Going Sloooooow

Sometimes its nice to push your creativity and digital certainly allows that much more than in the days of film, Once you have a good portfolio of a specie why not experiment and try to get something different and unique, I was in this position in Japan where we had spent a few days shooting the Red Crowned Cranes, Once the light started to dip people would pack up and go whereas we decided to stay until it was to dark to focus and have a play with slow shutter speeds and just see what came out, The cranes are large birds so panning with them would be easy, Its nice to use a slow shutter speed to blur the wings and background but keep a sharp head, Its all very hit and miss but good fun and if one does come out good it looks great, To get the best effect you really need the subject flying parallel to you, You will soon learn just how fast or slow you need to get the effect that you want, It got to a stage where the light was completely gone and the birds were taking off in small groups so you knew that everything would be blurred but what the hell it may look good and if it doesn't then its not cost anything but cold fingers and extra time deleting, Now the images may not be to every bodies taste but i shows some creativity on your behalf and it gives you some practice at panning and it has to be better than being stuck in a hotel room

Dave

Variable ND Filters

With my recent posts here and here showing the effects of using my 10 x ND filter, and Dave's article with teh Lee Filter version last year, I thought I would do a quick post about a variable ND filter.

I had seen these some time last year when I was getting my 10x but thought no more about it.

The system relies on two pieces of glass and give you a ND range between two and eight stops.

Check out this Singh Ray link.  I always laugh when I see that name as it reminds me of a children's puppet adventure when I was a child.  I guess you have to be of a certain age to get it - but I will just say Troy Tempest and Marina.

Anyway, this filter would help with one great difficulty that I have with the 10x screw on filter and that is composition.  As you cannot see a thing through the viewfinder so you have to do all the composition before you fit the filter, lock the camera off on the tripod and then fit the filter.  A bit of a faff.

With the variable ND you could set it all up with the ND set at say two stops, compose the image, and then wind it to whatever stop setting you want.  Simples!!

Any of you use it?  Does it work as it says it is supposed?  Be good to hear

Martin

Patience is a virtue (and money saver)

....or at least it is when it comes to Canon pricing.

We have said it on here many times before, and it will, no doubt continue in this vein, at least here in the UK.

I was having a browse through the prices of Canon kit to see if there were any effects of potential short supply from Japan's problems manifesting themselves yet.

One the bits of kit that I looked at out of curiosity was the 300f2.8IS L lens.  Not the first version that I have, that is still a stunning bit of kit - lightning fast AF, brilliant IQ and razor sharp, but the replacement Mark 11 version.

Camerapricebuster is the place I go

Well the 300f2.8 L Mark 11 was launched at an eye watering £7499!!!.  It is now down to £5349.  Now that is still more than I paid for my 500f4 and nearly twice what I paid for my mark1 version of the 300f2.8, which is still available at £800 higher than I paid.

But the Mark 2 is now more than £2000 lower since last August.

It pays (saves) to be patient with new gear.

Martin

One of those days

You know the kind-it would have made sense to just roll over and go back to sleep, Last night we had 60 mile per hour winds with torrential rain, Add some thunder and lightening and no electricity and it didnt make for a good night, Today it has continued, The traffic is at a standstill due to a huge accident on the interstate, No doubt people doing their norm here and traveling too fast, 2'' from somebodies bumper/fender and on the phone-yes its still legal and no doubts they had their kids in the car, maybe even drinking a coffee with one hand and putting make up on with the other-you see it daily-well it is the land of the free-sod everybody else, So i managed to drop my wife off at work and make it past the carnage on the interstate-i think there are a few people from that accident in hospital or the morgue as there was little left of the cars that were strewn all over the place, I get home and still no power, I did see some guys working on the power cables not too far away and there were some trees down from the winds so i am sitting it out in Starbucks, They also said that until mid day that there were chances of tornado's-well if i am going to go i will go with a Grande Latte in my hand-a happy chappy
One thing that stood out was that my hide/blind stood the test and made it through the night, i know that the pop up type of hide would have fallen to bits, i have said it before that the cube type hides are the way to go and last night proved it, The weather should brighten later today and the next couple of days look good so i hope to get the cameras out, There are raccoon foot prints in my pond which is interesting and have opened some new possibilities for the future, I have seen raccoon feeding in lakes before so are not afraid to get their feet wet, Yesterday i was processing the Japan trip images or at least starting to, I haven't made time since getting back to get much processing done but i need to get it done-just need power
Hopefully i will be able to put some images up in the next blog and maybe even be in a better mood

Dave

Dorset Trip Report - Part 4 - Sundown at the Bill

A few years ago on my birthday, I took some images from this same viewpoint, or almost from this viewpoint to be strictly accurate.  There is a little notch that has space for one maybe two photographers and it was occupied previously.  This time I got it to myself.  So these images were taken with the camera about 7 or 8 feet lower, and the reason will be clear when I explain.

In a previous post, part 2, I shared the sunrise images that were taken about three hundred yards and twelve hours previously.

On arrival at this spot, I took a quick image without any filters, and have done a straight conversion with the RAW image with changes

All pretty unappealing I think

Now fitting the lens out with the 10 x screw on ND B & W filter and the Lee Filter 3 stop ND Blending grad, I got this result after a 6 min and 12 second exposure

Better, but I dont think it works as well as the morning shots did with the lighthouse at sunrise

Getting rid of the 10 x and waiting for a bit more sunset, things start to look much better

With the sun coming out from under the clouds, the rocks to the left start to get a nice glow

On the filters, I used the Blender, and another 1 stop ND Grad in the second slot, with a soft transition.  I also rotated the filter holder so that the grad line followed the line of rocks from top left to bottom right, as it was the brighter areas I wanted to hold the exposure back on.

Swapping the 24 -70 to the 17-40, I could get a bit more scene in to add the sun.

 With about a 3 second exposure, a bit of water movement adds to the scene

Finally, with the sun dropping below the horizon, the colour temperature comes down and the scene starts to go cooler.

As I mentioned at the start, with a view point about 7 feet higher, the horizon line of the sea comes up above the rocks to the left of Pulpit Rock.  With this view point you lose it.  It pays to watch other photographers and see their attention to detail.

Just a pity the sea was so calm.  I would have like much more action in the water.

My final critique is that I went there too late in the year.  If you go between the months of November and February, I reckon the sun would be in a more advantageous position in the image.

MArtin

Project Pond

The weather has been pretty naff all week but today its bright and sunny, The  temperatures are starting to rise again and the spring flowers are enjoying the first sun for some days, I think they also enjoyed all the rain as they have really sprung up, This morning after watching the Moto GP i went back into the garden to add a bit more to the pond, The pond had been up a couple of weeks and showed no leaks so i built one end up with top soil and today i added some pebbles to it and a couple of rocks near the middle for birds to land on, I will continue to build the sides up with soil and have pebbles at one end and grass at the other giving me different options when i shoot, I will need to put rocks or something along the sides to stop the birds and squirrels from drinking in the wrong spot-It all looks a bit messy at the moment but should not take long to finish off-back to work

 Dave

Saturday Quickie

I guess if I had posted this yesterday morning, you might have thought it was an April Fools.

Last weekend while walking back home from Stratford a most unusual sight  was seen as we walked over the River Avon.

It was certainly amusing quite a few other people and four young girls in one of the rowing boats.

There was quite a commotion going on in the river and following the source of the sound, I could see two Mallards mating.

The strange thing is that it was two Drake Mallards.  Certainly the one underneath on the receiving end of the one of the top didn't seem too impressed and was doing all it could to get away.

I am not sure that I ever seen homosexual behaviour in animals before but it was quite a surprise.

Maybe the title of this post is what the top Mallard was trying to do.

Right it is on wine o'clock now.  Have a good weekend

Martin

The Camera never lies

Well thats what they used to say but in these days of digital cameras and Photoshop nothing could be further from the truth, My friend David Newton did a blog yesterday on his own personal thoughts of image manipulation and in wildlife in general, Now i have to say that i am very old school and also not very good at fiddling around with my images, The most i will go to apart from the normal levels,saturation and curves is to remove a small twig or blade of grass that may be distracting, How far do you go? well i guess that entirely up to you, Forums are now full of 'clean' images and if you put one up with branches or so in the background then somebody is bound to comment that these should be removed as they are distracting, I shot some cracking eagle images when i was in Japan and by using a long prime you get what you get and i had some had wing-tips etc clipped, My favourite Eagle image had a very small amount clipped so the other day as i needed to print it large i went onto you tube and found a video of how to add wing tips, I did this and it printed very nicely, Now does this smack of hypocrisy? well i don't think so, the wing-tip was there but i just didn't/couldn't frame it properly what i hadn't done was to remove a tree or anything from the image so in such the scene was as it was at the time, I personally do not mind a small amount of tiding up and maybe there should be some guide lines to set the 'rules' on what is a photograph and what is a manipulated image-both will sell but one is the truth and one isnt, That is the reason why competitions ask for a RAW file to make sure that the images is as true to life as the time that it was taken, I think that is kind of sad that people coming into the trade/hobby see these heavily photo shopped images on the web and feel that its the norm and will emulate them-In the days of slide film what you shot was what you got ,just my thoughts-what are yours?

Before

After

 The after image still needs some tidying up in the sky colour at the top (left) but gives you the idea

Dave