Friday night...in a corn field

Went out this evening as the sky looked like it was going to light up the modest amount of cloud cover and I ended up, as I do more times than I'd like to admit, in a field with absolutely no foreground interest. I pulled out the 10 stop filter, to try and do something with the movement of the clouds and the corn, I thought the hill and the trees to the bottom right almost had a Tuscan feel, well, about as Tuscan as you can get in Northern England.Anyway I didn't spend too long editing it, mainly removing the magenta cast from the long exposure filter by adjusting the white balance in lightroom. The exif data was 20mm, f/11 cooked for 30 seconds at ISO400, 400 I know, and it was still slightly underexposed, I get a little nervous above ISO400, I don't know why because the 5D handles noise really well.

I was lacking in inspiration with my wide angle but saw Emely moor mast in the distance looked like it was about to get swallowed up by the storm so I swapped to the 70-200 and zoomed to 200 to eliminate any distractions. I could have done with the clouds being a little more side lighted by the low sun but there you go. This was taken at f/8, 1/40 ISO200. I was ok going to 1/40 at 200m as I was on the tripod but as a rule you should always have the shutter no slower than the focal length to avoid any camera movement. ie 400mm should ideally be taken at 1/400 or faster, 16mm you can get down to 1/16 (actually 1/15) but that is about the limit of hand holding for shots I find.I've also cropped to a 2:1 ratio for these shots, I quite like this widescreen, panoramic look and it works well with these as there wasn't much going on at the top and bottom of the frame.

Have a good weekend folks.

Buachaille Etive Mor and The Cuillins

Not the easiest mountain to pronounce, Buachaille Etive Mor or the buckle as it is known in some walking mags. It is near Glen Coe and normally has a decent covering of snow on it but more often than not, a few low clouds I imagine. This was taken at sunrise at about 3.30. A common composition has a few waterfalls in it but I didn't like it as there is a small tree that slightly obscures the mountain. The exif for this was ISO100, 16mm, f/16, 0.6 second. The next shot was also in Scotland, this time on the isle of Skye and is a rugged mountain range known as the Cuillins, we walked up one of these a few hours after this was taken, it was a little grueling to say the least, not aided by the fact that it was one of the hottest days ever recorded on the wee island. Spectacular views at the top though but quite difficult to get a shot in the midday sun. This one from the bottom uses the bridge near the Sligachan hotel for a bit of foreground interest. The exif is ISO100 at 28mm, f/8 for 30 seconds, I used the 10 stop neutral density to try and get some movement in the clouds, didn't really need it in the end.

More Beach Photography

Two more beaches from Harris, these probably count as the same beach but one is a little bit hidden. They aren't short of white beaches and blue seas up there, unless you go to the east side and then it's rocks and more rocks, the change in landscape over such a short distance has to be seen to be believed. The fist shot was another with the 10 stop ND filter and a 90 second exposure at f/11 (ISO100) one of the key things I learnt whilst doing this was to stand and position your shadow over the camera and tripod, this gets rid of any glare from the sun. I'd always read about shielding the sun but my hand always ended up in the shot. If I'm not behind the camera I may as well make myself useful and stand at the side! This technique cannot be done in the second photo as the sun is in shot, producing the glare, it can be removed in post but I wanted to keep it in on this one. Nothing overly tricky with this one, ISO100 16mm, f/16 for 1/3 sec. I had a 3 stop soft grad to make the sky play ball and tried to compose so the lines (rocks, sand etc) lead to the sun.

Cropped Landscapes

A couple more from the Scotland trip. I have put these two together as I have cropped them to an aspect ratio of 2:1 as opposed to my usual 3:2. This gives a more wide screen format and is useful when there isn't a great deal going on at the top and bottom of the frame. The first shot was a sunrise near Brogaig on Skye, I got up thinking it would be amazing and only took 3 frames before the clouds moved up and got me, so had to go read my book in the car in the hope they would clear, they didn't. Taken at 35mm, f/16 for 6 seconds (ISO100).


The second is on a beach in Harris at Husinish using the slightly unruly 10 stop filter to smooth out the sea, not that it needed a great deal of smoothing. It was taken at 16mm, f/16 for 30 seconds at ISO200, I could have done ISO100 for 60 seconds to get a similar exposure with a little more movement but that would have meant going into bulb mode and getting the cable release out etc, I was there at midday so these were just snapshots really. I think the semi panoramic layout works quite well for these though, I guess I just have a bit of a dislike for the older 5x4 ratio that is almost a square!

Isle of Harris

I have recently been on a trip to the Isle of Harris of the north west coast of Scotland to do a few landscapes. We were very lucky with the weather all week and hopefully I got some decent shots. I've barely begun processing them but I thought I'd put a couple up now and others as and when I finish with them. I was in a long exposure mood so a lot of them have the associated cloud and water movement. These two were near where we camped on the western side of the island. We also stopped in Glen Coe and Skye for a few nights so I'll put some of those up soon too. It was my first time using a ball head tripod, I usually have a 3 way but this is a great bit of kit, as long as you remember to lock it down, I forgot once or twice which was almost quite an expensive mistake! I think both of these were taken on Bulb mode with a shutter release cable at f/11 for 90 seconds (ISO100).

Back in the Field

The sky was looking very interesting tonight, it was a shame I didn't really have a fixed idea where I wanted to be as I think I could have done a little better. As it was I ended up in a field after vaulting numerous walls desperately searching for foreground interest other than grass, I failed. I tried the 10 stop ND filter to really blur the grass but didn't like the results, I kept seeing a windows wallpaper type landscape but with really mean looking clouds! I drove round a bit more to see if I could get anything but no joy, it's really infuriating when the sky is so dramatic and you can't find a half decent location! Anyway this one was taken at my stock landscape settings, 16mm, f/16, 1/30 ISO100, with a 3 stop graduated filter. It was good to be out doing a bit of landscape photography again though and I got back before the rain, which was good!

2 Minutes of Sky

Last post 24th March! If I knew what the date was I'd be shocked, I know we're close to some religous shebang that has something to do with chocolate and bank holidays. Anyway I went out the other night as the light was looking pretty good so I arrived and set up and the light went straight to hell so I thought I'd do a few more long exposures. I did a few at 10 minutes but didn't like the results, this one was exposed for 120 seconds, f/16, ISO100 16mm, and if these setting seem familiar it's because I was taking photos of a tree and they are the only settings I allow for tree photos :) Not much else about it really, the 10 stop gives off a little magenta hue for long exposures but if you shoot RAW you can have a little diddle with the white balance when you get home. I quite like how the outer leaves were blurred but the stable branches stayed sharp, gives it a etheral quality. Have a good weekend everyone.

Helvellyn and Ullswater

Took a quick trip up to the lakes at the weekend as it seemed the weather was going to be good, unfortunately it was a little hazy so didn't get the camera out too often but these were a couple that seemed worth posting. I'll have to get there for sun rise one of these days. I didn't have my tripod so it was a hand holding compromise again between ISO, aperture and shutter speed, not too difficult in full manual, I even put the grad on on the lake shot as I new the clouds would be an important element.

The boathouse on Ullswater is very picturesque and there is usually at least one tog there trying to get something. Striding edge is a great part of the walk up Helvellyn, it was a shame the clouds were a little low but again, you really need to be there for the golden hours to get anything memorable.

Long Exposure Sunset

I was out taking this at a local water sports lake and I had a couple of points I thought might be useful to remember for this blog but have forgotten them! I think I'll have to get a ball head for my tripod at some stage, I have a three way head at present and they can be a little cumbersome, especially when composing a shot a few inches above the water. To make things even worse I had to look through the view finder upside down, not the most accurate way of getting the horizon level. This was taken with the 10 Stop filter that I'm using a fair bit lately. As these are so dense (in terms of light transmission) you have to compose and focus with the filter off the camera and then slide it into the holder, although I find it easier to take the filter and the holder off and just snap it on for the shot. I also had a graduated filter to prevent the sky from blowing out, very easy when including the sun. A good idea if you are using these long exposure filters is to get your exposure right without it on then just add 10 stops of light So say 30 clicks of increasing your shutter speed, or if you get to 30 seconds and don't want to go into bulb mode but have only done 6 stops (18 clicks if your camera goes in 1/3 stop increments), open up the aperture 4 stops (12 clicks). It seems a little difficult to get your head round but once you do it'll make things a whole lot easier and you'll always use full manual, for landscapes anyway. This was taken at ISO100 19mm, f/14 for 30 seconds. There is a little lens flare to illustrate my last point, ALWAYS clean your lens and any filters between the camera and subject, be it UV filters, ND filters or Grads, any dust when shooting into the sun will refract it and make the shot only good for blog tutorials or healing brush practice!

Long lense if you don't feel like walking

I got this a few mornings ago and pretty much forgot about it until today. I wasn't dressed to brave the snow and I didn't really have time to get to a location so I got another view of my favorite tree! I had the 100-400 lense on, I think this one was about 230mm, I got a few with the tree isolated but wanted more of the great sunrise so I pulled back a little and used the tree and horizon to just set the sky. I didn't use any filters.
It was a bit tricky setting the white balance in the end I set it on the cooler side, about 4000K but desaturated the blues slightly. I added a bit of a vignette in photoshop and that's about it, there might be a few dust spots as I don't think I took care of them at the start.

Castle Hill

I braved the cold today and went up to Castle Hill near Huddersfield. The day had been very crisp and clear but there wasn't enough cloud to get a really good sunset. I tried some side lit shots but I had little success, in hindsight I should have found a vantage point a mile or so away so I could incorporate the hill and the sunset, maybe next time. I had to resort to a HDR shot to get some detail in the dark side of the tower. I also had to correct the converging verticals in photoshop.

Panoramics of the Lake District

A couple more from the same walk as the previous post. These were two panoramic shots of the valleys either side of Catbells, the first one shows Derwent water, Skiddaw, Blencathra and Keswick.

I'm not 100% sure of the name of the name of the other valley but apparently it has a town called littletown that is in some of the Beatrix Potter books. It was in shadow for most of the day so remained frosty, the sun lit up the mountains behind it though. In this shot you can also see Grasmoor and Grisedale Pike (I think).I may have posted Instructions for creating Panoramics a while ago, with photoshop's photomerge script they are really quick and easy. I would always use a tripod just to save any trouble when editing, if you get a bit of a slope your panoramic can quickly become very thin!

Cat bells and Derwent Water

We were in the lake district for New Years day and decided to beat the crowds and climb cat bells early on. The weather was great with no clouds and no wind so when the sun came up and lit up the Derwent valley it was difficult to take a bad shot.

We were taking pictures all the way up and concentrating on using the sun to side light the hill. There was a lot of frost about so frozen rocks and vegetation was good for foreground interest. I had a 3 stop graduated filter on because I didn't want to blow out the sun and the sky, this often gives a star burst effect which I quite like but you sometimes get a bit of flare somewhere else in the shot (usually right on the focal point) but this is easily correctable in photoshop, try to keep your lenses and additional filters free from any dust of finger prints to minimise this.
Again it's often easier to go on full manual and dial in your aperture and then play around with your shutter speed to get the exposure you want, it's not always best to let the camera decide, especially if you have a lot of contrast in the scene. The first shot was taken at ISO100 16mm, f/16 for 1/5 sec.
The shot from the jetty was taken later on when the sun was well up, however as it is winter you get a nice low sun for a lot of the day. This was a 10 second exposure to really take any movement out of the water in the lake. I also set the aperture to f/22 and the ISO to 50. On my canon you have to set expanded ISO to on in your custom settings. To slow things down further I slapped on a 6 stop ND filter (basically thick sunglasses for your lens) this allowed me to get the exposure time to 10 seconds.

You guessed it, a tree...at sunrise!

Hey folks, I wasn't in the best frame of mind for photos this morning so it became more like a what not to do on a photo outing and if you can still come away with something half way decent you are doing ok. (Remember, it's what not to do, and I did them all!)

1. Set off with no plan of what you intend to shoot.
2. Take the bare minimum in terms of equipment, filters and polarisers just take up space and you won't need them.
3. Leave yourself no time to get to where you wish to take photos.
4. Walk the least distance possible but through bogs that only 50,000 horse power tractors can get through, if possible wear brand new Italian motorcycle boots, oh and clean jeans!
5. Don't worry about checking what ISO you were using last time, it'll probably be a nice noise free 100 anyway.
6. Take a haphazard, almost child like approach to crossing muddy puddles, with equipment depreciation these days you can always just get a brand new camera should it come off the tripod as you skip over the half lit puddles.
7. Spend no time thinking about composition, you'll just over complicate things, is a straight horizon really that important?

This is the result, I'm amazed I managed to remember to take the lens cap off! I got away with being a little lax this time because I was familiar with the surroundings and the equipment. The timing of the shot is critical, shots 10 minutes either side of this one would be moved to deleted pretty much as soon as I got them on the computer. For anyone still following this was a HDR so the shutter varied from 5 secs to about 1/25. ISO was 100 (I do check this without thinking now, despite the above point 5) Keeping ISO's low is extra important when doing HDR stuff, f/16 and 16mm.

I'm adding another shot to this post as I think I prefer it to the HDR look, I'll probably change my mind back as soon as I post it!

More from the Vault

This is an old one I was playing with today, only posting as I have been pretty poor at keeping the blog up to date recently. I'll hopefully get out soon to get some landscapes done as we've had some nice clear weather recently, all be it a mite cold! I'm not too keen on the square (ish) crop, only noticed that a minute ago. I'm sorry if this is a little brief, I'm dashing out so can't give any tips on this one.

HDR in Dubai

I used to do a fair bit of HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography but now I tend to just use an ND grad to balance the sky. This is not so easy when you have lots of sky scrapers dissecting the horizon, plus setting up the filter can be a little bit annoying.

This was taken using my 16-35 lens at 19mm, I focused on the horizon and then set it to manual focus, the camera was in full manual mode at f11 ISO100. The only thing I changed was the shutter speed. I used to just bracket 2 stops either side and join the 3 raw files but now I take up to 9 exposures as I think it gives a far better result.
The speeds for this one was 1/15,1/30,1/60,1/125,1/250,1/500,1/1000 and 1/2000 so a stop difference every time (1 stop is half or double the light) or if you aren't great at judging stops, if your camera works in 1/3 stop increments, each stop is a 3 clicks on either the dial or the wheel.

Sky Library

I went out this morning to get what I thought would be a great sunrise and ended up sitting in the car for an hour as it started raining pretty hard and the sunrise didn't look too promising, the joys of landscape photography! I decided to come home and although the sunrise wasn't that great and there certainly wasn't much foreground interest to properly compose a photo I decided to add to the sky library. These are great to have on your system if you ever need to replace a dull looking sky from an otherwise ok shot. They can be taken whenever you see interesting sky. I have a few sun rises, sun sets, midday blue skies and some moody cloud shots. I don't do a great deal of composite sky shots but is handy just to have the option.

Cows Week

A couple more from the back catalog, I have not done a lot of processing with these really but as you will have noticed I'm back in Black and White mode, I really wanted to use one of the cows bright orange colouring but it just wasn't happening. I was a bit annoyed as when I was snapping these my mate was getting shots of the bull, which I thought was probably a little more photogenic but I had not noticed him until we were leaving, breaking one of my main rules - Avoid the 'walk up' shot and have a look round. Anyway just thought I'd put these up to keep my post rate up.

Smooth Infrareds

I got an infrared filter a few fays ago and have yet to use it, it's just so much easier getting a similar effect in the digital darkroom. This is a shot I have processed largely using silver efex pro. I like the IR effect, especially on the sky but I'm not a great fan of the glow you tend to get from traditional IR photos. The benefit of doing it digitally is you can experiment and see the results straight away. With this shot I wanted to retain some detail in the grass and the leaves that the IR glow would lose.

Highland Cattle

I got this one a few days ago at the end of a bit of a photo walk, We came across a field of highland cattle who must be fairly used to visitors. I managed to get closer and closer until after about 10 minutes this one came over to check out what was going on. This was taken about 0.5 a second before he licked the front of the lens. I wanted to get really wide so I was at 16mm at f/5.6 and 1/250 to ensure there was no motion, I still had a circular polariser and an ND grad on the lens, as I'd been shooting landscapes so I had to pump up the ISO to 400, the colour version has quite vivid blues from the sky and oranges from the cattle but I like the mono version as it accentuates the low sun side lighting we were getting, especially on his nose!

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.

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.

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.

Abercastle harbour, Pembrokeshire

Thought I would post another from my trip to Wales. This is a small port (or harbour, not sure what the difference is) called Abercastle in Pembrokeshire just as the sun was on it's way out. I wasn't using a tripod so the exposure was a bit of a compromise, not made any easier by adding my polarizer, which will get rid of 2 stops of light at it's full effect. So I needed to get decent DOF, decent ISO and a shutter speed I could keep steady, and I don't trust my hands to stay steady as I grasp onto a cliff face above a harbor so I ended up with ISO250 1/80, f/7.1 at 16mm.

Another Little Planet - Leeds

I was in Leeds yesterday trying to do some more 'little planet' shots and came up with this one outside the Queens hotel. I was going to do one from millennium square but it had been closed off because of some concert or festival. These are really quick and easy to do, just set up a tripod and spin round taking snaps, ignoring the bemused look of people who are certain you are tracking them and only them! I used PTGui to join them then in Photoshop make a square canvas and rotate the image 180 degrees and use the polar coordinates filter, and thats it, you might want to clone in a bit of floor or even better take a snap of the floor when you are done and use that.

Circular Panoramic Photosphere

I was just experimenting with a panoramic from Wales, I haven't been doing much shooting lately so I have to play with older photos, it is still only 2 weeks old though. I saw this effect in a recent photo mag and thought I would try it out. This vista is not the best for this technique, the ones I have seen are normally cityscapes, so I must remember to do one next time I'm near canary wharf. The floor of the shot is also an important part, one I omitted on this occasion. I will write a better tutorial when I get a better example.

Buttermere

Hi guys, just thought I'd pop this one up. It was taken about a month ago whilst I was up in the lake district. I have processed it with dynamic photo and quickly cleared up a few dust spots with CS3. It is a really nice walk up haystacks from Buttermere and you can take in a few other peaks before coming back down which is good, on a clear day there are plenty of views but good luck getting a clear day up there! We had a nice morning and then the clouds rolled in. Theres nothing too remarkable about this one, more of a memory shot really, I would have liked to have a bit of foreground interest and possibly made more of the path but I was there primarily for the walk. The info on this one is f/16, ISO100, 16mm 1/40sec. I also used a 0.9 Lee ND grad for the sky.

More of Snowdonia

Another shot from the same walk as yesterdays post. This one was taken from bristly ridge during our ascent of Glyder Fach but looking back at Tryfan. I didn't use a grad for this shot or a tripod but I did have a polariser on so I had to up the ISO a little and open up the aperture more than usual to compensate for the darkening from the CPL. The exif data was ISO250 f/11, 16mm, 1/125 sec. I originally tweaked it in lightroom and then CS3 but I did another version using dynamic photo which I preferred. If you use Dynamic photo you know a lot of it is experimenting with the sliders and it can be a bit hit and miss, the first thing I always do is drop the colour saturation and the vivid colours back to zero, this goes a long way to remove the 'overcooked' HDR look.

The Castle of the Wind

I was in Snowdonia national park a few days ago to celebrate the start of summer, I was scrambling up mountains with a friend and we found this interesting formation at the top, I say we found it but I imagine there have been plenty of previous founders, this was confirmed when we found out it was called the castle of the wind, a cool name it has to be said. The name is due to the sound that can be heard when the wind passes over the mountain through the sharp rocks. Anyway this one was taken using a 3 stop soft edge ND grad and processed in Lightroom where I added some contrast and a vignette. The exif was ISO200 (I was hand holding) f8, 16mm 1/125 sec. The mountain was called Glyder Fach and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of scrambling.

Wind Turbines

I took this one a few days ago on one of my few days ago with a 'tog buddy. I thought we'd get some great photos but it was a bit of a nightmare composition wise and the great light that kept creeping through the clouds pretty much vanished. I was trying to use the fence as a leading line on this one to lead the eye into the turbine and the mean looking clouds, I did do a sepia version but decided to stay with colour this time. I was doing a product shot for a fan (air fan, not someone who loves my work) and made a composite image with the fan replacing the turbine which looked ok. Anyway the info on this one is ISO200, 16mm 1/80 f/8, I was hand holding and needed a reasonably fast shutter to stop the blades I also had a polariser on which cuts light by about 2 stops, but worth it if you have blue skies and clouds.

Landscapes Part 2

A similar one to yesterdays post with slightly different colours used during the mono conversion. I had to wait a while for the light to be right. Again processed in LR for clarity and spot removal, I really need to give the sensor a bit of a scrub! This one was taken in aperture priority, as most of my landscapes are, exposing for the land and using a 3 stop graduated filter to keep the clouds from blowing out.
The data was ISO100, f/16, 16mm 1/13 sec. Hopefully I'll process some lake shots today and resist the urge to turn them sepia!

Yorkshire Dales

Just got back from a few days in the Dales and the Lakes, not the greatest of conditions for landscape photos unfortunately, We did a nice walk around Buttermere taking in a few peaks. It was blowing a hurricane on the top of high stile so our descent was a bit hair raising. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm just bad at assessing risk, ironic considering I used to be a risk assessment consultant. Anyway, I got this one just north of Ingleton during a break in the clouds, I kept the sky under control with a neutral density graduated filter. The exif data was ISO100, 17mm 1/15 at f/16. Ingleborough is in the distance. The raw file was processed in Lightroom, adding a little clarity and a slight tone curve to increase the highlights. I burnt the clouds in CS3 and added a tinted BW adjustment layer.

Graduated Filters For Landscapes

Hi Folks, I've just been testing some new neutral density graduated filters and thought the comparison might make a good post for those considering buying some grads. I would say if you do a lot of landscape work, these things are essential. You can use HDR but it's extra work and results can be very hit and miss. Grads are basically rectangular bits of plastic that have a clear end and a shaded end. The shaded end is to compensate for the brightness of the sky, your brain does this automatically but cameras aren't that smart. You then expose for the land and if you have the right filter the sky should also expose properly instead of being 'blown out'. You can get 1, 2 & 3 stop filters, 3 being the darkest, and the one I used in this example. You normally have to buy a holder and an adapter ring to screw into the front of your lens. A firm called Cokin make reasonable filters, holders can be bought fairly cheaply off ebay. I actually started with hitech filters and would recommend them. Anyway these two photos were both taken using the same exposure, ISO100 f11 1/60 16mm (I wasn't going for an award winning shot so comments on composition etc aren't necessary) They are merely to show the effect of using grads.

Before
After

More Black & White Trees

Thought I would put this one up to keep ticking over, not an award winner I'm afraid but it what can you do. There has been some interesting weather at the moment, plenty of cloud breaks for the sun to peep through (and cloud bursts to soak you and whatever camera gear you have out at the time!). I wanted to do another high contrast mono similar to my infra red shed I posted a while back, which incidentally is being published in the May edition of Practical Photography (out April 23rd) if anyone cares.
This was taken at ISO100 f8 16mm 1/100 Sec, I had to use f8 because I was without a tripod and I had a polarizer on. I tweaked it in lightroom and then added a BW adjustment layer in CS3. For anyone who uses Ligthroom, version 2.0 is now out for free beta testing, so you can try it and report any bugs you find.

Farmers Field

As I haven't been out taking many landscapes of late I thought I'd see if I have anything in the back catalog and came up with this one. This is from a field near my house as the sun was going down. I probably didn't work on it as I have a decent number of tree shots and try to avoid adding to them, but they are just so damn photogenic. I have done a bit of HDR on this one in Dynamic Photo. The exif was ISO200, 126mm, 1/640, f4 don't ask why I didn't go to ISO100 and have 1/320 it's not like the cows are the fastest of movers!

Icy Puddle

Two post in two days, I do have these fits and starts when it comes to posting photos. This was another from our ascent up to high street in the eastern fells of the lake district. This was looking back at the crag featured in the previous photo, I think this is called eagle crag (but could be wrong) apparently the last surviving golden eagle in England resides around here, very sad indeed. Anyway I've burnt the clouds a little to add a bit of drama and dodged the snow to make it slightly whiter. In retrospect I think it might be a bit too central but if I crop it I get rid of the dark cloud to the top left of the shot and I really wanted to keep him in.

On a completely unrelated point, I downloaded some free lightroom presets for any lightroom users, it is from a site called protography.com the link for the presets is here. They are pretty good if you need a bit of direction on how to process your shots.

My Buddy, The Medic

I haven't posted for ages and I thought I'd get back with a HDR shot taken of my friend who went with me up high street in the lake district today. I was explaining how it is possible to process a RAW file for HDR but you are better using a bracketed exposure, obviously this isn't possibly for moving subjects. You used to have to process the raw file 3 times and blend them together in photoshop but it really is much easier to use a dedicated HDR program such as photomatix or the one used for this photo, dynamic photo hdr. The clouds were fairly thick but still had a bit of texture too them so I under exposed by 2/3 so I didn't blow them out. There are plenty of sliders to play with in dynamic photo it just depends how much you want to cook your image. The painterly effect (if thats the right word) is a new feature in the latest version, it's called match colour, then you chose which sort of colour set you want, I recommend you give it a try. The exif for this one was ISO200, 16mm, f8, 1/320.

London

Someone told me I hadn't posted anything recently, I haven't been taking much worth posting to be honest, and this one is no exception in my opinion, I had to import a sky to make it a bit more interesting, anyway as I have to rush out I'll post in now and maybe edit in a bit.

Infrared Shed

I was in the peaks again yesterday, went for a nice walk around Froggart. I spotted this shed and tree from the car and quickly jumped out to get it. I was using my new wide angle lens (16-35 L) which was an absolute joy, it's nice to be able to get quite close and still fit everything in. I also had a polariser on which really brought out the blues in the colour version, but as I'm still in a mono mood I'm only posting this one. It was taken at 16mm, f/16 for 1/15 sec at ISO100, I did have another version with a sheep's skull as foreground interest but I prefer this version because of the whispy clouds.

(Edit: I'm just putting the colour one up for some one who wanted a comparison)

Panoramic Photography

I took this one a few months back up in Whitby (the abbey was behind me in this shot). There are a few important points to remember when getting panoramic photos.

• Always shoot in portrait mode, this gives more height to the finished shot.
• Set your tripod level with the horizon, some tripods have a spirit level on them if not you can get hotshoe mounted ones for a few quid.
• Shoot in manual keeping your aperture, shutterspeed, iso, focal length, focus point and white balance the same for each shot. Meter from where the middle of your panorama will be, if you meter from the sunny side everything else will be underexposed, if you meter from a relatively dark area you risk over exposing the brighter bits.
• Keep an overlap of about 30%, so if you are panning from left to right look for a feature, such as a tree that is about a third of the way in from the right then when you pan your tripod right, frame so that tree is on the left of the shot. That sounds more complicated than it is.

If you get these basics right you should have a good set of say 4-8 photos that can be stitched using CS3. Photoshop has a really good automatic stitching program (file - automate - photomerge) there are other programs such at PTGui that do a good job too. This panoramic was taken at f/16, 1/4 sec, 43mm at ISO100 I had an 0.9ND grad filter to balance the sky. The file has been drastically reduced so it has a smaller size.

More Mono Mayhem

I was out shooting with a photo buddy yesterday in the peak district national park. The weather was glorious and I tried to pump up the colours further by pretty much using my polariser on every shot and trying to shoot perpendicular to the sun. I knew I would be converting the majority of my shots to mono as I thought the bright sunlight wasn't moody enough for my landscapes.

There hasn't been a great deal of processing with these 2 images, I converted them in Lightroom, took them into CS3 where I added an unsharp mask for contrast (settings: Amount 35, Radius 200 & Threshold 1) and a Black & White adjustment layer. I think mono images are quite striking and you don't need to shoot during the golden hours.

Back to Mono

I was reading a black and white photo book and felt compelled to get out and shoot some monochrome images. I waited till to sun was low and went out on my quest for foreground interest. I didn't come away with a great deal, the sunset was great but I broke my own rules and came away about 10 minutes too early, I had to walk home backwards looking at the colours getting better and better! Anyway a polariser was used to really bring out the blue of the sky, I was at 90 degrees to the sun as this is where you get maximum effect of the polarising filter and I could get the light hitting the fence and grass. In photoshop used an unsharp mask to add a bit of contrast then some dodge and burning to selectively add contrast. Next I added a BW adjustment layer then flattened the image and converted to grey scale mode and then to duo tone mode, then I set to tri tone and used black and a 2 brown tones (can't remember the pantone codes). I converted back to RGB mode and saved. This split toning can be done in lightroom but I fancied doing it in CS3.

Warm Sky

I took this earlier today as I was out expecting a good sunset but in the end it was just windy and a little too much cloud. I used a 3 stop ND grad, to balance the exposure, which I set to manual, 1/5sec f/16 24mm at ISO 100. I couldn't find much in the way of foreground interest but I wanted to make the clouds the focal point. I processed the RAW file in Lightroom and added a warm up filter in CS3.

Old HDR Photos

These are some landscape photos from last summer (what there was of it) that I bracketed the exposure on with a view to do some high dynamic range photos (HDR). A good tutorial for this kind of thing can be found here, for some reason I never processed these, probably because they didn't make the cut when picking my 'picks' I quite like having a bunch of bracketed photos, usually 2 stops either side of normal exposure as it is often easier than messing with graduated filters. Location wise, one taken in the lake district on a decidedly dodgy route up to pinnacle ridge and the other is at the bottom of my road. Anyway I'm not going to go into how they were captured because the new series of lost starts soon!

Blea Tarn

It's been a while since my last post, the weather hasn't been the best for landscapes recently and this weekend was no exception. I went to the lake district to try and get some pictures of the Langdales and the surrounding area but there wasn't much break in the cloud cover so everything was a little flat. I did go to a nice owl sanctuary at Muncaster Castle and the ride over Wrynose and Hardnott passes heading towards Wast water is not to be missed. There are plenty of locations just a few minutes walk from the road in the central lakes, this is Blea Tarn with great langdale in the distance. I was doing quite a few long exposures with a 3 stop ND filter to get the water to have that milky look. This was taken at f/16 for 30 seconds, 28mm at ISO100.

Ansel Adams Again

This was one from the same night as the previous post but from a different angle and obviously in black and white. This is another Ansel Adams type photo with the high contrast skies which really make the photo quite dramatic. The long shadows produced by the setting sun emphasise the mood, especially on the brickwork of the ruin. I had to dodge the middle right third slightly to get back some detail in the sky as it was betting a little too bright near the sun but other than that its just a case of changing the levels in the black and white adjustment layer (new in CS3) so the blue channel turns black.

Another Day, Another Silhouette

In an attempt to get another picture on the news I went and got this one this morning as I could see it was going to be a belting sunrise. This was taken in a field behind our house. I would have liked to get closer to the tree but the field was contained a few large bulls so I just put on a long lens. This was taken at f16 1/6 sec at 149mm, not a typical landscape focal length it has to be said. I also dialled in -0.3 exposure compensation to keep the land black.

Sandal Castle

I haven't posted in a few days so I thought I'd get back into it with a shot I'm pretty happy with. I was out with a friend taking pictures yesterday and I wasn't having a lot of success, we had originally gone for Autumn leaf type shots but everywhere was still green! I thought it might be a nice sunset so we went to Sandal Castle just outside Wakefield for some landscape photography and was lucky enough to get this shot. Lens flair is always a problem shooting into the sun, it can be reduced by attaching a lens hood and making sure your lens is dust free. I quite liked this sun burst effect so there was no need to edit it out. I also added a dark vignette at the corners. This was taken at f16, 1/30 sec, 31mm at iso 100.
EDIT: This shot was featured on our BBC regional news channel, look north and can be seen at their website here

8 Landscape Photography Tips

1. Location research.
Make sure you know where you are planning to shoot. Check maps for roads and/or footpaths. Also have an idea of where the sun will be (compasses are good for this). Some locations might be great for sunrises but poor for sunsets, and vice versa.
2. Weather.
It is always a good idea to check the weather to get an idea of what to expect and dress appropriately. There is a lot of luck involved with landscapes but it is better to get out and have a go even if the weather doesn’t look the best, no one ever shot a great landscape sitting at home.
3. Avoid “walk up” shots
Some shots can be taken straight away but you are better off if you have some time to assess a scene so you can get your composition right, it also gives you time to think about which filters to use. If you aim to be 30 minutes early you won’t be rushed to find the best viewpoint.
4. Pack all the Essentials
If possible, pack the night before. if you wake up early you are usually only half awake and can be forgetful, make a list for your bag if you must include: Camera and lenses, spare batteries (charged), filters (cleaned) along with any holders and adapters, memory cards and tripods. Remember to take suitable clothing along with maps, compass, snacks and even a torch.
5. Keep it Simple
It is tempting to try to include as much in a scene as you can but this can often make a picture too busy. Focus on what are the important elements and focus your attention on them.
6. Know the basics
Make sure you know how to use a piece of equipment before you take it out. Neutral density graduated filters are very important when getting exposure right in landscape photography and the golden hours during sunrise and sunset is no time to practice with them.
7. Take inspiration from your favourite Photos
Books, adverts and magazines are full of inspirational photographs, don’t try and copy them but try and figure out why you like them and remember it the next time you are out shooting.
8. Don’t quit
There are days when you put in a lot of preparation and come back with nothing, Sometimes the weather lets you down or the lighting isn’t the best. This happens to all photographers, don’t give up and remember the harder days make the times when you actually get the shot you are after even sweeter.