Yamaha XVS 1300 Cruiser Motorbike

A couple of the Yamaha XVS1300 from yesterday, I like to think of it as an automotive work of art that no picture can ever do justice to. Not sure if we got the location right looking back, perhaps an abandoned warehouse would have been better, giving a more gritty feel. Same setup as the previous post with the same problems of no light stands! I'll have to get some moving shots soon, could be a little tricky as I might have to ride backwards as a pillion passenger snapping as I go!

Suzuki Bandit 1250 Streetfighter

I was out on the bike with a friend today and we decided to stop get a few shots of his new bike. It's a 1250 Suzuki Bandit for any bike buffs out there, a special edition I'm also informed. We pretty much lit the bike with 2 speedlights on full tilt and I also had a polariser on, this was more to try and reduce the ambient exposure so I could fire at under 1/200 without stopping the aperture down too much. Unfortunately I didn't take any light stands or modifiers so it was a bit pot luck with the lighting but I think we managed, it although I had to put my VAL (voice activated light stand) ie, my mate, to good use. I processed them in Lightroom and Photoshop with a bit of dodging and burning to bring out the clouds a little.

Architecture in Leeds

I was on a shoot in Leeds last week that called for some architectural shots so I headed for the townhall with a view of doing something with the columns. I wanted to concentrate on the transition of light to shadow on the circular pillars and the shadows they were casting, as I had a feeling I would be doing a mono conversion. I was using my 70-200 lens as I wanted to isolate certain details, I knew if I had my wide angle on I was bound to get some bystander as it was quite busy and I didn't want to spend hours cloning out afternoon shoppers. I took quite a few shots like this but I stuck with this one as I liked the leading line element to the black door, I was lucky with the shadow of the lamp above it too. This was taken at 70mm, f/4 @ 1/400 ISO100.

Off Camera Portraits

I've recently bought a couple more pocket wizards that allow me to use more lights off camera, this was from a few quick shots we got in the garden. It was a two light setup with an umbrella to camera right and a bare light behind the subject to camera left providing a little separation light from the background. I'm going to use another light behind the subjects to the camera right. This was taken on full manual, both lights and camera, the exif was f/11, 1/200 sec. ISO400 at about 150mm. Sorry for the quick post but will do a more detailed version when I get a better shot.

Pre Wedding Portraits

I had a pre wedding meeting yesterday with a couple we are covering in a few weeks and I thought I might use some off camera flash, I've been reading a lot of strobist, if you haven't been it's worth a look for techniques and inspiration. Anyway as the sun had pretty much dipped over the horizon I wanted to do something with the sunset, but not have the couple as silhouettes, so in full manual I metered for the sky and got f5.6 at 1/160 sec (ISO100) I had a flash to the left through an umbrella and it was just a case of changing the flash power (I ended up at about 1/4 power with an old SB28, I know, a Nikon!) I could have darkened the sky by simply adjusting the shutter speed. I tweaked the shot in lightroom, I originally added a textured layer in photoshop but decided it made the photo look like it was on a backdrop so I binned it. I was going to do a mono conversion but decided it wasn't necessary

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.

Crazy Stunts

We went to the Llangollen Balloon festival at the weekend, didn't see a great deal of balloons as the weather was pretty poor but the stunt bikes were pretty amazing, the lads did a victory lap at the end and they all looked about 12! Anyway this is a little different from the stuff I normally shoot so it was a nice change. I was shooting on Shutter priority as I needed to freeze the action more than anything, so that was set to 1/800, ISO 200 using a 70-200 focal range, the appertures were usually about f9, AF mode was set to Al Servo.

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.

More War

Another one from my forthcoming war collection which I'm tinkering with as releasing as limited ed prints (bit pretentious I know). I'm going to do a total of 25 images with a run of 25 on each image. I've brought in a few props, in this one we can see the famous Sherman tank bearing down on the Germans. Anyway the partially complete gallery of these shots can be seen here. Take a look if you have a spare few minutes.

One Man and his Dog

Granted the man and his dog are a fair way away in this photo but I had my wide lens on so this is the best I could do. This was taken during a nice spell of hot weather in the Pembrokeshire National Park. I'm endeavoring to do more landscapes using the sun as a focal point in the harshest of conditions (in lighting terms) for no other reason that the sun gets up far earlier than I do. I'm still getting shots during the golden hour at sunset though. The sky was kept from being blown out by my trust 3 stop graduated filter, I really liked the star burst effect this gives. There was minimal processing with this shot, just a quick mono conversion in Lightroom and a few dust spots cloned out. Taken in full manual mode. ISO320 1/100 sec f/11 at 17mm.

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.

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.

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.

Adventures in Macro Photography

A bit of a lazy day photography wise today, I ended up getting back into my macro mode, I used to do quite a lot of macro stuff but haven't recently, (the same could be said for blog posts!) Anyway there were no fancy lights involved or even tripods used in this shot. It was taken over a sink of water with natural light from the outside causing the refracting in the bubbles to get the colour. The exif is as follows: 1/200 at f5.6 ISO800 with my sigma 50mm macro lens. I decided to stop when I started dipping my camera in the water. As the ISO was a bit higher than I usually like I ran it through noise ninja, a plugin for CS3 which does a good job of removing noise. I'm not sure about the open space at the top but I'm not a huge fan of changing aspect ratios so I left it in.

Lloyds Building

Another quick post I'm afraid, this was another from a recent trip to the big smoke, I managed to walk around all day and came away with very little. I've processed this one in photomatix (although I tend to use dynamic photo for HDR stuff) then I tweaked it with some presets I have in Lightroom, it might be a bit overcooked for some but it was another one of those experimental things.

Motorbike Photography

I went out with a friend yesterday to get some photos of his bike, a Kawasaki something or other, I don't do a great deal of car/bike photos but we wanted to do some top gear type shots which is basically a photo with an odd coloured gradient (usually purple) over layering the sky. It is actually a cool effect, I'll put my effort up, this had a cyan coloured sky to compliment the red of the bike (colour theory). Anyway as soon as we pulled up to take photos the heavens opened and we had to sit in the car while everything else got soaked, in the end it wasn't too bad because the rain drops added to the overall picture I thought. I metered for the sky and used flash on the bike. I've just looked at the exif data and it turns out I was at ISO 50, no wonder I had to crank my flash up, I had been on a commercial shoot earlier that day and must have forgot to change it back. Anyway these were taken at about 24mm at f/8 for 1/6 sec. I think the cyan sky one might be a touch too dark but there is plenty of space at the side for text, in say a magazine article which is useful to remember. I quite like high contrast one with the yellow tinge to the left, low, dynamic angles are a key ingredient to this type of photography.