The Author – Bart Busschots
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Apr
26
Photo of the Week 62 – A Host of Golden Daffodils
Filed Under Photography on April 26, 2009 | 1 Comment
I just love Daffodils, and each time I see a clump of them together the words of Wordswoth’s famous poem always spring to mind. As beautiful as a “host” of Daffodils is to look at, I’ve found it really difficult to capture that beauty well with my camera. After much experimentation, I finally got a shot I’m happy with by using a combination of a shallow depth of field, and a very low camera position. This way one Daffodil could be picked out from the crowd, while allowing the rest to form a lovely yellow and green bokeh. The reason for getting down low is to allow the one chosen Daffodil to be raised above the others in the frame, making it stand out even more than a shallow depth of field alone would allow.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Sigma EX 30mm F1.4
- Exposure: 1/2500 sec
- Focal Length: 30mm
- Focal Ratio: F2.8
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Apr
19
Photo of the Week 60 & 61 – Two Panoramic Landscapes
Filed Under Photography on April 19, 2009 | 3 Comments
Having been on holidays in Belgium and deprived of internet access last weekend I’m posting two shots at once today. When I post two shots together for what ever reason I like to choose photos that are in some way related. In this case the relationship is cropping. Both are landscape shots that I find have been greatly improved by cropping them to a panoramic aspect ratio.
The first shot I’ve chosen if of a little known megalithic monument not too far from Cavan town in Ireland. The monument is made up of five standing stones arranged in a line, and is locally referred to as “Finn McCool’s Fingers”. If you look closely in the background you’ll see a wind farm on one of the mountains in the right background.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/80 sec
- Focal Length: 55mm
- Focal Ratio: F18
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
The second shot I’ve chosen is one I came across by accident on my way to shoot a sunset at Taghadoe Round Tower. I just happened to notice that there was a farmer plowing a field with a nice background behind him. He was a long way away, but with my 55-200mm zoom I could make the shot. I had to wait for about 5 minutes until he reached the right part of the field to get the composition to work well. The church spire you see in the background is that of the Gunne Chapel on the St. Patrick’s College campus (AKA NUI Maynooth South Campus) in Maynooth, Ireland.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/160 sec
- Focal Length: 100mm
- Focal Ratio: F4.8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.33EV
Apr
7
Photo of the Week 59 – Last Train from Galway
Filed Under Photography on April 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Following on from last week I’ve chosen another image generated by tonemapping a single RAW file. This is an example of a shot that’s not possible with traditional HDR techniques because the train is moving. Normally HDRs are built by combining multiple separate exposures, but since the train is moving, it would appear in a different place in each exposure, resulting in a great big mess!
I took this shot while I was in Galway for a few days for a conference. The weather was mostly terrible, and there were very few trains per day, but I managed to find a moment when the weather was good, I was free from conference duties, and there was a train due none-the-less. The sky also really co-operated, putting on a spectacular show.
The train is the last InterCity service of the day from Galway to Dublin-Heuston. In this case it was made up of a single six-car Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) set. Irish Rail only have a few of these Class 22031 DMUs, which are the big brothers of the much more common Class 22001 three-car DMUs that run many InterCity services. I quite like these modern looking trains, though I do miss the old days when InterCity services were made of up regular railway coaches pulled by locomotives. I prefer the sound of the big powerful locomotives, though I think the locals prefer these near-silent DMUs 🙂
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/160 sec
- Focal Length: 48mm
- Focal Ratio: F8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Post Processing: Single RAW file tonemapped with Photomatix Pro
Apr
1
The BBC – Leading the way in Mass-April-Fooling for Over 50 Years
Filed Under 42 (Life the Universe & Everything) on April 1, 2009 | 2 Comments
I’m a huge fan of the BBC, they make some of the very best TV programming in the world, and they’re record on April Fooling is also top-notch. Probably the best known BBC April Fool dates back to 1957, when a report on the bumper Swiss Spaghetti harvest hit unsuspecting Briton’s screens:
1957 is a long time ago, but last year they showed they hadn’t lost their touch yet, this time, we get to see Pengiuns fly!
If you think that looked like a lot of hard work went into making it, you’d be right!
Hopefully they managed to best even flying Penguins this year!