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
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
9
Photo of the Week 32 & 33 – Irish Butterflies
Filed Under Photography on October 9, 2008 | 1 Comment
Since I’ve missed two weekends due to server troubles I thought I’d do a double post today. But rather than post two un-related photos I figured it would make more sense to pick two that are related. I’ve taken a lot of butterfly shots this year, and these two have come out as my favourites. It was a hard call to pick just two, but you can see the whole set in my Irish Butterflies Set on Flickr.
The first shot I chose is my best one of the most spectacular butterfly we have in Ireland, the Peacock Butterfly (Inachis io in Latin). We have no other butterflies with such striking colours or such impressive ‘eyes’ on their wings. I got this shot in my Grandmother’s garden near Cavan, Ireland.
The second shot is one of our most bland species, the Small White (Pieris rapae in Latin). Not as interesting as the Green-Veined White, and very small. But I still think this is a beautiful shot. I love the way the zoom lens has completely blackened the background. You’d never guess there was a hedge behind this guy! I took this shot in the Junior Gardens on the St. Patrick’s College Campus (AKA NUI Maynooth South Campus) in Maynooth, Ireland.
For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of the first shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/640 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: F11
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Compensation: -1.0
And of the second shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1250 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: F8
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Compensation: -0.67