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.

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

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.

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

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.


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

Harp Candid

EXIF 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.

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

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.

EXIF 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!

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

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'.


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

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.

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

Bobbins

EXIF Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/1000, ISO 100

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.


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

Mobile at the seaside

A mobile for sale on a stall by the beach. Exposed with flash and set ambient exposure at -1 stop to darken the background. Note how a wide aperture like f/2.0 renders even fairly close objects very blurry.

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

Street Seller Candid

EXIF Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/320, ISO 100, Flash

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.

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

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.

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