The lamp

Some negative exposure compensation was set to darken the background while the flash lit the foreground. A thin depth of field and single-image tonemapping in Photmatix completed the effect! Looks best when viewed large!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 35 mm, 1/8000, ISO 400

Glad to see the back of you!

A #candid #photo! I've got nothing against the police I hasten to add, but thought it was a snappy title!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 35 mm, 1/1000, ISO 400, No Flash

Swan

This was challenging to get right as I tried a very shallow depth of field with a wide aperture - f/1.6. Took a number of shots to be sure, but majority were in focus.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/1.6 @ 85 mm, 1/3200, ISO 100, Flash

Unusual Bridge on the Clyde

No photo yesterday as I had my computer in pieces!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/5.6 @ 35 mm, 1/2500, ISO 400

Fortuitous Candid!

I was pleased with how this #photo came off. Candid's can be tricky. This is especially the case for this shot as I had my camera at waist level and used a wide aperture / servo focussing. I had the camera down there to get natural looks on people's faces rather than them staring at the camera.

I pointed the camera in the direction of this man engrossed in his phone and only realised the kissing couple in the background when I downloaded the shot to the computer!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/1.4 @ 35 mm, 1/1600, ISO 400

Bridge Over Clyde and Dragan Improved

Three exposure HDR using Photomatix

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 35 mm, ISO 800

I wasn't happy with yesterday's Dragan shot - it looks too red and there is also some magenta cast in there.

Here's a better version:

Mosque symmetry and Joel with Dragan effect

Here's a shot from my visit to Abu Dhabi last year. I liked the symmetry in this shot, although to achieve it I had to clone out person on the right hand side.

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/4 @ 40 mm, 1/1600, ISO 100, Flash

This is a shot from earlier in the year I fancied trying to process with the 'Dragan effect' - see link for tutorial! Lighting was a gridded dish from camera left, softbox camera right for fill.

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/6.3 @ 50 mm, 1/100, ISO 100

How to get the Dragan Effect

Jordan night portrait and rollerblader

Night portraits can be tricky. In this shot I used a high-ish ISO setting, wide aperture and flash. Jordan is exposed properly with the flash and some additional rim-lighting from the bridge lights. The background is exposed (rather than going black!) because the combination of high ISO and wide aperture lets enough light in give background detail.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2.2 @ 35 mm, 1/100, ISO 800, Flash

In this shot the 1DIII was set on Servo focussing. In Lightroom I used the direct positive preset and then added a little blur to the background + a vignette to help pop the subject.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/4 @ 35 mm, 1/640, ISO 400, Flash

BBC Clyde @ Sunset

This #photo is a composite of three exposures in Photomatix. The shot was a little too blue so I tried a few things in Lightroom and eventually went with a 'Yesteryear' preset.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 35 mm, ISO 400

Rock on Cornish Beach

Trouble with wide angle lenses is that you can get in too much background and lose any focal point in the shot. For this one I got in close to the rock (holding the camera at ground level) and took a few shots as I couldn't look through the finder as I was shooting. f/8 put the rock in focus but blurred the background due to the very close subject distance.

In lightroom I straightened it out and used the 'direct positive' preset.

EXIF Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/8 @ 17 mm, 1/500, ISO 100, No Flash

Stroking the Imaginary Dog & Landscape in Autumn Light

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/1.4 @ 85 mm, 1/6400, ISO 400, No Flash

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/5 @ 50 mm, 1/1250, ISO 100, No Flash

Peeling Paint

In this #photo I tried to contrast the peeling paint with the soft out-of-focus greenery behind. Taken wide-open @ f/1.4 it required a good amount of sharpening to provide the right effect.

When taking the shot I used some negative exposure compensation to darken the background slightly, whilst the flash exposed the foreground normally.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/1.4 @ 35 mm, 1/800, ISO 100, Flash

Secondly, a re-working of an image from two days ago - I've removed the distraction in the bottom right hand corner.

Smiley Scarecrow

I liked this scarecrow but he was slumped on one side and that wasn't going to make a great #photo. Then it came to me - tilt the camera to make the scarecrow vertical and the wall will simply look like it is a diagonal one!

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2.2 @ 85 mm, 1/400, ISO 100, Flash,

Winchester B&W HDR

This #photo was a composite of 3 frames in Photomatix. There is no way I would have managed to cope with the contrast between the sculpture in darkness and the very bright area towards the top left of the shot without HDR.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/4.5 @ 35 mm,  ISO 400

Winchester HDR

This #photo is of a beautiful park in Winchester. I deliberately processed the shot in Photomatix to try and make it look more like a painting than a photo.

It was a blend of three shots about 1.5 stops apart @ aperture f/4.5 on the 1DMKIII + 35L.

My colleague, Katie!

These #photos were taken in Winchester. Katie and I are down here on business and had chance for a little wander before dinner this evening, just before the light disappeared. Katie kindly posed for a few shots before we headed off for an Italian - I can recommend Prezzo!

All these were taken using the awesome Canon 35mm f/1.4L - it is sooo sharp, even wide open.



EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/3.2 @ 35 mm, 1/320, ISO 400, Flash

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 35 mm, 1/800, ISO 400, Flash

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 35 mm, 1/1250, ISO 400, Flash

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/1.4 @ 35 mm, 1/2500, ISO 400, Flash

The Headless Scarecrow

At the Harpole Scarecrow festival - very shallow depth of field using f/1.4 aperture. Desaturated browns and greens, increased saturation on blues and reds.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/1.4 @ 85 mm, 1/8000, ISO 100, Flash

Sax Solo

Live band taken in a dark tent, hence the high ISO to capture some ambient.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 85 mm, 1/1000, ISO 1600, Flash,

Stacee & a re-work of yesterday's shot

Firstly a shot of Stacee that I didn't upload to my original gallery of the shoot.

I used Lencarta portable flash guns with straight reflectors as far as I can remember - one camera left and high, one camera right and lower. I metered for the background and then deliberately underexposed by a couple of stops to darken the sky.

In Lightroom I increased the blues and added a slight vignette.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/13 @ 50 mm, 1/200, ISO 50


Now a rework of yesterday's shot - I think it might be better without the blue eyes:

Kezia stare

In this #photo I started by tone-mapping a single image in photomatix using it's B&W preset. I then loaded it into PhotoShop alongside the colour original and used a layer mask to let the colour shine through on the eyes alone. I further boosted the saturation to push the colour more.

I used a thin depth of field here to accentuate the face and cropped carefull so Kezia's face is on the intersection of the thirds.

EXIF Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/2 @ 35 mm, 1/2000, ISO 400

Candid of Lady with Trolley

In this #photo I used a wide aperture (f/2.0) on a short telephoto lens (85mm) to throw the background out of focus.

I like taking candid shots and tend to use a technique where I stare beyond the subject after taking the shot and they assume something in the background is the real subject and not them!

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 85 mm, 1/2000, ISO 100,

It's a hurdy gurdy!

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

Engine Power Controller

This is a low-key image - it means that the dark tones dominate the image.

Taken on board a RNLI lifeboat - I liked the simple and appealing engineering.

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/200, ISO 200, Flash

Correction in earlier post!

Apologies, but in Hannah & Gold Brolly the exposure was set to DARKEN, not lighten the background!

Phil

Hannah + gold brolly

Hannah with off-camera 580EXII firing into gold brolly camera camera-right for warm tones. -1 and 2/3 stop exposure compensation to DARKEN (correction of original typo!) background - flash exposed normally.

EXIF Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/125, ISO 400, Flash

Padlock

A simple graphic composition.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 35 mm, 1/1000, ISO 100

Walking II

The art of making yourself invisible - a candid with a relatively wide angle lens!

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 35 mm, 1/500, ISO 100, Flash

Docklands Crane

I confess to being pleased with this #photo! I arrived rather early for a meeting in London today and thought I'd collect a few stock images for company use when I saw this imposing crane.

I didn't have a tripod but wanted a series of three bracketed shots for an HDR, so I held very still and used the 10-frames-per-second rate on the camera to minimize my movement between shots.

I ended up merging two of the three in Photomatix and used the align images option to remove the very slight shift between frames. I used the black preset and then tweaked it further to get the desired effect.

Finally I re-imported to lightroom and used the creamtone preset plus some tweaking for the finished product above!

Hope you like it....

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/4 @ 35 mm, ISO 100

The door

A #photo using a telephoto lens and a wide aperture to create depth.

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2 @ 135 mm, 1/640, ISO 400, Flash