Crawling Ivy

This photo was taken just after the photo I previously uploaded. After taking the photo of the ivy from the side, I noticed that there was ivy growing up the next tree as well. I liked the contrast that the bright green ivy made against the bark of the tree. To make the most of the composition I tried to keep the depth of field as small as possible.

To keep the depth of field small I used an aperture of F6.3 as this gave me the depth of field I required. The camera paired this with a shutter speed of 1/125^th of a second and an ISO of 1600. I also had to alter the colour tone to compensate for the bright green from the leaves of the ivy. I didn’t use the flash as I was close to the leaves and I didn’t want them to white out and become clipped.

To edit the photo I cropped the photo down and removed one of the leaves as I thought it was a distraction and made the photo look more confusing. I also decreased the colour tone a bit more as I thought there wasn’t enough red in the photo. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with how the rest of the photo had come out. The exposure was exactly how I wanted it to be so I decided not to change it.

I’m quite pleased with both of the photos, but I think this one is my favourite out of the two. Hopefully I will get a chance to upload some more photos from our wander in town.

Mat

Branching Pathways

I got out for another photography wander today with Bex. We went into our local town again, and went for a walk around our usual places. We were walking along a path on the way to a cafe that we like when I spotted a few small branches that had fallen onto the path. I thought they made an interesting composition.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F5.6, as this isolated the closet branch from the rest of the scene. I left the camera to select both the shutter speed and the ISO, for this exposure the camera selected a shutter speed of 1/40^th of a second and an ISO of ISO 6400 to complete the exposure.

To edit the photo, the only thing I did was to increase the contrast, I was happy with the rest of the photo so I decided to leave it the way it came out of the camera. The composition was as I wanted it to be, and the colours had been replicated accurately so didn’t require any editing. Also the exposure didn’t require any changes except for the increase in contrast.

I’m really glad that both Bex and I had a chance to go out with our cameras today. We haven’t been out with our cameras together for quite a while and I was in need of taking some new photos. So I will have a few new photos to upload to the blog over the next few days.

Mat

Steam Traction

Following on from my most recent post I thought I would upload another photo based on railways. I wanted to use a photo of a railway but with a bit of twist. So I thought I would look back through my computer to one of the many holidays that I’ve been to in Wales. On this particular holiday we paid a visit to one of the preserved railways, I wanted to give this photo a bit of a twist by making it look more vintage, a bit like an old style postcard.

The engine is a manor class loco as used by the Great Western Railway (GWR), just in case any wants to know! I used an aperture of F16 to ensure that as much of the photo is in focus, the camera then selected a shutter speed of a/125^th of a second and ISO 100 to complete the exposure. I composed the photo so that the engine was in the right third of the photo with the rest of the train extending through the photo to the left hand third.

To edit the photo I increased both the saturation and the colour temperature, this gives the photo an older appearance and makes it looks like an old fashioned post card. I like this effect; the photo looks exactly as I wanted it to when I came up with the idea. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with everything else.

I’m very pleased with the effect I created with this photo, I like the character that old photos and old postcards have; and that was what I was trying to replicate with this photo.

Mat

Off To Work

Sorry I haven’t done a blog post recently, things have been going crazy, but are slightly better now and I finally managed to get out for a short photography wander. The weather wasn’t amazing today so I decided to pay a quick visit to our local railway station.

It was quite early in the morning so the station was full of commuters on their way to work. I thought the busy atmosphere would make an interesting composition. I was waiting for one of the commuter trains to leave when I saw the guard making his way down the platform, I thought it would make an interesting composition if I could isolate them as they talked to each other.

To isolate them I used an aperture of F8 to ensure that both of them were in focus but to still make sure that the background was still out of focus. I had to use quite a high ISO to ensure that the shutter speed would be fast enough, as the camera was in aperture priority the camera selected a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second.

To edit the photo I cropped the photo down to focus the attention onto the driver and the guard. I also increased the contrast while lowering the highlights to reduce the effect of the highlights being blown in the sky. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with the rest of the photo.

I’m glad I had a chance to go out for a photography wander today, even though the weather wasn’t great I still had a good time and took a few good photos at the station. Hopefully I will have another chance sometime soon to take some more photos.

Mat

Burst Of Colour

I took this photo on one of the trips Bex and I went on to our local town. I was trying to capture a photo of a group of daffodils but they were in direct sunlight which made setting the exposure very difficult. I didn’t get the effect that I wanted so I moved on to a different subject. When looking back through, I came across this photo which didn’t look as bad as I thought when I took it.

I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F8 selected to give the best trade off between depth of field and a fast shutter speed. I locked the ISO at ISO 100 for maximum image quality. I didn’t have my flash gun on me during this trip as I couldn’t balance the harsh sunlight. The camera selected a shutter speed of 1/125^th of a second to complete the exposure.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the highlights. After I did this I started playing with the colour temperature settings, I used the custom setting and selected the yellow leaves which turned them white and turned the background a rather pleasant blue colour! I stopped changing settings after this as I didn’t want to spoil the effect that I had (accidently) made. I really like the modified colours and I think it makes the photo look much better than before.

Hopefully things will get back to normal soon and Bex and I will get a chance to go for a photography wander very soon.

Mat

Light In The Mist

I took this on my recent photography wander, it was late at night and there were a lot of lights on. It had just started to rain and the powerfull lights were lighting up the misty rain. I really like the effect that this created.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F8 selected. This ensured that the whole light was in sharp focus but the background was blurred out of focus. I didn’t use the flash because it would cause the housing of the light to white out and would ruin the composition. I had left the camera with the ISO in auto so the camera selected an ISO 12800. The camera selected a shutter speed of 1/60^th of a second to complete the exposure.

To edit the photo the first thing I did was to use the noise reduction tool to attempt to reduce the noise created by using the high ISO. I then cropped the photo down to focus the attention onto the light itself, and to remove some distractions in the foreground. I didn’t edit the colours as I was happy with how they had been reproduced by the camera.

I like this photo now that I’ve done some editing to it. The composition looks much better after cropping the noise reduction has made the photo more pleasing to the eye. I very much look forward to the next photography wander that Bex and I go on.

Mat

Perched And Waiting

Both Bex and I managed to get out for a short while today, so we decided to go for a quick walk around the local nature reserve. While we were on our way into the forest I spotted a bird flying towards a tree, it slowed and landed on a branch about 25 feet in front of me! I fortunately had my telephoto lens on my camera so I cropped in on the pigeon to get the best composition.

As I cropped in I noticed the bird had a small twig in its beak, it was carrying into another tree nearby to create a nest. I focussed the camera onto the head of the pigeon and I kept the bird in the centre of the frame because I thought this would give the best composition. I didn’t use the flash as it was still in my camera bag and I didn’t know how long I had until the pigeon would fly off again.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the highlights, to make sure the white patch didn’t become clipped. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with how the photo looked straight from the camera. The colours had been replicated perfectly and the composition looked spot on how I wanted it.

I’m glad we got a chance to go out for a photography wander, the weather was amazing and it was nice to go for a walk in the bright sunshine. Hopefully the weather will last for a while longer!

Mat

Paddling Past

I said in a previous post that Bex and I only saw two ducks while we were at the duckpond. After I captured that photo the ducks split off and I followed the male duck until he past some reeds that were protruding above the water level. I thought it made an interesting composition so I took a series of photos and used the one with the best composition to upload for you.

I had the camera in shutter priority mode with a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second selected so all the movement made by the reeds and the duck were frozen. I was overexposing the photo to compensate for the lighting which corrected the overall exposure. This gave me an aperture of F5.6 and an ISO speed of ISO 400.

The only editing I did was to crop and rotate the orientation of the photo, as i think this vastly improves the composition. The exposure was correct and I didn’t need to overexpose the photo as I had already compensated for the lighting conditions. The colours had been replicated with the right warmth so I didn’t change the colour tone, or the colour temp.

I’m very much looking forward to our next photo shoot. Maybe we should do a still life photos hoot as we haven’t done one for quite a while. I learnt a lot from doing the still life photo shoot with the flowers a few months ago; hopefully I’ll be able to apply that knowledge to improve my next shoot.

Mat

Nesting

This photo I took while I was on my photography wander with Bex. We were just leaving when I spotted a swan that was nesting on a little island in the pond. It had chosen a very good place for a nest as it was very sheltered.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in manual mode again, and I selected a shutter speed of 1/400^th of a second and an aperture of F11. I chose this shutter speed as it was fast enough to freeze any movement and also fast enough to remove any camera shake as I was using my monopod to help keep the camera steady. I left the ISO in auto and the camera chose ISO 1600 to complete the exposure. I didn’t use my flash gun as the sky was rather cloudy at the time and therefore diffused the sunlight.

To edit the photo I cropped the photo down and also changed the orientation. I did this to focus the attention onto the swan, and I prefer the vertical composition. I also increased the contrast and the sharpness. I did this to give the photo some extra punch and to clear up some ‘fuzziness’ that the high ISO had created.

Hopefully soon we will get a chance to go on a photography wander. As the weather is really starting to improve again. So we should be able to catch some wildlife in the brilliant summer sun.

Mat

On The Move

Looking back through some photos that I’ve taken on previous photography wanders, and I once again came across the series of photos that I took of the squirrel in our local city. The squirrel was jumping around on a search for food, and I managed to capture a photo just as it was changing direction and about to move off again.

I had the camera in shutter priority mode with a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second, had an ISO of ISO800 locked in. I was underexposing the photo by 1/3^rd of a photo which meant the camera selected an aperture of F5.6 to complete the exposure.  I didn’t use my flash gun because it was in my camera bag and I didn’t have enough time to attach it to my camera.

I didn’t change anything during the editing stage as I was happy with the overall effect of the photo. The exposure was spot on what I wanted it to be, and the colours had been replicated faithfully. I didn’t crop the photo as I was happy with the composition of the photo.

Bex and I are planning on a photography wander next weekend as we will have some spare time. Hopefully the weather will be nice so we can get outside to capture some summer shots.

Mat

Lost In The Silhouette

I managed to get out for a quick walk this evening with Bex. We went for a short walk around the nature reserve as we didn’t have much time. As we were walking a pigeon suddenly flew out of nowhere nearly hitting me in the head! Fortunately I had my camera out so I quickly spun around and took a series of photos as it flew away from us. Luckily a couple of the photos were in focus, this one was my favourite in terms of composition.

I didn’t have a chance to change any of the settings before I took the photo. Fortunately the camera was in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/400^th of a second selected, so both the movement of the bird and any camera shake were both frozen. I had the ISO locked at ISO800 and the camera selected an aperture of F8 to complete the exposure.

I didn’t edit the photo as I like how it was straight from the camera; I like the underexposed effect of the photo. Also the composition was how I wanted it to be, so I didn’t crop the photo down. The colours in the sky and clouds looked accurate to how they were so I didn’t change either the colour tone or the colour saturation.

I think this is my best spur of the moment photo I’ve taken so far. Although out of all the photos I took only two of them were in correct focus! So I was quite lucky with this photo. But I think it worked out well in the end.

Mat

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

Feeding Time

This photo was taken the short wander I went on last week. After walking through the nature reserve I made my way towards the duckpond. As he weather was nice there was a large gathering of ducks and other wild birds. Also a few young families were at the side of the pond feeding the ducks with small chunks of bread; which the ducks of course enjoyed, and many came back for more!

I saw one of the ducks making its way to were the other ducks were being fed. As it was on its own I thought it would make an interesting composition with the reflection in the water. To make the most of this composition I used an aperture of F8 to give a large enough depth of field. I didn’t get a chance to put the flash gun on my camera, so I had to overexpose the photo by 1 and 1/3^rd of a stop to get an even exposure.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the highlights, I then sharpened the photo as the photo looked a bit bland. I also cropped the photo because I felt that I had left to much dead space in the front of the photo. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with the effect I had created.

Both Bex and I are going through a very busy time at the moment; we will go out on photography wanders whenever we get a chance, but when we can’t we will look through our computers for older photos so we can still keep the blog running for you.

Mat

Resting Bird

Bex and I managed to get out this weekend in the wonderful weather but we decided to have a day off from photography and to enjoy and relax in the weather. So I will be using a photo from one of my wildlife photography wanders. I remember taking this photo because the sun was beaming down which made the metering a challenge. As I really enjoy a challenge I was determined to capture this photo!

For this photo I had the camera in shutter priority to ensure that the shutter speed was fast enough to remove any movement that the bird made. Because of the direct lighting conditions I overexposed the photo to ensure that the exposure was even across the photo. I had left the camera in Auto ISO because the light was constantly changing. The camera selected an aperture of F5.6 and in ISO of ISO320 to complete the exposure.

To edit the photo I had to change the light levels quite a lot to combat the harsh exposure. I lowered the highlight while increasing the shadows. I also lowered the overall exposure to recover the highlight details. I didn’t change the colour temperature or the colour tone as I was happy with how the colours had been replicated by the camera.

I hope the weather holds because now that we’re off out photography break; I would love to capture some summer photos before the weather makes another turn for the worse!

Mat

Watching The World

I took this photo earlier this week while I was out walking with my camera. I was passing through the nature reserve and I saw a bird that had landed on a tree and just appeared to be watching the nearby world.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F6.3 selected. This aperture gives the best compromise of depth of field and still allows an adequate shutter speed to be used. I composed the photo so that I had a branch in front to give some foreground interest, and to also as lead in lines to the bird. I didn’t use the flash gun because the sky was quite cloudy and therefore the light was diffused.

I didn’t edit the photo as I was happy with how the photo looks. The exposure was spot on and the colours had been replicated perfectly. I liked the composition so I didn’t crop the photo either.

Hopefully Bex and I will get a chance to go out on a photography wander of some sort this weekend. The weather is looking good, warm and slightly cloudy; perfect photography weather!

Mat

Flowering

The weather has been rather miserable recently but I did manage to get out for a short walk today. Unfortunately a lot of the early spring growth has been killed because of the wet and cold conditions; also a lot of trees have been damaged due to the high winds. While on my walk I found a small patch of flowers that looked like it was the middle of summer, the rain and the cold hadn’t affected them at all!

I wanted a moderate depth of field so I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F8 selected. This made the depth of field deep enough to show the detail in the flowers, but shallow enough to blur the background and the foreground. I didn’t use the flash as I didn’t want to blow the highlights.

I didn’t edit the photo as I was happy with how the photo was straight from the camera. The composition was how I wanted it to be and both the exposure and the colour replication were spot on.

This weekend will be a very good weekend for photography, Bex and I have planned a trip out on Saturday. We will tell you more information about it nearer the time and I’m sure we will upload some photos after we get back.

Mat

Lone Swan

I didn’t get a chance to go for a photography wander this weekend so I used one of the photos from my previous wander earlier last week. I noticed a swan had made a nest on a small island in the duckpond. I thought it made an interesting composition as it was isolated on its own.

To make the most of the composition I put the camera in manual mode so I could control both the aperture and the shutter speed. I set the aperture at F5.6 and the shutter speed at 1/640^th to freeze the movement. I let the camera choose the ISO, which it calculated to be ISO1000. I also overexposed the photo by one stop.

I didn’t edit the photo as I was happy with the effect straight from the camera. The exposure had been calculated perfectly and the colours had been replicated faithfully. I didn’t crop the photo as I liked how I had composed the photo.

Both Bex and I have a very busy time now because of our school/college work. But we will still go out on photography wanders whenever we can. If we don’t get a chance then we both have a large reserve of photos that we can access on our computers.

Mat

Flying Away

Again this was taken on yesterdays short wildlife photoshoot. I was watching a pigeon in one of the trees next to me, when suddenly it took off and flew away. Within minutes of this happening the sky opened up and the rain came pouring down! I think the pigeon had the right idea flying away. So I quickly stuffed my camera gear back into my camera bag and made off for some shelter.

For this photo I had the camera in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/640^th of a second selected and I was overexposing the photo by one stop, to ensure the bird was correctly exposed. The camera selected an aperture of F5.6 and an ISO of 3200 to complete the exposure.  I wasn’t using the flash gun because the sky was cloudy and diffusing the light adequately.

I didn’t edit the photo as I was happy with how the photo looked straight from the camera. The exposure was spot on and the colours were replicated just how I wanted them to be. I thought if I tried to edit the photo I would spoil the effect I had created in camera.

I enjoy wildlife photography as it provides a different challenge to normal photography, with the subjects moving randomly and quickly you need to have quick reactions and the foresight to predict where they are likely to move to. I enjoy these challenges, which is why I try and go on as many wildlife photoshoots as I can.

Mat

Hiding Robin

I managed to go out for a short walk while the weather was good today. The weather was changing rapidly throughout the day so I didn’t have a chance to take many photos. Despite the weather there were a lot of birds in the trees. I spotted this colourful bird hiding away in one of the trees; I thought it made an interesting composition sitting on the branch in the tree.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in manual mode, with a shutter speed of 1/640^th of a second selected and an aperture of F5.6 to focus the attention onto the bird. I wasn’t using my flash gun for this photo as the sky was covered by clouds which diffused the harsh sunlight for a more soft lighting effect. I also changed the colour tone and the colour saturation to make the most of the colours on the bird.

To edit the photo I cropped the photo down to improve the composition, and I boosted the contrast. The photo was looking flat so by increasing the contrast I made the photo look much more dynamic. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with how the camera had replicated the colours.

Hopefully I will get a chance to go out for a photography wander at some point this weekend, if not I still have a fair few photos from my recent wildlife photo shoots.

Mat

Taking On Water

This photo was taken on my recent wildlife photo shoot. We eventually made our way to our local duckpond, when we got there a few swans where swimming around the pond. The swan that was closest to me started to drink the water, I thought this made an interesting composition. The swan was in the bright and direct sunlight; this created a complicated exposure. I decided to combat the difficult exposure by using my flash gun.

I had the camera in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/1000^th of a second locked in. I had such a fast shutter speed selected so that the movement of the dripping water would be frozen. I had the camera set up on my monopod so I didn’t have to worry about any camera shake. I overexposed the flashgun by 3 stops to ensure the most powerfull flash was being emitted. I also overexposed the cameras exposure meter by 1/3^rd of a stop.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast to give the photo extra punch and I also changed the white balance, as I thought the photo looked a bit warm. I cropped the photo in a bit tighter as there was quite a lot of dead space behind the swan. The composition looks a lot better after I cropped the photo; it shifts the focus onto the swan. I didn’t change the light levels as I was happy with how the camera had exposed the photo.

Hopefully Bex and I will get a chance to go for a photography wander at some point this weekend. If the weather stays as good as it has been then this weekend should bring some great photos.

Mat