Tuesday 30 August 2011

Lone flower


I rarely like #photos with a central subject, but in this case I'll make an exception.

Taken @ f/1.4 for a very very thin depth of field.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/1.4 @ 35 mm, 1/500, ISO 100

Monday 29 August 2011

Insect on flower



#Photo of some waspy / hornety article on a flower! I'll update the blog if I find out what it is!

UPDATE - It's a hover fly - one of the Volucella family.

I liked the rich colours.  This wasn't with a macro lens, but the fantastic Canon 135mm f/2.0 L lens close to it's minimum focussing distance.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/5.6 @ 135 mm, 1/200, ISO 400, Flash

Sunday 28 August 2011

Tintagel Landscape

A #photo of a beautiful part of the world - Tintagel in Cornwall.

I loved the depth of the blues and greens and the fact I actually got a horizon straight! (I normally have to sort them out in Lightroom after!) The only editing was to crop some unnecessary foreground out and darken the sky slightly with a graduated filter.


Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/8 @ 17 mm, 1/400, ISO 100

Saturday 27 August 2011

Harp Candid


Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 1/1000, ISO 100, Flash

The Sleeping Morris Dancer




In this #photo I used layers and layer masks in PhotoShop Elements to selectively colour the subject and leave the background B&W. A layer mask allows you to add and replace sections of one layer to reveal another layer behind.

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/4.5 @ 50 mm, 1/640, ISO 100

Thursday 25 August 2011

Tree Silhuoette

Another long exposure so tripod a must! It was a nice still night so retained definition in the branches despite a 4 second exposure.

Canon EOS 5D, f/2.8 @ 35 mm, 4s, ISO 400, No Flash

Graveyard at Night


Lit by the tungsten light of the church's floodlights. Long exposure, so tripod required!

Canon EOS 5D, f/3.5 @ 17 mm, 4s, ISO 100, No Flash,

Wednesday 24 August 2011

Family Portrait

I don't often post family shots, but I'm making an exception here!

This is my brother-in-law, also called Phil, taken on holiday a couple of weeks ago. A good portrait captures the essence of the individual and Phil holding a glass of wine certainly captures something of his spirit (groan)!

I love the golden light you get in the evening and this provided a richness to the colours & a rimlight to the edge of Phil's face. I used flash to nicely expose Phil and negative exposure compensation (-1.3 stops) to darken the background a little.

The slightly darkened background with the fairly slender depth of field helps the subject 'pop'.


Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2.8 @ 35 mm, 1/320, ISO 100, Flash

Monday 22 August 2011

Old farm trailer

I loved the look and colour of this old trailer and decided to give it the HDR treatment to make the sky more dramatic whilst retaining foreground detail.

I combined 5 shots in Photomatix and then did a little work in Photoshop (Elements) to get rid of a foreground twig that was distracting.

Finally I increased the orange saturation and decreased the slightly flourescent green colour of the grass in Lightroom.

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/5.6 @ 35 mm, various shutter speeds. ISO100

Sunday 21 August 2011

Saturday 20 August 2011

Speedboat panning shot


A slow shutter speed and careful panning renders the boat sharp, but the surroundings stay blurred suggesting movement.




To get this shot I used the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 with 1.4x II extender fitted, but turned the Image Stabiliser to mode 2. This is to stop the stabiliser try to correct for my panning motion in following the boat.

I used servo focus, set the shutter speed to 1/80second (trial and error here to get the right blur) and I carefully panned, following the boat from the distance until it passed me, trying to keep it at a constant position in the frame. If I hadn't done this, the boat itself could have been too blurry.


Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/9 @ 280 mm, 1/80, ISO 100

Mobile at the seaside





Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/2 @ 50 mm, 1/8000, ISO 100

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Sidmouth Folk Festival Guitarist


I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the Sidmouth Folk festival with lots of musicians and dancers busking along the sea front.

In this shot I chose an aperture of f/2.8 to blur the background but keep enough of the subject in focus. On reviewing the shot in Lightroom I decided a B&W conversion suited the subject better.

 Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 1/1600, ISO 100, Flash,

Tuesday 16 August 2011

Morris dancer in the sea.


People photography is something I always enjoy - this shot was captured whilst on the beach at Sidmouth during the folk festival a couple of weeks ago. I had the 70-200 MKII mounted with the 1.4x converter to take some shots of family members swimming, but quickly zoomed back to capture this candid.

I liked the cheerful expressions on the faces and thankfully the sun was low enough in the sky to avoid dark shadows on their faces.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/5 @ 192 mm, 1/640, ISO 100

Security Fixed - Photos should now be visible!

Apologies - two photos, the one from Bob Latham and the unprocessed shot from yesterday may not have been visible - this should now be fixed!

Please do check out the two links where pictures were missing:

http://philhackettphotography.blogspot.com/2011/08/guest-photo-fly-by-bob-latham.html

http://philhackettphotography.blogspot.com/2011/08/cornish-landscape-hdr.html

Thanks

Phil

Monday 15 August 2011

Cornish Landscape HDR

This is a blend of four images (using Photomatix) - each one taken @ 27mm on the Canon 1DsMKII with the 17-40 f/4.0 L lens, aperture f/8.0, various shutter speeds to give differing exposures.

Location was a little further west down the coast from Porthcothan (not far from Padstow).

For reference, this is what the shot looked like without HDR treatment (single frame slightly underexposed).

Ken Ward - Six Feet to Lands End

This is Ken Ward who I met whilst walking between Beer and Branscombe in Devon a couple of weeks ago.

Ken has written a book about an attempt to walk 350 miles from Cheltenham to Land's End - details are here.

This was taken using the Canon 17-40 F4.0L lens and processed to give it more punch in Lightroom as the lighting was rather flat on the day.

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/5 @ 28 mm, 1/1000, ISO 100, Flash


Sunday 14 August 2011

Guest photo - Fly, by Bob Latham

Hi all!

For my first post back after the holiday I thought I'd showcase a shot and a website of a photographer friend of mine, Bob Latham.

Bob has an expansive knowledge of photography including detailed technical information. He is a fellow Canon-user with experience of much of their range of bodies, lenses and accessories. I've often asked his advice regarding recommended equipment.

Anyhow, the shot:




I love the detail and colours in this shot and they are nicely juxtaposed against the black background. The eye of the fly sits near the intersection of the horizontal and vertical thirds which enhances the composition.

The technicals of the shot of are particular interest. It was taken on the Canon 1DMkIV (Phil goes a gentle shade of green!) with the unusual Canon MP-E 65mm lens (nickname the Magic Mole!) and the Canon MT-24EX flash unit.

The MP-E 65mm is an interesting lens in that firstly, it is Manual focus only, and secondly that it can ONLY do Macro. Most Macro lenses also function as normal lenses, but not this one. It goes from 1:1 magnification, all the way down to 5:1 - this is where the image on the sensor is five times life size! At this magnification the lens is very close to the subject which makes lighting difficult.

Many people opt for a ring flash like the Canon MR-14EX when doing macro shots like this. The ring flash has two issues though. Firstly, it doesn't light the subject properly at the higher magnifications of the MP-E (the light fires over the top!). Secondly, lighting with ringflashes tends to be a bit 'flat' (shadowless) despite the ability to light one half of the ring differently to the other.

The MT-24EX solves both these issues by putting two minature flash guns on a ring such that they can be angled right into the subject and also moved about to give more direction to the light.

Anyway - apologies for the lecture, hope you enjoy the shot that Bob tells me was taken on a calm french July evening whilst negotiating bramble!

Please see Bob's website here for more fascinating macro shots and other genres.

EXIF:  1DMkIV,  1/250 at f/11  ISO 200 MP-E65 and MT-24EX