The Author – Bart Busschots
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Nov
30
NUI Maynooth Fire Update
Filed Under 42 (Life the Universe & Everything), Photography on November 30, 2008 | 2 Comments
Since the weather was good and I really needed some fresh air I took my proper camera down to NUI Maynooth to take some descent pictures of the devastation caused by last Friday’s Fire. It’s probably no surprise but there were a lot of people doing the same! I also met one of the dinner ladies who was on duty when the fire started, she’d come to have a look with her partner. She explained how it had started at the back of the building, apparently where workmen were felting the roof, and spread rapidly though the whole building.
I’ve added the best of my images from today to the Flickr gallery I started on Friday.
Nov
29
Photomatix Pro – First Impressions
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Photography on November 29, 2008 | 4 Comments
Anyone who’s been following this blog for a while will know that I’ve been experimenting with HDR for most of this year. I started off with the cheapest solution I could find so that I could be sure I really wanted to go down this road before spending a lot of money on more professional software. It can’t be denied that I got some good results with the process I’ve been using until now, but I was never completely happy with the results. In particular the level of haloing was really starting to annoy me. Today I bit the bullet and spent $99 (about €80) on the stand-alone version of Photomatix Pro from HDR Soft. The reason I went for the standalone version is that I don’t have photoshop and am not planning to buy it any time soon (probably never as long as it costs extortionate amounts of money). I haven’t had much time to play with it yet but I though I’d share some of my initial thoughts and results.
Nov
28
Today’s Fire in NUI Maynooth
Filed Under 42 (Life the Universe & Everything), Photography on November 28, 2008 | 2 Comments
One of the things I like about NUI Maynooth is that it’s the kind of place where very little excitement ever happens. You get the odd evacuation because some muppet with a JCB has hit a gas main but nothing ever blows up. Life as a member of staff or a student in NUIM is generally a pleasant, peaceful, and uneventful affair. Today however was a little more dramatic, though you wouldn’t think it by reading the official press release from the university:
A small fire occurred this morning in the student restaurant at the edge of the North campus of NUI Maynooth and has since been brought under control …
My definition of a small fire is dramatically different. Surely when you can see the plume of smoke from your office half a mile away and when a building is levelled it counts as more than a small fire?
Nov
23
Photo of the Week 40 – Making Hay
Filed Under Photography on November 23, 2008 | 2 Comments
I generally stick to traditional aspect ratios when processing my photos, usually 4:6 or square in fact, but from time to time I get all daring and go for an extreme crop, this is probably one of the most extreme crops I’ve ever done from a single image, but I have to say I like the results. Oh, and yes, I did have to wait a long time till the tractor spat out a bail of hay at exactly the right moment! I think I shot about 100 pictures that afternoon, and this is the only really good one from the lot.
For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of this shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/640 sec
- Focal Length: 130mm
- Focal Ratio: F5
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Compensation: -0.33
Nov
16
Photo of the Week 39 – Autumn Butterfly
Filed Under Photography on November 16, 2008 | 1 Comment
When you think of butterflies you generally think of bright colours and pretty patterns. The Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) certainly doesn’t spring to mind, what with it being small and brown. However, I’ve developed a real soft spot for these little fellas. There is something about the texture of their wings that I really like, and the patterns on their mostly brown wings can be very pleasing. They are also among the smallest of the butterflies we have in Ireland. As their name suggests they tend to hang out in wooded areas where they are very well camouflaged. I got a lot of pictures of these guys that I really like but this one is my very favourite because to me it just captures the spirit of autumn perfectly (even if I do say so myself).
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/500 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: F11
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Compensation: -1.0
Nov
11
Photo of the Week 38 – After the Rain in Killybegs Harbour
Filed Under Photography on November 11, 2008 | 2 Comments
I was in Killybegs for a wedding a while ago and was hopping to get some good shots. Killybegs is located on Ireland’s north-west coast and is our largest fishing harbour. The weather was terrible for most of the weekend but the light we got for about half an hour one evening just made up for it all. We had dark ominous looking clouds to the east and a few gaps in the clouds to the west to allow the setting sun to peep through for a few minutes at a time. Photography heaven! I just love sunlit subjects against a dark brooding sky. This is my favourite shot from the weekend showing a collection of fishing boats of different shapes, sizes and colours against a wonderfully dramatic sky.
For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of this shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/2500 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: F5.6
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Compensation: -0.67
Nov
2
Photo of the Week 37 – Laraghbryan Church
Filed Under Photography on November 2, 2008 | 1 Comment
The ruins of Laraghbryan Church are set amidst an old graveyard and next to a modern grave yard. The whole lot is surrounded by high trees so although the church is only a few hundred yards from the road, many people drive by every day without ever realising the wonders hidden behind those trees. Because of the trees though it’s very hard to get a good shot of these ruins so I’ve had to resort to HDR to even have a chance. I’ve taken a lot of shots of these ruins and I’ve settled on this one as my favourite because of the nice shadows being cast across the church.
For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of this shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: F5.0
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Three Brackets:
- Exposure Bias: 0.0 (Exposure: 1/800 sec)
- Exposure Bias: -1.0 (Exposure: 1/1600 sec)
- Exposure Bias: 1.0 (Exposure: 1/400 sec)
Nov
1
Photo of the Week 8 (Revisited)
Filed Under Photography on November 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
When you’re starting out in digital photography you learn a lot in a year. When I originally processed “Where Dark & Light Collide” I processed it very conservatively. I didn’t crop it, and I tried to remove all dark shadows from the image. This had the effect of washing it out so that it never really showed the drama of the sky that day. Having learned a lot over the last year I re-processed it this week and produced an image that I’m much happier with. At first glance the new version is only subtly different, but for me those subtleties make all the difference. All I did was remove the artificial brightening of the shadows, bump the saturation up a little, warm the white balance slightly, and re-crop the image so that your eye is drawn to the sky more. Here’s the result of my tweaking:
You can see the original version along with all the technical details of the shot in the original post.
Oct
27
Photo of the Week 36
Filed Under Photography on October 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I really have no idea why but since I was a young kid this tiny little flower fascinated me. It just seemed too pretty to be genuinely natural and I always thought they mush have just escaped from someone’s garden or something. However, the Common Dog-violet (Viola Riviniana) is a native Irish wild flower. These things are very small, and only really stand a chance in areas where grass won’t over-whelm them. As such they tend to very well in hedgerows and woods. I love this shot because it shows up both the wonderful colour and subtle details of these diminutive beauties.
For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of this shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/320 sec
- Focal Length: 55mm
- Focal Ratio: F5.6
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Oct
18
Photo of the Week 34 & 35
Filed Under Photography on October 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
With this double-post I’m finally back on schedule with my photo of the week. Since this is a double-bill I decided to pick a theme, these are my two of my favourite pics shot in my native village of Duffel in Belgium.
The first is a fantastic winter scene that greeted me on the first day of my Christmas holiday in December 2007. When you combine a very thick fog with a very heavy frost followed by a clearance in the morning you get an almost fairy-tale-like scene. I took quite a few shots but this is the one I think worked best.
The second shot is of a Thalys express train passing through Duffel with an international express train from Brussels to Amsterdam. These trains are actually French TGVs in a different coat of paint and are part-owned by the national rail companies of France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany. There are very few places where you can get photos of electric trains without pylons in the way, the rail bridge in Duffel is one of those rare places.
For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of the first shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/320 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: F5.6
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Compensation: 0.33
And of the second shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/250 sec
- Focal Length: 30mm
- Focal Ratio: F8
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Auto