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

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

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

Experiments

First of all, I shall lay to rest your shock of being able to read a new blog post while still in daylight! (If you’re British, that is). This evening, Mat and I are going to a concert!! We didn’t want to have a night off from Daily Wanders, so decided to prepare a post before leaving.

This is a photo from a recent walk through my local area. Mat was experimenting with flashguns again so I decided to abandon him, although I didn’t completely abandon the concept of experimenting with light. I tried to take a photo of a curled up leaf, but decided it looked dull and was lost in the background. I used flash in conjunction with point metering, in order to lose some of the background. I ended up taking around 10 photos in order to get the desired effect; each one varying in flash intensity, and the amount I over/under exposed the image. This is taken at F5.6 at a shutter speed of 1/160 at ISO 100.

Some of the photo seemed a little over exposed where it caught more of the flash. In order to correct this, I darkened the shadows in Photoshop. I sharpened the image to pick up final details of the leaf. Another twig stemmed from the branch, which I tried to remove by using flash. However, this left a large black space at the bottom of the photo. I cropped it to make it seem more symmetrical. I love experimenting with photos in this way; it’s part of the fun and makes the end result much more satisfying.

Bex

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Shining Through

I know I’ve uploaded some very similar photos recently; but I really liked a lot of the photos and couldn’t decide which to upload so I decided to upload all of them! This photo was taken on the return journey; we had paused for a short break to just watch the world go by. We were just leaving when I saw how the light was catching the leaves on the side of the hedge. I really liked how the bramble branch has been picked out by the light, and how the light shines through the leaves.

To make the most of this composition I used a medium aperture of F8, this gives a large enough depth of field without showing too much of the background. I preselected an ISO of 400 to enable the use of a fast enough shutter speed. I didn’t use the flash on this photo as it would have over powered the natural light and destroyed the effect I was aiming to capture.

I didn’t change anything during the editing stage as I was happy with how I had captured the image. The camera had calculated the exposure perfectly so I didn’t change any of the light levels. Also the colours had been replicated perfectly so I left them as they were.

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to go out for a walk again this weekend, if not then I’m sure I’ll be able to find some photos in my computer’s hard drive. Maybe I’ll look through some of our previous photography wanders.

Mat

Flying High

I managed to get out for a walk today, so I went down to our local duck pond. I’ve recently purchased a Manfrotto monopod and though this would be the best way to try it out. When I got down to the duckpond I attached it to my camera and took all my photos with it on.

This photo was a bit of a happy accident; I was panning with the camera set in shutter priority and a shutter speed of 1/2000^th of a second programmed. I was following the bird and because of the metering I was using, (centre waited) the exposure was under-exposed. But because of this the bird becomes silhouetted against the cloudy backdrop.

To edit the photo, I boosted the contrast and lowered the highlights. I lowered the highlights so the clouds become more prominent. By increasing the contrast the silhouette effect becomes more dramatic. I didn’t crop the photo as I liked how the bird is surrounded by clouds and sky; I also like how the bird is flying across the frame.

The monopod came in very handy with all the photos, it effectively removed the camera shake from hand holding the camera. This enables the use of slightly slower shutter speed (1-2 stops), which is very helpful when there isn’t much light around. I will definitely be using my new monopod on future photography wanders.

Mat

Nature Meets Man-Made

On the short walk I went on yesterday I walked through a small industrial estate, one of the buildings had a disused air-conditioning unit on the side of it. It obviously hadn’t been serviced for a very long time as the unit was very rusty. There had been quite a lot of wind recently and this had blown dead leaves onto the protection mesh and they had become stuck.

The leaves sticking onto the protective mesh I thought showed the contrast that can arise when the natural world meets the made-made world. I thought this contrast made an interesting composition as well. To take the photo I used the camera in program auto mode because as the subject was all in the same plane the actual aperture chosen made very little difference. The camera chose a shutter speed of 1/50^th of a second with an aperture of F4.5 and an ISO of 320. I didn’t use flash because I didn’t want the background to be lit up very much.

To edit the photo I only adjusted the colour temperature and the saturation. By increasing both of these I introduced a lot more ‘life’ into the photo and also made the photo look a lot more vivid. I didn’t change the light levels because I was happy with how the camera had exposed the photo, and I didn’t want to spoil the effect.

I enjoyed my wander around my town; I went a different way to normal and found some new interesting areas to take photographs at. I’m sure I will be going back again soon to take some more.

Mat

Flying Away

I managed to go out for a walk with my camera today. So I decided to walk around my town and see what I could find. I was walking towards our town centre and there was a large group of black birds circling above me, which gave me an idea for an interesting composition.

My idea I had was to capture the birds as they circled past one of the lamp posts. To capture the exposure I set the camera into AI Servo Focus (Continuous AF), selected the centre AF point which is more sensitive and set the camera to continuous drive mode. I panned the camera following the birds in the viewfinder until I saw the composition I wanted through the viewfinder when I took 4-5 photos. I made sure to take multiple exposures to ensure I had the composition that I wanted.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the highlights. This stops the highlights from becoming blown and also the photo looked a bit flat before so this makes the photo look more dynamic. I also cropped out some rubbish that had become caught on the top of the lamp post. I had accidently captured the photo on an angle; I tried adjusting this to become vertical, but I put it back because I preferred the composition.

Bex apologises for not uploading a post recently, but this week is her exam week and she has been very busy with her revision so she left me in charge of the blog for this week. She has told me that she has a lot of interesting photos that she took over the weekend as well to show you. I’m sure that you will enjoy them.

Mat

Creations

This is another photo from our recent trip to our local Christmas market. Before I explain anything, I should apologise for any inexcusable errors that I may make, as I broke my glasses!

As I previously mentioned, there were a lot of different stalls there which all sold handmade items. One of the stalls I went to exhibited Christmas wreaths made from twigs and dried citrus fruit such as oranges. It also had handmade gifts, such as animal shaped doorstops; this is one example of them. I love how the subject is immediately obvious, and I’ll admit that my first reaction was “aww”!

It was quite dark as it was getting towards late afternoon, so I had to use a relatively slow shutter speed. I could speed it up slightly because I used an aperture of F4.5, as I wanted a relatively shallow depth of field. I wasn’t sure how shallow the depth of field would be, as it was too dark to be able to tell effectively from the depth of field preview option.

I’m pleased with how the image turned out; I like how the spikes that are furthest away from the camera have been blurred. I also like how you can see the reflections of the lights in the eyes of the hedgehog. I got my advent calendar today (I will never grow up!) so I’m all ready for December- ROLL ON CHRISTMAS!!

Bex
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Small Wildlife

I had this morning off so as I didn’t have anything to do I decided to go for a walk to the nature reserve to see what wildlife I could find. I’m glad I went because there was a lot of wildlife about; in particular there were a lot of birds around.

I heard this bird calling from one of the trees and I looked around until I found it hiding on a branch in the middle of the tree. I zoomed in to 300mm on my telephoto lens until I got the composition that I wanted. I was using the camera in shutter priority and I had selected a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second, and I over exposed by one stop. This gave me an aperture of F7.1 which gave me a large enough depth of field for what I wanted. I didn’t use the flash as I didn’t want to scare the bird away and it wouldn’t have been powerfull enough to reach the bird.

When editing the photo I cropped the photo to enhance the composition and I also adjusted the light levels. By cropping the photo I placed the bird into the top right corner, as the bird was looking down and to the left I feel that it creates a more open composition than before. I increased the overall brightness while bring down the highlights to control the sky. This increases the contrast by quite a bit as well which I think makes the photo a lot more vibrant while keeping the colours faithful.

I enjoyed my morning at the duck pond watching the wildlife around me. When I next get a chance I will definitely go down again to capture some more wildlife in its natural habitat.

Mat

Fireworks

On bonfire night Bex and I went to a fireworks display together. The display was truly fantastic it was very well organised and everyone who attended had an enjoyable time. Bex and I must have taken around 500 photos between us so we had plenty of material to choose from. This is one of my favourite photos that I had taken.

They were firing multiple fireworks at a time so I thought by using a slow shutter speed I could make an interesting effect by blurring the individual fireworks into one big blur. I used the camera in shutter priority so I could have complete control; I selected a shutter speed of ½ of a second. This gave enough time for the light to hit the sensor and for the fireworks to be blurred. The camera chose an aperture of F4 to let the correct amount of light through; the depth of field is irrelevant because the distance was quite large and everything was in one plane.

When editing the photo I decided to change very little, except for: the contrast and the colour temperature. By increasing the contrast the photo becomes a lot more vivid and striking, this is the effect that I was trying to create. Also the camera hadn’t calculated the white balance correctly so I had to increase the colour temperature; this made the photo warmer and corrected the colour of the fireworks.

We both loved the fireworks, and as I said previous took around 500 photos, so we both have quite a few that we can upload. I’ll keep looking through for the best of my photos.

Mat

New Ideas

I didn’t get a chance for a walk today so I decided to use one of the photos that I took yesterday. When I wasn’t trying out new techniques I took this close up photo of a group of teasels.

I thought to make the composition more interesting I should try something new; so I took the photo angled upwards. Also I wanted to include some of the other teasels in the frame. I decided to use the flash on this photo because I thought it would light up the inside of the teasel. I wanted the other teasel to be out of focus so I used an aperture of F8, this meant that the whole of the main teasel was in focus but the second was smoothly out of focus.

When editing the photo I decided to make the shadow areas brighter, I hadn’t programmed the flash to be powerfull enough. Also I cropped the photo as to make the teasel more dominant in the frame; I think it makes the overall composition much better as well, having the second teasel in the lower right of the frame. I didn’t change anything else because I really like the effect that I had created.

Bex and I are planning on going for a wander this weekend if the weather is nice. If not we both still have got plenty of photos that we want to show to you.

Mat

Autumn Leaves

I managed to go out for a walk today so I went back to the nature reserve, but I went a different way to normal. I did this because I wanted to find some different places to photograph. It was quite early, the sun was just starting to rise and the low light levels made some interesting photographic opportunities.

The light was spot lighting this tree in particular, so to exaggerate this effect I decided to use the built in flash. This made the background go very dark but kept the leaf very bright and clear. I used an aperture of F5.6 to ensure the whole leaf was in focus but the background was left blurred. Also I reduced the green to ensure the amount of yellow was reproduced correctly.

The only editing I did to the photo was to crop the photo so the leaf was in the bottom right of the frame. I didn’t change anything else because I like the effect of the photo, the exposure was calculated perfectly and all the colours have been reproduced faithfully.

I took quite a few photos today, and I’m sure I will return to take some more in the near future.

Bex says hi from her holiday, she says that she’s missing you already and will be taking many photos throughout her holiday to show you when she returns.

Mat

Trails

I’m back!!! Firstly I must apologise for abandoning the blog, and secondly I should thank Mat for keeping Daily Wanders running smoothly while I have been munching on throat sweets like they were smarties!

Today, I was feeling better and was in need of getting some fresh air. Mat and I have wanted to try taking photos of light trails ever since we first started the blog back in April, but it’s gone dark too late throughout the summer season.

This evening, we walked to a bridge over the motorway, not far from the town. We took Mat’s tripod, my E-500 and several layers to try and capture the action! For this particular shot, I used an exposure time of 20 seconds at ISO100 with an aperture of F18. I tried to take out as much light as possible to allow for a longer exposure time.

When using a slower shutter speed, I was presented with the problem of the white burning out, but needing this time for more vivid reds. To combat this, I tried to take the photo when there was a lot of traffic on one side, but not a lot coming towards us.

Later, I used the remove colour cast tool to correct the yellow tint to the picture; I also increased the contrast to make the colours stand out. I love how you can see a few stars in the sky and reflections on the wet road. I also like how it wasn’t completely dark when we took the pictures, so you can still see some light on the horizon.

Apart from all the thoughts of rain, illness and general melancholy brought about by the thought of winter, it can’t be all bad! At least I can do more shots like this without becoming deprived of sleep. At last- a cheery note to winter!!

Bex

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A Walk Through The Woods

During one of my breaks today I managed to go out for a short walk. It was nice to get out into the calm brisk air. I followed the gravel path for around 30 minutes, taking photos as I went.

There weren’t any clouds in the sky and the sun was beaming down on me as I walked. As I walked down the path a great photo opportunity sprang out at me. The scenery to the sides of the path almost made a mirror image of each other, along with the sun being nearly central in the frame. This made an interesting composition that I really liked. I used a small aperture to give the greatest depth of field and I had my tripod with me to steady the camera on so I could use ISO 100.

When I put the photo on to the computer I turned down the highlights by a small amount while increasing the shadow areas to make the detail more visible. I only made subtle changes because I tried to keep the atmosphere of the photo the same as when I took the photo.

Bex and I have planned to go out tomorrow for a walk together. I’m quite looking forward to it as I have many more photos in mind.

Mat

Luminous

I must apologise for leaving Mat to his own devices for the past few days; I've been snowed under with work!! I had a free afternoon today so I decided to mess around with the filters again. There’s been torrential rain all day, so I was confined to whatever I could find around my house.

I used a +1 and a +2 close up filter in conjunction with an 8-point starburst filter. Using these close up filters meant I could get a lot closer to the top of the lamp (whilst standing on a chair…!) without struggling to focus. The 8-point starburst filter adds more mystery around the lamp, instead of using a 4-point filter, which would give the conventional cross effect.

I boosted the contrast and increased the sharpness to make the starburst effect more prominent. I did this on the camera before taking the shot, so I didn’t need to do any editing afterwards. I wasn’t sure how much use the filters would be, but I thought they’d be good as a bit of fun. I’m quite impressed at some of the shots that I have got with them!

Bex

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Tired Out Tiger

The festival weekend was a lot of fun for everyone involved, for the people who stayed both days it was a very long weekend. Towards the end of the second day people were starting to get tired, and more people were sitting down to rest.

There was a short period of bright sunshine towards the end of the second day and I found myself using the flash gun a lot. I used the flash gun on this photo because I wanted the detail to be clear in all the shadow areas. Also I used a wide aperture to limit the depth of field to just the person lying down. I used point metering on his face to make sure that the exposure was correct, and didn't white out.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and increased the shadows, to correct the exposure and make it more pleasing on the eye. I didn't change anything else because I liked how the photo was exposed. I didn't crop the photo because I like how it was composed.

Bex and I didn't get a chance to go out this weekend; so as we have still got lots of photos from the festival to upload for you.

Mat

Bursting Lights

I know I very recently added a similar photo to this but I had taken a lot of photos while in the tent with the flashing lights. I was debating which of the photos I should upload; this photo or the one I uploaded previously, in the end I gave up and decided to upload both of them.

This photo, I actually took before the previous one. I took this in the same manner as the other photo, with the camera in manual mode. I took this photo very quickly because the lights were changing very fast and I didn’t have much time to set up the camera in between shots. This photo had a shutter speed of 1/30 and an aperture of F5.6; I also preset the ISO to the maximum setting the camera had (ISO 1600).

When I edited the photo I Increased the contrast but also I turned the highlights down a bit. I did this to make the white more pure but also so the light didn’t white out. After this I cropped down the photo so the pattern was more into the upper right corner, I think this helps the composition because it looks like the light is bursting out of the corner into the frame. As I used a high ISO there wasn’t much I could do about the noise level, so I used the noise reduction tool to dampen the noise levels to a reasonable amount.

It’s the weekend again! Bex and I have been planning a wander for this weekend, so hopefully the weather will hold out and we can carry out our plans.

Mat

Light Effects

This is another photo from our trip to the festival last weekend. We had gone into a tent which was playing extremely loud music and had very creative light patterns being beamed onto the roof of the tent. The music wasn’t completely to my taste but the light patterns were very interesting to watch.

As we were inside there was very little light so I had to use a high ISO, also as the light levels were changing so quickly and randomly the light metre in the camera was getting very confused. To resolve this I put the camera into manual mode and set the aperture at F5.6 and adjusted the shutter speed until it got as close to the correct exposure as possible, then I would release the shutter. This gave really interesting effects, with the light patterns being blurred and crossing each other, but with the people being in relatively sharp focuses.

When it came to editing the photo I decided to increase the contrast and the brightness, but I also decreased the saturation to make the white look more pure. I didn’t crop the photo because I really liked how the photo was framed, because you can see the people in the foreground raving to the music and staring at the changing lights.

I really hope Bex and I get a chance to do some more event photography, it was so much fun and we had a great time.

Mat

Round- up

Unfortunately, the weekend didn’t last forever and all too soon I was forced back to reality! This is the first festival that Mat and I have done, and it was amazing!

On Saturday, I spent most of my time walking around the stands and the smaller stages to see what I could find. The atmosphere was incredibly lively, with the animal themed fancy dress well adopted by most! On Sunday, I spent a lot of time on the main stage photographing dance acts. Later in the afternoon, one of my favourite unsigned bands were playing. The lead singer is quite feminine and always has flowers wrapped around her microphone stand. Before the singer came on, smoke filled the stage and the lights shone in anticipation of her arrival, making a mysterious atmosphere.

I used a starburst filter whilst taking this photo, as it cut out some unnecessary light and made some interesting effects. I was really pleased with how well this picture turned out so didn’t do any editing. It was such a good feeling to be on stage for the first time (even if the crowd weren’t cheering for me!)  Please do let me know if anyone invents a time machine...

Bex

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