More bunnies to hug

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.

GPP - Twilight and Night time

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

Public Photography - AKA The Tripod Police

Hi,

Following Paul's and my recent comments on Tripod police I thought I'd dig out the article I read on American public photography.

Here is the original blog article I read on New York Rules.
http://theartlawblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/revised-public-photography-rules.html

The Full rules are here :-
http://www.nyc.gov/html/film/downloads/pdf/fprp.pdf

However the lazy amongst us paraphrased the rules say :-
(2) The following activities do not require that a permit be obtained pursuant to this chapter:
(i) Filming or photography occurring on City property involving the use of hand-held devices provided that such activity neither involves the obstruction of one or more lanes of a street or walkway of a bridge, nor results in less than eight feet or one half of the width of a sidewalk.

It then later defines hand held to also include tripods. However they do seem to get upset about light stands, dollies, tracks etc.

Also found various US transport rules on photography
http://www.thejoekorner.com/photrules.shtm


Cheers,
Richard B.