Shutterbug Dubai

Paul's Night Sky

2011-06-05T21:23:00.005+04:00

A deep, inky-black velvet sky with pinpricks of diamond-white stars. This is most certainly Not Coming In Dubai. Even on a clear night, there's so much light pollution bouncing back from the humidity and dust in the air that the whole sky takes on the pinky-orange glow of high-pressure sodium.

My offerings are all straight out of the camera except for cropping to 800pix. I set up on a tripod and tried a whole variety of different shutter speeds and apertures. Here are the edited not-quite-as-low-as-the-other lights.

Natural

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 at 95mm
F/18 1.6sec
ISO 2500

This one is as close as I could get to what my eyes could actually see. The sodium glow over Dubai silhouettes the gate light and the edges of the buildings. The crescent moon is visible, but it's difficult to see the whole lunar disc.

Moody

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 at 75mm
F/5 1/6sec
ISO 2500

I think the second image is more pleasing to the eye because it expresses more of a 'night' aspect.

Short DoF

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 at 75mm
F/5 1/6sec
ISO 2500

See what happens at a wide F-stop? The gate light in the foreground falls out of focus. I wasn't sure whether this is a fault or a feature. Certainly, putting less important parts of the image in shot but out of focus can help to give an impression of depth.

Which is it, then: 'Natural' or 'Short DoF'?

Cars - Off topic sorry.

2011-06-02T14:31:00.000+04:00

Hi Guys,

Some of you might have seen these but I'll stick them up here for some C&C and abuse.

All shot with a 500, shutter about 1/60 - 1/125, f8 ish.
They are from the last round of the UAE TCC, First time really panning and lots of fun, access at the Autodrome is great and can get to all corners.

Some more on my car blog.

Cheers,
Richard B.

http://diary-of-mgb.blogspot.com/

Lights in the nights sky

2011-05-26T16:09:00.000+04:00

Well here you go gents (and other viewers) is my submission for the subject of "In the night sky". While out camping on the great dividing range last weekend I was setting up for a night shot, you know, the same old same old star streaks etc when a light came out of the forest....

f18.0 30.0 ISO3200

Night Sky

2011-05-25T09:03:00.002+04:00

Based on Nick's and YBOD's recent posts, "Night Sky" is the current subject. How it is interpreted is up to the photographer. Come on chaps and chapesses, time to get creative!

Please post pictures before the end of June 2011.

cool link

2011-05-16T13:02:00.002+04:00

http://skysurvey.org/

After a several month hiatus I present the above link which I was in no way involved with. It is, however, pretty cool.

And in case anyone's still out there, how about another round of photos and critiques? Anyone? Who has the random number generator? I'll pick 11.

Polo

2010-12-17T08:16:00.004+04:00

I say chaps, anybody for some Polo ?

Shot with 500mm, set at Apperture priority at 5.6 (biggest for lens) then Focus in Servo mode to track and shutter on rapid fire.

This one I went full manual and dragged the shutter to give a panning shot.

C&C as well as abuse for going to Polo welcome.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Richard's Recent Shots

2010-12-17T08:00:00.002+04:00

Hi All,

My turn to share some recent work (although some of you might have seen on faceache).

All shot with a three image bracket HDR, about f8 with a 10mm.
Then blended to HDR in photoshop and convert to black and white with sepia and a vignette.
Makes Bastakiya almost look old !

C&C Appreciated.

Cheers,
Richard

baby shots

2010-12-06T16:03:00.000+04:00

For those given to cooing over baby photos best look away now; here are two I'm quite pleased with of Teddington:

but given I am currently sat awake because he wont go to sleep (little bugger) I guess these could be "wild things" shots

And another thing

2010-12-06T15:55:00.000+04:00

Here are a few shots of a storm rolling in over the Lake t the bottom of our road in Warners Bay. Does fit any title but hey ho:

Wild Things and Un-titled

2010-12-06T15:49:00.001+04:00

'ey up all!!

It been ages since there was last any movement on Sutterbugs, and we certainly don't have an active topic that I am aware of at the moment. Can only assume this is due to new babies, long commutes to AbuDhabi and trips to Germany. Anyway, I thought 'd give the moss covered stone a kick and see if in was too fat to still roll.

Here are some shots for the last title I recall which was "wild things" taken last month on a trip to a local nature reserve:

Vespers

2010-09-27T16:00:00.004+04:00

Although I took the photo in Italy, Pompeii to be precise, this is nothing at all to do with scooters. It is instead a final offering for this month’s “Wild Things”

Here is the start of a wasp colony, with the nest being constructed in the eaves of a small metal shelter protecting a Roman mosaic from the weather.

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 at 200mm
F/6.3 and 1/50s
ISO 200

This was as close as I could get and still have the subject in focus. I was not about to fit the macro lens and get within a mere few centimetres! I cropped the image, but left in some of the metalwork in order to give the subject a sense of scale, and invoked the Rule of Thirds instead of sticking the nest smack in the middle of the frame.

There’s a little Photoshoppery too: in addition to cropping and reducing to 800 pixels, I trimmed the histogram because there was no data at either end, and this really brought up the wasps’ yellow colouring.

Paul's wild things - First submission

2010-09-14T15:12:00.004+04:00

Here is just a taster for things to come, assuming I get organised. They were both taken, along with 1942 other pictures, on my recent holiday in Italy. As this was in September, it counts as homework for the current month.

Forum reclaimed

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 at 105mm
F/5.3 and 1/320s
ISO 200

The Forum of ancient Rome is a large and sprawling monument to a former civilisation. Yet despite all the marble and brickwork, Mother Nature (or the goddess Flora in the Roman pantheon) nevertheless has the unnerving habit of poking her greenery in the most unlikely of places.

As a reasonably still subject, the trick was to wait until distractions such as tourists in fluorescent shirts were out of shot.

The Lion Eats Tonight

Nikon D300s
Tokina 12-20 at 20mm
F/11 and 1/250s
ISO 200

The Romans took to a late classical Greek fashion of sculptures showing movement and action, refining it into some pretty amazing freeze-frame action. Here we have a lion – certainly a very wild thing - attacking a horse. Look at the detail of the claws tearing flesh and the panicked expression in the horse’s eye and mouth. Bear in mind that the sculptor had to build this 3D image without reference to photographs, which I think makes the sculpture more breathtaking.

White, or in this case pale pink marble can be difficult to photograph in bright sunlight. The sun makes shadows distinct, but highlights and shadows can lose all detail for ever. Fill-in flash can help with shadows, but when I tried it the highlights blew out.

I took a fairly low-contrast image as the sunlight was briefly reduced by some light cloud, and then messed with brightness and contrast in the controlled environment of post-processing.

September topic - "WILD THINGS"

2010-09-12T09:31:00.001+04:00

Oops, sorry late with this month.
Steven's mum has picked topic for this month "wild things".
So get snapping.

Cheers,
Richard B.

More Shots from the Hip

2010-08-30T23:37:00.003+04:00

Here I am in The Eternal City. The place is full of Roman ruins, ancient statues, Renaissance art and armed police officers.

And the latter have handguns on their hips. I tried candid photographs at the airport, bu a combination of low light, fast movement and a desire not to be arrested produced blurred and generally useless pictures.

But here's one taken outside the Capitoline museums. There are thousands of cameras all around, and I was some distance away. Check out the minuscule depth of field.

Nikon D300s
Tamron 200-400 at 400mm
F/6.3
1/250
ISO 200

Calling the shots

2010-08-24T21:50:00.005+04:00

What might you find on your hip? Why, a hip flask, of course.

And what does a hip flask contain? Shots!

So this month's subject matter, Shots from the Hip (flask) becomes rather easy. Less easy was finding a hip flask - I don't own one - and setting up the shot.

What I've ended up with is two different techniques on the same subject. Both involve a dark wood table, dark background wall, and reflections in the shiny table. So the decision boils down to this: To flash or not to flash? That is the question.

Nikon D300s
Sigma NiftiFifti
F/3
1/15
ISO 200
Tripod

I like the dark, moody lighting. The lamp provides all the illumination, but despite most of the subject being dark, the bulb holder and top of the lamp have blown out to white. All detail is lost and no amount of burning it in will produce detail that's simply not there.

Nikon D300s
Sigma NiftiFifti
F/4.8
1/60
ISO 200
Camera-mounted flash
Tripod

The flash brings some life to the picture, with all those shiny reflective surfaces. But the lamp is flat. However, the texture on the lamp has not been lost, and the bulb holder is visible.

So I'm torn. Which is the better, or at least the preferred, photograph?

reposting of the old man

2010-08-22T20:31:00.003+04:00

B+W Barrow Boy

OK, this is for Stephen, who wanted to see a B+W image of the barrow boy. For this, I bumped up the red and dropped the blue, then I messed around blindly with the curves again. I think it's a bit cluttered, but after a day of sitting in front of a computer, there is no way I'm going to teach myself more gimp tricks tonight.
(God that sounds dodgy...)

Shot from the hip

2010-08-21T18:06:00.008+04:00

I was really looking forward to this assignment. I saw a great photo in National Geographic once were the guy photographed a monkey in a market in (central?) Asia somewhere. To avoid a fight, he shot from the hip, capturing a look of absolute hopelessness on the poor monkey's face. The light was all fluoros, the composition and framing was crap, but the image was really powerful.

I am not, unfortunately, a National Geographic photographer. And so the images I had in mind when I set out on Thursday night to do the homework failed to materialise onto my camera's sensor.

But with Sarah gone for August I decided to take on the advice from last month and play around with the RAW files. And to make up for recent poor posts, I've gone for quantity today.

But first, one from the back catalogue which I kind of like:

Sally (she'd kill me if she knew I posted this)
20mm, 1/15, f2.8, ISO400

This was the best photo from a party where I hardly framed a single shot. I'd just gotten the lens for this exact thing. It brings out the subject really well, much better, I think, than a zoom lens, as you can get really close. No post processing, in-camera B+W.

Moving on, and staying in B+W land:

Jaywalking 20mm, 1/400, f14, ISO400

OK, here I was going for a verité look (I think that's the right word). The sky is intentionally washed out and the contrast bumped up a bit by playing around with some kind of curve in Ufraw. The angle is due to my trying to be surreptitious.

Smoko. Or The bleak existence of Ramadan 20mm, 1/500, f2.8, ISO400

In colour this was washed out and just looked crap, so I returned, via RAW, to good ol' B+W to bring out the details a bit more. Now it's not so washed out, at least, and I think the tonal balance is better than it was. I'm not thrilled about the pot plant on the left, but I couldn't crop without putting the guy right off to the side. And I prefer the full frame.

Barrow boy
20mm, 1/200, f7.1, ISO400

To prove I still know what colour is, and to try my hand at those crazy settings in photo-editing software, I present Barrow Boy. I know, the framing is terrible but it's the best I could do without looking either before, during or after the shot. Anyway, I kind of liked the contrast between 21st century car and 16th century barrow (with pneumatic tyres). And with the camera tilt it looks like he's trying to stop that thing rolling down the hill and crushing him. To try to improve it I played around with the saturation and the curves, but I have to confess, I have no idea how to use them.

Two more.

Boy

20mm, 1/50, f22, ISO400

By this time is was getting dark, so as I passed this kid and shot him from behind my arse I managed to get the blighter slightly out of focus and everything was quite dark. But it perhaps best shows the hip shot as you'll see it's taken at his head level. Anyway, I used the manual settings on the colour balance here in Ufraw to bring out the sky, and the noise makes everything quite grainy. It takes me back to my darkroom days but without the smells.

Finally, a bit of a weird composition:

Cats
20mm, 1/50, f22, ISO400

OK, can someone please explain to me what the curves mean and do in photo-editing software, because I'm really just playing around with no clue. Here I managed to wash things out a bit while increasing a bit of contrast in the stones. I was trying to keep/enhance the evening light, but as I say, I don't really get it just yet.

Shooting from the hip

2010-08-21T03:45:00.001+04:00

Sorry chaps but u have been busting my brain to think of something for this title and I'm really struggling. I like Mr B's play on it, literally shot from the hip.

But I'm afraid I just can't find inspiration for what should be a fun title to play with. In the end I spotted this gate which I liked the colours as the sunset behind mr refected off the metal. Only connection being I shot it at hip height.

For any of you who are fans of Fail.com you may be amused at the ferry company operatives inability to work out how to use a pad lock on this gate. The gate wasn't in use, and should certainly have been locked as is keeps joe public away from interesting stuff that makes the ferry terminal work. Fail!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Sydney

Child bearing HIPS

2010-08-02T14:59:00.005+04:00

Hi All,

Okay very very tenuous link to this months shooting from the hip but I'm a bit busy, so close enough.
Also was very much shot on the run, so also kind of shooting from the hip.

They say the softer the subject the softer the lens, well I guess you can't get much softer.

So here she is, Elizabeth Rose Bailey (aka Bess) born 11:30 Friday night, 3.505 KG, 56cm for those who want the EXIF data.

Other EXIF
Manual mode, f1.4, 1/100 sec, ISO 100, and then flash on camera bounced of the ceiling in eTTL mode.

A very small hint of a pink vignette to accentuate the one that was already there from the blankets.
No other real PP.

==== EDIT ====
Please feel free for C&C

Cheers,
Richard B.

Funny Bunny

2010-07-30T17:16:00.004+04:00

On behalf of the very lovely Sarah who is busy right now:

Bunny

20mm, f3.2, 1/13, ISO-400

I was given free range to select my favourite from a selection of bunny photos and chose this one because I like how it was framed with the top of the ears cut off. I used my rudimentary Gimp skills (god that sounds awful) to clean up something dark in the back of the photo, other than that, this is straight out of the camera.

Next choice was this one:

Bunny 2

20mm, f3.2, 1/15, ISO-400

I like the positioning here, with Herr Bunny looking into the centre of the frame. Maybe the red mat he's on could be positioned slightly differently, but all up I think it works, and the colour is a good counterpoint for the green.

Comments and critiques for these two and mine always welcome.

Hippie Food

2010-07-30T16:57:00.003+04:00

Another frantic month with little time to grab the camera, but some weird inspiration in the kitchen. Here's my literal take on the subject.

Tofu Kitchen

20mm, f2.8, 1/50, ISO-400

In camera B+W because I'm still to lazy... busy to Gimp around with it

Around the same time, I was staring aimlessly into a pile of beans and thought, "where do hippies get their protein from if they won't eat meat?"

Peace love and mung beans

20mm, f2.8, 1/25, ISO-400

The idea with this one was that I was oddly taken by the light, (which was just provided by the ceiling downlight), which seemed to make everything look really clean. Well, I couldn't really explain it then either, so I photographed it, hoping to capture it, and came up with a shot that probably belong on a tin of (hippie) beans. Maybe it could be cropped differently, (to make it more abstract, say?), or maybe it's just another poor showing from me this month.

Next up, I'm posting for Sarah.

August = Shooting from the Hip

2010-07-26T08:11:00.003+04:00

Hi All,

Thanks to Paul for 17, the Radom topic generator for has come up with "Shooting from the hip", so off you go get out there and blaze away, but still not to late to post some Tofu knitting bunny huggers.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Come on you TOFU KNITTING BUNNY HUGGERS !

2010-07-26T07:37:00.004+04:00

Hi All,

Some cracking efforts this month. All the way from stuffed fluffly bunnies to beer drinking Kangaroos and Samuri sword wielding Tofu knitters.

So any more this month, how about from any of you lurk'ers out there ?

Expect I'm about to get silly bussy (due date is on 5th) so first one to pick a number between 1 and 30 will decide the topic for next month and I'll post it ASAP.

Cheers,
Richard B.

More bunnies to hug

2010-07-23T17:20:00.004+04:00

So there I was in Dubai Mall. For once, camera in hand. Ironically, the shop was not "Lapin" (which is French for rabbit as any fule kno), but about two doors down. No grief; indeed actual approval from the nice lady in the shop, to take photos.

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 80mm
1/30s & F/5.6
ISO Auto 1600

Shot with available light, this cute stuffed rabbit is poking out of a carrier bag as if it's about to be taken home and hugged by a small child. I wanted to blur the otherwise possible distraction in background, and I think I achieved this. The subject is a bit central, but a crop to put the rabbit to the left would have lost great chunks of carrier bag, and the subject would have been looking out of frame if it had been too far to the right. So bullseye it is. Tweaks are limited to cropping and just a little colour enhancement.

The light streaming in from the shop front looks, and indeed is, natural daylight.

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 170mm
1/30s & F/5.6
ISO Auto 1400

This one is hopefully reminiscent of the shelf in a nursery. The huggable stuffed bunny is next to something "ABC"; as indicative of childhood as anything else available. I did not set anything up, which is why the irritating picture frame is in shot. Post-processing is limited to cropping, abut of colour palette enhancement and a small rotation.

The light is almost all artificial tungsten shop lights.

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 112mm
1/30s & F/5.6
ISO Auto 560

This luminous rabbit should be suitably disturbing for small children.

Illuminated by tungsten house lights plus lit from within.

With all the shots, I used ISO Auto to control shutter speed to 1/30s in order to hand-hold the camera. This avoids both camera shake and the tripod police.

Random one for Critique - Burj Khalifa

2010-07-14T14:23:00.006+04:00

Trying to make up from my poor effort this month here is one from the Burj K that I finaly manage to stitch together and do the PP on.

. (Double click for large image)

EXIF
Canon 350D
Sigma 10-20mm lens, at 10mm
f11
1/13 sec with +/- 2 stops ev brackets for each.
ISO 100
2 images accross bottom then 2 up for the Burj K

Stitching and HDR blend done in PTGui pro and then rest in Photoshop.
The top left and right corners (black sky) which couldn't stitch are a photoshop painted in. Then just a small straighten, couple of little tweaks and sharpen in PS.

There was a lot of humidity and sand in the air and will blame some of the poor optical quality on that (when zoomed right in).

Critique, Comments and Questions welcome as always.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Bunnies (for Paul)

2010-07-13T20:21:00.002+04:00

Dear All,

Don't feel worthy at all this month, however here are my efforts.
These are feral rabbits in the Ranches.

EXIF
Canon 350D
Sigma 150-500mm at 500mm
f5.6 cheap glass
1/50 second on monopod
ISO 800 really pushing it

EXIF
Canon 350D
Sigma 150-500mm at 500mm
f5.6 cheap glass
1/50 second on monopod
ISO 1600 pushing it to much

Anyway that all for now folks, as always C&C and any other abuse welcome.

Cheers,
Richard B.

TNBHCGABTB - Steven's efforts

2010-07-11T18:54:00.000+04:00

Sorry folks, off to bed after a weekend away and an ealry start tomorrow so no great commentry here but you can see a write up here. and here are the shots:

Here is what I think of nature conservation

Nature - its great for driving over

Although some times it can be photogenic:

Paul's: With no rabbits

2010-07-06T19:08:00.004+04:00

Tofu-knitting bunny-huggers... Well, I thought about this and decided that one interpretation was a theme of environmentalism. And seeking to emphasise the 'environment' rather than the 'mental' side, I took this:

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 170mm
1/200s
F/5.6
ISO Auto

Nice bright colours to attract the environmentally responsible. It works too. As you see, at least one of the bins is full to overflowing.

I waited until the sun was low in the sky so that there would be some shadows, not that rectangular boxes offer much in the way of texture. I also shot the image low and close-cropped so that the blurred background was an unobtrusive plain wall in a fairly neutral colour.

While I was there, an actual environmentally responsible person turned up and posted a handful of newspapers for recycling.

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 52mm
1/250s
F/4.8
ISO Auto

This was a quick candid shot, so the framing wasn't good; I missed the back of the car. The irony of going to recycle old copies of 7DAYS in a two-seater over-engined sports car was not lost on me. Every little helps, I suppose.

Enough of the environment. There is a different interpretation for this month's subject. As tofu is perhaps perceived as Japanese (at least in my house it is) I present an actual Tofu Knitter.

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 48mm
1/30s
F/4.5
ISO Auto

Shot hand-held with available light at a well-known emporium of Japanese-style fast food, I was looking for a shot with the chef's hands blurred with the rapid movement associated with knitting tofu. Of a score or so attempts, this one had the man's face in focus with his eyes open and his hands suitably blurred. All the movement was done in camera. There is some PhotoShop: the background of square tiles was not quite parallel with the photo frame, but a little Free Transform sorted out that issue. I think the fan is a distraction, but it's real and authentic, and anyway I made a right mess of trying to clone it out.

July Topic - 'Tofu Knitting Bunny Huggers Boiling their Heads'

2010-06-28T08:16:00.001+04:00

Hi All,

Not going to use random topic generator this time as Pauls recent comment ammused me.

So this month is thanks to Paul.
'Tofu Knitting Bunny Huggers Boiling their Heads'

You can use any all, one or what ever combination you like for inspiration.
So pictures of Tofu, Knit wear, Rabits, Boiling Water, Heads and any combinations there of etc..

Have fun and get snapping.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Remember me????

2010-06-27T21:40:00.004+04:00

1st Shoes (1)

1st Shoes (2)

Yep, it's been a while! But I have a good excuse, Nick and I had a baby and I have been a little preoccupied with Motherhood. Love it though! So here is my contribution to this month's topic '1st shoes'. Being kinda obsessed with becoming a mum, you will find a pair of Jarvis's new and 1st shoes. He has rather large feet for a baby, but you would not believe this when you compare his foot size (-2) to his father's (45).

Loving our new lens too!

Nick has also asked me to post his efforts for this month while I am at it. Here he has taken the topic literally and has photographed a pair of shoes as the first item of clothing to be put on.

He has been playing with the green and red filters within monochrome settings of the camera. The difference is subtle but interesting when shooting things like skin using the green filter. Try it out, the effect is cool.

In this photo he has used a red filter.

Shoes First

Come ON !

2010-06-27T12:16:00.002+04:00

Hi All,

I'm back so nagging again, not to late for this month "Boots".

Not even a comment on my homage from the originator :-(

For those that are still playing I'll post another topic in the next couple of days so shout if there are any more topics you want to add to (or you want taking off) the random list generator.

Current list of potentials is :-
F5.6 1/1000 what can you do with it?
Texture
Pattern
Fire
Car (Singular)
Eye
Hand
Three
One
Writing
Up the creek
Standing still - theme to shoot your feet in interesting locations.
Paradise by the dashboard light
Self portrait
Forbidden
Shooting from the hip.
Camera Phone
Slow Down
Beverages
Toys at work
Burj , Al Arab or Kalifa (or opera house for the Aussies)
Green
Letters
Side light
Night life
Damaged
Homemade
Plants
Distant
Square

Cheers,
Richard B.

Paul's SHOES. I'm a sole man...

2010-06-22T21:09:00.009+04:00

As promised, this is a post entirely devoid of babies' bootees.

Nikon D70s
Sigma NiftiFifti
F/9.5 1/2s
ISO250

Shot with available light: a desktop angle lamp to the right and low so as to produce the texture you can see.

What is it? A tyre? Part of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin? No; it's actually the sole of a Birkenstock.

Nikon D70s
Sigma NiftiFifti
F/13 1.5s
ISO250

The same Birkenstock is here, this time with slightly more in frame to give the subject some, but not too much, context.

These images are the best of about 20 shots at various aperture/shutter combinations. Being so close to the subject, shallow DOF creeps in and attempting a shot at F/2.8 produced DOF so narrow as to make the picture too abstract.

See what I mean?
Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/4.2 1/15s
ISO250

These boots are made for walking

2010-06-22T16:41:00.001+04:00

Well here is my 'proper' shoes homework. It is a shot of the waders the site staff have to wear on the contaminated land site I have just started working on:

f 2.8 1/200 ISO 70

Took the camera with me to get a few shots of the diggers but the diggers didn't excite me so didn't bother, however these boots amused me. I can just imagine Wallis say "its the wrong trousers grommet"

Boots - Richards Effort. (A Homage)

2010-06-19T18:54:00.007+04:00

Hi All,

Here's my "Boots", well actually trainers !

EXIF
Canon 350D, with Sigma 50mm 1.4
- f2.5 Av
Started at 1.4 then closed to 2.5 to give some DOF as 1.4 is stupid shallow.
- 1/13sec
Shot in shadow in garden at about 2:30 so still lots of light. ND4 stops used to allow me to drag the shutter for the motion.
Apperture priority to control the DOF and then vaired the ND filters to set shutter speed.
ISO 100, but lack of light wasn't the problem.

Post Process.
Nothing massive except for the Gray conversion in photoshop (now CS4) and the B&W easily allows a mask, hence the N in red.
NO fake motion blur or DOF, for once, all is in camera.
No sharpening either, the texture in the bricks is real.

For those who can remeber this is a bit of a homage to one of the very early shots from Mr. Bell, hope you like it :-)

As always C&C welcome.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Shoes sillyness

2010-06-11T01:31:00.001+04:00

A bit of sillyness to start off the months topic. Here are my shoes on their way to work enjoying the view:

All shot at f- phone, with an off board flash positioned about a million miles away to the left (the sun!!)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Title Change

2010-06-07T15:38:00.001+04:00

In reverence to my right honourable friend Mr Cooper and his rather pointed observation that the current title might be persived as a little narrow in breadth of remit and likely result in a swathe of 'bloody babies booties shots" I think we can expand the title to "shoes".

That should still leave scope for those so inclind to take shots of juniors foot etitre but leave scope for others to be a bit more creative.

Have fun

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Junes Title

2010-06-03T11:37:00.001+04:00

Well folks with Ruchard away playing with boats and being a grease monkey this week I'll step up to the platform and set a title for this months homework.

Unfortunatly I don't have the titles spreadsheet with me so can't take from the proper list so I thought instead I'd steal the current title from the photofriday website:

http://www.photofriday.com/

And so ladies and gentlement your title is "first shoes".

Have fun

YBOD

Ps. I am guilty of not having yet done last weeks homework but will rectify that this weekend and submit late.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Portrait - Post Process

2010-05-23T11:42:00.004+04:00

Hi All,

As I promised I've done a simple "How To" about the Post Process on my last entry.

The full details are here :-
http://images-underwater.net/blog1/2010/05/23/portrait-post-process/

and here is quick tease.

Any questions etc please shout, email or post a comment on my blog.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Paul's UNIFORM...

2010-05-22T18:07:00.009+04:00

...and just for once, nothing from the back catalogue.

I went out with the camera over to Dubai Mall with deliberate intent to find something Uniform to shoot.

Sweeties

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 80mm
F/5 1/30s
ISO 1000 (ISO Auto)

Mindful of the Tripod Police and their ilk, this close-up took some timing. I had to wait until all the security guards had turned away from the uniform colours of M&Ms. The shot is tweaked slightly in Photoshop to remove converging verticals.

Sweet Security

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 120mm
F5.3 1/30s
ISO 1000 (ISO Auto)

This is one of the many security guards. It's a worrying trait: a shop that sells multi-coloured sugary happiness needs high-profile security to ensure that nobody takes any photographs of the merchandise. I don't really understand it either, but here we are, with a uniform standing in front of columns of uniform sweets.

Photographically, this was tricky. It was shot from some distance away, and the guard is lit from behind. There's no opportunity to use flash at that sort of distance, and getting the guard correctly exposed blows out the background colours. So I got the best compromise I could and then selectively boosted the guard's brightness in Photoshop post-processing.

As with the other shot from the confectionery store, I set the camera on ISO-Auto with 1/30s as the minimum shutter speed, and used aperture priority. It's a useful trick where tripods are forbidden and there's not much light. The camera jacks up the film speed until 1/30s is possible.

Shabab

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 29mm
F/4 1/50s
ISO 200

Two groups of young gentlemen, all wearing the same attire. It was going to be these or else a group of hoodies, but the latter is Not Coming In Dubai^TM this time of year. Luckily, not a baseball cap in sight. Shabab, incidentally, is Arabic for Boyz or possibly Yoofs.

As with other shots taken in the mall, I had to be quick off the mark, so composition was adjusted afterwards in post-processing.

Frangipani

Nikon D300s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/3.2 1/250s
ISO 200

Do you like the uniform flowers? They do smell nice too. This was just an excuse to get out the Nifty Fifty and play with the macro. I shot this one late afternoon in the hope of getting some reasonable shadows, and cropped it close in the camera.

UNIFORM - Richards Effort

2010-05-21T20:07:00.003+04:00

Hi Guys,

Here is my go at Uniform, going to try and shoot more but was playing single parent last week so chaotic.

Anyway here it is :-

EXIF etc..
Canon 350D
Sigma 50mm
1/1000 sec
f1.4 (Av mode)
ISO 100
And because if I didn't Steven would be upset :
Flash off camera on 2ft bracket mounted on camera right.
High Speed Sync (Camera normal 1/200 sec)
1/2 Cut CTO (Orange) gel.

Coments, Critique and Questions as always welcome.

If I get time before end of the month I also will try and shoot a few more as well.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Off topic - But one to share

2010-05-13T13:58:00.003+04:00

Hi All,

Not on topic but thought woth sharing.
A couple of stiched HDR panorama from my recent trip.

There are more, including engine room shots here.
http://images-underwater.net/blog1/2010/05/13/habari-sunset-strips/

and "How To" here.
http://images-underwater.net/blog1/2010/05/13/panoramas-how-its-done/

As always C&C welcome, particulalry from the HDR experts out there.

Cheers,
Richard B.

May: UNIFORM

2010-05-04T18:08:00.007+04:00

It's already Star Wars Day, and Richard hasn't put up a Shutterbug subject for May, so I've stepped into the breach with "Uniform". Naturally, this is because I have a couple of pictures that fit one obvious interpretation of the subject. The facts that today is May the Fourth, the white uniforms vaguely echo Imperial Stormtroopers and the first piece in the band's set was The Flag Parade from The Phantom Menace are purely coincidental.

The event was the Band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines playing at a picnic in the grounds of the British embassy on 24 April. Just a day after St George's Day.

Woodwind

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 105mm
F/5.3 & 1/320s
ISO200

Confession being good for the soul, I confess that I was aiming for a more tightly-cropped image of the bespectacled clarinetist, but I chopped the knob off the top of his helmet. So this one will have to do. As you see, I was aiming to get all four clarinets in shot, but with short depth of field in order to accentuate one of them.

Drum Major

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 120mm
F/16 & 1/40s
ISO200
Poor man. He stood there, motionless, for about 20 minutes with sweat beading off him. This despite the tropical uniform. I liked the reflection in the silver globe. Small aperture here so that the items reflected in the globe would be in focus.

Drums

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 24mm
F/5.6 & 1/400s
ISO200
One rank of drummers. The shutter speed was short enough to freeze the marching, but still retain some movement of the drumsticks. The YBOD will be pleased to observe that at this late stage in the proceedings the flag of St George had blown back over the parapet and was almost invisible. Maybe I should have cropped to top to remove the slightly distracting white ensign.

The sky is falling down

2010-04-21T15:18:00.000+04:00

Well according to the weather forecast you poor souls in Dubai are enjoying beautiful clear air, hot tempuratures and not a cloud in the sky........so I thought I'd cheer you up by sharing a shot or two of the clouds we are having to suffer at the moment:

"A Gouldston Country Sky"

Arn't they awful?!?! And when we got up this morning we were treated to such an abundance of cloud that lots of it had to wait at ground level for its turn to be up in the sky:

"Misty Opera"

Oh LET Her play with it.

2010-04-20T14:41:00.000+04:00

Will believe it or not Imogen has actually done some homework with the help of Tinky demonstrating her new and latest hobby which is to introduce herself to the local wildlife......and promptly kill it!!

I thought I saw a mouse around here..

She searches.....

She pounces!!

And goes in for the kill!!

And so there you have it, Imogens first home work, and I for one am pretty impressed both for the action shots and the sharp focus but also the use of on board flash without ending up with an expanse of bleached out white........and she didn;t take 300 shots and cull them to the four good ones. These are the actual shots and there are only 4 others. She just shot them and got it right!!

Although I have to say that the subject of the shots is a little evil....but then what would you expect from Imogen?

let the critique begin

Victoriana II

2010-04-19T14:28:00.002+04:00

Victoriana again

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 48mm
F/4.8
1/180s

Here's another one of the photos I took of the Victorian letterbox. This one is close-cropped narrow to accentuate the tall slim brickwork column and the box front itself. Being closer, you can see the texture of the brickwork, the ivy, the lichen, and years of repainting over old peeling paint. There's an 'old and new' thing here too: whilst the box is Victorian, the collection times clearly are anything but.

Happy now?

Paul's LETTERS

2010-04-18T12:50:00.005+04:00

I've been in Blighty for a week. At least, that was the plan. The unexpected extension to my stay because of a volcanic eruption has been a mixed blessing. I've found time to produce a couple of offerings on this month's subject, and these are produced below for your comment and criticism.

Rural Letter Box

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 200mm
F/8
1/125s

Spring in England. I framed the little letter box with daffodils and trees, using reduced depth of field to avoid the bright yellow flowers from distracting too much from the main subject.

A piece of Victoriana

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 62mm
F/5
1/180s

One of the remaining Victorian post boxes. Also note the Ordnance Survey benchmark on the brickwork below the box itself. This is located on a quiet corner in Plympton, just down the road from where I went to school all those aeons ago. The picture is tightly cropped to eliminate distracting plastic bag rubbish and hideous garden gnomes in the garden to the left.

Baby on board

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 26mm
F/4
1/20s

I borrowed the scenery from some good friends. Photographers with young families will find this scene all too familiar. Hand-held at 1/20s to exploit natural light (aren't VR lenses great?) and a low child's-eye-view.

War Cry

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 120mm
F/5.6
1/125s

Lots of letters here. There's the print in the paramilitary publication, and also the hoarding advertising the computer games shop where the soldier is standing.

It can be difficult to get long shots like these in a busy pedestrian precinct. Enormous numbers of shoppers conspire to walk in front of the camera at the very moment the shutter button is pressed. This is the only one where I was able to crop out all pedestrian clutter.

Bookshop

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 112mm
F/5.6
1/125s

Lots of books, which of course contain millions of letters, in Waterstone's bookshop. I should have liked to true-up the vertical on the left-hand side as it's an architectural detail, but unfortunately I'm away from home and without Photoshop. A slightly wider version caught the sky that was a boring flat grey rather than glorious blue. Hence this close-cropped image.

Other Shots

2010-04-09T17:31:00.000+04:00

While I am in the mood and have the time for uploading I thought I'd share one or two other shots I've taken this month which, while nothing to do with the monthly title, are shots I like and would therefore offer for your comment and (hopefully) enjoyment:

"Red Sky at Night"

F2 1/16 ISO400

I swear there has been no tinkering with the saturation on this one, this is as is. There have been some other photoshop trickery but not saturation. It was an amazing sunset colour and when I saw it I was a little "merry" on the way home from a few liquid refreshments. While waiting for the ferry I thought I must be a little "over refreshed" but took the shot anyway and was chuffed when I downloaded the shot this evening.

"Harbour Reflections"

f2.8 1/320 ISO 80

This one was shot yesterday while coming home on the ferry and I just loved the abstract composition combined with the reflections of two Sydney harbour institutions as the bridge and the ferry. I could say it would have been better if I had the opera house in there as well but I'm not sure. Th opera house and the bridge in the same shot can look a little cliche in my mind.

"QVB Ethereal Light"

f5.3 1/160 ISO200

This show was originally intended to be an entry for "small world" and I was going to play and try and do a Mr Cooper Style tilt shift fake but Mr C beat me to it. As you may be able to see from the blurring I got part way through with a few blur filters but then stopped when Mr C stole the thunder on that one. The shot was take through my office window so there are multiple reflections and distortions (unavoidable where window doesn't open). However, when I got fiddling with the saturation, and in some part de-saturation, I couldn't help loving the ethereal quality the light seem to take on, almost as if it was viewed through a dream. So what started out as one homework has kind of accidently morphed into a completely different shot that I really like for other reasons.

And a final little challenge for the die hard techy-spods, how many of these shots do you reckon are HDRs? I know the usual answer is all of them because I am shooting them but what do you reckon this time?

Letters From Aus-Stralia

2010-04-09T17:02:00.000+04:00

Not as catchy a title as the old proclaimers song but at least its a more pleasant place by vertue of the fact it has less Americans (sorry Mdm Cyn)

So here are my offerings for the monthly title of "Letters":

"Letter from Australia"

f2 1/200 EV-1 ISO 1600

This is taken outside the old main central post office in Sydney where there is a bank of beautiful old brass post boxes with mail posted based on whether it is going to Australia, Franked or International. I can just imagine all those old ten pound pommes sending letters home to family (or old prison cell mates) telling them about their new adventures. And with the wear on the brass I can imagine there have been a few thousands other people touched it since.

"Leters"

f2.8 1/15 ISO70

I couldn't resist a little play on the title. Think about it, what do Estate Agents do? OK for those on Dubai what do estate agents do other than look after their own self interests and rip of everybody they can. This was taken on the iPhone so you'll have to forgive any deficiency in the image quality or colour rendering, but otherwise feel free to comment on composition, lighting, off board flashes (although how on an iphone!!).

2010-03-23T14:50:00.003+04:00

One for the water theme. Taken in the cold of Pittsburgh.

1/200th F6.3

Next Assignement - LETTERS

2010-03-23T08:13:00.002+04:00

Hi All,

Time, or nearly time, for the next subject.

Steven has come up with 3.1547 and the Halcrow costing random number spreadsheet has given us the topic LETTERS.

Due as always end of next month, 30th April.

Get snapping and have fun.

Cheers,
Richard B.

And for those that don’t believe me :-

COME ONE

2010-03-23T07:50:00.001+04:00

Hi All,

Firstly nearly end of the month so come and get your butt into gear for those who haven't posted any water yet.
Remember tenuous is allowed. We've had from airport showers and dirty dishes to actual water drops this month so get snapping.

Otherwise time for some abuse,, opps sorry mean motivation ;-)
- Can YOU be ar5ed ?
Well can you ? Some of you have Author privileges and not posting and we only have a limited number of allowed Authors so if you want to read but not post please also let us know.
Also if your not interested at all and feel we are filling your in boxes with spam please shout and will remove you.

- Next Topic
Before picking another topic for next month if anybody has any suggestions to add to the list please shout now and I'll update the random list.
Current potential topics are :-
F5.6 1/1000 what can you do with it?
Texture
Pattern
Fire
Car (Singular)
Eye
Hand
Three
One
Writing
Up the creek
Standing still - theme to shoot your feet in interesting locations.
Paradise by the dashboard light
Self portrait
Forbidden
Shooting from the hip.
Camera Phone
Slow Down
Beverages
Toys at work
Burj, Al Arab or Kalifa (or opera house for the Aussies)
Green
Letters
Side light

Cheers,
Richard B.

Water - Richards Effort

2010-03-16T13:08:00.005+04:00

Hi All,

Wanted to do these for ages and have tried before with no luck, however think I have nailed it this time.

First in honor Paul's fantastic wording :-

"Pendulous Precipitation"

However this was not the effect I was after, this was shot into a shallow (1 inch) Pyrex dish and this is the water drop bouncing back, what I wanted was the classic crown :-

Settings :-
Manual Mode
Shutter 200 sec fastest standard sync, the motion is stopped by flash.
Aperture f5.6 (to give some DOF over crown and variations in impact point.
Lens 100mm Macro, manual focus.
Camera on tripod, motor drive and cable release.
One flash camera left, another one camera right on eTTL metering. Controlled by STE-2 controller on camera. Red gel on left strobe and blue gel on right and color bias controlled via ratio function on controller.
A bit (but not much) of PP saturation and sharpen tweak.

Overall I shot 633 images, got 20 okay results and these are the best.

If your interested I've posted some more shots as well as some set up shots on my own blog.
http://www.images-underwater.net/blog1

Cheers,
Richard B.

Distortion, Pincushion and Barrel = Nerdy post

2010-03-15T14:26:00.006+04:00

Hi,

Following up on a comment by Paul / Nick on distortion I wanted to add some photos but can't in the comments so hence fresh post.

Both pincushion and barrel distortion are caused by non liner magnification across the image. They are in the same effect but opposite.

Barrel is when the edge of the lens is weaker than the middle. This is the most common and normally seen on wide angle lenses. You often see the tops tall buildings leaning inwards and not vertical with the frame edge, this is barrel distortion.

Pincushion (all one word) is when the edge of the lens is stronger than the middle. this is normally from low end telephoto lenses and not as common these days.

What can you do about it ?
- Keep the image plane (film or sensor) parallel with the subject, however this is difficult if shooting "up" at a building. This evens the effect out rather than correct the problem is though. Paul did a good job this way in Doha.
- Tilt and shift lens, VERY expensive but these you can tilt the lens off the parallel so takes care of the above issue. Both effect are lesser with expensive lenses but not gone.
- Photoshop. You can correct both effect in photoshop but the part of the image is cropped off.

(Images are of Google, same image in multiple sites but think it's thanks to Wiki originally.)

p.s. Sorry for the nerdy post !

Cheers,
Richard B.

Reflections on Water

2010-03-14T21:49:00.014+04:00

Well, here come my offerings for this month. As Richard so astutely pointed out, with clouds hanging low and pendulous with precipitation, there was going to be no shortage of the wet stuff lying around waiting to be photographed. I tried to avoid the obvious 'taxi plunging through puddle', because there's plenty of those circulating on the interwebs.

Gate

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm
F/2.8 1/45s

Tried to get some symmetry here, with the gate lights and their reflections in the puddle. The hosepipe also counts as 'water', partly because I liked the splash of contrasting colour and also because I wasn't about to clone it out. That treatment was reserved for the obtrusive red 'No Parking' sign on the wall opposite the gate.

Minaret

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 112mm
F/16 1/60s

Having retrieved my camera from the car, I was heading back into the office with intent to take a particular shot that I had in mind. Whilst that shot never happened, I saw the minaret reflected in a puddle and liked the texture. I simply inverted the image.

Anchored

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 170mm
F/5.6 1/250s

Dubai Boat Show offered plenty of opportunities for 'Water' as the subject matter. I tweaked up the red gelcoat using a mask so that the red would 'pop' without the water developing a reddish colour cast.

Bow

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 29mm
F/4.2 1/20s
Auto ISO

More Boat Show. It got dark, and I knew from experience that tripods on floating boats and pontoons is a recipe for camera shake, even if some oaf doesn't kick it all into the oggin. So I used the trick of setting the film speed (on a DSLR - Hahaha!) to Auto so that I could hand-hold the camera. There's a little bit of cropping and cloning to get rid of distracting bright lights. Look at the symmetry of the boat in the water, and also note the metalwork at the waterline that just hints of Poseidon's trident.

Reflections

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 38mm
F/4.8 1/10s
Auto ISO

Again, hand-held in the dark (don't you just love vibration-reduction lenses?) at the Boat Show. The whole frame is of a sexily lit speedboat, but I thought the coloured reflections were more interesting. The graininess is caused by the high 'film speed' and also the cropping.

I should also note that I wanted to freeze the ripples in the water, so long shutter speeds that would allow blurring were something I actively sought to avoid.

Water - Steven's efforts

2010-03-09T15:09:00.000+04:00

I have a couple other ideas but just in case I don't get around to it here are a couple of water shots to keep you all going:

Lighthouse on the Rocks

f4.5 1/2000 ISO200

Washdown Area

(f8, HDR, ISO 200)

I know these two are fairly spurious links to water but what can I say, if it was straight forward it wouldn't be nearly as......as........shutterbug now would it.

The first is the lighthouse at Kiama and has water in the bottom corner. The second is the showers on site at Sydney Airport in the "Aircraft Dump Bay" which is the lovely area where the airplane toilets are discharged into. Imagine a GIANT public toilet and proportionally smelly. This is one place you DON'T want to have a reason to use the emergency shower!!

Nick's weird take on water

2010-03-08T23:39:00.004+04:00

I actually have another idea I want to try out for this month's homework, which I figure is actually the point of the whole exercise. However, I found myself shooting these the other day. The first is my vaguely customary B+W:

"what the hell is this?"

f2.8; 1/100; ISO1600; 24mm

Then I thought it looked better in colour, in a modern art kind of way. And less slimy, too:

"No seriously, what the hell is that?"

f3.2; 1/125; ISO1600; -1 step exposure; 40mm

The reflection of the light is intentionally placed where it is to contrast with the dark colours, but I feel it's a bit too bright. And the dark colours are not as dark on my laptop as on the back of my camera in bad light. I could gimp it, but I can't be bothered. Anyway, for all those who want to say I should lose the spot altogether, I couldn't get rid of it and still have the water showing up so clearly. So to speak :) And for the techies, the spot is a ceiling mounted 50W halogen.

Now, I also have a cool back-catalogue water photo which is on the other computer, so you'll have to wait for that, along with my intended homework exercise, until my next posting.

Minature / Small World - Richards Effort

2010-03-07T11:17:00.005+04:00

Hi All,

Better late than never, so here is my attempt at last months "Miniature / Small world". Following Paul's non photoshop with water I thought I'd be brave and bare all! These are all straight out of camera, not even a watermark !

"Out the toy box"
16mm, 1/13sec, F5.6, Av
Manual Focus (measured)
Tripod (yes inside the box)
Off camera flash top right.

"Abseiling"
16mm, 1/5sec, F5.6, Av
Off camera flash top center, to help texture.

"Run"
50mm, f5.6, 2/5sec, Av
Total -2/3 ev.
Flash low left.

"Back Step"
50mm, f5.6, 2/5sec, Av
Total -1/3 ev.
Tripod
Flash high right -1ev.

"Long grass"
100mm Macro, f2.8, 2.5 sec, Av
Tripod
Flash top right

"Freedom"
50mm, f5.6, 25sec, Av, ISO 200.
(it was dark hence 25s & ISO200).
Tripod
Flash low right.

As always, comments, abuse and questions welcome.

Cheers,
Richard B.

WATER: Paul's first pass

2010-03-04T12:54:00.007+04:00

I'll post more later this month, but here's a small taster from my back catalogue. No PhotoShop^TM.

Goslings

Nikon F80
Nikkor 28-200
Scanned from a negative, so no EXIF data

Spring is here. This springtime shot of a Canada goose and her brood of goslings was taken in May 2001. Say, "Aaah." Located at Crofton Pumping Station, near the summit pound of the Kennet and Avon canal, I remember being distinctly cold and damp. The overcast skies are why the water is that foreboding gumetal grey. There was no heating in the boat, nor running water.

Reflections of Doha

Nikon F80
Nikkor 28-200
Scanned from a negative, so no EXIF data

At the time, 2001, this was called the Doha Marriott Gulf Hotel. It's now simply the Marriott. I was on the roof of one building, and happened to spot the reflection of the rig support vessels moored nearby.

March - WATER

2010-03-01T07:50:00.003+04:00

Hi All,

OOPS, poor form this month, myself included ! promise to try harder.

Anyway just clicked the button for this month and used the same as last time 4 and came up with WATER.
No shortage of that here at the moment so get snapping.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Miniature: Arachnophilia

2010-02-27T11:51:00.004+04:00

Flower power

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/6.7
1/350s

Just a shot to lure the readers of this august blog into a false sense of security. This is the flower that produces a curious green fruit; the fruit that Richard thinks is a tomato, but which isn't.

Ant on Deck

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/4.8
1/250s

I only posted the least bad attempt because of the way the image so clearly illustrates the minimal depth of field available when getting really up close with a macro lens. The ant, which is horribly blurred and therefore not really appropriate for this blog, is one of the tiny termite-sized ones. It was running down the twig at an industrious nineteen to the dozen. I'm amazed I captured it at all.

Hairy Beast 01

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/4.2
1/180s

Found in my bathroom, this is one of those tiny jumping spiders. I first encountered it on the window frame, so there's lots of natural light coming from the left side of the frame. As with all the spider shots, I used the technique of getting the eyes in focus. And with a spider, that leaves plenty of choice. This one is my favourite of the three.

Hairy Beast 02

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/13
1/20s

The same spider got alarmed by my lens and moved on to the glass. So lit from beneath is perhaps a little unusual. To be honest, this is my least favourite of the three because the creature's head is so dark. I did try to burn it in (or is that dodge it in?) by lightening the head alone, but it just made the whole image look really weird. The picture makes the cut because the pedipalps and forelegs are pin-sharp, at least in the original.

Hairy Beast 03

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/13
1/20s

Same as above, only approached from a slightly different angle. Inexplicably, the lighting is better on this picture compared with No.2 above. Check out the beast's red fangs: claws under the head and between the pedipalps. Aren't you glad that the whole creature is less than 10mm across, legs included?

Mini + Bump

2010-02-06T13:46:00.006+04:00

Late again. Sorry. My excuse is the small business-pregnant wife combo. So here are my tenuous efforts.

1. Something about things going bump.

This is a really poor link, but one morning I woke up to a bit of fog and marvelled at the view. The smoky, can't-see-anything atmosphere was vaguely reminiscent of all those colour-by-numbers slasher films.

24mm, F/5, why is the text suddenly blue? 1/100, ISO-100.

I played around with curves to white this baby up.

Sarah, meanwhile, took some good photos of the fog a couple of days earlier and, without permission because she's out, I'll post my favourite:

38mm, F/13. 1/60, ISO-100, Canon 30D with 24-70 lens.

2. Something about small stuff

First up, something from my back catalogue:

5mm, F/5, 1/500, ISO-100. Trusty Panasonic with the Leica lens.

And next, something more recent. And for this I've gone back to my customary B&W.

24mm, F/4, 1/60, ISO-100, -0.7 step compensation. Cropped, nothing else done. Big arsed Canon 30-D with the 24-70 lens.

Mini me

2010-01-29T11:55:00.007+04:00

I have got my first couple of 'Miniature' photos in early. There were some plans involving Grand Stores and some macro extension tubes, but these plans went awry after visiting the shop. In brief, a Nikon D70 won't talk to its lens through the tubes, no matter what the catalogue might say to the contrary. Neither will a D40, D60 or D80. They work fine with a D300s, but this seems like a very expensive solution to a simple problem.

Options for macro lenses do not necessarily involve buying macro lenses. An adaptor ring enables a normal lens to be turned around so that the light flows backwards and the lens focuses on a very close subject. Extension tubes push the lens further away from the camera's focal plane, again decreasing the distance between subject and lens. Neither of these worked for me and my antediluvian camera, so I ended up going more expensive.

I now own a nifty fifty F2.8 with a macro facility. Two birds crushed to death under the same oversized boulder.

So this morning I wandered around the back garden, snapping at anything that didn't fly or run away.

Flower

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/4
1/3000s

The shallow depth of field on a macro lens means that it's impossible to get the entire surface of one of these flowers in focus without aiming straight down at it, or else stopping down the aperture and having a long blurring shutter speed. So I shot from further away and got some bokeh background.

Fruit

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F6.7
1/180s

Shot looking upwards at these mysterious fruit. The tree is in the back garden, but I haven't the foggiest idea of its species. Regarding the photo, this one is the best of several attempts. Sign of the amateur: confessing to getting duff pics!

Mini mall

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 at 32mm
F4.2
1/45s

Heavily photoshopped with successive bands of Gaussian blur to fake the minuscule depth of field normally provided by macro lenses. The effect is, I hope, to make this aisle in the Mall of the Emirates look like a detailed model.

BUMP! Paul's efforts

2010-01-19T21:08:00.011+04:00

Ladies and Gentlemen...

I have taken photographs, and attempted to upload the same. Unfortunately the intertubes are currently completely clogged, and I can't get my pictures uploaded. This serves me right for only having a cheapskate GBP40/month 1Mbps broadband connection that currently and habitually runs at less than a tenth of the advertised speed.

The pictures, the EXIF, and my commentary will be available for your C&C once uploaded. I hope for tomorrow morning at the crack of sparrow-fart.

Edited 20th January.
Sunday night is absolutely the wrong time to visit a funfair. At least, it is if you want to see activity and bustling crowds; to drink in the all-pervasive smell of candy floss and toffee. It's a good night if you want to be guaranteed no queues for any of the rides.

The first shot was one of many. I tried lots of combinations of flash, shutter and aperture, different flash modes, and this one came out nicely exposed without losing the coloured funfair lights. At least as a 'still life' something wasn't changing. It is, unfortunately, a bit on the boring side.

Eventually three shabab turned up, so I got plenty of pictures of these boyz. Presented are the best two. This sort of photography is something that is so difficult to get right I'm very chuffed to get a good one. None of these are particularly stunning. Perhaps they're more of a demonstration of the principles (excuse for crap pictures).

It's interesting to note that rear synch (where the flash fires at the end of a long exposure) produces a ghostly effect. The camera has already picked up the background before reinforcing the main subject with a blitz of white light.

Slow synch is, I believe, firing the flash at the start of a long exposure. This reduces the ghost effect, but doesn't produce light trails.

Personally I like the trails on the third picture best.

Nikon D70s on tripod
Nikkor 18-200 at 31mm
1/6 sec F/4.8
SB800 flash on hotshoe

Nikon D70s on tripod
Nikkor 18-200 at 48mm
1/6 sec F/4.8
SB800 flash on hotshoe
Slow sync.

Nikon D70s on tripod
Nikkor 18-200 at 34mm
1/4 sec F/6.7
SB800 flash on hotshoe
Rear sync.

Nothing to be afraid of, COME ON + Febuary Subject

2010-01-19T13:58:00.004+04:00

Hi All,

Time for a Nag, we have even had TWO entries from "Its in my camera but not downloaded" Dodd so COME ON the rest of you !
And as I'm about to depart for a couple of weeks to "Sunny" Rotterdam and then Ulsan I thought I get out the topic for next moth.

Its "Minature / Small world", due 1st March so get snapping.

p.s. if anybody wants to see more on how I took the psycho shots there is more info, lighting diagram and behind the scenes pictures on my blog :-
tp://www.images-underwater.net/blog1/

Cheers,
Richard B.

Spooky Ghosties

2010-01-18T22:36:00.002+04:00

How's that for spooky.

If I actually knew what I was doing with this photo shop thingy then I would have got rid of the stringy bit. I don't so I didn't.

Things that go BUMP in the night - Richards Effort

2010-01-15T21:31:00.004+04:00

Hi All,

My attepmt for this month, loosly based on the famous scene in the Psycho movie.
PIA to do, No model, and no room to shoot either, however think they tell a bit of a story. Not sure how well they worked. C&C welcome as always.

100mm Macro, f2.8, 1/400 sec, ISO 100
Flash low left parralel with shower head, eTTL power.
Bit of a tweak on curves and grayscale conversion in Photoshop.

10mm, 1/3 sec, f5, ISO 100
One flash out of door camera left, red gel. One flash above camera no gel. eTTL balance 2:1 on red flash.
Triggered with cable release.
Simple PP, gray scale conversion with mask to allow red through.

10mm, 1/15 sec, f6, ISO 100
One flash against back wall, red gel. One flash above camera no gel. eTTL balance 2:1on red flash.
Triggered with timer.
Simple PP, gray scale conversion with mask to allow red through.

100mm Macro, f5.6, 1/640sec, ISO-100
Simple PP, gray scale conversion with mask to allow red through.

EDIT
IF you want more info such a lighting diagram check out my blog :-
http://images-underwater.net/blog1/2010/01/17/things-that-go-bump-in-the-night/

The rest of you slackers get out there and get snapping.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Things that go bump in the night

2009-12-29T14:34:00.003+04:00

This is back catalog stuff from Haloween this year.

Will try and think of something a bit more creative rather than just trigger happy but in the mean time may as well get the ball rolling.

Next Assignemet - "Things that go bump in the night" due 31/1/2010

2009-12-29T13:26:00.003+04:00

Hi All,

I guess its TIME to call TIME on the last last topic, however always TIME to squeeze in a few more. For those who want to start on the next one Paul kindly picked the number 6 which gave :-

"THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT"

A nice creative topic, from ghosts to cars I guess.

Get snapping, deadline 31/1/2010, however never to late to post anything.

Please all those quiet masses out there, we know who you are, please join in. Post something, add to the critique, doesn't even have to be on topic. The best way to learn is to play, share and get critique.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Am i upto date now sir???

2009-12-28T23:44:00.002+04:00

Is that me up to date now????

Colin's back catalog of missing homework - 3 again

2009-12-28T23:34:00.003+04:00

3 bars on a bench,
Shot taken by a 3 year old. (bugger can't claim it as mine aside from camera ownership. Oh that was bought for Louise aswell)

It covers the home work and shows that James has better composition ideas than me any way.

Time

2009-12-28T23:13:00.003+04:00

Time spent with friends was done to death by Steven & Richard but just to prove I was there (and to get me over a homework issue).

Unfortunately the darker it got beyond this the worse I thought the pictures were getting.

Colin's Back Catalog of Missing Homework - 3

2009-12-28T23:08:00.004+04:00

Back catalog and boring but as we have seen the end of the YBOD thought I might get away with it.

Colin's Back Catalog of Homework - Animals

2009-12-28T22:33:00.003+04:00

You would expect animals to have been an easy one with a dog but I see to much of him so never have the camera around when he is doing anything worthwile.

Instead here are a few of the animal shots from the summer and a couple of older ones from last year.

The only planned submission for the homework.

There is about 6 inches of glass between me and the tiger.

Colin's back catalog of missing homework - Buildings

2009-12-28T22:25:00.007+04:00

Don't remember which month that we were supposed to do buildings and this one was taken well outside the time period but hey felt guilty.

Straight out of the camera with some in camera messing with the white balance.

F/6.3

1/125

ISO-200

White Balance set to Tungsten

Got bored of waiting for it to go dark and the building lights to come on.

Basil ! <-- Warning Off Camera Strobe Content -->

2009-12-28T08:52:00.003+04:00

Hi All,

Following Paul's TYME I mentioned I'd have a go, well here it is.

I wasn't actually working on the compostition to much, more wanted to illustrate the effect of off camera light, strobe power, aperture and shutter speed balance.

Single strobe, off camera left, no soft box or other modifier. Would be better with a soft box and a second strobe off camera right to soften and balance the shadows a bit.

(Click to enlarge)

This is a typical Shutter / Aperture matrix, however now LIGHT is thrown into the mix with an off camera strobe.

Appeture in Rows f2.8 top to f45 bottom.
Shutter speed in Coloumns 5 sec left to 1/50th right.

Then flash power (manual, not eTTL) on the diagonal.

You will note that the range of correctly exposed images greatly increases.
- Shutter speed controls the amount of ambient light.
- Aperture controls the amount of flash light (at same given power).
- Flash power and shutter speed can be balanced to control front / back light.

I'm going to try and refine this further to show and explain the effects better, maybe use eTTL. I keep posting the results.

As always any comments, questions, abuse always welcome.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Time with Friends - Steven's angle

2009-12-24T14:06:00.001+04:00

Mr B is far more organized than I and got his SZR shoot shots together and uploaded before me. However, still thought I'd share:

This is the best of a bad bunch taken from the Nikon which I had set up on the tripod taking shots automatically every 20 seconds (D700 has a brilliant delayed shooting scheduler built in!!). I then wondered around with the pocket rocket Leica taking other shots from other angles and locations:

Light trails arn't as good form this angle, and the sky has already past its prime, but I prefer the composition in this one, with the lights fanning across the foreground.

TIME to nag

2009-12-24T12:09:00.002+04:00

It's that TIME of the month again. TIME to nag !

Firstly well done to those who have had or made TIME. For those not yet I'm sure you can grab a few seconds to make some TIME.

Remember Christmas is a TIME to SHARE, TIME to GIVE, TIME to RECIEVE.
So TIME to SHARE some photos, GIVE some comments and RECEIVE some critique.

Just because it's Christmas TIME, there is no excuse. TIME to get the camera out and snap away.

If your lacking inspiration, go through your photos from TIMEs past. Then just make up a title in the now TIME honored tradition.

Cheers,
Richard B.

TIME THE SHUTTER IS OPEN - another from Richard

2009-12-24T11:40:00.005+04:00

Hi All,

Yet another tenuous link to TIME, this time the shutter is open.
Actually just an excuse to share some shots.

I've been roped into teaching a friend of the wifes about photography and doing a course. As part of this I needed wanted to illustrate the Shutter/Aperture balance.
Hence the below, it is a 5 x 5 grid, from f45 to f2.5 and 1/1000sec to 2.5sec.
I know the composition isn't great but wanted to ilustrate DOF and movement in a controled manner to get 25 identical shots.

(Click to enlarge should work)

Larger Size :
Shallow DOF, Frozen Action (f2.8, 1/1000sec)

Deep DOF, Moving water (f45, 2.5sec)

To shoot.
1- Get Pen and Paper.
2- Frame shot
3- Av mode and work out Min and Max apperures for that lens.
This sets Fastest Shallow and Slowest deep.
4- Pen and Paper, divide apertures and time into 5 equal stops work out the numbers.
5- Go to M and shoot, step by step.

Hope you found interesting / informative.
Any questions, C&C or other abuse feel free.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Paul's TIME

2009-12-22T20:16:00.006+04:00

The Old Court House, Boston MA.

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200mm @ 26mm
F/5.6
1/250 sec

Boston is full of this juxtaposition of old and new. The buildings surrounding the hall are a couple of centuries newer, as is the underground metro station right beneath the old building. If that's not enough time, check out the clock on the end of the bulding.

There's a little cropping and some perspective transform in Photoshop^TM to correct some converging verticals, and I also tweaked the colour palette to bring up the rather washed-out look of the brickwork.

Times Square, NY NY.

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200mm @ 22mm
F/4.8
1/90 sec
Taken quite by accident, this one resulted from my accidentally hitting the shutter release while zooming. It is by far the most interesting photo I took of Times Square. I just like the movement suggested by the photo.

This image is straight out of the camera and cropped to 800px high for t'web.

Thyme after time

Nikon D70s
Tokina 12-20mm @ 12mm
F/5.6
1/4 sec

Available light plus tripod. No 'pod Plod at home. The versions I tried with flash all looked flat and boring, so I resorted to an angle lamp just out of shot. I tweaked the white balance afterwards.

Unfortunately, the extreme wide angle distorted the image big-time, so out came Photoshop^TM and the distort transform tool. While I was at it, I noticed that the WB screwed up the colour of the thyme. It's back to a more natural green through careful use of a mask and the green colour slider. Maybe I should have used a nifty fifty (that I don't own) to blur the background kettle, knives and saucepan.

As for the subject matter, think of it as preparing to cook. There's the thyme herb, and also the kitchen timer, all poised for time to cook.

TIME - Richard's Efforts

2009-12-22T13:19:00.003+04:00

Okay its "TIME" this month folks so TIME to get your efforts in.

Inspiration didn't strike this month and running out of TIME so though I'd follow Mr. B's efforts and just use tenuous titles ;-)

To honor the departure of the Beckett's to Australia we went for a night TIME shoot of SZ road. Just had TIME to down load and PP so here are the results.
I'm sure Steven will post his HDR'd in TIME and Colin will have shot his but not downloaded yet as no TIME.

TIME spent with friends

EXIF
Canon 350D (Santa PLEASE help !)
Sigma 10-20mm
Av Mode, f22 min, about 13 sec.
-1/3 EV
ISO 100
Normal WB

What TIME is the next Metro

EXIF
Canon 350D (Santa PLEASE help !)
Canon 28-300 IS L
Av Mode, f22 min, about 8 sec.
-1/3 EV
ISO 100
Custom manual WB, shot the "white" off the track sides then tweaked in camera.

There has been some photoshop in these but not much by my standards ;-)
A sort of manual HDR composite.

I'm sure the rest of you can sneak some TIME for a couple of quick shots. Just how much time does 1/4000sec shot take.

Please take TIME and feel free with the C&C.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Time - A Wet Play Time

2009-12-15T00:42:00.001+04:00

Ok, I am going to openly admit right off the bat that this is a VERY spurious link to the subject of 'Time" but I have decided to name this "A wet playtime" if only so that I can use it for the homework:

Then in the Global Village carpark early this morning following the three days of rain in Dubai. As usual comments and criteque actively encouraged, and if I think of anything better before the end of the month I'll post that as well.

iPhone Shot - Sharjah Mosque

2009-12-07T16:51:00.000+04:00

Nothing at all to do with the current topic but I thought I share another iPhone shot with you all:

Honestly this is straight off the phone.....although there has been some 'tweaks' in phone......answers on a post card for those who can guess the tweaks.

TIME - Next Assignement

2009-12-03T11:43:00.005+04:00

Hi All,

Cracking response last month well done to all those who submitted.
Those who didn't, your lazy oik's, especially those who took shots but didn't down load of the camera !

Anyway it's that "Time" again, I asked Steveo for a number and helpfully got 23.75 !

Anyway the spreadsheet has thrown out the new assignement and its "TIME", due 1/1/2010.
Yes you got the rest of the year to do this one.

Get snapping and have fun,
Cheers,
Richard B.

Twit twoo, two

2009-11-22T19:06:00.002+04:00

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

2009-11-22T18:14:00.002+04:00

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.

2009-11-22T09:57:00.002+04:00

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

2009-11-21T23:29:00.000+04:00

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:

Silhouettes
Sunsets
Landscapes with a Prop/Person for Perspective
'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!"

2009-11-21T21:43:00.003+04:00

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

2009-11-21T20:44:00.002+04:00

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

2009-11-21T20:25:00.005+04:00

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.

GPP - Twilight and Night time

2009-11-19T23:18:00.000+04:00

Well GPP is upon us again and I have been waiting with much excitement as I have been able to find the time to sign up for four of the workshops. The first of these is Twilight and Night time photography with Chris Hurt.

The course was pretty good with lots of pointers and tips and most importantly a all permission granted opportunity to take the cameras AND TRIPODS in to Mandiate - or at least the hotel part. It therefore thought I'd share a couple of images from the course as well as a few of the top tips:

Madenate Pier With Burj

(f4.0,Tv=0.5,ISO250,FL20mm)

This shot is a photo stitch of two shots but other than that there are no photoshop trickery in this. After all the aim of the course was to learn the trick to get the shot in camera. I must admit in this low res shot it looks quite a bit brighter than the full sized. I loved this shot for the composition and the way the longer exposure had smoothed out the water

Madinate Pier and Twilight

(f6.3, ISO250,FL20mm,bum=wet)

This shot I completely love as it caught all the things he was telling us. Also I shot is 'shady' white balance which gives the shot a lot more warmth than the first one. Also, focusing on the pier only and not trying to get the Burj in as well allowed me to crop a little nicer and avoid barrel distortion.

So, the top tips from the course:

Twlight lasts for just 30 minutes in Dubai so get there early and set up, because you are not going to get much time.

Best shots are taken in the 15 minutes after the sun has gone below the horizon

Always shoot dusk and twlight shots in manual mode as YOU need to do the metering. The camera WILL get confused

Spot meter and set your Tv and A while pointing at a clear bit of sky (no sun and no artificial light). Then frame and shoot with these settings - This works because although 100% of your composition might be focused on the item the foreground the sky makes of far more of the area of the shot and so must drive the exposure. The camera will meter for he brightest part.

Shoot in shade mode will add warmth - shoot in RAW will allow you to play with WB afterwards

When shooting the light reflections on the water get down real low so that the water becomes a feature of the foreground

Shoot in as low an ISO as you can and put the camera on a tripod - This will give the smoothest colurs without noise and also allow the camera to soak up all those lovely colours.

For both these shots I waded in to the sea in order to get nice and close to the water and also to avoid other shooters getting in the way of my shots. David no doubt has shots of me doing this and looking a proper wally into the bargin but I don't care, I liek the results.

Comments, critique or jsut suggestions for other was to make the shots work always welcome

Get your animals in and lets have some more critques please folks ;-)

2009-11-19T08:24:00.003+04:00

Hi All,

A reminder that the end of the month is fast approaching so get snapping.
I know some of you have done it just not posted so come one get the cable out and download of the camera. (If you got time to download the latest eddition of Grays Anatomiy you can download your shots !)

Also on a personal note I'd also ask a everyone to join in the critique ;-)
I'd much rather have 20 hard critique comments than one "nice shot".

You don’t have to know all the technicalities but we all know some of the basics and more importanly what we like.
For example I posted an underwater shot this month, you don’t have to know about diving or underwater housings and strobes but is it sharp ? Is it a bulls eye ? or does the diaganal line off set that ? what are the colours like ? negative space ? aspect ratio ? etc..

Here is a good guide if anybody wants pointers.
http://news.deviantart.com/article/70348/

The opposite also works as well if somebody likes a shot and wants to know how it was done etc the idea is to share and learn.

p.s. I know sometimes people just post snaps because they want to so if anybody doesn’t want critque on a certain image just add a note in the post.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Photoshop trick

2009-11-16T13:43:00.005+04:00

Hi All,

Nice simple trick to give your photos a bit of punch.

They say with divers, there are two sorts of divers, those that pee in there wet suits and those that lie about it. Photoshop and Photographers is the same so this tip is for all those that lie ;-)

Orignal

1- Duplicate the background layer.
2- Set blending mode to soft light.
3- Adjust the opacity as you like (about 50% is a good start).

After Post

Nice subtle way to boost the saturation and tonal range.
You almost have to look hard for the difference, its more of an impression, however check out the gray and the texture of the steps. (If need be right click and save the cropped shots to your desk top and flick between.)

There is no other adjustment between these two photos, NO levels, NO curves, NO dodge/burn.

For those who have a lot of photos to work with it's a very quick step and can even be added into your default actions.

The blending modes in photoshop are very clever and worth playing with. Soft light as here mutiplies light tones and dark tones together from the different layers to subtly lighten the lights and darken the darks.

p.s. This photo is not finished, jsut used like this for ilustration.

Coments, critique, abuse and questions welcome.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Animals - Richards efforts II

2009-11-16T13:22:00.004+04:00

Hi All,

While the whales were submitted this month they weren't quite shot this month so here is one taken this month.

Clowning around in Musandam

EXIF :-

Canon 350D

Sigma 17-70mm Macro at 70mm

f5.6 (full open for this lense at that length)

1/200 (Max sync speed as lot of water movement)

2xDS125 strobes in eTTL

Not much PP, almost none by my standards ;-)

and in Honor of Steven's aspect ratio's I've not gone 4x6 but I do feel dirty.

Coment, Critque and abuse welcome.

Cheers,

Richard B.

animals-cows-week-ii

2009-11-15T19:50:00.000+04:00

Not normally wanting to fiddle with another mans cow without permission I couldn't help having a play with Paul's larger one. I reckon with a different crop the 'story' is told much better:

Rather than the shot showing a cow isolated in a shot I think the wide crop kind of tells the story of a solitary cow brooding on its own.......perhaps wondering why the dickins its in a desert under a tree and not in a green pasture.

Also the left hand bush balances nicely on the top left third with the cow on the bottom right. Maybe if it was my shot rather than a quick crop and re-post I'd also clone out the bottom of the tree in the middle back ground but that's by the by.

Paul - hope you don;t mind me having a fiddle with your cow.

Animals: Cows week II

2009-11-15T19:25:00.002+04:00

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 29mm F/16
1/180 sec

I took some of Richard's comments and redid the image. This time you can see the whole of the tree's shadow, emphasising its isolation. I tweaked the cows' brightness using the Mask tool in PS Elephants 2.0 so that the cows were rendered a little brighter without blowing out the detail of the sand and the blue sky.

Less tweaking of the palette this time. See how the sand is redder?

Animals: Cows week

2009-11-13T19:09:00.003+04:00

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @150mm and F/16
1/125 sec

There were plenty of animals out and about during last Friday's Gulf News Fun Drive rehearsal. Unfortunately most were camels, and I cannot in all conscience post a picture of a camel here, no matter how cute the young might allegedly be. There was also one sheep; someone had clearly got the flock out of there.

Anyway, here it is: two cows on the roadside, sharing what little shade is available. I have tried to tweak up the brightness so that the animals aren't in silhouette, but the background tends to blow out when I do that. I messed with the colour palette too. In the original the sand is redder, but I think this one is more pleasing to the eye. Oh, and I cropped the background crap out of the image and, as usual, reduced it to 800x600 for the InterTubes.

Animals - Doing what a cat does best.

2009-11-10T19:26:00.000+04:00

First offering on the animals front, a shot of our cat doing what cats do best.......if best is indicated by what they do most.

I'm reasonably pleased I managed to find a time when she was willing to sit still long enough for me to take a few shots playing with the exposure etc until I got this shot I liked where tinky's fur is nicely exposed and her wiskers in focus without loosing the soft warmness of the sunlight coming in through the window (which Tinky loves so much).

EXIF data.....erm........f3.2, Tv=1/250, ISO 200, FL=31mm.

How Much is Too Much

2009-11-09T13:39:00.005+04:00

Hi,

In order to add some abuse and lively debate . . . . . . I hope.

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH ?

This is the original, I like Nell's expression, the out of focus background and composition except for the ballance of the shot.

It can be comon practice to crop a shot heavy, up to 50%, to frame it. It is also comon practice to extend seamless white and balck portrait shots al la Zak Aries, (as I did in "light").

So is this to much ? (Double click for large size image)

It's not a crop, it's not white seamless I've just done a "bit" of photo shop and replicated the backgroud. As the background is so out of focus it's really just an amorfus background so I think its fair.
It also means that you don't loose the resolution like you do in a heavy crop. (Original 2.2 MB JPEG, Edited 7.1MB JPEG and 109 MB Photoshop PSD.)

Let fire with comments, abuse and any questions.

(p.s. It didn't take long, only about 20 minutes to do all the PP.)

Cheers,
Richard B.

Animals - Richards efforts

2009-11-05T13:56:00.006+04:00

Hi All,

Not quite back catalogue but taken JUST before new topic and I've only just done the post production so I'm going to claim them.
If I take anymore and I'll try and post them as well.

Generally this is the EXIF :-
Canon 350D
Canon 28-300mm 3.5-5.6 IS L, about 250-300mm no mutiplier
AP mode at f5.6, give a bit of DOF but also all maximum light.
1/2500sec, nice and fast, moving subject, moving boat and moving water drops.
ISO 100, as pleanty of light.
-1.33 EV, to keep water darker and avoid "splash" blowing out.
Servo Focus mode (posted copies may be a bit soft but originals are all in focus)
All shot in burst mode.

Don't you just love motor drive....

If anybody wants to see hi res film strip 16 MB Jpeg and 168 MB in photoshop jsut shout and I'll mail.

Comments, Critque and abuse welcome :-)

Cheers,
Richard B.