Here is the first proper picture taken using the tripod and 3-way head I got for Christmas.
I quite like it - though it is not square, but that adds to the atmosphere I think.
I have a stop motion film to make tomorrow, with the younger daughter directing, so that will be fun. Hopefully we can use this rather eerie light for effect.
I really must get out more.
This was the best of 3 passable shots, selected from 80... my 'hit rate' has fallen from 30% to 3%!!!
I haven't been out with the camera much because walking and getting into awkward positions has been difficult with the last nagging bits of my ankle injury.
I think my new year's resolution must be to get out at least once a weekend with the camera, otherwise I will loose any learning I have done over the last year.
Ok,
well here is a picture of legs. Wrapped in fishnets. The composition of this picture is rather bad to be honest - I should have crouched lower on the floor and lost the heads of Claire and Sam who were modelling for the shot.
I did try flood filling the top of the photo with plain black but it just looks rubbish - so here is the picture to remind me that getting down on the floor sometimes means getting really low.
There are other, less discrete, pictures but they remain firmly in my archives.
Here is a candid portrait that I stumbled upon at a Halloween party this year.
If I run autolevels on it, everything goes over exposed and blown; I prefer the straight out of camera look to the composition. It also is slightly grainy - though the camera was (and still is) on ISO 100.
Had I really posed the shot, I would of course ensured that the dress label was hidden or removed and fixed any number of other things which aren't quite working.
However this is my favourite picture out of the many I have taken this year. OK Livi is squawking but that adds something I think.
On to the next post - more of Claire, I am afraid :)
Here is one of a sequence of 5 photos I selected from 20 odd I took this evening at Falcon Barn.
I had to pay a visit so I took the camera just in case the sun played ball and lo! it did. The pre sunset pics were a bit bland, the after sunset though... well this picture gives you some idea.
There is a lot of black in the pic, however the colours more than make up for it i think.
Today I was mostly using the kit lens as well.... the nifty stayed in the bag; the 7-200mm came out a couple of times as well, though that was for hand held shots of a huge moon, which were too wobbly for words.
My first Blog post for ages... I know, I should be out photographing stuff more. Wel lI have had an excuse this year - having severely sprained my ankle in June I haven't actually been able to walk around for long periods of time much. The ankle whilst much much better is not yet right, thanks for asking.
This pic looked a bit "bleh" when in colour, so I took out the red and blue channels, boosted the green a little then converted to grayscale. After tweaking the brightness and contrast a little I am happyish with the result - especially given this was taken on a sunny afternoon!
A random staged shot for a blog entry, but this one is about my first (and possibly last) wedding shoot.
Oh my how many pictures did I take? 1779...
That is a large number but divide by 3 because for the majority I was bracketing exposure. This is because I am aware that the camera will guess about white, so sometimes you need +1EV and also sometimes it will burn out whites, so -1EV is called for.
Out of the 1779 pics I got about 247 which were worth giving the Bride - nothing special just all the pics on a CD (they just fit)
Then out of those 247 pics I picked the most "Ben" ones. - examine my Flickr stream to see what I mean here.
I now have to go through the 247 and do a bit of sharpening and auto levels then make another CD with the final results. Stck a nice label on it and job done.
I hope Hannah likes them, I certainly had a great time taking them.
Another shallow depth of field photo produced by the 75-300mm lens. Jason's hand dripping a little of what sand there is on the beach. This is a candid - he was completely unaware that I was taking this picture.
I had to blog this picture. It is my favourite one of Harriet so far which isn't a portrait. The reason it is over exposed is that I have been messing with the metering on the camera. I was spot metering this one on Harriet's dress... which being black rather than 18% grey meant that her bikini bottoms show through rather well.
This shows the shallow depth of field achievable with the telephoto lens. I could get used to this lens - thanks Dan and Harriet for the loan. If you are wondering why the fern is wet.... well I had been drinking beer all afternoon :)
Here is the most successful picture taken with a reversed nifty fifty and the 75-300mm Telephoto. The vignetting is due to the rather odd lens arrangement - it is like taking a picture through a cardboard tube. Giles has a mouldy toenail, so this is a close up picture of it. I think that a reversing ring is calling out to me... at least then I will be able to use both hands to hold the camera rather than using one to hold the nifty and the other to steer the camera.
Well, Davide loves having his picture taken, though Long Exposure shots seem to confuse him. Not everyone sat still for the required 4-10 seconds, but only Davide managed to move in such a way as to make a better picture than a straight portrait. Wonderful.
This is Loveday Littman in the sea... She grew up with Dan and has just visited him and his family for the first time in 20 years. What a star (she is as well... Emmerdale, heartbeat, Corrie, Caberet, Return to Forbidden Planet, Mousetrap the list goes on and on)
She was swimming here in a bikini. Hmmm. I had suggested that a wet suit would be a bit soft and she believed me.
The afternoon after this photo was taken she walked up smugglers path, which considering that she is really not very good at all with heights, was a massive achievement.
I hope to see more of Loveday in Dorset and of course her dog Ash.
This is a "Ben" type picture. A harsh contrast between man and nature. The dendritic branches imitating lightning; lightning which is parcelled up and fed to peoples houses by the pylon behind.
This was taken on Friday 4th April as I sat in the mist waiting for the Water Board to turn up. They sent a man with a broken laptop, no local knowledge and a distinct lack of common sense to find the field in which I was sitting. Back to the picture - a classic expose/focus recompose shot.
I have another picture, of nearly the same scene, letting the camera work out the exposure but everything shows up too white and the mist is reduced in intensity. I like the under exposure of the trees and tree guards and the white dot which is the sun
This is a picture of stuff at my parents house. You are looking at the inside of the front door. Really. My father is a master at saving things just in case and indeed of storing said items in a seemingly random way. I am sure he has a system there somewhere, but I am not sure if he can remember it these days.
I had a lot of trouble getting the metering right for this picture. Several shots were exposed right for the lighthouse but, of course, the sky was burnt out.
The solution was remarkably simple.
Behind me was the sky lit by the afterglow of sunset. I Exposed the shot for that, spun round and released the shutter whilst aiming at the lighthouse.
An extreme expose/recompose motion, but remarkably effective - the lighthouse light and moon are both visible, the clouds have detail and the lighthouse itself actually looks red and white.
Well considering it was meant to be foul weather, we got away with wind and wind chill. Ambient temperature was 6C, with wind chill, much less.
It seems that this is a 'good' picture. It was a longish exposure on a night when the air was nearly completely still and the tide was extremely high. I have added a border to make up the size, and will take it to get printed at Profolab at 12"x8"... Perhaps I will have to get a frame from somewhere as well if the picture is that good.
This is a return to the more ben style of photo - artificial/natural brutality in juxtaposition.
I keep wondering what exactly is ben style - and this picture is it I think. Well an example of it anyway.
This week I have ordered a solipsist book - some of my pictures hardbound with a dust cover as well. One for me and one for my father who is 84 in march. Not many words but 30 odd of my best pictures.
When I get it (in a month or hopefully less) I will post and record my thoughts.
This is attempt 3 at trying to get the sunset, light on the water and people actually doing something interesting.
I can't really say that I 'do' landscapes, but this pic is quite good I think - the cloud/atmosphere provided an ND Grad filter for me, although I could still have done with a tripod.
There was another tog on the beach, bt he was expecting a brilliant sunset to illuminate the snuff box cliff.... he was well out of luck. If he is there today he may get lucky but we shall see. Perhaps I will go back...
At last I seem to be getting the hang of this shallow depth of field malarky. This was taken in the garden on a damp February morning - it was damp because of fog, rather than rain, which makes a change.
The focal plane is really shallow at this distance and f1.8 - tghe front two daffs are in focus, the back one is dropping out and the background of leaves and earth has dropped into bokeh quite nicely. No flash was used in the making of this shot.
Here is harriet being totally camera aware. Actually the shot I took after this and didn't put on Flickr is the one where she was aware of the camera. The main difference is you can see her almost looking at me even though she is taking a picture of something else in the photo I didn't post.
Regarding the lighing in this picture - todays sun was weird. Low and bright and very flat indeed possibly due to a significant amount of haze in the air left over from the morning fog.
Today I invented a new phrase to describe Harriet - not blonde, 'cos she is obviously a brunette, or air head because she isn't but butterfly head - her thoughts are carried around the inside of her skull by little butterflies flapping around. Sometimes they bash into her conscious mind and sometimes they wander past without interaction only to react at a later time or date - minutes or hours away. Harriet is now a butterfly head - at least in my mind anyway. YMMV.
Morgwen is pictured here in her costume for the Oom-Pah-Pah song in Oliver Tiwst.
I used no tripod, just lent against the fridge. The only Post Processing was an auto levels click in Digital Photo Professional - the software for processing RAW files on the CD supplied with the EOS30D.
I am coming around to seeing that RAW + Post Processing can be classed as photography if the touch is light enough.
I like this shot particularly because it illustrates the wonderful sharpness of focus of the "Nifty 50" and also the shallow depth of field achievable at wide apertures.
Is it a good photograph? well I think it is above average. The other two of her on my photostream (1 and 2) are not as good compositionally or just for the "je ne sais quois" not being quite there
Today Rhiannon and I went 'togging on the beach. We got there rather too early this time, for bright clouds anyway. However I managed to snap these fishermen, basking in the setting sun. Best viewed on a dark background, the pebbles have a nice golden tinge.
I took a shedload of pictures, of which only 6 made it to Flickr. I need more practice - luck for me this new fangled digital photography lark has happened along.
This is yet another picture of Morgwen.
She was waiting for me to fix her laptop, and saw me getting the camera out of the bag. I set the aperture to 1.8 on the Nifty, as you do, set the focus and pressed the shutter release. Nothing happened.
I had left the camera in Timer mode! I moved the camera and then put it back when I realised what had happened. Morgwen raised her eyes to see what the flashing light was and at that moment the shutter released. Hmmm. The result was a really out of focus picture so this one is an attempt to recreate the effect. I think it works.
Learning moment - always put the camera away in single shot mode. Then when I am trying to grab an opportunity the picture will be there in .6s rather than 10.6s...
This shot is one of the best I have taken with the kit lens.
The 'mirror' is a faded perspex window on the front of the cab of a blue, tracked, crane.
The reflection is intentionally the only bit of the photo in focus and, as you can see from another Flickr picture in my photostream, the sky really did look like that.
The other reflection (just visible) is that of an aircraft hanger given over to light industrial use.
The crane controls are visible through the scene ad provide a moody backdrop and mechanical contrast to the image of the sun.
Actually this is to explain a new tag I have on some pictures. All this assumes one is using Firefox to browse Flickr... and that you have Greasemonkey installed. I installed this greasemonkey script, which changes the background of a flickr photo to a user selectable value. More later when I have explored it a bit.
"photograph noun a permanent record of an image that has been produced on photosensitive film or paper by the process of photography."
Well this was my first attempt at the incredibly popular digital past time of taking long exposure night shots of traffic.
There were several pictures in this sequence, some with no traffic (yes even in Weymouth!) some dominated by oncoming headlights and one with an invisible scooter!
I think next time I will try to take the camera out of the car and hence loose the excessive flare around the lamps; the suspension on the car was a bit wobbly so there may be some shake evident.
Well, the first mirror picture of me.
There are lots of problems posing and taking pictures in the mirror - notably finding the right bit of the image to focus on. If you point the camera straight at the mirror it will tend to focus on the reflection of the lens. With a wide open aperture this makes everything else of of focus.
Composition is another problem. Having to remember what is going to happen when the shutter release goes is part of the fun of photography.
This is a picture of Harriet, painting on Ringstead beach. I like it for several reasons:
Bokeh
Composition
Subject
Lens
Addressing each one in turn:
Bokeh - this is good in this picture - the 'confusion' is arranged in a halo around the subject and because I had the lens on AF it wasn't going to go all hyperfocal on me either, leaving the foreground in the confused zone.
Composition - The rule of thirds - I actually did think about it when composing the shot, even though there was a strong to gale force wind blowing from the left of shot. Harriet is about 1/3 away from the right edge. Ideally the bottom of the shot should have been higher but that would lose some of the perspective and solitude present.
Subject - Harriet is always very intense about her work. The world outside of the task in hand is irrelevant - she even ignores the weather to a large extent. Harriet also doesn't really like people around her when working and is very camera aware so the long lens helps capture her at her best.
Lens - This day Dan lent me his 75-300mm EF lens. This is the first serious shot I took with it. I am surprised at its performance with respect to the bokeh, and also at my ability to keep a distinctly 'Ben' feel to the photo even though I am peering through the equivalent of a 480mm telescope!
Here is one candle, taken with the EOA30D and a Rowi table top tripod. I am amazed at how much clarity there is when you use a tripod; now I know what I have been missing all these years.
I did take some other pictures with two candles next to each other, but there was so much parallax that they are not worthy. I guess a T&S lens would have fixed it, but really I can't justify £700 for the Canon lens.
Ok, so why does a picture of a thong get so many views?
It is not as if it is being worn by a seductive beauty (though I can think of a few who would look nice in it!)
Technically this picture is not good - White Balance all to pot, DoF very shallow - mind you there isn't much detail on the scrap of material :)
I would have liked to get the Important! notice in focus as well as the thong itself, as it makes a statement about thongs and fluff... which reminds me I haven't cleaned the fluff filter since we got the machine. Doh!
A silly hat made much more silly by playing with the colour curves in Canon Digital Photo Professional (DPP). Posted really as an ironic comment on people who post process photographs to death.
Nearly the first picture I took with the EOS30D and the Nifty Fifty lens. It was hard to persuade the machine to focus on the rain drops, I guess that is an improvement over point and shoot cameras which tend to focus on the nearest thing to the lens.
This is the first photo I took with my Point and Guess Olympus C4040Z which had much merit. It inspired me to get a deviant art account, which has lain dormant for a while now because I can't be bothered to tweak photos to make them art - get them right in the camera.
