Thursday 31 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 152

Evening all!

Another British themed day today.....min horse racing and rain!

Result.....

Camera - ISO 400, shutter 1/100, f/1.8. Post - just a bump to contrast.

 Camera - same as above! Post - crop and contrast bump

This is my favorite today. Camera - ISO 400, shutter 1/4000, f/2. Post - selective colouring, little vignette, and contrast bump.

Much love

Adam

Wednesday 30 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 151

Evening everyone!

Long day in London today, lots of fun.

I want to do a few 'British' themed photos over the next few days, as we are celebrating the Queens jubilee - and today is one of them!

Result....

Yup that's right, the great London tube! Taken on an iPhone, so I don't know camera data. Post - selective colouring with mono, little colour curve/contrast tweak and darkened the edges.

Watch the gap! Same as above (iPhone camera) Post - Bumped contrast, and balanced brightness. Tweaked colour curve and added vignette.


Much love!

Adam

Tuesday 29 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 150

Evening all!

Another dip tonight - really racked my head as to what to take a photo of.

When the lovely fiancee came up with a great idea - a way she has seen people paint nails......

Result......





This is what nail varnish looks like when floating in water! Great effect!

Camera - (all the same) f/14, ISO 400, shutter 200. Post - change picture control to landscape, and bumped up the contrast (on all of them) then tidied up a few light reflections, and cropped the top one.

Much love!

Adam

Monday 28 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 149

Evening!

Not a great shot tonight - but made better with a 'double process' (once for the sky, and once for the foreground)

Result......

Camera - f/10, ISO 400, shutter 1/80. Post - lots! First thing was to create a copy. Then one of the photos I adjusted to being out the sky (dropped brightness, bumped contrast) Then with the copy I adjusted for the foreground (increased brightness) Then I merged the two photos together, to create a HDR style photo - detailed sky and foreground, with a balanced exposure. After that I then tweaked the colour curves a little, and darkened the sky a little.

Much love!

Adam

Sunday 27 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 148

Afternoon all!

I am hungover today. Very hungover.

I took a little walk to try and clear my head - and took the chance to grab my photo of the day.

Result......

Shot 1 - Camera - f/8, ISO 200, shutter 1/500. Post - a few teaks to the RAW file (changed picture control to landscape from portrait)

Shot 2 - Camera - shutter 1/320, f/8, ISO 200. Post - same as above.

Shot 3 - Camera - shutter 1/800, ISO 200, f/8. Post - same as above.

Please excuse me, I need to lay down.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend in the sun!

Much love

Adam

Saturday 26 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 147

Morning all!

Another long day out today, so an early, and quick, shot today!

Result.....


Hope everyone enjoys the sunshine!

Much love.

Adam

Friday 25 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 146

Evening all!

What a beautiful day it has been today! I took full advantage of the clear skies for the sunset this evening.

Result.....

This was taken with the black card technique - Camera - shutter open for a second, ISO low, F/22. Post - little tweaks to the RAW file (picture control to portrait)

 This is a straight normal shot in aperture mode. Camera - ISO low, f/22, shutter 1/125. Post - crop and straighten.

 Another shoot with the black card technique. Camera - Shutter 2seconds, ISO low, f/22. Post - cropped.

Straight shot in aperture mode. Camera - aperture f/10, ISO low, shutter 1/250. Post - removed the ghost sun.

Straight shot in aperture mode. Camera - f/10, shutter 1/60, ISO 1000. Post - little vignette around the moon.

Much love!

Adam

Thursday 24 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 145

Evening all!

Few nature shots tonight - from the lake at work!

Result.......

Camera - f/5.6, shutter 1/4000, ISO 200. Post - cropped!

Camera - f/5.6, shutter 1/400, ISO 200. Post - tweak to brightness and contrast a little.

Much love!

Adam

Wednesday 23 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 144

Evening all!

Another flying shot tonight - with a little twist. Last night it was birds....tonight.....

Result.....

A para-glider! Right over the top of my house! Camera - ISO 200, shutter 1/4000, f/5.6. Post - little vignette to the top of the frame, drop in brightness.

This was shot away from the sun, I can't get over the difference in colour! Camera - f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/1600. Post - little tweak to brightness.

Much love!

Adam

Tuesday 22 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 143

Evening all!

Finally we have some sun in the UK! Fantastic! Roll on summer.

Took an early morning shot today, before leaving for work.

Result.........

Camera - f/5.6, ISO 400, shutter 1/4000. Post - cropped it down a little, bumped the contrast, turned to mono, and vignetted around the bird to draw your eye to him.

Much love

Adam

Monday 21 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 142

Evening all!

Couple of quick shots of some flowers appearing in the back garden!

Results.....

Camera - f/5.6, ISO 400, shutter 1/60. Post - none.

Camera - f/5.6, ISO 400, shutter 1/100. Post - none

Much love!!

Adam

Sunday 20 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 141

Evening!

Quick shot tonight - some apple blossom!

Result....

Camera - ISO 400, f/5.6, shutter 1/40. Post - colour curve tweak, crop and contrast bump!

Much love - hope all have had a great weekend!

Adam

Saturday 19 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 140

Afternoon!

Grabbed a few shots on my way home from the photo shot today!

Result....

Shot 1 - f/10, shutter 1/100, ISO 200. Post - little tweak to exposure, contrast and colour curves.

 Shot 2 - f/14, 1/200, ISO 200. Post - Vignette, contrast and colour curve tweak.

Shot 3 - f.14, shutter 1/200, ISO 200. Post - vignette, turn to mono contrast and colour curve tweak.


Much love!

Adam

Friday 18 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 139

Evening all!

Happy Friday!

Another go at some painting with light tonight, with a little twist!

Result....

So this was a little complicated to setup and get right! Took me a few goes!

I had my speedlite setup off camera, with the wireless trigger attached. That was positioned on the floor pointing up to where I would be stood. I set the camera's shutter to wireless control (remote) and the shutter speed to 'bulb' (with the wireless remote that means that with the first press of the remote button the shutter will open, and it will stay open till it is pressed it again)

I then got into position!

With the flash sync set to normal on the camera, when I pressed the remote button the shutter opened, and the flash fired. That illuminated me stood in my 'wizard pose'! The shutter stayed open after the flash.

I then worked quickly to use the light on my phone to draw the lighting bolts from my hand (which I had to guess where it was) to the guitar.  Between each 'bolt' I had to turn the light off, so you wouldn't see the streaks of light as I moved back and forth.

Once I had drawn three bolts, I then used the light on the phone to expose the guitar a little (could have done with a little longer I think)

Finally I pressed the remote button again and closed the shutter!

Post - I changed the WB (white balance) to give it a more blue tone, to tie it all together (based on my tshirt colour!). Cropped a little, and bump the contrast a touch.

Just to confirm - this is just one exposure, no merging of multiple shots.

Much love!

Adam

Thursday 17 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 138

Evening all.

Had another 'crikeys - what do I take as a picture tonight!?' moment. So resulted to a study of light.....

Result....

Camera - f/8, shutter 1/4 and ISO 250. Post - cropped, had to tidy up a few spots of dirty on the backdrop, that's all!

Much love.

Adam

Wednesday 16 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 137

Evening all!

Tried my hand at the black card technique again tonight, and am a lot happier with the out come!

Results....

Shot 1 - Had the camera setup on the Lord (tripod) I took a meter reading of the foreground - which came out to be around a second (with aperture set at f/22) I then grabbed my piece of card (Red Hot Chilli Peppers CD sleeve!) and set the shutter to open on a 2 second timer. I set the card up to cover the sky and once the shutter had opened I moved the card up and down slightly, to ease the black shadows that it can cause. I judged when I needed to remove the card fully to expose the sun. Not a bad result! Post - Little bump to contrast and brightness.  

Shot 2 - This is the same as above, except I held the card over the lens for a little longer - resulting in a darker exposure. The dark vignette strip at the top is actually the shadow of the card - I hadn't moved it out of the way before the the shutter closed - but I really like the effect, free vignette! Post - NONE!

Shot 3 - Same as the other two. Post - little vignette to the top.


Much love!

Adam

Tuesday 15 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 136

Evening all!

Another 'photo in a photo' thing tonight.....

Result....

This took some setting up! First I took the photo of my eye on my phone (using the reflection in a picture frame!) Then I had to take the photo while holding the phone to my face. First I had thought my fiancee could take the photo, but of course that is against the rules! So I had to setup the tripod, and get out the wireless remote. Taking some guidance from the lady I positioned the phone, and hit the button! 

Camera - f/4.2, ISO 1000, shutter 1/80. Post - turn to mono, with selective colouring, and a vignette!

Much love.

Adam

Monday 14 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 135

Evening folks!

A little shot tonight inspired by a guy I follow on Digitalrevs - a photo in a photo!

Result....

I took a photo of the vase, then set that as the desktop picture on the laptop. Then set the laptop up and took the next photo!

Camera (for the final shot) aperture f/5, shutter 1/50, ISO 800. Post - just a crop and a little tweak with colour curves.

Much love.

Adam

Sunday 13 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 134

Evening all!

I tried a couple of techniques tonight, to capture some landscape shoots - HDR and 'Black Card'.

HDR typically uses 3 exposures merged together to create a photo that has extreme highlight and shadow details in one shot. This is impossible to do with just one exposure.

Black card is when you use a piece of non reflective card to block out part of the frame while the camera takes a shot. You then release it when you want to expose the rest of the frame. For example - you compose your shot - a great sun set, with a strip of land in the fore ground. First you meter for the land (say around 10 seconds) and you meter for the sky (say 1 second) You use your piece of card to cover the sky up (so only the strip of land is visible) and set the exposure for the longest setting you need (in this case 10seconds for the land) The shutter opens and then at around the 9second mark you remove the piece of card - allowing the sky to be exposed for the one second it needs. Boom, you have a balanced exposure!

However it isn't that easy - in practice! It took me a lot to get just one shot that I am happy with. A lot of the shots I took ended up with having the edge of the card right across the frame - where I had't matched it correctly with the landscape.

Anyway - I managed to get one shot with the card technique, and one with a 2 shot HDR one.

This is the 'Black card' shot. In a normal situation, without the card,  I wouldn't have been able to balance the two parts of the frame (sky Vs land) Either the sky would been blown out, just white and no detail, or the land would have been in silhouette. I held the card over the sky for almost 1 second, then lifted it off.

And this is the HDR style shot. Normally they are taken with 3 exposures, as I said above, but this is just 2. One taken for the land and one for the sky. I then processed the two shots and then merged them. It isn't the best - if you zoom in on the horizon you can see the bad matching of the two shots. But I think it is still a nice shot.

Much love!

Adam

Saturday 12 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 133

Morning all!

Up nice and early today as I am off to London (sadly not a photography trip though)

Result....

Camera - shutter 1/125, ISO 250, f/5.6. Post - Bump in contrast, and vignette added.

Much love!

Adam

Friday 11 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 132

Evening all,

Another few shoots of the Canadian Geese - but this time I had my D90 and 18-200mm lens with me!

Result.....

Camera - shutter 1/400, ISO 250, aperture f/5.6. Post - Added vignette, and colour curve tweak!

Camera - shutter 1/250, ISO 250, f/5.6. Post - vignette and colour curve tweak!

Much love, and I hope you all enjoy your weekend!

Adam

Thursday 10 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 131

Evening all,

Not the greatest of shots tonight - I grabbed it from the lady's iPhone while at the gym!

I had a go and applying different filters instead!

Result.....

Post - applied a preset filter 'Aged'. There we go!

Much love

Adam

Wednesday 9 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 130

Evening,

A submission for my weekly challenge over at Digitalrev.com tonight!

Result....

Camera - ISO 800, f/2, 1/160. Post - little colour curve tweak, to cool the warmth of the light, light bump to contrast.

Much love.

Adam

Tuesday 8 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 129

Evening all,

Bit of a freaky one tonight....some fun with mirrors.

Result...

Camera - f/1.8, ISO 800, shutter 1/640. Post - bump in contrast, and a little colour tweak.

Much love.

Adam

Monday 7 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 128

Afternoon all,

Was hoping to get out with my Dad to a classic car and vintage tractor show today, but it was cancelled due to the rain. Boo.

So had to grab some other shots instead....

Result....

Camera -  f/16, ISO 200, shutter 1/15. Post - added vignette, bumped contrast and a little colour tweak.

Camera - f/8, ISO 200, shutter 1/50. Post - added vignette, little jump in contrast.

Much love

Adam

Sunday 6 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 127

Afternoon all!

Had a great family shoot today - and while setting up for it, had a little fun with one of the props....

Result....

Camera - f/11, ISO 400, shutter 1/160. Post - bump in contrast, crop, and a little tidy up of the background (a few shadows had crept in)

Much love.

Adam

Saturday 5 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 126

Evening all!

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles!

Result....

Camera - shutter 1/100, ISO 1250, f/4.5. Post - bump in contrast, little correction of exposure.

Much love.

Adam

Friday 4 May 2012

365 Challenge - Day 125

Evening all,

Another little painting with light photo tonight!

Result....

Camera - f/11, shutter was open for 74seconds, ISO around 50. Post - little bump in brightness, to bring out my torso a bit more, and I had to tidy up a little light spillage around the bottom of the frame.

Have a great weekend you lovely people!

Much love.
Adam