Macro Clearance

Norton Dreams

ISO400, 100mm, 1/1250s, f/4.5, -1.6 ev, retouching

An old Norton glints in the dappled sunlight of a leafy avenue.

Taken after the end of a local motorcycle meet, where bikes of all kinds line the streets. Thankfully the owner of this very photogenic machine felt the need to stay late.

Using ISO 400 to add some noise - rather than adding it in Photoshop as most people recommend. Exposure compensation dropped almost right down to capture those bright highlights and deepen the shadows.

Wednesday

ISO800, 105mm, 1.200s, f/5, -1/3ev, noise reducation

A bit more colour for the mid-week.

Shot quite a few strong patterned butterflies today, with the idea of possibly converting one to black and white, but this photo was the one that I felt was the best of the collection and impossible to turn off those colours. A nice shiny 7 spot ladybird with simple flowers and nice background composition.

Monday

ISO400, 105mm, 1/640s, f/8, -1.6ev, noise reduction, cropped

Starting the week off with a fantastic splash of colour and a nice photogenic pose.

Meadow Brown

ISO400, 105mm, 1/320s, f/5.6, -1ev, cropped, noise reduction

On a lunch-break when every butterfly seemed too busy to pause for a portrait, this Meadow Brown was the only one whose curiosity/fear overcame it's compulsion to take flight. Very nice patterning on its lower wings, and nicely up-lit by the natural leaf reflector, if a little bit green. (shot with Sunlight pre-set white balance - as always)

Cropped square to make the most of the luscious green surroundings

and simplify the frame.

With hindsight maybe a couple more clicks of aperture, but its possible the background bokeh would have suffered for it. The tilt on the photo I decided at the time was to point the end of the leaf into the bottom right corner (taken portrait orientation), but I decided against that format in post-production and maybe for this format a more anti-clockwise angle would have been more favourable, but again I quite like it - sometimes it's nice to have something tilted the "wrong" way - even if it was by accident.

Hope everyone has a photogenic weekend. If it ends up raining alot you might even see a lesser-spotted MWT weekend blog post! - Mark

Nice weather for ..

ISO1600, 300mm, 1/320s, f/8, -1/3ev, noise reduction, cropped

I'm not sure I'll ever get comfortable with letting more than a few rain drops fall on my camera, even with weather sealed L lenses on it, but with no umbrella available (or my rain cover safely left back at home?!) a few riverside trees enabled me to get a few rainy shots while I was waiting for my MoT yesterday. An eye catch-light, bubbles, raindrops, splashing droplets and water dripping of the beak making this one the pick of the batch.

Two duos

Belltower

Composite of bracketed, focus stacked images. Noise reduction.

Two photos from a lunchbreak trip to a local village church and two photography quotes I liked after a quick search aroung the web...

"Having a camera does not make you a photographer any more than carrying a hammer makes you a carpenter"

"Which is your favourite photograph?" - "The one I am going to take tomorrow"

Clearance

A clearout of my blog folder from the last few weeks of pics, which I didn't feel deserved to host their own post.

Two macro bugs, a lame midday stop-off at a lavender field and a Bee Orchid.

.. and the macro keeps coming ..

ISO400, 105mm, 1/500s, f/9, -1 2/3 ev, noise reduction, cropped square

The background in the areas that I've cropped off was quite interesting, but I wanted to put full focus on the vortex-like pattern of the flower and the hover fly.

These flies are shiny little blighters, so I set exposure compensation significantly down to avoid the glare burning off the end of the histogram (pattern/evaluative metering).

Grasshopper

ISO1250, 105mm, 1/200s, f/11, -2/3ev, noise reduction, levels

Amazing detail and texture in this grasshoppers carapace and wings.

Usually jumpy little things, but you can find the odd one whos curiosity overcomes

it's desire to flea.

Last Day

ISO200, f/5.6, 260mm, 1/500s, -2/3ev (pattern), desaturated, dodge & burn.

Buskers, special offers and empty shops encapsulating the current financial climate.

Taken in Swindon high-street with my extremely un-stealthy 100-400 which can make candid shots pretty tricky.

RAF Lyneham - Final Fly-by

The last C130 Hercules' flying out of RAF Lyneham perform a final flyby over the north Wiltshire coutryside.

They have flown the skies over my home town all my life and the area will never be the same again. I've had a soft spot for them since flying in one as a child over the Bristol channel with the tail gate down and have very happy memories of cycling out to Lyneham in summer holidays to sit at the end of the runway and watch the Hercs taking off. A sad farewell.

More macro colour..

ISO400, 105mm, 1/2500s, f/4, -2/3ev, noise reduction

Wearing out my macro lens this summer! Three more shots from photos taken in this weeks lunchbreaks, just trying to hone my attention to composition, clean backgrounds, sharp focus and aperture. Not an ideal ISO setting on this first shot, I guess I was flitting between in-flight shots, but happy with the composition, pose, background and aperture.

ISO800, 105mm, 1/800s, f/8, -1ev, cropped (from portrait), noise reduction

Been avoiding bees a bit this year since they're everywhere and I've done quite a few in the past, but pleased with this shot since I successfully predicted it's next destination, set suitable settings and took just one frame in the space of a couple of seconds.

The thistle was well away from any background distractions, so f/8 turned out nice (I pre-focussed on the thistle), with the fast shutter speed freezing the bees motion, but still blurring the wings and a -1ev exposure compensation (pattern metering) as I was shooting into bright Sun.

ISO400, 105mm, 1/2000s, f/5, -1ev, noise reduction

Another thistle, another Skipper. Amazing to see the colour difference between the thistles in these shots, I'm not sure if they're different species or just gain colour as they mature?

As before, trying to keep that background clean and/or nicely blurred and let the amazing colours, patterns and textures of nature do the rest.

Large Skipper

ISO400, 105mm, 1/2000s, f/4.5, -1ev

Large Skipper moth on a wild Early Purple Orchid.

Excuses: I'd left the ISO high from a previous shot, but at least at 1/2000s I didn't have much worry about camera shake! As always with macros this year - trying to get my backgrounds cleaner, so happy with this one. No processing, straight from camera except for noise reduction (thanks to my ISO blunder).

Michael

An amazing stained glass window of Saint Michael.

Michael is an Archangel (the only one mentioned in the bible) meaning a leader of angels, he is commonly portrayed in a more angelic guise, but is shown here much more in his form as a warrior dressed in medieval armour.

He commanded the armies that fought Satan in the Book of Revelations, coming down from Heaven to imprison Satan (embodied as a dragon) for a thousand years. Hence, like St George he is often illustrated standing over a dragon. Also similar to St George he was made a patron saint of Chivalry in the medieval period and is patron saint of many police and warrior groups today, most popular with airbourne units.

Battle of Chippenham

Some candid character shots from the weekend re-enactment of the battle of Chippenham.

The fog of war casting silhouettes of canon, pike and musket.

A Royalist cavalry rider at the gallop and a Parliamentarian flinches as his musket fires.

Ale and water for a defeated Parliamentarian cavalryman and his mount after a long, hot battle.

Oliver Cromwell

ISO1600, 23mm, 1/800s, f/8, selective levels/curves, noise reduction

The Oliver Cromwell steaming past a Somerset village at a fair gallop, not bad for a 60 year old that's for sure. Cropped "widescreen", I'm happy with the result, the weather had been glorious Sun until five minutes before she arrived and then it clouded over, causing a few ISO and exposure compensation setting changes, but I think the high ISO and muted/cloudy light has definitely brought out that slightly surreal, painted quality.

Butterfly of the day..

ISO100, 105mm, 1/200s, f/3.5, -2/3ev, colour balance (green reduction)

Since lunch-breaks have just turned into a procession of macro efforts, I've re-named today's post accordingly. Still nice to get good shots, even if they aren't as varied as I'd like. I guess at least today's is a new species for this blog - as far as I can remember.

Hopefully get something a little varied later in the week as I have a visit to Bristol tomorrow and another local steam locomotive Thursday (weather permitting), then some more wedding photos to do at the weekend again!

More macro

ISO100, 105mm, 1/200s, f/5.6, -2/3ev

One Day Wildlife Clearance

A bit of a wildlife clear out today, with a selection of rejects from the last couple of weeks, including a Graveyard squirrel, heart-shaped leaf ladybird, a bug with a view, the blue wings of a butterfly and the stripey eyes of a damselfly.

Swanage

ISO800, 260mm, 1/500s, f/5.6, -2/3ev, noise reduction, colour balance, levels

A family of swans sail past during a recent Kingfisher stakeout.

I happened to be nice and low for this shot, so shot them on their level and captured a nice moment with some eye contact, both parents looking inward and even some vocal participation in progress. Background isn't the best, but pleased with the composition and main subject.

Chippenham Folk Festival 2011

ISO200, 365mm, 1/500s, f/5.6, -1ev

A trio of black and white portraits from last weekends folk festival. Wasn't down there for long due to other duties and commitments, but pleased with the odd snap I did manage to grab.

ISO100, 360mm, 1/640s, f/5.6, -1 1/3ev

Who said a portrait has to have a face in it. Plenty of character on show without. Bright but hazey weather acting as the big, diffuse soft-box in the sky.

ISO125, 370mm, 1/500s, f/5.6, -2/3ev

Morris dancing and drinking beer, Britain in a snapshot.

ISO100, 115mm, 1/500s, f/4.5, -1ev

.. and a splash of colour to finish on, with another micro-encapsulation of the event.

Project KFC

ISO1600, 400mm, 1/500s, f/5.6

curves, levels, cropped, cloning, noise reduction

Project KFC is back on track again this year, same river, just a few miles further upstream.

Managed to get this shot this morning (hence the postponement of the folk festival shots promised).

Not exactly straight-from-camera, with not insignificant amounts of noise reduction, sharpening, cropping and cloning out the odd messy branch, but heading in the right direction. Certainly a decent starting point anyway and not bad considering it was just on the way to work, rather than properly set up.

Grave stalker

Not usually too long until a graveyard photo pops up on here, this time from a cemetery in Bath and a weathered statue of a woman at rest. There's often lots of angels and cherubs around, but always nice to find such a photogenic one.

Stay tuned for a few Folk Festival photos tomorrow..