The Author – Bart Busschots
Creative Commons
Unless otherwise stated, the content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works 3.0 License
Oct
26
Photo of the Week 88 – A Common Spotted Orchid
Filed Under Photography on October 26, 2009 | 2 Comments
A few weeks ago I chose my favourite butterfly shot of the year, this week I’m choosing my favourite wild flower shot of the year. This was a really hard choice because I really got to grips with my Nikkor 55-200mm zoom lens this year, so there were a lot of decent flower shots to choose from. However, in the end, this shot won, in no small part because of how pretty a flower it is! I just love wild Orchids, and always have. When you stumble across one you feel like you’ve found a little treasure! In this case the Orchid is a Common Spotted-orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). I’m not sure the name really suits the flower, ‘common’ implies abundant to me, and that doesn’t seem to tally with reality.
I managed to find a marshy field with quite a few of these beauties near Leixlip Louisa Bridge train station, and after much searching I found one that was blemish-free and standing out on its own enough to get a nice soft un-cluttered bokeh. The light was also pretty much perfect as I shot it in the early evening.
What I really love about this shot is that I had almost noting to do in post – it came out of the camera almost exactly like this! I Just did a few very minor tweaks in Aperture to get the crop just as I wanted it, and to pop the colour and the contrast just a little bit.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/640 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/11
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.3ev
Oct
18
Photo of the Week 87 – Ennis Friary
Filed Under Photography on October 18, 2009 | 1 Comment
I don’t do many black & white conversions, but for some reason Ennis Friary seemed to lend itself to them very well. I guess old church buildings just work in monochrome! This week’s Photo of the Week is one from a set taken on the 1st of August this year when I was in Ennis for a friend’s wedding.
Wide angle lenses cause distortion which makes parallel lines not look parallel, this generally takes away from images of buildings. However, in this image the distortion actually adds to the shot because of the angle of the camera relative to the building. We’re not looking at the building face-on, but instead corner-on. The building is still distorted, but rather than being off-putting the distortion works to make the building look more imposing.
The easiest way to make a colour image black & white is to simply desaturate it. This almost never gives a nice image. The output tends to be bland, flat, and boring. If you want to get a better conversion you need to use a channel mixer. This allows you to control the levels of each colour that are used to create the final monochrome image. You can spend hours tweaking with the mixer, but when it works, it can give very striking images. In this case I used the mixer to take out the blue channel entirely, this turned the blue sky the dramatic black colour you see here. I also turned the green channel down a bit to darken the grass a little. Finally, the red channel was boosted to make up for the reduction in light from reducing both the blue and green channels. This had the effect of brightening the building relative to the grass and sky so it stands out.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/1250 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.3ev
- Processing: The image was converted to monochrome using the Channel Mixer, and then the contrast in the building was selectively increased using the Dodge & burn plugin in Aperture.
Oct
14
Photo of the Week 86 – The Royal Canal
Filed Under Photography on October 14, 2009 | 2 Comments
A lot my macro shots that make it into this series are shot along the Royal Canal, so this week I thought I’d share a picture of the canal itself! For me it’s a little oasis of accessible nature. I love spending time along towpath with my camera. You meet fellow nature lovers as well as fitness types, and obviously plenty of flora and fauna too.
I love this shot because is captures that combination of nature as well as people enjoying nature. I also love the sense of depth in this shot. I took this shot ages ago, but was reluctant to use it for Photo of the Week because it really only works when you view it large – and I prefer to choose shots that work well even at small sizes. Still – I really like this shot so I decided to share it regardless.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/320 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7ev
Oct
6
Photo of the Week 85 – Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly
Filed Under Photography on October 6, 2009 | 3 Comments
This is one of my favourite butterfly shots of the year. The season’s pretty much over now, so the changes are this will remain my favourite form the year. For a start, I think the Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) is one of the nicest species we have in Ireland, but this shot also illustrates why I love my Nikkor 55-200mm F3.5-5.6 zoom lens very well. When you’re shooting flowers or butterflies, you want the subject to be in sharp focus, and the background to be out of focus so that it doesn’t distract from the subject. You don’t want a busy complex background competing for the viewer’s eye. It’s that blurry background that gives shots that pro feel, sometimes called ‘the magazine look’.
This lens allows for a really shallow depth of field right in the sweet spot of the lens (around f8), and gives a wonderfully smooth and creamy bokeh (the out of focus areas). As lenses go, this is a cheap lens, I paid less than €300 for it a few years ago, and it’s come down in price since. A great value lens of you’re a Nikon DX shooter. There’s a new fancy VR (vibration reduction) version of this lens too, but TBH, I think VR is over-kill on this lens. If you can afford it, great, but I certainly don’t miss it. This is my work-horse lens, and I love it to bits.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/800 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/11
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7ev
- Processing: This shot is pretty much as it came out of the camera. It has been cropped to improve the composition, and subtly tweaked in Aperture’s Dodge & Burn plugin to selectively improve the contrast on the butterfly.
Sep
20
Photo of the Week 83 – Grey Willow in Spring
Filed Under Photography on September 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment
This is one of my favourite photos of the whole year so far. To me it says Spring better than anything else I’ve ever shot. It’s the first leaves starting to sprout on a Grey Willow (Salix cinerea) tree growing along the banks of the Royal Canal at Deey Bridge between Maynooth and Leixlip.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/250 sec
- Focal Length: 80mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Sep
14
Photo of the Week 82 – Lunar Cross (Colour)
Filed Under Photography on September 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment
This week’s Photo of the Week is a re-visiting of the same original image that formed the starting point for the mono-chrome conversion that was Photo of the Week 48. Although I really like the black & white version, the only reason it exists is that I was never happy with the original colour shot. It was lacking that ever so hard to define something that makes photos ‘pop’. The initial photo was taken on St. Patrick’s Day 2008 – so about a year and a half ago. Since then I’ve become a hell of a lot more practised at post-processing, so, this evening I had another go at processing this shot, this time keeping it in colour.
After some tweaking of the blue channel and some selective contrast adjustments with Aperture’s Dodge & Burn plugin I’m now happy enough with the shot to use it as a Photo of the week. I guess the lesson here is never to be afraid to go back and re-edit your old images.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/250 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/22
- ISO: 800
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Aug
24
Photo of the Week 79 – Pike Bridge Re-Visited
Filed Under Photography on August 24, 2009 | 1 Comment
If this week’s instalment reminds you a lot of last week’s, that’s no coincidence, this week’s shot is also of Pike’s Brige, and also shot at the same time of day, the so-called golden hour around sunset. There are some marked differences though, last week’s shot was taken into the sun, this week’s is taken with the sun directly behind the camera – meaning this is the opposite side of the bridge. Although the conditions look identical, the shots were actually taken two days apart.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/500 sec
- Focal Length: 42mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.3EV
- Processing: Generated by tonemapping a single RAW file in Photomatix Pro
Aug
16
Photo of the Week 78 – Evening at Pike Bridge
Filed Under Photography on August 16, 2009 | 3 Comments
Photography is all about light, and you get some of the nicest light each day in the hours around sunrise and sunset, or the so-called ‘golden hours’. I’m not a fan of early mornings, so, for me, there is only one golden hour each day, but some of my very favourite pictures are taken during that hour, including this one.
I got this photo on an evening when I wasn’t really planning to shoot, I was out getting some much-needed exercise, and brought the camera along ‘just in case’. I’m certainly glad I did. The light was superb, and it’s very rare that the water is this still under the bridge. The dynamic range was very large in this shot so I tonemapped the RAW file in Photomatix Pro to recover both the shadows and the highlights. I have also edited this image for use as a desktop wallpaper on either a standard (4:3) or widescreen (16:10) monitor.
This is Pike Bridge between Maynooth and Leixlip in Co. Kildare, Ireland. It has two arches, one crossing the Dublin to Sligo railway line, and this one crossing the Royal Canal.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/80 sec
- Focal Length: 20mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -1.0EV
- Processing: Generated by tonemapping a single RAW file in Photomatix Pro
Aug
12
Photo of the Week 77 – Ennis Friary
Filed Under Photography on August 12, 2009 | 1 Comment
This is my 67th Photo of the Week, yet it is only the second monochrome image to make it into the series. I think this is because I absolutely adore colour, and feel rather out of my depth when colour gets extracted from the equation. It took me hours to process this shot the first time, then I got some feed back from people on a few flickr groups, and then it took me another hour or so to have another go and come up with something I not just liked, but liked a lot. Most of the time I only revert to monochrome as a fall-back, but I’m going to try change that, and spend more time experimenting with monochrome precisely because I’m not comfortable with it.
Returning to this image, I reverted to monochrome here because I didn’t have a choice. I had once chance to get a short visit to the priory, so I had to make do with what ever I got – which was mostly rain! At the very end I got a few shots in good sun, but I didn’t have the opportunity to re-shoot this shot in sun because of time pressures. So, what I got was an image with a blown out sky, a flat looking stone building, and almost no colours to speak of. I was either going to bin it, or go monochrome. Determined not to waste the shot, I went for the monochrome option – deciding texture was going to be what I needed to concentrate on – in particular, I wanted to recover details in the sky, and enhance the details in the stonework of the building.
Since I’d shot in RAW I started by tone-mapping the image to recover detail in the sky, and also to enhance details in walls. Then I converted to monochrome using the monochrome mixer in Aperture, before using Aperture’s dodge & burn plug-in to correct some side effects of the tone-mapping and to pick out the spire of the church a little better. After seeking and getting some opinions from others I also used some pretty dramatic levels adjustments to really push up the contrast and really make those textures jump out.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Processing: Generated by tonemapping a single RAW file in Photomatix Pro, then converting to monochrome in Aperture, dodging & burning in Aperture, as well as applying some other tweaks in Aperture.
Aug
5
Photo of the Week 76 – A Painted Lady
Filed Under Photography on August 5, 2009 | 1 Comment
Last week’s photo of the week was the result of serendipity – this weeks is the inverse, it’s the result of planning and dogged determination.
I was, and indeed still am, working on a long-term project to photography all 28 species of butterfly that live in Ireland (you can follow my progress here). I’d been keeping an eye on the different species I saw flying around each time I came outside – and the day before I’d seen that there were Painted Ladies on the wing – a species I was missing!
The time was right, the weather was right, so I chose a spot (the Junior Gardens on the St. Patrick’s College campus in Maynooth), grabbed my gear, and set out on my mission to capture a Painted Lady. I was in a great mood, full of anticipation, but I wasn’t expecting a quick result. Butterflies never do what you tell them, and rarely do what you’d like!
I waited. Then I waited some more. Then a little more. Finally, out of the corner of my eye I spotted one! A Painted Lady. But it didn’t sit still. It flew from flower to flower never landing long enough to even get a focus lock. Then it flew over the wall and out of sight. On the one hand it was a relief to see that my quarry was indeed around, and that I’d chosen my spot correctly. On the other hand, it was a frustrating near-miss. But I continued to wait. Slowly and watchfully walking around around and around the garden.
Eventually another Painted Lady came into the garden. This one was a little more co-operative, landing on flowers and feeding – but not in a very photogenic way. I shot about 25 shots of this guy, but none were good enough to make it here. I waited some more. Another one, this one was feeding on fabulous pink Daisies, and what’s more the Daisies were tall enough to throw the other plants near them totally out of focus when I got in close with the 55-200mm. The setting was perfect, vibrant colours and a lovely bokeh. BUT, my winged friend insisted on landing on low-down flowers, hence always being half-obsgtructed by one or more taller flower heads. I didn’t get the perfect shot, but I could now see it in my head. It was a Painted Lady on one of these pink Daisies with that fabulous green bokeh. all I had to do now was wait.
I stopped making my rounds of the garden and stood watch over my perfect setting. It took another half an hour, but in the end, I was rewarded with the shot you see here. In all I spent two hours trying to get this shot. I think it was time well spent! (don’t worry, I wasn’t bored, I had my iPhone with me and was listening to Photo Focus – doing as the jingle instructs – making pictures, not just taking pictures!)
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1600 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7EV