Polo

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

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

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

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

'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

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

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 !

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

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

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)

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

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

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'

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????

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