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*The Painter's Link by Kate Bush from the album 'Aerial'
Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
See All the Colours Run*
Having a little time on my hands I decided to play about with the tulip image from Sunday's session and really go for the fine art look!
Silver Efex Pro 2 took care of the monochrome conversion and I followed a tutorial in Scott Selby and Matt Kloskowski's book 'The Photoshop Elements Book for Digital Photographers' to make the card. I'm quite pleased with the results.
*The Painter's Link by Kate Bush from the album 'Aerial'
*The Painter's Link by Kate Bush from the album 'Aerial'
Slow This Right Down*
In this digital age it's easy to just shoot, shoot, shoot with your camera and hope that something turns out right. What this means is that you come home with 100's of pictures that need to be downloaded, sorted, appraised and the failures deleted. Once you've got a few pictures that might be reasonable you need to spend time editing them. And perhaps when you've spent all that time you've really not got anything to show for it. I know... I've been guilty of this very thing! The more time you spend in front of your computer, the less time you actually spend taking photographs and, consequently, honing your skills and techniques. Guilty as charged, m'lud!
So... On Sunday I had several bunches of flowers available to photograph, a wet afternoon interspersed with some sunny spells and time to think about what I wanted to achieve. I set up my D700 with the Nikkor 60mm macro lens and set to work. I set the camera to manual and used my (very) old Weston Master V light meter taking reflected light readings by hand and calculating the exposure. I switched to Live View and turned the auto focus off. The only other tool I used was a reflector to bounce some light into the darker folds of the flowers and to use as a background.
What all this achieved was some very lovely pictures, nicely exposed and requiring very little post production work - well, I think they're nice! I also learned a great deal about my kit. Firstly, by using Live View I was actually able to detect just how even the slightest touch on the camera invokes shake; it's amazing! Secondly, calculating the exposure that best suited each image produced far better results than the built-in meter. And finally, by manually focusing I was able to determine the focus point to maximise depth of field. There was a downside... using Live View chews the camera battery very quickly!
Here's a few shots from the session:
Of course, not everything worked and I had a few dud pictures but only a fraction of what I would have had if I'd shot willy nilly. A very relaxing and satisfying Sunday.
*Slow by Rumer from the album 'Seasons of My Soul'
So... On Sunday I had several bunches of flowers available to photograph, a wet afternoon interspersed with some sunny spells and time to think about what I wanted to achieve. I set up my D700 with the Nikkor 60mm macro lens and set to work. I set the camera to manual and used my (very) old Weston Master V light meter taking reflected light readings by hand and calculating the exposure. I switched to Live View and turned the auto focus off. The only other tool I used was a reflector to bounce some light into the darker folds of the flowers and to use as a background.
What all this achieved was some very lovely pictures, nicely exposed and requiring very little post production work - well, I think they're nice! I also learned a great deal about my kit. Firstly, by using Live View I was actually able to detect just how even the slightest touch on the camera invokes shake; it's amazing! Secondly, calculating the exposure that best suited each image produced far better results than the built-in meter. And finally, by manually focusing I was able to determine the focus point to maximise depth of field. There was a downside... using Live View chews the camera battery very quickly!
Here's a few shots from the session:
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| Click the image for the bigger picture |
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| Click the image for the bigger picture |
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| Click the image for the bigger picture |
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| Click the image for the bigger picture |
Of course, not everything worked and I had a few dud pictures but only a fraction of what I would have had if I'd shot willy nilly. A very relaxing and satisfying Sunday.
*Slow by Rumer from the album 'Seasons of My Soul'
Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night*
A sunny spring evening, great food with lovely people, live music - Rumer at the Philharmonic in Liverpool - a photograph... what could be better...
Such a wonderful evening. Thank you everyone...
*(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night - Tom Waits from the album 'Used Songs 1973 - 1980'
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| Click the image for the bigger picture |
Such a wonderful evening. Thank you everyone...
*(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night - Tom Waits from the album 'Used Songs 1973 - 1980'
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