The Author – Bart Busschots
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Feb
28
Photo of the Week 106 – Peacock Butterfly
Filed Under Photography on February 28, 2010 | 2 Comments
Since the butterfly season will be starting up again soon I’ve been having a look back at my butterfly shots from previous years to see what gaps there are in my collection to help me plan my priorities for this year. In the process I also picked a shot for this week’s Photo of the Week, one from last year that I’m immensely fond of.
This shot is of the Peacock Butterfly (Inachis io), the most colorful and spectacular species we have in Ireland. I got quite a few shots of this species throughout the year, and in previous years (including Photo of the Week 32), but I particularly like this one because of where the butterfly chose to land. To get a nice out of focus background you do need there to be a bit of a distance between your subject and the background, and you need the background to be fairly even. In this case the butterfly landed on a very tall and beautiful special of Daisy called Black0eyed Susan. Because the Black-eyed Susans are tall, the leaves of the other plants in the garden were a long way below, hence the lovely soft green bokeh. The lovely yellow flowers themselves also add a lot to the shot, and the red of the butterfly contrasts nicely with both the green and the yellow really making it stand out.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/320 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.3ev
Feb
27
Photo of the Week 104 & 105 – Irish Wild Flowers
Filed Under Photography on February 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment
With all the madness of upgrading to SnowLeopard and my failed upgrade to Aperture 3 I’m now one day away from being three weeks behind on my Photos of the Week posts. To catch up I’m going to post a double post today, and a single one tomorrow. As always with multiple posts, I’m going to pick a theme, and this time I’ve chosen macros of Irish wild flower. Both these flowers are small and delicate, so you may miss their subtle beauty unless you take the time to look closely.
The first shot is of one of my very favorite flowers, Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum). It’s a wild variety of Geranium, and there’s lovely detail in it’s small pink flowers. It’s very common in Ireland, but it’s hard to get it with and uncluttered background as it usually grows in crowded hedgerows. I’ve taken many other shots of these little beauties, but I really like the clean bokeh in this one.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 800
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.3ev
The second shot I’ve chosen is of an absolutely tiny flower I found growing on some waste-ground near Leixlip Louisa Bridge railway station. These little guys are Eyebrights (Euphrasia officinalis agg.), and there are many different varieties in Ireland. Each of the different markings have subtly different coloured markings, and petals that are of slightly different shapes. These little guys are so small and so short that I literally had to lie flat on my stomach with the camera touching the ground to get this shot.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1600 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Feb
21
My Aperture 3 Disaster
Filed Under Photography, Computers & Tech on February 21, 2010 | 7 Comments
When Apple announced Aperture 3 I was excited. The more I read about it on their site, and the more video demos I watched, the more I fell in love. The feature-list has everything I really wanted, and more besides. For me the really big deal was a power local adjustments feature, as well as Faces and Places. They also fixed some of my quibbles with Aperture 2. On paper this app was perfect for me. In reality however, it turns out not to be ready for the main-stream yet. The design is spot-on, but the implementation feels like a poor beta. As I write this I’ve down-graded back to Aperture 2.
Feb
13
My Quest for a New Personal Finance App – Part 1
Filed Under Computers & Tech on February 13, 2010 | 9 Comments
I have a feeling this is going to be a topic that occupies me for a while. I really want to make the right choice on this one, because firstly, all the options cost money, and secondly, you don’t want to keep swapping finance apps, you lose your historical data that way. So, in this first post I’m going to explain why I’m in the market for a new app, and what apps have come up in my initial trawl of options, and which ones I like enough to look at in great detail.
Feb
7
Photo of the Week 102 & 103 – 2009 RPSI Santa Specials
Filed Under Photography on February 7, 2010 | 1 Comment
Each December the Railways Preservation Society of Ireland (RPSI) run a series of special excursions called Santa Specials. The trains run from Dublin’s Pearse Station to Maynooth and back, and are usually pulled by Steam Locomotive No.4. For three weekends in December there are up to three trips a day on Saturdays and Sundays, so lots of fantastic opportunities to get some shots of steam in action on Irish rails. This year there was a slight hitch on one of the days though, No.4 broke down on the last run on one of the Saturdays, so a Northern Irish Rail diesel loco had to fill in for the runs on the following Sunday, but by the next Saturday No.4 was back in action and was able to finish out the rest of the runs.
Since I missed posting a photo last week this is a double week, and I’ve chosen my two very favourite shots from last December’s season of Santa Specials. I have to say I really found it hard to pick just two, I’m really happy with quite a few of my shots from the month. If you want to see more than just these two shots I’ve created a set on Flickr with my best shots.
So, on to the first shot, in this case we see No.4 leaving gathering speed as it leaves Maynooth on the return leg back to Dublin Pearse. One thing you’ll note here is that the train appears to be going backwards, or “bunker first”. This is true, except it was designed to run just as well in both directions, so arguably there is no such thing as backwards. It’s this ability to run in either direction that made No.4 such a useful engine during it’s working life, because it could run to stations that didn’t have turntables for turning engines around. In the past all major stations had to have turntables, but very few of those now remain, and Maynooth never even had one because it only became an important station in the 1980s when it became the terminus for the new Western Commuter service out of Dublin.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/30 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/11
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Shutter Priority
- Processing: This shot was generated by tonemapping the original RAW file with Photomatix Pro, and then using layer masks in Pixelmator to selectively blend it with the original to merge the best elements from both versions of the shot into the final image.
The second shot I chose shows No.4 on it’s way out to Maynooth running forwards. In this case the shot was taken in Leixlip just outside Leixlip-Louisa-Bridge station. This was No.4’s second run of the day, and this run had the best weather of any of this season’s runs.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/800 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/3.5
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -1.0ev
- Processing: This shot was generated by tonemapping the original RAW file with Photomatix Pro.