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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Illusion

I walked home for a change today, as the weather consisted of glorious sunshine, with a slight breeze to cool the air; in my opinion, the perfect weather! I was about five minutes away from my house and without my camera when I spotted this “flower”, so rushed home and returned with camera at the ready.

I use quotation marks, because in actual fact, it is not a flower, but a bud with leaves at the stem. I liked the way that you have to look closely to see that it isn’t a flower. I was lucky to have spotted this, as I went back the next day to find the leaves open.

I tried to under expose the image as I didn’t want a background, and didn’t have any black card to hand. I used flash to pick out the foreground, with an aperture of F22 to reduce the amount of light, and to make sure that the whole plant was in focus. Also, I used a shutter speed of 1/160, as I was using on camera flash, and this is the sync speed. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the plant had small white hairs along the stem. I sharpened the image in Photoshop to show this, but haven’t done anything else, as I was pleased with the original.

Bex

Resting Robin

This photo has to be my shot of the day! We were walking along the path when I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look round and just saw this robin fly into the bush. I immediately stopped at turned round to take a photo. I thought it would fly off very quickly so i rushed to take the first photo. To my surprise the robin didn’t move, so I crept a little closer, took a few more photos. I kept closing in until I was about 10 feet away from the robin! This meant I could set up the composition that I wanted.

To capture this image I set the camera to 1/400^th of a second shutter speed and I locked the ISO at ISO200. The camera selected an aperture of F5.6. I had also manually selected the focus point and moved it onto the robin’s eye to ensure that it was pin-sharp.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and then lowered the highlights to retain an even exposure. I didn’t crop the photo as I was happy with how I had framed the photo at the time. The colours had been replicated accurately and really show off the red-orange colour of the robin.

This is definitely my shot of the day; none of the other photos that I had taken on the day are as good as this one. I will still be uploading more photos from my trip over the next week.

Mat

Silhouette

This is another photo from my walk to the top of the hill in the nature reserve a few days ago. I tried to take a mixture of both wide shots, and close ups. For the close ups, I tried to focus on teasels, using them as a silhouetted foreground against the dark sky. I tried a mixture of focusing on several, and single plants, but decided that single plants had the most impact.

I used an aperture of F16, as I wanted the entire image to be in focus, so each of the spines could be seen individually. This amount of detail makes the image much more dramatic, as it emphasises each part of the photo equally. I wanted to use a low ISO, so had to base the shutter speed around these two values. I wanted to under expose so, after some experimentation, I decided to use a shutter speed of 1/320.

I increased the contrast in Photoshop, as I wanted the range of tones in the clouds to be prominent; decreasing the brightness slightly aided this. I then sharpened the image, in order to pick out the patterns in the clouds and to make the spikes of the teasel more prominent.

Bex
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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