junk known as the cupboard under the sink) to add water to the flower. It was high tech as you'd expect...



Starting out in photography? I recommend a camera, a lens, a water spray.

What?! Oh come on, you mean to tell me that you didn't see me sneaking that line in somewhere the first chance I got?

You people give me way too much credit.

At the end of my dice snapping frenzy I got to playing with the pictures in Gimp, particularly this one:



I'd intended to make the picture black and white to see if it looked pretty, but ended up playing with the 'Colour Levels' widget.  Now I'm sure there is a technical explanation for what the widget does, but to my eyes it makes dark areas darker, bright areas brighter and the bit in the middle brighter or darker as required. Hold on, a random website says this:

 'The Level tool provides features similar to the Histogram tool but can also change the intensity range of the active layer or selection'

I ended up with this:



Now I like this. I think the background feels richer the colours a little more intense.

It's still not black and white though.

So, out of desperation (where is the magic make my button black and white), I used Google and I ended up finding a tutorial to help me do this:



Now I really like this.

OK, the edging around the dice (OK die you pedant. No, not as in cease to live more as in singular of dice)  isn't as neat as it could b, but I was up against it time wise and this was less than 10 minutes work all in.

I could pretend like I spent hours working all this out in Gimp, or reproduce the tutorial and claim kudos for something I didn't do, but I'm not into that (and I might get caught), so here it is....

Selective Colorization

So, whatcha think?

OK, this was a bit quicker than I'd planned but last night saw me with some time on my hands and a sudden need to not be near my computer. So, inspired by the table lamp that I tripped over I decided to try the first of the projects I mentioned the other day.

First things first, I don't have a studio or any sort of fancy environment so I needed to do a lot of improvisation here. The background on the following shots is a black t-shirt draped over an old shower box. It kind of gave me the effect I wanted so yea me.

I think it was Stuart who wanted to see more pictures, and since last night was about learning I'm going to try and walk through the stages I went through while taking the snaps.

Oh, before we get into this. Given my history, I feel it's important to point out that none of these shots have been post processed in any way. No cropping, no contrast/brightness, no picasa. The only difference between these shots and the ones I have are to reduce the overall image size to make them more viewable on the web.

The Setup...

In one of my other lives I'm a role-player. Yes, the sort of person even nerds point at and snigger. Enough already. Get over it. Stop sniggering. No, I don't dress up as an elf or a gnome and no, I don't own a copy of the Necronomicon (anymore). What I do own is a bag of dice. Dice of many colours and shade, dice of doom some would say having seen my luck with them.

there were a bundle sitting below my monitor for a few weeks and I thought the colours looked quite nice. It was these that drove me to try this out.

So, using my improvised setup described above (this is going to be all over the place today isn't it?) I put the camera on the tripod and took this shot.



(1/60, f/4.5, aperture priority, focal length - 34mm, ISO - 400, 02/10/07 20:23)

Here the room lights were on, the camera was left on the settings I'd last used and I just pushed the button. The results are very bright, very boring and just mweh.

So, I moved on a little

The next shot I zoomed in a little on the dice and increased the aperture(probably cause the camera made me).



(1/60, f/5.6, aperture priority, focal length - 55mm, ISO - 400, 02/10/07 20:24)

Still crud. No really. No need to be nice. The background is a little better, the dice a little brighter maybe. But still crud.

I decided to try playing with the little desk light I'd found. I pointed it onto the dice from an angle of about 40 degrees to see what effect it had. I also turned off the house lights and dropped the ISO level (because I remembered it was set high) at this point



(2s, f/5.6, aperture priority, focal length - 55mm, ISO - 100, 02/10/07 20:25)

Getting better. the gem dice were beginning to take on a life of their own and the shadows looked cool.

I adjusted the light to see if I could pull the shadows further. In the next shot the desk light is at about 10 degrees, giving light across the dice.

(Oh, this ones a little blurred for some reason)



(5s, f/5.6, aperture priority, focal length - 55mm, ISO - 100, 02/10/07 20:27)

I played around with this position for a while, but was really uninspired by the output. the solid dice and the colours were just nothing great. I also didn't like that I was at full zoom(?) with my 18-55 lens and was still sitting quite far out. I didn't want to start moving the tripod, so...

I changed the lens.

Using my Tamron 55-200 I took the following shot.



(1.6s, f/5.0, aperture priority, focal length - 171mm, ISO - 100, 02/10/07 20:36)

I liked this a lot. The low depth of field on the dice and the reflections and shadows were impressive (or so I think).

So, pushing my luck...



(6s, f/10, aperture priority, focal length - 200mm, ISO - 100, 02/10/07 20:36)

Increasing the depth of field (big number = little hole (see I remembered!)) and suddenly it gets real pretty (at least to my eyes).

So, pushing my luck further....



(20s, f/18, aperture priority, focal length - 200mm, ISO - 100, 02/10/07 20:37)

I think this has gone off the boil. The background has started to get quite washed out again and the warmth of the previous image (which I pray I didn't touch up in Picasa - I'm sure of it. But I will double check tonight).

So, tell me what you think. And be gentle, I really like the penultimate image. I think it's one of the best I've taken to date.

So this weekend I discovered the joys of Auto Focus and Manual Focus.

I'd noticed a spiders web outside on my trailer* and thought it looked quite pretty with the rain droplets thing.

So out I go with the camera and start trying to get a snap...



(No idea Pinky. I seem to have lost the settings. I'll get them later)

OK, just so we're all on the same page here. No you can't see a spiders web. Seems the AF on the camera decides the spiders web isn't worth focusing on and instead picks something behind it. In my case it's the junk mound that is my back garden.

So, in an attempt to correct this I discovered MF** or "manual focus".



(yes, there should be technobabble here too. My world has deserted me...)

OK, I know there are flies on it, and so technically the title of this blog entry isn't correct. I also know the manual focus isn't "technically" in focus, but I actually think that's more to do with the Aperture I was using than my inability to see.

The AF photo hasn't been toughed in any way save getting made a little smaller in file size. The MF photo has had the usual plethora of Picasa "I'm Feeling Lucky" done to it. I really need to work out what that crap is myself.

* Yes, I own a trailer. I bought it in a moment of madness in reaction to finding out I was going to be a Daddy. I needed to invest in a "man thing". There's something manly about reversing a trailer. Something that lets you look into the eyes of those big rig drivers and share the nuances, the skill, of backing up with a load on (so to speak). Course, I've only been told this - I have problems going forwards with the trailer on...

** Last night while uploading the photos and discovering they were out of focus or the focal range was too short, I discovered MF also stands for "Mother F***er"...

I've always had a thing for dragons. not those poncy "I can talk and I can do magic" nonsense dragons, but for the flame spouting, knight chomping, damsel distressing dragons certain patron saints got off having a go at.

So, needless to say the 20" high dragon that has prize of place on my window ledge at home was always going to get a look in here.



(1/25, f/5, metering - matrix, focal length - 171mm, 13/09/07 18:43, ISO - 400)

This picture was taken using the external flash gun thing that came with my camera kit. The flash was adjusted to bounce off the (white) ceiling and diffused slightly. The colour range of the photo was then tweaked in GIMP (I'd tell you the exact changes, but to be honest I was messing about and suddenly stopped and went "Woah!"*)

When you look at the picture you'll probably see a lot of shadow or something (Shake?) to the right side of the dragon. Not sure what caused it. To be honest only noticed it as I was putting the picture up.

I'll try to find out what I changed in GIMP. I'll also be back to take more photo's of the beast.

One other thing of note with this shot. In order to try to get more light through the camera I upped the ISO from it's default 100 to a rather sturdy 400. This helped reduce a lot of shake that I was getting (course, I could have just got out the tripod).

*Whilst many people have noted that Keanu Reeves and myself have a lot in common in terms of looks and snazzy 'Point Break' style lingo, I prefer to consider myself more in keeping with his "Ted" days. That and we look, sound and probably weigh nothing alike.