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)