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Into the light

This was taken on my trip to Hampshire and the New Forest where we found some wonderful donkeys . I was visiting my Aunt who lives with her dog in a mobile home very nearby. The couple in shot are my brother and his girl friend. As you can tell it was cold but you don’t know the half of it – it’s was really cold. We were having a quick wander around while my Aunt had a rest and over the hill we found a few horses and gusts of winds only normally found in the Arctic.

I took this shot and a closer shot but went with this one. From the original I tried to up the mood and atmosphere here.

Vote for the shot on PictPicture.

Flickr entry is here. And bordered is here.

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My kit list

I wrote a kit list when I first started my blog but I’ve not re-posted it here like most of my other old entries. This is a current list of my kit with links and all.

• Nikon D300 – my second digital SLR camera and a fine upgrade. It has taken a while to convert and learn how to use it but it’s a class machine
• Nikon D50 – first bit of equipment and is to blame for my shift of interest into the world of photography
• Pentax Optio 550 compact camera – slightly broken now the shutter cover is slightly ajar and blocks out the top corner of photos slightly
• Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM
• Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF
• Sigma Macro 105mm f/2.8 EX DG
• Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM
• Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC Macro HSM
• Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR AF
• Nikon Speedlight SB-800
• Nikon ML-L3 remote
• Nikon ML-3 remote
• Manfrotto 679 monopod
• Manfrotto 190XB tripod + 390RC2 head
• Joby Gorillapod

In addition I have various Hoya circular polarising and UV filters plus Cokin P-series adaptor and filters.

I chose Nikon (over Canon) for the simple fact that Nikon use SD memory where Canon use CompactFlash cards and it didn’t make sense to me to have a Canon with a different memory format when all my other equipment (mobile phones, PDA, etc) used SD/MMC cards. Other than that there was very little between the two manufacturers. The D50 camera itself is amazing anyway so it wasn’t a hard choice and the price was just about right at the time. I thought it was a good choice for an entry-level SLR. Now I’ve upgraded to the Nikon D300 and just starting to get to trips with the semi-pro camera.  But guess what, it uses CompactFlash memory.  No a big issue now as I’ve been able to purchase a unit that converts my SD cards into CompactFlash cards.

As well as photography gear I have a load of computer equipment, which you can find out about over ‘ere.

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Moody morning

During one morning the light outside our house was amazing. It was very moody and mysterious, so naturally I fired off a few shots. This is one shot which I’ve toned in sepia. I changed the tonal colours as the original lacked colour anyway and so thought the image would work in a sepia-style. Other than that I’ve not changed anything, so that is what the light looked like. Cool eh?

What you’re looking at is the view outside my office window. I’ve set myself up in a small downstairs room – nice a cosy. I saw this light just after getting up and logging on in the morning. The fencing you see is the basketball court that is mainly used by the local kids on the estate as a football pitch. It’s a big bone of contention it being their but if the kids didn’t have such things then they’ll be causing trouble on the streets elsewhere so we shouldn’t complain. The court is built in the middle of the housing on a small patch of grass and you can see the trees on the remaining part of the field.

It was amazing, not sure what caused it, was it the low light coming through the gap in the houses or something else? – but it only lasted 2 mornings and it’s not happened since.

Blog entry at Dark Matter Magazine is here.

Flickr entry is here. And bordered here.

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Kaz at sunrise

 

A shot of my Golden Retriever, Kaz. He’s a poser as you can tell.
Seriously though, it’s very hard to capture him as he doesn’t stay still for more than a few seconds. At just 3 years old he’s is so full of energy especially when I take him out for his walk! I reckon he could keep going all day long!

But luckily on one of my early morning expeditions I caught him here. He was standing up on a mound near a pond while the Sun was coming up and the sky was a wonderful yellowy-orange. I think he might have heard a train coming and so went into ‘alert mode’ – Kaz loves to chase the trains, but so far he’s never caught up with one.

Again this is Edenbridge and at a place called Prettymans Pond. I’m not sure what it’s called that but it’s fantastic little pond and I’ve spent many an hour here practicing my photography and taking shots of the pond and the trees in every way I can think of. I’ve found that by going back to the same place over and over again you eventually see different angles for shots and find different ways of capturing the same subject. I’ve also tried to go here at different times of the day in different weather conditions. It’s been very interesting to see the changes these bring and I’ve certainly learnt how to look at things with a ‘photographer’s eye’.

This is a slightly adjusted photo (see below for original). I’ve cropped the top and left a little and increased the saturation throughout. Also I’ve lightened Kaz a little as he was a bit too dark. What does everyone think? I still think the sharp foreground branches are a little distracting?

In the process of creating this photo I thought of two questions:

Question 1: What is the best way to convert an image from Photoshop (PSD, TIFF) to JPEG? What I normally do is save the PSD as a TIFF then go into ACDSee and convert it there at max. quality to a JPEG (thus keeping the EXIF data). But this photo really highlights a problem (or two) I’ve noticed in that converting to JPEG reduces the saturation and darkens the brightness. Is there a better way to convert to JPEG to keep the exact tone of the image as well as the EXIF info?

Question 2: I had to refine and touch up the selection of Kaz in Photoshop as left alone he stuck out too much and his hair (especially his underneath) had a nasty line where one part of the image was dark+saturated and the other was bright+lightened. What’s the best way to blend these areas? I used the smudge tool on the selection layer and the result seems OK but is there a better way?

The original photo has been printed in the UK newspaper, Kent & Sussex Courier on 01-Feb-2008 (my first print!) and made it to onto Flickr’s Explore on Jan 8, 2008 at #434. The scan of the newspaper print is below:

Blog entry at Dark Matter Magazine is here.

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Up on the farm

 

Shot taken near Boxham Farm in Edenbridge, Kent (UK) and not too far away from my previous shot. The light was amazing that morning!I had scouted this area out previously and knew I had to be there for sunrise. So on the next occasion of a bright morning I was up and out the door at about 6:45am. I trekked up to here in the near-dark (which was a good half hour) and then basically waited for the sun to come up through the trees.

When it did, I was up and down this hill over and over, taking lots of different shots from different angles and of course with different light. If anyone saw me they would have thought I was a right nutter. But it was all worth it and got this and many other wonderful shots.

Second entry on Dark Matter Magazine’s web site. Blog entry is here.

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A morning walk in Kent

I’ve been selected to post on the Dark Matter Magazine site. I feel very honoured to be among such fine artists so have a look. So here’s a copy of my first post there.

This is my (currently) home town of Edenbridge. A small place in the UK county of Kent, bordering Surrey and Sussex. This particular shot was taken near Boxham Manor which is found near Marl Pit. I get a lot of my shots from walking the vast amount of farmland here. It generally means very, very early mornings to beat sunrise, scouting around a bit then picking my spot. Sometimes, though, the spot is already in my head from previously seeing it but this shot was a ‘there and then’ and happy how it turned out.

If anyone is interested I used this picture to create one of my first HDR-style images. It’s an interesting way to create a picture but I’m not quite there with the technique yet. Have a below (second image). To me the photo becomes more like a painting?

As a second attempt I also produced the picture below (third image), but felt that the top left part of the image was too dark (and dark in general). Again, each had slightly different tonemapping settings. Let me know which one you prefer? I’m quite keen on the original myself.

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Boxham Tree HDR

This is my second attempt at an HDR image. The photo shows the farmhouse at Boxham Farm in Edenbridge in Kent, UK. I took the shot while on one of my early morning walks in the local fields. As you can see it was a cold, cold morning but it’s worth it when you get such a great tree in the wonderful sunlight. Unfortunately I was only carrying my 18-50mm lens and could step any further back to get the whole of the tree in shot, so alas this won’t make it into my portfolio. But ignoring that I really like the shot and experimenting with HDR for the first time was fun. Flickr liked it too, so much so it made #11 for 22-Feb- 2008 on Explore!

The way I created this HDR (High Dynamic Range) shot was from one RAW file. I saved it out from Camera RAW to a TIFF file and created 3 images one at -2 EV, one at 0 EV and another as +2 EV (so 3 exposures, one dark, one normal and one light). I then dragged these into Photomatix, generated the HDR then tonemapped it. It took a bit of fiddling with the tonemapping settings but eventually I got the result above. The first thing I’ve noticed is that the clouds are far more dynamic but this is at the cost of a lot of added noise. I’m not sure I really like this style of HDR but it’s an interesting alternative and was fun to try. I’ll be posting a more detailed entry on how it was, so please check back soon.

The original photo is below, so please compare it.

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Which? digital SLR tests

The consumer assoication’s Which? magazine have tested the current crop of affordable digital SLR cameras. I trust their tests and opinions highly so the reults are:-

78% – Canon EOS 350D – yeah I see lots of people own one of these, best for picture quality + automatic mode
77% – Nikon D50 – A very close second, good LCD
73% – Canon EOS 30D
72% – Sony A100 – best zoom (27-105mm) + IS
69% – Nikon D70s
67% – Olympus E-330
67% – Pentax K10D – best for action shots (0.3 seconds)
66% – Nikon D40 0 best for beginners, gives warnings such as ‘subject too dark’ + access tips
66% – Nikon D80
65% – Pentax K100D
64% – Canon EOS 400D
63% – Samsung GX 1L
62% – Olympus E-400

The web site is a little more up to date and has included the Olympus E-500 at 73% (joint third).

For more details head over to which.co.uk/digitalcameras/ (you will need to be a member to access a lot of the info).