Last Macro

I'm putting this one up because it'll probably be the last shot I take with my sigma 50mm macro lense as I'm selling it, I'll probably be tempted to buy another at some point but the proceeds will go towards it's bigger (heavier) brother. Anyway this was just a quick shot of an echinacea plant (I think) Taken at f2.8 50mm, ISO800 1/30, I was surprised there was no camera shake, especially as I was in an odd shooting position. I processed it with niksoftwares silver efex pro. If anyone is thinking about getting this lense my advice would be to go for it, you won't be disappointed, although the longer variants (105/150/180mm) are probably better for insects.

Contrast

Contrast is the dissimilarity or difference between things, acording to wiki.

I'm adding this because I submitted it to a contest on my favorite photo forum, talkphotography.co.uk. It has contests every month and I sometimes have a punt, this months subject was contrast, quite a tough one really, a lot of black and white images as you might suspect, heres my take on it.
A simple flash setup with lighting coming from a single 580EXII to the left the black polo was changed in CS3, not as easily as I first suspected. First I applied a layer mask (cutting out the polo using the pen tool) and just added an inverted adjustment layer, the problem with it is it turns the black shadows white which isn't what I wanted. I went back to the layer mask and used a levels adjustment to just bring down the levels of white and grey to black.

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!

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.

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)

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.

Travel Photography

I was just looking through some old photos taken on a trip round the world and found this one I quite liked. This was in Cambodia when our bus broke down, or ran someone over, I can't remember. We were just sat on the side of the road watching traffic waiting for another bus when this wagon rolled along. I thought it converted to mono really well, my only regret was I didn't have an SLR at the time althought my old Canon Powershot A95 was the best.