Twit twoo, two

Hi All,

A cracking month this month and lots from everybody but always room for more.
Following on from Paul's this is an owl from last month in Auz at the Tangarona Zoo.

Face is sharp but wings are just a bit soft but they are in full flight just out of the stump.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Nicks Fish - PP

Hi Nick,

Hope you don't mind had a bit of a play in photoshop and been able to tweak the reds up. As this is only low res it's still not good but if you have the time to cut the mask you can bring color back. However strobes are much better.




Cheers,
Richard B.

In the spirit of combing the archives, and to avoid missing any deadlines, here's a picture of a fish. It was taken on a really crappy dive in Musandam (is there any other sort?).

I have done nothing to this pic, not even cropped it, which is why it's a bit off centre. But that kind of suggests the fish is moving into the centre. OK, it should be further to the right, but it's a real bugger getting a digital pocket camera to fire exactly when you want it. Actually, has anyone got any tips for how to do that?

In case you're curious, this was taken with a Panasonic TZ1 (with the Leica lens), f2.8 / 1/1oo / ISO-80, white balance set to Fish.

GPP - Day 2 and 3 - Landscapes

Well it's been a long and busy two days dedicated to the second of the GPP course I attended and that was David Nightingales landscapes course.  Great course, and I'm sure I can bore you all next time we get together with all the stuff covered but in the meantime here are the assignment shots I took.  There were four assignments set before we headed out into the desert, these were:

1. Silhouettes
2. Sunsets
3. Landscapes with a Prop/Person for Perspective
4. 'The Hero Shot' - What is the desert for you?

I must admit I was a little puzzled about the first one as to how it fit into the course title of 'landscapes' but at the end of the day it was only ever a topic to get us thinking and it certainly did that so it did it's job.  Well here are my efforts:

Assignment 1: Silhouettes
(f5.6 1/1250 ISO200 -1EV, Manuel Everything, Metered off the Sky)
Tried to avoid the same old same old of silhouetting on the horizon against a blank sky and instead used the setting sun reflecting off the dunes.  I swear there is no HDR in this shot (or any of these for that matter)

Assignment 2: Sunset

(f5.0 1/1000 ISO 320 -1EV Metered off the sky)

OK, here I used the silhouetter theme as well as the sunset but there were so few othere features to put in teh foreground.  I thought of also entitling this "Nikon Merecats"

 

Assignment 4: Landscapes - What is the Desert to You

(f4.5 1/8000 ISO800)

What could say desert like a good set of dunes with ugly great quad bike tracks ripped through them, which acted nicely as a leading line literally leading the viewer into the desert.  The vignetting in the shot is not from the lens but added afterwards in the RAW conversion to add impact and draw the viewers eye into the frame.  And yes, we actually had cloud that day, this isn't a cut and paste from elsewhere.

There are two other shots to follow but they require a bit of tinkering in photoshop before they are ready (you'll see why) but one is a second example of Assignment 4 and the other is my efforts for Assignment 3 with the most common desert prop I know (no not a camel).

However, it's getting too late now and I am tired so I'm off to bed and will have to share the other shots another day.  As always comments and critique very welcome.

"Whooo!" not "Whooom!"

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 28-200 @ 170mm, F/5.6
1/160 sec
Built-in flash

I promise this is the last of my 'Animals'.

Camera-mounted flash produced all kinds of red-eye problems, so I did the dirty deed with that Adobe software. Cropping, and shrinking aside, I also took Richard's earlier tip to boost the colours, just to see what would happen.

Off-camera flash might have been the way forward, but I didn't have the kit with me. It was a day trip to a theme park, falconry centre and petting zoo. The birds of prey were not part of the latter.

Actually, when zoomed into the original the detail isn't particularly sharp. I'm hoping that by reducing the resolution in an 800x600 no-one will notice.

ANIMALS - Richard Again, Yesterday, WILD ORXY part 2

Part 2 and yes the last one is me in the shot ;-)

as always C&C appreciated, hope you like.

ANIMALS - Richard Again, Yesterday, WILD ORXY

Hi All,

For those whoe didn't come out and play yesterday this is what we saw, wild in the sand out behind Albwardy. Just in time for another submission to animals.

Shot AV at 5. (full open), ISO 200 to get some shutter speed back 1200-2000 at 500mm (on an APSC=800).

Will post more in a part 2.

C&C please.