Four Trees

I was struggling for a decent composition this evening, probably because I spent most of it chatting to a fellow photographer when I should have been scouting out locations! Anyway I usually do lone trees but there wasn't really enough space between these to isolate one tree so I got a bunch of them against a fairly impressive sunset.

Lens flare was a bit of a problem as it always is when the sun is in shot but I got rid of most of it in post, I should have really removed the polariser as it was doing nothing facing the sun, it'd have been one less dirt and dust catching barrier between the scene and the sensor! I used a soft Lee 3 stop grad as the sky was a crucial part but I didn't want the land completely silhouetted. The exif stuff is ISO100, f/16 for 1/3 sec at 16mm although I am going to make a conscious effort to use a slightly narrower focal length in future, say 24ish mm, it's tough when I like to include so much sky!

Panoramas from Glen Coe

These ones are coming out of the camera thick and fast! We spent a day travelling around the famous photographic locations around Glen Coe in Scotland such as Rannoch moor, BuachailleEtive Mor and the actual glen itself, a great drive and the weather was fantastic, in fact it was probably a bit too nice for photos, certainly at midday when the sun was high. As all the locations are relatively close together I could go back and forth between them which was good, especially at late afternoon/sunset.


The first shot was at the 3 sisters and is a panoramic stitch of about 7 vertical shots taken at 35mm, I've started zooming in more for panoramas if I can. There is an export to panorama function in Lightroom which is pretty good (it takes them straight into photoshop and does the business) but for these panoramas I used a program called PTGui, it allows you to move the horizon about which is handy when you do a panorama without a tripod, or in my case with a tripod but with a bent horizon, as mentioned, this was my first outing with a ball head so I needed to get used to it.

The next panorama is of Glen Coe, it has to be one of the prettiest places in Britain. Again a stitch of about 6 photos, I had to go to 16mm with this one as those mountains are pretty big!

Striding Edge, Lake District

Another one from Saturday. This was a quick and dirty panoramic (non of that tripod nonsense) Camera on full manual with focus set to infinity and about 5 shots taken in portrait orientation with about 33% overlap from one photo to the next. Photomerge in CS4 is so good now it can get rid of any vignetting you might have or any geometric distortions that come with using wide angles. I wanted to use striding edge as a leading line up to the mountain but also wanted to include the tarn to the right. These were all taken at ISO200, 16mm, f/13, 1/125.

Another Long Exposure Landscape

This is another one from the same shoot as my last post, the weather hasn’t been the best lately but I think it’s brightening up now so I will hopefully get out this week. Not vastly different from the shot I previously posted, this one is in portrait as I wanted to include a little more sky.
It was taken at ISO100, 21mm, f/8 30 seconds. I zoomed in a touch as I tend to get a little vignetting at 16mm when using a lot of filters. The flat water again comes from the 10 stop filter allowing for a 30 second exposure. I always try to shoot at ISO100 and had to use f/8 as that was the longest speed without going into bulb mode, I could have done 1 minute at f11 or 2 minutes at f16 plus, if I’d have gone to ISO50, this would have taken me to 4 minutes. Unfortunately I was getting hungry and the car park was closing!

Snow... with trees

It's been far too long since I've posted anything on here so I'm putting up a couple from today's outing. I'd seen this tree a while back and wanted to get some shots of it and with the recent snow it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get out. I waited until the sun was quite low in the sky and did some side lit shots but these weren't really that great so I went a backlit shot. I wanted the light to really show the texture of the snow (hence the side lighting) but still have a focal point.

I wasn't out for very long and I certainly wasn't lying down for very long. I kept the sky under control with my Lee Grads and tweaked the levels in Lightroom. In hindsight I should have done a killer HDR with about 9 exposures but my mind must have been elsewhere. These two were taken at (about) 16mm f/16 1/60 at ISO200, I went to ISO200 as I took the camera of the tripod to get (frostbite) really low, I was at about 1/30 before and I didn't want to handhold at that speed. Thanks for looking.

I'm getting some mileage from these...

I think this will be the last from this set and I'm only posting now instead of tomorrow as I might be busy then and I'm not now. The first jetty was the one I wanted to get but I arrived and it wasn't in the best state of repair, good job I didn't plan to get the boat there! I was after some long exposure shots so out came the 6 stop ND filter which got me to 25 seconds at f/16 (ISO100). I used a cooler white balance to give the colder tone, you can either do this in camera or, if shooting RAW, in processing.

The second shot was on the way up Catbells, using some frozen vegetation as FG interest and a 3 stop ND grad to keep the sky under control. This was taken at f/16 ISO 100, 1/10 sec at 16mm.

Last of the Mud Flats

These were from the maybe pile from last week that I decided to tinker with and was quite happy with the results. The light was going quite quickly in these shots so there has been a decent amount of recovery both in lightroom and in photoshop. Lightrooms gradient tool and local adjustment brush are awesome, I highly recommend it if you shoot a lot of RAW's.

These were taken at similar settings, 16mm, f/16, ISO100 and around 2 seconds exposure. Again I warmed the tones up by adjusting the WB in lightroom, I wasn't after a high contrast HDR look but I did bring back some detail with the local adjustment brush on the rocks and the gradient on the sky.

Seascape at Sunset

Another one from our trip to the lakes, this was overlooking the Morecambe Bay area during the last few minutes of sunlight, the tide was very far out leaving large bodies of water between the sand (or mud) banks, as there are no waves the water is very still and ideal for reflections, I was a little annoyed at the ripple saw after we got back but there you go. The original was quite a cool tone so I warmed up the white balance in Lightroom, one of the enormous benefits of shooting in RAW. This was shot with my 3 stop ND grad at ISO100, 17mm, f/16 at 1/2 second.

Boat at Low Tide

I've just come back from a few days in the Lake District and have started processing some shots. This one was one of my favorites. I used a very low angle to really include pebbles and hyper focal distancing to ensure all but the very closest stones were in focus. I have a colour version which I really like but I've decided to post this mono version. I'll hopefully put a few more up this weekend. As I didn't have my tripod I had to make sure any exposure had to be over say 1/100 as I was lying on the pebbles I wasn't confident to go any slower and keep the camera steady. I had a 3 stop ND filter attached to keep the sky from going places it shouldn't! This was taken at 16mm at ISO200, 1/160 at f/9.

More Bales

There was some really nice light this evening so I dashed out to my nearest field that I knew had some hay bales in it. Nothing extraordinary really but it was nice to be out doing a landscape, I'm doing quite a lot of strobist type shots at present and hope to post some soon. As always with my landscapes I did a mono conversion and decided it was slightly better but there wasn't much in it. I used my trusty 3 stop ND grad filter but thought it was a bit strong so I brought the sky back about a stop using the local adjustment gradient in Lightroom. The exif was my safe 16mm, f/16, ISO 100, 1/6 sec, I forgot to take my infrared filter with me, must remember for next time.

Chester Zoo

I went to Chester Zoo at the weekend, I wasn't expecting to get too much but I was quite surprised with some of the ones I came away with. I had to pump up the ISO on some of the shots and was thankful of the image stabilizer on my 70-200 lens. I've processed them all in mono because I quite liked the effect and did a little doging and burning in photoshop, the gallery with the 12 I processed can be seen here.

More Landscapes

Thought I'd post a couple of landscapes I got earlier today, I've been waiting for the clouds to be just right, they came in a little towards the end but I was quite pleased with these. I did a little dodging and burning both in LR2, with the local adjustment brush and then a little more in CS3. I liked how both images semed to have a different feel to them even though they were only teken about 30 minutes apart. No foreground interest or leading lines in the second one but I thought the sky was great.

Farmers!

I ran past a field today full of hay bails bathed in glorious morning sunlight, excellent I thought, I'll bring back the camera in the evening and get some shots. I returned this evening to find the farmer had collected anything resembling foreground interest and the sun had been replaced by overcast skies, most frustrating. Anyway I decided to do a bit of HDR because I hadn't done any for a while. Anyway this is my only one worth posting, it was the only leading line I could find!

Back in Black

This is one I got last night during a break in editing wedding stuff, haven't done any landscapes for a bit so it was nice to get out. I was trying a new (ish) black and white plugin for photoshop called silver efex (by niksoftware) it seemed pretty good, it's one of these that claim to replicate film black and whites etc. I was going to take out the tower but thought I'd just leave it in as it was only a snap shot really. Shot with a 3 stop ND filter at f16, 16mm, 1/10 ISO100.

Photoshop Actions

I've recently been using a lot of actions in photoshop and came across this site called PanosFX. He has loads of free photoshop actions to try, I used an action called 'the big picture' on a photo I took of a poppy field a while back. It takes a few moments to run the action as it needs to cut out bits and create drop shadows and that sort of thing but once it's done it gives quite a nice effect. There are other actions to try but I thought I'd post this as it is one of my favs.

Emley Moor Mast

I've recently been asked by a few people if I had any shots of Emley Moor Mast so I thought I would head up there and see what I could get. I did have a few older shots but wanted some new ones really. These were two of my favorites.

The first was my standard 16mm wide landscape that I like doing, with a 3 stop graduated filter to keep the sky from being blown out. I really liked the sunburst but wasn't a great fan of the bits of glare here and there so I had to clone out a couple of spots. I did have my polariser on which isn't much use into the sun, these add to the glare so I've only myself to blame. The second one was a telephoto landscape taken at 100mm, it has the effect of compressing the elements and obviously the mast is more prominent.