Dec

27

Photo of the Week 96 & 97 – The Beauty of Winter

Filed Under Photography on December 27, 2009 | 1 Comment

With the silly-season in full swing it’s probably no big surprise that I find myself a week behind again, so another double post this week. This time I decided to choose a seasonal topic – winter scenes. As it happens both these shots were taken on the same day, the 3rd of February this year. It started to snow in the late afternoon, stopped in time to get some lovely day-time shots, and then the sky cleared to give a dramatic sunset over the snow-covered landscape. A photographer’s dream, and this afternoon has already supplied two pervious Photos of the Week (50 “Braving the Snow” & 52 “Fire & Ice”).

The President's Arch
on Flickr – Full-Size

  • Camera: Nikon D40
  • Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
  • Exposure: 1/50 sec
  • Focal Length: 26mm
  • Focal Ratio: f/8
  • ISO: 800
  • Camera Mode: Aperture Priority

President's Arch Sunset
on Flickr – Full-Size

  • Camera: Nikon D40
  • Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
  • Exposure: 1/100 sec
  • Focal Length: 34mm
  • Focal Ratio: f/8
  • ISO: 800
  • Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
  • Exposure Bias: -1.0ev
  • Processing: Single RAW image first tonemapped with Photomatix Pro, then tweaked with the Dodge & Burn plugin in Apple’s Aperture

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Nov

15

Photo of the Week 91 – Comma Butterfly

Filed Under Photography on November 15, 2009 | 1 Comment

This is a shot I took back in April of this year while I was on holidays in Belgium. Common wisdom is that centred subjects are a bad thing in photography, and that they lead to boring photos. Because of that I spent a lot of time trying different crops on this image to come up with a shot where the composition is not centred, but in the end, I didn’t like any of the crops and decided to just ignore common wisdom for this shot. I like how the orange butterfly is surrounded by a see of green, and I think the diagonal orientation of the butterfly makes the composition work despite being centred.

The Comma Butterfly (Polygonia c-album) is exceptionally rare in Ireland. I does show up here from time to time in the very extreme south east in Wexford, but those are individuals who migrate over from the the UK if the summer is very good. In Belgium however, these wonderful butterflies are quite common.

Comma Butterfly (Polygonia c-album)
on Flickr – Full-Size

  • Camera: Nikon D40
  • Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
  • Exposure: 1/500 sec
  • Focal Length: 200mm
  • Focal Ratio: f/8
  • ISO: 400
  • Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
  • Processing: the exposure, saturation & contrast were selectively tweaked in the butterfly using Aperture’s Dodge & Burn plugin

Tagged with: • • • • • •

Mar

29

Photo of the Week 58 – Connolly’s Folly at Dusk

Filed Under Photography on March 29, 2009 | 2 Comments

A somewhat controversial technique I’m very fond of is tonemapping single RAW files. Tonemapping is more normally applied to a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image generated by combining multiple shots of the same scene at different exposures. A RAW file contains much less information than an HDR image, but it still contains enough to allow tonemapping to bring out hidden detail quite effectively, though only to about plus or minus a stop and a half. I find this is a really effective way of processing sunset and dusk shots like this one.

I took this shot from just outside the derelict graveyard at Donaghmore next to Pike’s Bridge along the Royal Canal between Maynooth and Leixlip. The obelisk you can see against the dramatic dusk sky is the top of Connolly’s Folly.

Connolly's Folly at Dusk
on Flickr – Full-Size

  • Camera: Nikon D40
  • Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
  • Exposure: 1/320 sec
  • Focal Length: 75mm
  • Focal Ratio: F4.5
  • ISO: 200
  • Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
  • Post Processing: Single RAW file tonemapped with Photomatix Pro

Tagged with: • • • • • •