Look Before You Jump

I found this photo while doing the previous blog post, this photo was taken chronologically first but I preferred the previous photo, which is why I uploaded it first. I had first seen the squirrel scurrying around in this tree. It stopped on a branch and leaned over looking like it was about jump to the ground (which it did after I captured my photos).

I didn’t have much time to capture the image I wanted, so I put the camera into shutter priority and selected a shutter speed of 1/640^th of a second. I chose this photo as I knew it would fast enough for all eventualities; it is fast enough to remove almost any movement by the squirrel and it will remove any camera movement even at the lens longest focal length. Fortunately I had enough time to take a short series of photos before the squirrel jumped off the branch onto the ground.

To edit the photo I cropped the photo for a tighter composition around the squirrel because there were quite a few distractions behind the tree. I didn’t change anything else because I was happy with the exposure and the colours had been replicated perfectly.

Hopefully at some time next week Bex and I will get a chance to go for a photography wander. The weather looks to improve so hopefully there will be plenty of new flowers bursting into life in the nature reserve and lots of wildlife hiding and waiting to be found.

Mat

New Growth

It finally feels that spring is here! We’ve had nothing but glorious sunshine, making for a perfect bank holiday weekend. One of the best things about spring is that all the trees that were once bare are now lush and green again, and all the flowers are springing up to cover the ground once again. I love this time of year as it is full of colour which is great for photography and the bright sunlight always creates interesting exposure challenges.

To celebrate the turning to spring I thought I would upload a photo of a snapshot of spring. To best portray this effect I thought that a spring time flower would create the effect I was looking for. I went for a photography wander in our local nature reserve and the ground was covered with new flowers starting their new growth.

I saw a small group of white flowers caught my eye because there was one of the flowers standing out in front of the others. I liked this composition and how it separates the flower from the others in the same way that spring is separated from the other seasons. For the actual exposure I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F5.6 selected to ensure the background was thrown completely out of focus. I had an ISO of ISO 200 selected for maximum image quality. I also overexposed the photo by one stop. This meant the camera chose a shutter speed of 1/100^th of a second to complete the exposure.

I didn’t edit the photo because I really liked the effect that I had created in the camera. The exposure was spot on for the lighting conditions and the colours had been calculated incredibly accurately. I also liked the composition I had created so I didn’t crop the photo down.

I’m glad that Bex and I managed to get out for a photography wander today. Most of my photos where of birds again, so expect lots more wildlife photos over the next few days.

Mat

Swan In The Sun

I took this photo on the recent wildlife photo shoot. I was quite impressed with how this photo came out, it is defiantly one of my favourite photos from the day. The sun was beaming down which made some very interesting exposure problems. The best way I thought to combat the exposure difficulties was by using my flash gun. I thought by using the flash gun it would help to lighten the shadow areas and to even the exposure.

I was using the camera in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/400^th of a second selected. I had also locked in an ISO of ISO400. As I was using the flash gun the camera selected an aperture of F13. I programmed the flash gun to over expose by three stops; so that it would give out the largest amount of power for the exposure. As I was using a shutter speed faster than the flash-sync’ speed of the camera I had to use the flash n the high speed sync’ mode. This mode sends out a rapid sequence of flashes so that at least one of the flashes happens while the shutter is open. The only downside of using the high speed sync’ function is that it uses the entire charge of the flash gun; so that only one photo can be taken at a time!

To edit the photo I increased the brightness a bit and lowered the highlights to ensure the highlights didn’t become clipped. I also cropped out some reeds that I had accidently included into the frame. After this I changed the white balance for a more accurate colour selection. I changed the white balance as the photo looked a bit too cool for my liking. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with the rest of the photo.

I very much enjoyed my wildlife photography trip, I’m very pleased with the photos that I took. Hopefully both Bex and I will get a chance for some more photography this weekend.

Mat

Scampering Squirrel

I know I very recently uploaded a photo of a squirrel but I had taken a lot of photos of the squirrel and this is one of the photos that I really liked. I was trying to take a photo of the squirrel as it was scampering along.

To capture the photo I used the camera in shutter priority and selected a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second. I also selected an ISO of ISO800, as this would enable the use of this shutter speed. The camera chose an aperture of F5.6 as I was overexposing by 1/3 of a stop. I didn’t use the flash as I didn’t want the squirrel to be scared away.

I didn’t edit the photo as I was happy with how the image was exposed and with how the colours had been replicated. I was happy with how I had composed the photo so I didn’t crop the photo. Overall I was happy with the effect I had created when taking the photo.

Unfortunately Bex has been very busy recently with a lot of important deadlines coming up soon. She apologises and tells me that she is missing the blog, but she will be back blogging very soon. I still have a few more photos that I can upload from last weekend, but hopefully I will get a chance to go out for a photography wander at some point over the weekend.

Mat

Difference

It’s a bit of a treat for me today; my Internet hasn't been working well at home for the last few days, but I was determined to write a post. Presently, I’m sat in a local coffee shop with a large cappuccino, a blueberry muffin and my laptop.

I attended a family friend’s wedding a few days ago. After the service, the bride and groom left to have photos taken, leaving the guests to their own devices. As a creature of habit, I took my camera with me. While we were left to talk to the other guests, I walked around the small country church with my camera, and found a stairwell, approximately two feet wide maximum. As I was looking up, a man walked down the stairs. We started talking; it turns out that it leads to an office!

I tried to hold the camera as close to the central post as possible, to place the most focus on this and to use it as a lead in line. I also tried to include a few steps, the uppermost steps as a background, and the small window; I did this is order to give the photo context so it wasn’t quite as abstract. I increased the contrast of the image and sharpened it, to make it more eye catching. I also desaturated it, but not completely as I liked the slightly “washed out” look. I’m off to a concert tonight, but hopefully I will get chance to go for another wander soon!

Bex

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Snow Problem

Perhaps I should apologise for the awful pun of a title now! But that’s not the only thing I should be apologising for; the last month has been awash with exams and coursework, and the blog has been pushed onto Mat for most of this month. Thankfully, I reached the deadline today so things should start to be a little more regular now.

In my area, most of the snow has melted and things are starting to return to normality. Most people are a bit sick of the sight of it, but I’m one of those that simply regress to the mentality of a 5 year old and carry on! On the first day that the snow arrived on my doorstep, I took my camera out on an all-day adventure. This is one of the first I took, and okay, it may be a little stereotypical painted Christmas card, but I can’t wait almost a year to upload it! I spotted this photo by chance, as I needed to mail a letter on my way out.

I used an aperture of F4, as I wanted quite a shallow depth of field. I boosted the highlights in Photoshop as I had under-exposed a little; this was intentional as it’s hard to control highlight clipping in the snow, and under-exposing eliminates this. Apart from sharpening the image, I haven’t done anything further to the image as I was pleased the original.

Bex
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Flying Away

I managed to go out for a walk with my camera today. So I decided to walk around my town and see what I could find. I was walking towards our town centre and there was a large group of black birds circling above me, which gave me an idea for an interesting composition.

My idea I had was to capture the birds as they circled past one of the lamp posts. To capture the exposure I set the camera into AI Servo Focus (Continuous AF), selected the centre AF point which is more sensitive and set the camera to continuous drive mode. I panned the camera following the birds in the viewfinder until I saw the composition I wanted through the viewfinder when I took 4-5 photos. I made sure to take multiple exposures to ensure I had the composition that I wanted.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the highlights. This stops the highlights from becoming blown and also the photo looked a bit flat before so this makes the photo look more dynamic. I also cropped out some rubbish that had become caught on the top of the lamp post. I had accidently captured the photo on an angle; I tried adjusting this to become vertical, but I put it back because I preferred the composition.

Bex apologises for not uploading a post recently, but this week is her exam week and she has been very busy with her revision so she left me in charge of the blog for this week. She has told me that she has a lot of interesting photos that she took over the weekend as well to show you. I’m sure that you will enjoy them.

Mat

Back In Time

My laptop is back and (almost) working! Of course, I’m now behind with photos so have had to upload another old shot. I took this photo during a walk through the courtyard with the church (previously mentioned on 22nd December).

A woman was feeding the gulls while leaning against one of the trees. After she left, the gulls continued to fly around, lingering at the prospect of more food. I used my wide-angle lens and tried to get back as far as possible in order to get a lot of detail into the shot. I took the photo on super high quality to make it possible to look at small details, such as the bird with bread in its beak and the individual leaves on the trees.

I tried to focus on textures in this image. I included a lot of ground to make the pattern on the floor more prominent. I increased the sharpness in-camera to pick out the detail of the leaves, and used a narrow aperture to increase the depth of field so both lampposts and all trees were in focus. Unfortunately, this means that the building behind is also in focus- but I like the arches and I think it works well. I used a custom white balance to make the image feel warmer, but I haven’t edited the photo at all! Sometimes I like to take a busy shot, as it gives you more to look at and focuses your attention on tiny details in every section.

Bex
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Country Contrast

This photo was taken a while ago at TruckFest South West. I must confess I have a slight obsession with heavy goods vehicles, so TruckFest was heaven for me. I had taken the trusty Pentax ME Super with me and I managed to use up a whole reel of film while out. I’ve been quite busy recently, which is why I haven’t had a chance to get the film developed until a few days ago.

It was about half way through the day when we saw this pair of Tractor Units from country supplies specialist: Countrywide. The cab art really caught my eye, the bright and vibrant scenes that surrounded the cab were very impressive. I thought that the contrast between the classic country scenes and the very modern cab was very interesting; it shows how much farming and transport have changed and improved together over the years. With each decade more efficient and cheaper processes have been introduced: starting with horses towing everything on the farm and on the road; and culminating in today’s incredibly modern and high precision designs, with computers controlling every process.

I really think that this is more than just a photo, it contains much of our agricultural and transport history, showing the legacy that we have produced over the past 100 years. A legacy that will be left to the future, to increase the efficiency and profitability of agriculture and transport. This could be good or bad depending on your own opinions, making agriculture and transport more efficient could be good because less fossil fuels will be burnt and the world will be a greener place; but on the other hand, with more machinery and even tighter tolerances the work will become more stressful and the green country will become much more mechanised with vehicles working everywhere.

What you take away from this photo is dependent on your own opinions, but maybe take a minute to think about how much progress has been made in the past 100 hundred years; and then think: what do we do now, where does this take us? These are the questions that future generations will be asking themselves.

Mat

Hanging Flower

While on a recent walk with Bex I noticed this flower, it had rained earlier in the day and the flower had drooped under the weight of the rain. I really liked the colours on the flower and how the background contrasted against the colours of the flower.

The macro lens was attached to the front of Bex’s Olympus, I got close to the flower using a moderately large aperture (F5.6) to make the background blurred. Putting the background out of focus makes the flower look more prominent in the photo. Also, I placed the flower towards the right hand side of the frame; doing this makes the photo more asymmetric and adds a little more interest.

I liked how the original photo looked, so I didn’t change much in the editing stage; I cropped the photo a bit and increased the saturation a small amount.

I really like the effect of having the flower to the right hand side of the frame. I think the increased saturation gives the picture a warmer feel.

The weather seems to be looking better already, so hopefully it will stay like this for the foreseeable future.

Mat

Man's Best Friend

Today was the last day of our holiday; I really didn’t want it to end. Tomorrow is back to normal so I shall upload a photo from the holiday to try and keep the memory alive in my imagination as long as possible.

Today’s photo is of my crazy dog! Bex was playing a game of fetch with him in a field. He was waiting for Bex to throw his favourite toy and he was holding his front paw up (which for anybody with a Springer Spaniel will know is they’re stereotypical pose).

Bex had left me with her D-SLR; it already had a telephoto lens on it which is great for taking pictures of my dog (he doesn't stop!). I crouched down so that I could take the photo at his eye level for a better perspective; I also chose a fast shutter speed of 1/800^th of a second so I could freeze him as he ran with the water droplets flying off him.

I like this photo; it really catches the spirit of him waiting. I didn’t edit the photo because I didn't want to change how he looked; the photo captured every detail of him correctly.

I’m really going to miss my holiday away with Bex, but never the less it's back to reality. We took a lot of photos while we were away, so expect many more photos in the next few weeks of what we got up to while on holiday! I hope you really enjoy our holiday photos and seeing what we got up to.

Mat

Setting

It’s mine and Mat’s last evening on holiday together so after we ate we decided to go for a mini photography wander along the local canal. It was about 9pm so the sun was beginning to set.

We didn’t get very far down the canal; the cameras took over and we sat on a bench to take some shots of the sunset. It’s been a cloudy and somewhat miserable day- the clouds hadn’t lifted by the evening.

I love how the trees are just silhouettes; the black really makes the colours in the sky stand out. I increased the saturation in Photoshop when we got back. I know it’s not the most impressive sunset ever, but I loved the colours and wanted to share my last evening on holiday with you.

Bex

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Tree Vista

We’re still on holiday and having a great time! We went for a quick walk today in the park. The view was fantastic; I saw just a single tree on the horizon. I really liked the view of the tree on it’s own on the side of the hill.

I thought that having the tree in the right hand third would make a more interesting composition. I managed to expose the sky, the tree and the foreground correctly, which really enhances the photo. I like how the wispy clouds in the sky can still be seen clearly travelling across the bright blue sky.

The only editing that I did was to crop the photo down and to rotate the photo slightly to ensure that it is vertical. Apart from that I didn’t change anything else, because Bex’s camera had chosen all the right settings (once again!).

We’ve still got two more days left of our holiday, and I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Mat 

Falling

I managed to get out for a quick wander today even though it was raining; I thought I could get some interesting effects. As I was walking the rain started to get worse so I darted under a tree for some shelter. While under the tree I noticed how the rain was clinging to the undersides of the leaves.

I really liked how the raindrop had stuck to the underside. I really think the composition summed up the weather and the atmosphere of today. I took this photo with a slight underexposure to create a more gloomy impression. This worked really well because the leaves are much darker without losing any detail in them but the rain drop is still very clear.

The only editing I did was to crop the photo down to reduce the amount of background because it was a distraction. By reducing the area of the photo it focuses the attention onto the rain drop and the leaves around it.

I like the effect of this photo; I think it sums up the weather we are having completely. I really do hope that we have some more sunny weather soon!

Mat

Confetti

Mat was left in charge of the blog yesterday; I had a party to go to! As I sat down to our meal I noticed the table decorations- cups filled with different sweets and confetti over the table. I left the camera on the table while we were sat down, and I pressed the shutter just to see what happened.

This is how I’ve got some of my favourite shots (e.g. Start off Small- 2^nd April). I’m pleased with how well it worked, and I love the perspective of taking it from the tabletop.

It was quite dark so I had to use flash, which I think can sometimes ruin a shot, however I think it worked quite well here. I really like how the photo turned out. I had a great evening; hopefully you did as well.

Bex

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Snow Problem

When Bex and I were walking through town in the lush sunshine on Saturday, we decided to cool down by having a snow cone between us. It was our first snow cone and was actually very nice (even if it did seem identical to a slush puppy...)! I thought I’d take a photo of it, I know it’s pretty much a snapshot, but I thought it was worthy to be today’s upload.

I love how the ice crystals glisten in the light reflected from the pop-up flash, and I really like the contrast between the blue ice and the red ice. By using a moderately large aperture I managed to take the background out of focus which centres the attention on the snow cone itself.

The snow cone tasted very nice and I would recommend them to anyone who wants to give it a try. Bex and I will have to get out on another photography wander soon, and take some more nature shots, (and maybe some macro photos!), but I still want to continue with the street photography. What should we upload next, nature or street?

Mat