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

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

Burning Lights

I managed to get out on a photography wander tonight, I was in our local town for the afternoon. It started to get late into the evening and the sun and hidden behind the horizon for the night. One of my aims was to capture some of the street lamps after day; as I thought the light would make an interesting composition.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F5.6 selected, as this gives the best combination of narrow depth of field and still allows a moderate shutter speed to be used. I didn’t use the flash as it would spoil the lighting effect that I was aiming for.

 To edit the photo I used the noise reduction tool to try and reduce some of the noise created by the high ISO. I also increased the contrast to give the photo a bit more punch. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy how the colours had been replicated and I like how I had composed the photo.

Hopefully I will get a chance for some more photography at some point soon. As I’m a bit low on photos, and I would like to make the most of the good weather.

Mat

Flying Away

When I was photographing the pigeon I mentioned yesterday, after I captured the photo I wanted it suddenly flew off the branch into the forest behind it. Fortunately I managed to focus onto the bird as it flew off and I got a small series of photos before it was out of sight.

I still had the camera in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/640^th of a second selected. This shutter speed was fast enough to freeze the action and would remove any camera shake created while panning the camera. I didn’t use the flash gun because I didn’t have enough time to remove from my camera bag and attach it to my camera. I over exposed the photo by 1/3^rd of a stop, to combat the lighting.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the highlights to ensure the highlights didn’t become clipped. I also changed the colour tone as I thought the camera had recorded to much green in the photo for my liking. I cropped the photo as I thought the composition wasn’t very balanced, I cropped the photo so the pigeon was in the lower left hand corner of the frame.  

This photo isn’t the best quality wise but I still like it as it shows the pigeon in full flight as it takes off and flies deeper into the wood. Hopefully I’ll get another chance for a wildlife photo shoot soon, as I enjoy the challenge of moving subjects.

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

Swimming Pair

We managed to get out for a short walk today, so both of us decided to go down to the duckpond to take some photos of the wildlife. We were surprised when we got there, because most of the birds had flown off and the pond was nearly empty! The only wildlife we saw was this pair of ducks swimming around.

I thought the pair made an interesting composition, just swimming around. To make the most of the composition I had the camera in manual mode and I selected a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second and an aperture of F9. I chose these so the shutter was fast enough to freeze the movement and the depth of field was large enough to keep both ducks in sharp focus. The camera selected an ISO of ISO800 to complete the exposure.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the highlights as the water was becoming to a bit too bright. I also cropped the photo down as to improve the composition and to focus the attention onto the two ducks as they swam around on their own.

I’m glad we had a chance to get out today, but a bit of a pity that almost all of the wildlife had disappeared for the day! Hopefully we will have some better luck the next time we are at the duckpond.

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

Food Lookout

I took this photo earlier this year on the trip that Bex and I went on to our local town. I remember this trip because of the very friendly squirrel I found. It obviously liked the attention of the camera, because while I was taking some photos of the squirrel it didn’t move very often. So I managed to get a good set of photos while I was there.

This is one of my favourites because I managed to capture the squirrel just before it ran off, so it was looking towards a scrap off food behind a wall so I couldn’t follow for more photos. I really like the pose I captured the squirrel in just before he ran it ran off.

To capture the image I had the camera in shutter priority so I had complete control of the necessary settings. I then set the shutter speed to 1/500^th of a second, this was fast enough so that any movement made by the squirrel would be frozen and any camera shake would be removed. I didn’t have my flash gun with me during the photography wander, but it wasn’t required because the sky was partially cloudy which caused the light to be diffused perfectly. I overexposed the photo by 1 and 1/3^rd of a stop to compensate for the brighter background.

To edit the photo I cropped the image down to focus the attention onto the squirrel. I also boosted the contrast to give the photo a little extra vividness. I was experimenting with the colour tone and the saturation; I tried increasing the colour tone while decreasing the saturation. Which increased the reds while decreasing all other colours, because the squirrel is predominantly grey this creates a stronger contrast and makes the squirrel stand out more from the background, particularly as the squirrel is standing on a small patch of green foliage which jumps out from the background.

I’m very impressed with how the image looks after I edited it; it looks very different from how it came out of the camera. I think the photo looks a lot better after I edited it, the composition looks a lot better and the lack of colour I think makes the squirrel stand out from the background a lot more than before.

Mat

Flying Alone

I was looking through my computer for some inspiration when I found this photo; I had taken during a photography wander early in January. The weather was bright but cloudy so perfect photography weather (even if it wasn’t perfect weather for the photographer!). I saw a bird of prey that was flying overhead so I tried to capture a photo of it against the clouds.

I wanted the contrast to very harsh so I underexposed the camera by 2/3^rd of a stop. I had the camera in servo AF mode so the focus would follow the motion of the bird. When I was happy with the composition I took a series of photos. I had locked the exposure at 1/400^th of a second which was fast enough to freeze the movement of the bird as it was a long distance away.

To edit the photo I cropped the photo into a square format as I think it creates a far stronger composition. And it enforces the isolation of the bird flying on its own. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with the end effect.

Hopefully soon Bex and I will get a chance for a photography wander. But it will most likely be at some point next week. I have a lot of photos stored in my computer so I think I shall be reminiscing on some previous photography wanders.

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

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

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

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

Landing

Bex and I managed to go out for a wander today, but we didn’t take out cameras with us. So I decided to upload another photo from last weekend’s wildlife photo shoot. I had paused momentarily when I saw a pigeon flying past me out of the corner of my eye. I turned round as it flew past and brought my camera to my eye and took a series of photos as it landed on a branch in a nearby tree. Unfortunately quite a few of the photos were out of focus or slightly blurry, but this one and a few others were pin sharp.

I had the camera in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/640^th of a second programmed in to remove any camera shake and motion blur. I also had the ISO set at ISO 800 to ensure that a moderate aperture was selected by the camera. I had overexposed by one stop, when I reviewed the photo it looked a bit too bright form my liking; but this was easily eradicated in the editing stage.

To edit the photo the first thing I did was to lower the overall brightness of the photo to combat the overexposing. I also increased the contrast to make the photo look more dynamic. I also cropped the photo as there was quite a lot of dead space surrounding the pigeon; by removing the dead space it focuses the attention onto the main subject.

I’m glad that I got a good photo of the pigeon as it landed. I had quite a few attempts of taking photos of moving birds last weekend but unfortunately most of them were out of focus or blurry; but I think I am slowly getting better at my wildlife photography.

Mat

Hiding Away

This is another of the photos I took last weekend which I really liked. The clouds hadn’t broken when I was taking this photo which made the exposure a lot easier to calculate. I didn’t need to use the flash either as the contrast was a lot less between the highlights and the shadows.

I was once again using the camera in shutter priority to ensure that any movement by the bird was removed. I had selected a shutter speed of 1/640^th which also ensured that any camera shake is also removed. As I previously mentioned I was wasn’t using the flash by this point as the contrast was a lot lower so the flash wasn’t required to brighten the shadow areas. I left the ISO in auto so the camera selected ISO1000 and an aperture of F5.6 to complete the exposure.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the colour tone and the colour temperature. I did this to ensure to enhance the yellow of the bird’s chest and to dampen the vivid green of the tree branch which distracted the viewer away from the bird itself. I also cropped the photo as there was a lot of dead space surrounding the bird.

I’m not sure on which day but both Bex and I are hoping to be able to go out for a photography wander at some point this weekend. I’m sure that we will upload some of the photos that we take while we’re out and about.

Mat

Through the Trees

Once again I’m uploading another photo from the wildlife photo shoot I went on during the weekend. For this photo I was trying to capture the bird up against the blue sky, but when I took the photo the meter had metered for the sky and the whole photo was underexposed. When I came back to look at this photo I actually liked the effect that this created.

I had the camera in aperture priority with an aperture of F8 selected, and ISO 400 locked in. The camera selected a shutter speed of 1/200^th of a second for this photo. I wasn’t using the flash as I wanted to expose for both the foreground and the background (although this turned out to be impossible).

When looking back at this photo I actually really liked the underexposed effect. So to enhance the effect I increased the contrast and lowered the shadows until the bird and the foreground turned into a silhouette. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with how everything else looked.

Hopefully I will have more happy-accidents with my photos! Because they generally work out to be very interesting photos!

Mat

Field Walk

I was once again looking through my computer when I found this photo from one of the many walks that Bex and I have been on. We were walking along a country walk when I saw this view across the field opposite us. I instantly liked the composition that the fence and tree created.

To make the most of the composition I had the camera in aperture priority and selected an aperture of F11. I locked the ISO at ISO 100 to make sure the quality was as good as it could be. The camera chose a shutter speed of 1/60^th to match; this was fast enough because I was using a focal length of 40mm. I made sure that the photo was taken vertically because the fence posts would have made this very obvious otherwise.

I didn’t edit the photo as I was happy with how the photo was straight from the camera. The colours had been reproduced perfectly and the exposure was exactly how I wanted it to be. I liked the composition so I didn’t crop the photo down.

I’m very much looking forward to the wildlife photo-shoot tomorrow. I’ve got all my camera gear ready and waiting, I’ll let you know how it goes, and I’m sure I’ll upload some photos to show you.

Mat

Go Nuts

This photo was taken the last time I went into town. I know I’ve already uploaded a few photos of the Squirrel there, but I really like the composition I had captured in this photo. The squirrel was running around very quickly, but every now and then he would come very close to where I was positioned. One time he stopped about 5-8 feet in front of me and stood there looking at me for a few seconds.

While the squirrel was standing still I quickly brought the camera up to my eye and took a series of photos. I had the camera in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/500^th of second to freeze the action. The camera selected an aperture of F4.5 and an ISO of ISO4000 to complete the exposure. I left the other settings on default as I didn’t have time to change them before taking the photos.

To edit the photo I lowered the overall brightness as I had overexposed by around 1-2 stops!  I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with how the photo was composed and the colours had been replicated just how I wanted them to be.

We still haven’t had a chance to go out for a photography wander. But hopefully over the next few days we will get a chance. If not I will use some more photos from our previous photography wanders.

Mat