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

Tree Growth

I took this photo on the most recent wander that Bex and I went on in our local town. We were walking down a long path that was surrounded by trees on both sides. On one of the trees there had some ivy growing up the side. I liked the composition it created against the background.

To enhance the composition I used the widest aperture that I could, which was F5.6, the camera selected a shutter speed of 1/80^th of a second and with an ISO of ISO 3200. I decided against using my flashgun as there was enough light making its way through the trees. I had to compensate against the amount of green by lowering the colour tone and bringing more red into the photo. I composed the photo so the tree took up the left half of the frame with the ivy in the centre of the photo.

To edit the photo I further decreased the colour tone to balance the colours. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with how the rest of the photo looked. The composition was how I wanted it to be and the exposure was spot on.

Both Bex and I have been very busy recently, but we will be going out and taking photos as often as we can.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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