Another photo taken in the blanket of snow from a couple of weeks ago.

ISO160, 16mm, 1/30s, f/11, +1/3 ev, circular polariser.

Curves, levels, cropped, colour balance (foreground), cloned out footsteps (foreground).

Might be a bit of a break for a while as I am moving and decorating for the next couple of weekends. If I do get a chance to get out and take anything I'll post it up.

White Christmas

Taken on a Christmas day walk through some local fields, tree shadows cast across an untouched field of snow by the low midday Sun. Not quite as clean and simple as I would have liked, but I do like the shadows, glistening snow and tiny walker in the distance. I chose a mid-range aperture as a balance between decent depth of field, avoiding too much star-burst effect on the Sun and avoiding any lens flare.

ISO100, 16mm, 1/100s, f/13, circular-polariser.

Colour balance adjustment and cloned out a telephone cable.

Winter Birds 4

The fourth and final photo in my mini-series, a Kestrel hunting from a frozen tree in the morning mist. Not rating highly in colour or detail, but in atmosphere and simplicity I think it makes it worthy of posting up. It was -11°c this morning and the mist was freezing onto everything, the metal legs of my tripod were sticking to my scarf and gloves it was so cold, how birds can continue to function in these conditions is amazing. The mist diffusing the light created a natural vignette which works well when cropped square.

400mm, 1/500s, f/5.6, ISO200, cropped, levels, desaturated

I must confess to annoying myself on the day I took this photo. I was walking along approaching a river bridge when I saw something colourful on a frosty branch just to one side, less than 5 meters away. I had my zoom lens on and camera at the ready, but stood for several seconds trying to figure out what it was - was it a kingfisher? It was so still that I started thinking it was a childs glove.. or even a dead kingfisher.. then in an instant it turned its head and flew away. Ouch! I've missed some photo opportunities in my time, but that was a corker! Nothing like learning the hard way.. again!

Winter Birds 3

The third shot is another Robin, this time searching the undergrowth of leaves, ivy and snow.

The skies were heavy with fog, not ideal lighting this time, but not a bad shot.

220mm, 1/400s, f/5, ISO1250, noise reduction

You might notice I've been shooting quite a few of these using auto-ISO (from the 200 and 1250 settings that aren't in the default manual ISO selections). I've found that generally it works really well on the 50D usually picking an ISO setting that allows me to concentrate on the other settings (focal length, aperture, shutter speed). I only really set it manually when I'm either requiring a higher than normal shutter speed to freeze movement or I have the camera stabilised on the tripod or a handy fence or post etc. Of course I still need to keep an eye on it and lower is always better, but with the quality of noise reduction software these days I find myself worrying about it much less lately. It's still nice to know I have the knowledge to judge which ISO I should be using if I need to though!

Winter Birds 2

Happy New Year! Wishes for a good 2011 to everyone!

Next up and probably my favourite of this mini-series of bird photos, a Wren foraging amongst a snowy patch of hedge line. Low winter Sun providing the soft, warm light, reflecting off the snow and elevating the shot significantly.

400mm, 1/640s, f/10, ISO200, cropped

Winter Birds 1

The first photo of a series of bird photos that I took over the last couple of weeks.

Today's is a Redwing migrant feeding on the neighbours apple tree with snow providing a nice pale backdrop. The five foot fence that divides our gardens doubled as a hide and tripod, very handy.

560mm (100-400mm lens + 1.4x teleconverter)

1/1000s, f/8, ISO800, +1/3 ev

Levels, curves, saturation and noise reduction.

Christmas 2010

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, best wishes for a great new year!

With a bit of a backlog of photos to get through I've decided to upload a special Christmas multi-panorama post today. Without really noticing, I appeared to have taken several over the last few weeks. If I'm being philosophical, then I think it's because the snow has led to scenic panoramas, but since I live in a pretty flat area, it's naturally lent itself to this format. The cynical part of me argues that it's lazy and an easy way out of not finding "proper" landscape spots, but I kind of like them anyway...

Winter Sunrise at Lacock

Oakfields at Whitley

St Marys in the snow

The Snowball Stand-off

More to come soon as and when time allows...

Busy-ness

Frosty morning walker

Been very busy the last week decorating, so had no camera time at all. Not such a torture since the snow and ice has disappeared too, but I'll try and make an effort if it returns at the end of the week again. This is a photo from a week or so ago, shot directly into a misty rising Sun to give a nice backlit glow, catching the walkers breath and casting long, mirror-image shadows of both the walkers legs and park bench legs.

ISO250, 210mm, 1/400s, f/5

The Lunchtime Winter Photo Challenge

With it being dark outside work hours, I set about a (slightly extended) lunch-break challenge to go and snap some winter scenes while the weather was nice and in-clement! With the scenic village of Lacock just 5 minutes away, I headed over and did a lap of the area in record time..

First shot was luck, but then you got to be out there to get lucky! A buzzard settled in a snow laden conifer tree as I was walking down the road. Taken at 400mm at ISO1600, I've had to do some fairly heavy noise reduction and cropping, but still a nice blog worthy image I think, if not great technically. ISO1600, 400mm, 1/250s, f/5.6

First landscape style shot was also taken with the zoom lens, a scene that I've driven past many times and thought would make quite a nice composition, looking out over the village cottages and church. To be honest, it has looked better with a bit more fog and snow about, but the snowy trees just about make it wintery enough and the chimney smoke is a nice bonus!

ISO500, 135mm, 1/250s, f/9

Frozen reeds. Taken on tripod at f/22 to smooth out the water and get some motion in the reeds. I almost chose to convert this to black and white, but then changed my mind as I do like the contrast of the warm and cold tones. Foreground levels tweaked. ISO100, Tripod, 16mm, f/22, circular polariser, 1.3sec

One of my favourite bridges in the area, this time photographed surrounded by frozen trees and grasses. Straight from camera. ISO100, Tripod, CircPlrsr, 31mm, f/22, 0.6sec

Followed by a quick drive back to work to defrost.

Overall I am pleased with the results, considering. Just shows what you can capture in such a short period of time. Looking forwards to the next one...

December

There's been some fantastic weather for snow-scapes and winter sunsets recently if you're lucky enough to be able to get out in them! I've driven through some great looking parts of England the last two weekends, but not had much chance to photograph them unfortunately. This is a snapshot taken a while back, down the Kennet & Avon canal.

Urban Snow

Not had a gritty urban shot for a little while, so here's a recent shot taken in Bath.

All the elements fit nicely into a neat composition, with the bonus of the snow making the bridge railings really stand out. Usually I go mad with dodging, burning and selective curves on these type of images, but this one is just desaturated and a small dose of curves over the whole image.

Snow days

Been a bit of a gap in posting, what with dark evenings and I've been busy the last couple of weekends. Managing to get out and about a bit before work though and snapped this Robin this morning on a suitably snow covered photogenic branch. Straight from camera except for some noise reduction.

400mm, ISO1600, 1/50s, f/5.6, +1ev

Pretty slow shutter speed for 400mm zoom, even with image stabilising!

River Sunrise

A rare saturday blog post! Sunrise taken from a bridge over the River Avon before work.

ISO100, f/11, 23mm - two exposures 1/5s and 1/8s (-1/3ev)

The third of my summer flashback images, this time a dragonfly perched at the edge of a field, isolated enough to get a great blurred and shaded background.

ISO100, f/3.2, 1/500s, -1/3ev, 105mm

Summer Damselflies

Another damselfly image of the past summer, two flies this time. Not quite Wildlife Photographer of the Year material, which I was suitably impressed by again this year. Even though I only took 7 photos in London, I managed to pass my next 10,000 photos and reset back to IMG_0001 again. Is that 30,000 now? I can't even remember!

ISO100, 1/320s, f/5.6, -2/3ev, 105mm - taken on 22nd June 2010, 6:30pm.

Flashback

It's cold, rainy and dark outside, not exactly conducive to (most) photography, these next few blog posts are a reminder of the summer sun. While sorting back through some photos taken earlier in the year I found some dragonfly and damselfly shots which I liked and can't remember posting, so here is the first one.

f/5.6, ISO160, 1/200s, -2/3ev on my trusty 105mm.

A bit of a clear out

A few photos from the last couple of weeks that didn't make it to their own post.

Church window and ironwork - an appreciation of the light and form.

Amazing old stained glass-work.

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Warming up for the coming season, a festive Robin. [Insert frost and snow here!]

.. and finally a Red Iguana, found being exhibited in a shopping center. Just shows you never know what you're going to see when you're out and about!

Autumn wild mushroom

All straight from camera except for some selective de-saturation of the Iguana background.

Bath Abbey

Amazing architecture and late afternoon light in Bath Abbey.

ISO 1000, 1/25s, f/6.3, 16mm, -1ev, evaluative metering

Curves and a slight transparent lightening blur applied in post processing.

Kes

A Kestrel hovers in an up draft moments before swooping down on its prey.

Taken in overcast conditions which have helped make a relatively balanced exposure, between the highlights and shadows. I used ISO 800 to get the shutter speed up (noise reduction applied), no exposure compensation (although it could have used +2/3 ev as I lightened it when I processed the raw image). 400mm focal length (and cropped), aperture f/5.6.

Interestingly, I also took a set of 5 photos of it hovering using high-speed continuous drive mode (hold the button down and the camera takes continuous photos) and in each one the bird was in exactly the same position. As the 50D takes photos in this mode at about six frames a second, I guess that the Kestrel just happened to be flapping its wings at about 6 beats a second too! So each photo was taken with the wings in the same place. Bizarre!

The Crow

Crow flying through a graveyard in Avebury.

Several photoshop adjustments made to levels and curves and some noise added

to enhance the dark, gritty feel I was looking for.

Bathscape

Bath under autumn, stormy skies.

Straight from camera. I like the naturally subdued tones and colours, think they give it a painted feel. Pleased with the composition too, with the way the Sun is falling creating nice natural lines and points of focus. The sky is perfect for the shot too, the clouds were racing fast enough for me to only have to wait a few seconds for them to line up the way I wanted.

Autumnal Chromatic Aesthetics

Nothing screams autumn colour quite as brashly as the Japanese Maple. With Westonbirt Arboretum awash with photographers gathering in desperate clusters around any rare streaks of sunlight I decided to avoid the madding crowds and find some simplicity and tranquillity.

Straight from camera except for cloning out some small dots on the leaf. I took a few different exposures with varying aperture settings and a set of varying focal point images, with the idea of focus stacking them, but decided against all these in favour of this simple shallow depth of field capture taken at f/2.8.

Pump Tower

Stumbled upon this old pumping station while randomly exploring at the weekend. It was crying out for conversion to black and white thanks to all the texture and subdued sunlight, so I've gone pretty photoshop heavy again for this image. I've added some selective levels and curves layers, some dodging & burning, two texture layers to add some age and grit and a tweak to the colour balance, then cropped square for a nice balance and an old school 6x6 looking composition.

I did have second thoughts about all this photoshop malarkey, but toggling it all off, back to the original photograph looses so much atmosphere and interest that this time I'm happy with the artificially enhanced approach.

Trainspotting again..

Trainspotting, not commonly associated with being an adrenaline junkies hobby, but the buzz you get with 165 tons of stunning steam locomotive screaming past at full steam just two feet away is something to behold. Yet it makes for such a pleasant photo.

Taken at ISO 800 despite the bright sunny day to push the depth of field wider by using f/8.0. Shutter speed was 1/400s, which as it turned out - with the speed on the train, was a little low and there is still noticeable motion blur present. The circular polariser came into its own yet again, enriching the colours in the trees and engine. .

It was night time by the time it came back through, which was nice, gave me the chance to just leave my camera in the bag for once and soak up a bit more of the experience as again it hurtled past at near top speed.

Happy Halloween

To celebrate the official end of summer, the festival of the dead and my birthday, here is a quick shot of this years pumpkins. ISO 1600, -2ev exp comp (eval metering) and a dose of noise reduction. I might try and do a properly staged tripod shot over the weekend, if I get time.

The festival originated from an ancient Celtic festival first recorded in the 9th century, where it was believed that the spirits of all the dead from the previous year would come looking for someone to possess, to achieve life after death. To avoid this fate the living resorted to dressing up as witches and ghosts, lighting lanterns and leaving offerings of food on their doorsteps.

The tradition of going door to door asking for food or money was an old tradition practised in Britain and Ireland, with the American custom of saying trick or treat only becoming common over the last 30 years.

Originally the Celts used carved turnips as lanterns, pumpkins became the vegetable of choice when the commonwealth colonised North America where turnips weren't so common.

Dirty screw

Not exactly in-keeping with my current trend for landscapes, nature and wildlife, it's a gritty, abstract macro shot today. Taken with my trusty Sigma 105mm Macro lens in my garden, after wandering around and being dismayed that all the flowers had died off I found myself determined to find something that would make a good image. Sometimes my favourite photos are taken this way, with a little perseverance and pushing my eye for a shot beyond my imagination.

Pretty much straight from camera this one with just some sharpening. Since the weather was wet and cloudy, but bright, it already had the great contrast with the help of -1 ev exposure compensation. An f/2.8 shallow depth of field thanks to the lens and lots of great texture and subdued colour thanks to the subject.

Stourhead

Visited Stourhead at the weekend. Was beautiful with the trees getting their autumn colours and some great dappled Sunlight. I always try to avoid the muddied paths to the common viewpoints, searching for something vaguely different. This was the only landscape shot I took, looking down on the Temple of Apollo from above, decent colours, textures, contrast, framing and a bonus tourist in the perfect position to illustrate the scale of the shot.

Best seller

It's been nearly two weeks since I posted a church photo! I must be slacking.

Always nice when someone leaves an old tattered bible hanging around an old stone window, especially when I happen upon it when the Sun is at such a good angle through the stained glass window.

Some dodging, burning to bring out the light and texture, and a selective lightening blur to bring the highlights alive.

Swan Lake

Water glistening like stars as a Swan takes to the sky

Lacock Abbey

A window at Lacock Abbey reflecting dawn Sunlight through the morning mist, while the first deep frost of the year encrusts the grass.

Straight from camera except for noise reduction.

Had a great day on saturday, photographing the wedding with Paula, went really well and am very pleased with the shots we got, given the time constraints and conditions. Lots of processing still to do, but will post some shots here at some point, if the happy couple agree to it.