Another extra

16-85@40mm, fr8, 1/30s, flash.

I did promise a picture of Toby taking a picture for the challenge.

Xmas: Toby's Fourth

Xmas family games.  Another variation on the get the cute kid in ploy.

18-105@45mm, f7.1, 1/60sec, ISO 400. 

Xmas: Toby's third

Xmas drinks - or in this case Boxing Day.  A closer crop might be better, but I like that you can see a bit of Sarah's hand. Shame about the smear on the glass.

50mm, f2.2, 1/800sec, ISO 1600

Xmas: Toby's Second

This is my attempt at the Xmas lights theme. It's not really straight, but I'm not going to spend ages in PS tranforming it.

18-105@18mm, f3.5, 1/13sec, ISO 1000. 

Christmas bonus

16-85mm@80mm, f5.6, 1/10s, ISO 400

Not a Chrimbo challenge, but just to show Toby and my tripods enjoyed their Christmas, warming their feet by the fire.

(That's the last from me for now, you'll be pleased to know. Hope you continue to have a fun filled festive season and a great new year)

Chrimbo Challenge - Tom's last

16-85mm@22mm, f8, 1/30s, ISO 400, remote flash off-camera

Like Toby's, fairly tenuous Christmas link (although there is Santa peering over Sam's shoulder). Was trying to get the Samster nicely centred through the arch, but as they say, never work with animals or children who decide to destroy your props within seconds of you piling them up.

Chrimbo Challenge - Tom's fourth

16-85mm@20mm, f8, 1/25s, ISO 400

Tried this b/w and colour and still not sure which I prefer. Think the splashes of red work quite well, so stuck with the colour in the end.

Chrimbo Challenge - Tom's Third

16-85mm@58mm, f8, 1/30s, ISO 1600

Corny and reflected self (and Alice) portrait, but thought a bit of festive cheesiness was needed.

CHrimbo Challenge - Tom's Second

16-85mm@80mm, f5.6, 1/10s, ISO 400

Christmas Eve, wandering back from Pizza Express after Sarah's 40th with a very sleepy Sam. Would not be surprised if Toby has a very similar shot tucked away somewhere, which is why I'm posting it first! ;)

Convinced it's not straight, but I've had too many wines to work it out and chap walking across the frame is too close to the bottom to do any straightening anyway.

Xmas: Toby's First or "What idiot put those in the girls' stockings?"

And here's my first attempt. The Xmas link is a little tenuous, but I like the photo. Also notable for the fact that I have done virually nothing to it digitally (v. minor crop and a little sharpening). 

50mm, f1.8, 1/60sec, ISO 800.

Chrimo Challenge - Kevin's first attempt

We went out for a stroll last night after stuffing ourselves with turkey. I took my camera along just in case. Not as many xmas lights as in previous years, but I did spot a tree with coloured lights. Realising that trying to hand hold the camera to get a sharp shot was nigh on impossible in the dark, I decided to mess about with long exposures and camera movement, and here's the result. I only took half a dozen shots as it was bloody freezing and I was holding up the walk.

Santa was there too :)

Exposure details: 1s, f/8, ISO 200. 24-105mm IS lens with (stupidly) IS left on. Idiot.

Chrimbo Challenge - Tom's first attempt

Bit experimental - Alice has strung these baubles up against the bathroom window on very fine wire. Fired camera in completely dark room and then "painted" the baubles with a torch during exposure time. Darkened the background as much as poss in PP to try and isolate the decorations. Movement of me and the torch caused air movement which moved the baubles during the exposure, which means it's not as sharp as it should be.

D300, 30secs, f25, 16-85@28mm, tripod and remote trigger.

Bleedin' Obvious Challenge 3 - Chrimbo

Anything Christmassy. Atheists and Humanists permitted to apply the Pagan version of these rules (available on special request). Santa, elves, trees, baubles, pressies and anything remotely associated with this special time of year to be considered fair game. Tasteful female nudity will attract additional marks, as usual.

Same rules as usual.

* Theme: Chrimbo
* Submit up to 5 pictures.
* Post processing and digital manipulation is allowed (Tom is not permitted to comment on high ISO noise though :)
* A brief line should accompany each photo (e.g. location or subject, camera, exposure details, etc).
* The photo must be taken between 9th Dec 2008 and 9th Jan 2009.
* Deadline: 9th Jan 2009.

Challenging challenge

Bit of a dearth of weather for the last challenge, but some nice pics anyway. Typically, all the interesting frost and ice appeared after the deadline!

Think it's Kevin's challenge next?

Late challenge: Tom's second, third and last

The two rain shots are both at 1/250s, f8, ISO 400, 16-85@65mm, with flash

The umbrella close up is 1/50s, f5.5, ISO450, with bounced flash

A noisy noise etc Pt 2

Rather than just being a sad pixel-peeper, there is a reason for the 100 per cent cropping! This example, again shot at 1600ISO, but when the idiot behind the camera realised he had a VR lense and wasn't taking advantage of it!

f5.3 and shot at around 1/15s this time - clear difference how less noisy the image is if the shot is properly exposed...which is a lesson I'll try and remember (or perhaps pack either my old film Richoh, ditch the D300 and stick to the lower MP D70 or buy a monopod re Kev's suggestions! ;) )

Again, first two images are unprocessed, converted straight from RAW. Second two are with very light noise reduction applied.

Weather: Fail.

Well, I have completely failed to come up with an image for this one. I blame the weather. Also, been a bit snowed under (sorry!) with work the last couple of weeks. 

Here's a very poor attempt. Tried to make it grainy and contrasty to look wett-ish. But I don't like it much. D90, 105mm, f5.6, 1/30s, ISO 800. 

A noisy noise annoys a photographer pt 1

Lacking the budget for a decent travel tripod and the fact the £30 Jessop finest I do have doesn't actually fit into my "three-day-trip" size bag, I ended up experimenting with low light, handheld photography in some dark and dingy Czech breweries illuminated by dark and dingy late-november light.

First example is a massively underexposed 1/60s, f8 at 1600ISO shot, with 100 per cent crop to show just how nasty it is and then, really just as a bit of fun, what slamming Photoshop's noise reduction filter through it at max settings does. Result: some really odd smearing and additional texture, but I'm surprised how much detail gets retained.

Challenge 2 - Cold!

Ok, so this doesn't really come under the theme of "Weather" but it was bloody freezing and I could hardly move my fingers to take photos, so I am going with "Cold", even though it's not obvious from the photos.

The main collection of photos are here:

http://pbase.com/kevinl/bigcats

This is my favorite of an Ocelot. He hid most of the afternoon and only came out when only I was taking photos :) It was a really dull day but the sun peeped through just at the right time to provide interesting lighting for this shot. I really like the shape the cat is making.

Megapixel madness continues

DPReview reports Sony has announced a 12MP camera phone sensor.

Challenge 2 - Tom's first

16-85@16, f8, 20s, ISO 200.

Only bit of weather so far has been a bit of a deluge on the drive home a few nights ago - luckily enough when I was playing around with the camera, the remote, a tripod belted onto the passenger seat and some long exposures at night. Definitely a technique in progress, but thought I'd share anyway! Must do better.

Challenge 2: Weather

Seeing as there seems to be so much of it around! (although sods law is we'll have dry, still, blue sky days for the rest of the monnth) Interpret the theme as you fancy.

Toby's rules seemed very apt, so no reason to change:

* Theme: Weather
* Submit up to 5 pictures.
* Post processing and digital manipulation is allowed.
* A brief line should accompany each photo (e.g. location or subject, camera, exposure details, etc).
* The photo must be taken between 12 November and 30 November 2008.
* Deadline: 30 November 2008.

Excellent stuff from the last challenge, look forward to more of the same...

One I'm quite pleased with

A David Whitehead "commission" i.e. when you're wandering round somewhere with him he waves his hand in the direction of something and says "Can you take a picture of that please, I might need to use it in a book".


Brockhampton Manor House, Herefordshire. 16-85@16, f8, 1/200s, 200-1EV ISO (basically Nikon's weird way of doing 100 ISO)

Sharp practice

Warning: Tom has a blindly obvious realisation moment.

Having spent far too much time fiddling with photos over the last few years and trying to balance reducing noise, with preserving detail, and then trying to sharpen that detail without sharpening the noise and plunging back to square one, I've had a bit of a slapped forehead moment in the last few weeks.

Selective sharpening. In my defence, the reason it's taken so long is because it's staggeringly easy to do in Capture (another point in its favour) while I suspect it's a bit more complex in PS - which is where you come in.

In Capture, I can set the sharpening levels (or anything for that matter, this method works with all the adjustments, including noise reduction, gaussian blur, b/w conversion etc) and then just click on the slection brush and brush the adjustment onto the picture. Sharpening eyes while leaving skin nicely noise reduced is a thing of simplicity.

But what is the easiest way of reproducing this on PS? Layer masks?

I ask because my free trial on Capture NX 2 runs out on Monday, leaving me with my Capture NX on the horrendously slow, old and electrified Dell, or CS 2 on the work Mac (which also involved DNGing my NEF files thanks to Adobe's policy on ACR upgrades)

Here's my latest attempt at autumn colour and wildlife. I like the panoramic composition though the colours are a but muted.

Sure you've both heard this as well - another wedding dilemma

Been asked to be "official" photog at a wedding next year. This won't be the first time I've done this, but this time is different as rather than being for close friends and/or family, is for a couple we went skiing with two years ago and since then have been little more than Facebook friends.

Not sure if this makes it more, or less stressful - and also not sure if I should do it, or find a polite way of backing out.

Currently trying to work out if they're asking me in a "definitely can't afford a pro, so it's you or no pics" type way, in which case I'll be happier doing it, or a "we're cheapskates and think we can get a bargain from you, but we'll be expecting pro quality" in which case, I'm tempted to run a mile!

Any similar experiences/advice/etc?

Finally finished wedding PP

Usual hit and miss, made a bit more miss due to having to hang onto Sammy for the first half of the day. Some shots I'm pleased with though - and thanks to the miracle of Facebook, bride and groom also saying nice things about them, from Vietnam.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175666&l=e2005&id=850030623

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175854&l=f284c&id=850030623

Here's something you might have heard ...

... someone says they need a better camera and can you, with your big, swanky bag of lenses and serious demeanor, help? One of Sarah's friends asked me this today. She has a Fujifilm 6mp compact with 3x optical zoom, about two years old; sure you know the kind of camera. She wants something better. I asked what the problem was.

1. She showed me a picture she'd taken of some leaves (oh, how I'm sick of looking at them!) on a branch where the camera has set exposure for the sky (most of the picture)  and the leaves were too dark.

2. "Missed pictures" and "blurred pictures" - I think she meant shutter lag. 

She showed me the Argos catalogue and said she needed more mega-pixels. I said she probably didn't. I don't think any compact will cure (significantly) the problems she is having. On the other hand, do I recommend a DSLR (which might cure some of them)?

She is a self-confessed technophobe. What do you say?

Challenge 1: Toby's 5th

A more predictable picture. D90, 50mm, f/7.1, 1/100s, ISO200. Gheluvelt Park, Worcester.

Challenge 1: Toby's 4th

The idea of this is too be very abstract; kind of leaf explosion. It is quite out of focus and I was tempted to blur some bits of it further in PS. 

D90, 50mm, f/2.8, ISO200, 1/800s. Gheluvelt Park, Worcester.

Some semi on-topic stuff and some very off-topic stuff

1. For more fanboy entertainment, see the current reaction to the 50D review over at dpreview, almost as much fun as the Nikon tribe's chest beating after the D90 review. Anyone else thinking Dpreview have painted themselves into a corner somewhat by refusing to rate any DSLR below "highly recommended"?

2. Am I getting it wrong by writing f/8, rather than f8, or even F8?

3. Toby - possibility of new Doctor soon AND news Blakes 7 is being remade for Sky 1...are you managing to contain your inner nerd?

More wedding etiquette...

Another wedding dilemma. While processing this pic of the back of the bride, noticed the tiny old lady, in my opinion,  spoiling the shot. As you can see old lady has been edited out in the version I intend to send to the couple, but is this the right thing to do? 

Challenge 1 - Tom's fifth and final photo

16-85@68, f/8, 1/30s, ISO 400. From treetop walkway in Salcey Forest (yet again), Northamptonshire. Just loved the colour contrast and the contrast between the evergreen and the autumnal trees. Still not sure about the focus, I did take some with the yellow leaves in focus and the foremost trees blurred, never really made my mind up which was best.

Challenge 1 - Tom's fourth

16-85@46mm, f/8, 1/10s, ISO 800. Salcey Forest (again), Northamptonshire. 

Challenge 1: Toby's Third

Here's one I took earlier - one of the very first with the D90 and I upload it for that reason. Don't like the sky in this, but like the orange leaves and the scale between the tree and Imogen. 

D90, 18-105@28mm, f10, 1/60s, ISO200. Worcester Pitchcroft. 

Challenge 1: Toby's Second

Another attempt to avoid leaf-inspection. Really not sure about the composition here. How much to crop or not? But I like the colours (the yellows/oranges in the pumpkins and in the sign). What would you do?

D50, 50mm, f4, 1/100s, ISO400. Worcester City Centre.

Challenge 1: Toby's First

A deliberate attempt to avoid close-ups of leaves (you masters have shown me how it is done!). This one is a little staged but I like the leaves in the air, the fact that Imogen is looking straight at the camera and the way it looks like they are all having fun.

D50, 70-300@100mm, f4, 1/125s, ISO1600. Ghulevelt Park, Worcester. 

Challenge 1 - Tom's third

Very similar idea to Kev's contrast of colours, although I promise it was taken before I'd seen his (my processing is still bogged down with Em and De's wedding pics, so I'm slow at the moment). I like the surprising burst of colour, especially contrasted with the almost monchrome background. Also like the idea of the soon to be dead leaf lying near the skeletal remains of those who have taken the plunge earlier!

16-85@85mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 400. Near Hardingstone village, Northamptonshire.

Challenge 1 - Tom's second pic

16-85@50mm, f/8, 1/30s, ISO 400. Salcey Forest, Northamptonshire.

Challenge 1 - Tom's first stab

Similar concept to Kev's - very shallow depth of field, but sadly not quite so interesting a tree! Like Kev, think the DOF is a bit too shallow here, ideally would have liked to get both leaves in focus and with hindsight, probably would have been better to focus on the foremost leaf. However, love the detail the backlighting has shown up on the leaf.

16-85 at 85mm, f5.6, 1/25s, ISO 200. Delapre Park, Northampton.

Photos of our Acer tree.

This one I like because the depth of field. Perhaps the point of focus is a bit out, but whatever.

Trying to make sense of this one. I know what I was trying to do, but I think a *much* tighter crop would work. 

For Alice: Sarah with Fringe

The ladies have been discussing hair-cuts. Sarah has had a fringe and said she would send a photo to Alice.

Here it is. 

Curses - taken a week too early!

Doesn't qualify for the challenge unfortunately.

Wonder if anyone will notice if I alter the EXIF? I fear this may have been my Autumnal peak, but I'll get out and about among the leaves and see what inspires me for the challenge.

Photo Challenge 1: Autumn

OK - here goes.

I propose a friendly challenge. Between now and Fri 7th November produce images on the theme of Autumn.  

Suggested rules:

• Theme: Autumn
• Submit up to 5 pictures.
• Post processing and digital manipulation is allowed.
• A brief line should accompany each photo (e.g. location or subject, camera, exposure details, etc).
• The photo must be taken between 22nd October and 7th November 2008.
• Deadline: 7th November 2008.

Err, that's it it I think. Please feel free to add any others you think are needed.

I don't propose any formal judging or picking a winner (unless someone is going to put up a big cash prize and let me win). 

Comments?

Name Change and Launch

Ok. I've changed the name. We're now at http://misanthropix.blogspot.com/.

Will post an initial challenge shortly.

So...

Are we going to use this blog? Are we going declare the camera club open? Do we want to think of a better name (I like MisanthroPics, so we could change the URL to that)?

If it is going, what do we do with it?

Wedding pro etiquette

You'd never guess I'm twiddling my thumbs with little to do other than wait for my sub to finish laying out the last three pages of the newspaper for proof reading!

Difficult situation presented itself at the wedding on Friday. Couple were married at small room at the back of the Left Bank bar (sure Toby probably knows it) and then posed in what is the carpark behind the building, leaning against a small wall which backed onto the river.

Background for photos was the other side of the river, which in my amatuer opinion wasn't the most picturesque (primarily some flats), but photog didn't have a huge choice of backdrops. However, what I did notice is that right behind the couple's heads (from the angle the photog was taking shots from) was a largish, bright yellow, for sale sign on one of the flats.

Worst thing in the world is some know-it-all sidling up and telling someone how to do their job. However, I know just how easy it is, from painful experience, to miss small details in the chaos of something like a wedding.

I was torn: what was worse, me looking like a patronising idiot but at least checking he'd noticed, or saying nothing, assuming he was either aware and dealing with it with shallow DOF, or not aware, but capable of solving the problem in PP (or even not capable and spoiling the couple's photos)?

What would you have done?

More dark arts

More messing around with the camera in the dark - wedding fireworks. Pro snapper did something very clever where he managed to get a shot of the couple, with fireworks in background, I'd guess he did something similar to what I tried with the dancing, long dragged shutter and flash to expose Mr and Mrs sharply in the foreground. Meanwhile, I was messing around with my tripod and ridiculously cheap but very functional wireless remote gadget, just arrived from Hong Kong. Went for 10 sec exposures, left the camera on the tripod out of everyone's way and returned to the crowd to enjoy and just randomly press the remote release every now and again. If I'd been paying attention and reviewing every shot, I probably would have tried a shorter exposure for a "cleaner" trail, but pretty pleased with result (especially considering I generally only get one chance a year to experiment!).

Again, just converted RAW to JPG and not got around to doing any PP or cropping with this yet.

This is an image linked from pbase. The URL format is like this:

http://pbase.com/kevinl/image/10400865/large.jpg

Dark wedding dances

Often a problem at events, and not just weddings, lots of people, lots of motion, dark room, mixed lighting, high ceilings and nowhere to use bounce flash. Traditional approach is relatively fast shutter speed , perhaps dragging it a little to try and bring up the background (in this case
1/30) and keeping fingers crossed. Personally, I find this gets pretty lacklustre results, flashed out foreground (thanks for unwittingly demonstrating Alice!), dark background and "frozen" motion doesn't tell the story.

Been playing around with a really long dragged shutter (1 or 2 secs) and rear flash for the last few weddings I've been to, to see what effects I can get.


Might just be me, but I prefer the second approach - warmer, more dynamic, goes someway to actually showing what was going on in terms of motion and excitement, but rear flash rescues enough detail so you're not just seeing a mess of blur!

Interested to find out what you guys think.

(I've not touched the images, other than to save as JPGs by the way - I'd crop both tighter and I'm sure playing with D-lighting or similar on the first could help it)