Five Colours

From today’s image, you can tell why I was excused from blogging last night!!! I went to a McFly concert at a local music venue (unfortunately, not in the capacity of a photographer!). Of course, I did take a camera, but only a compact.

During some parts of the concert, the audience were encouraged to participate, to which they happily obliged. This is the subject of my photo. As I was using a compact camera, I was unable to choose many settings myself. I chose an ISO of 1600 in order to get the fastest shutter speed possible. The camera chose an aperture of F2.8 at 1/60^th.

Using such a high ISO meant the image quality wasn’t as good, so I decided to edit it. I increased the contrast, decreased the brightness and increased the saturation to make the image more vibrant, and to show the difference of tones between the crowd and the lights on the stage. I had an amazing time at the gig last night, and look forward to sharing more photos with you in due course.

Bex

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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

Movement

As promised, today’s image features the street art in the town centre. There are steps down to the jetty of the water taxi. Water runs down these steps and is lit up by lights behind the waterfall in the evening.

I took this photo after my meal with my family, as it was dark by that point so I knew the lights would be on. There are small lights following the walkway, which light up the edges of the streams of water. I used this to my advantage, and took the photo from an angle, to make the highlights more prominent. I used a shutter speed of 1/20, with an aperture of F22, as I wanted to blur the water, but needed to underexpose slightly.

I was surprised with the success of the photo, and decided that I didn’t need to edit the image. My usual practice would be to sharpen the photo, but I had boosted the sharpness in camera, and felt no need to. This week should run much more smoothly, and you’ll see more of me. Hopefully, that’s a good thing!

Bex

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Well Rounded

I should apologise to you, having not contributed to the blog at all this week. The best part of working in a team is that the pressure to keep things running is taken away when there is a busy week ahead.

Finally, I had time to spare, so decided to go on a much needed photography wander. I had planned to go out for a meal with my family, so incorporated my photography wander into this. I caught a bus to the town centre in the late afternoon, and spent some time photographing nature, rush hour, and the harbour. After my meal, I then photographed a sculpture; you’ll get to see this tomorrow.

I took macro filters with me, just in case, and I’m glad I did! I found a group of small, perfectly round flowers and decided to try and capture detail in these. I managed it successfully, but decided to edit my image in Photoshop, to improve them beyond the capabilities of my camera. I increased brightness and contrast, increased saturation and sharpened the image. I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out. I’ve missed my photography; especially the blog!!!

Bex

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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