Posts Tagged ‘Exposure (photography)’

Long Exposure

Posted: 08/06/2012 in iPhone, photography
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one of the reasons I decided to expand my camera collection from my excellent FujiHS20EXR is that whilst it does have full manual controls they are hidden away in deep dark recesses and its whole design philosophy is based around let us help you to take brilliant pictures by having lots of set themes that allow you to tell us what you want and then we’ll set the camera up to do just that.

This is the modern way as pioneered by companies like Apple telling us what we want before we know we want it. It’s a brilliant concept and allows mere mortals to do extraordinary things with technology that we would never have dreamed possible just a few years ago.

The difficulty comes in when we decide that we don’t want to take what would normally be deemed an attractive photograph and whilst my Fuji would allow me that manual control it made it as fiddly and awkward as possible. My newly acquired Canon EOS 10D on the other hand was made in a time before the iPhone and whilst it does have fully automated options it will just as happily let you, nay encourage you to push the envelope of accepted dogma and behave like an idiot. It’s like being able to switch off the traction control on a modern car, sure  the car probably knows better and ignoring its advice may mean you kill yourself in a lurid slide of acrid tyre smoke but shouldn’t that be the choice of the consumer not boffins in a lab.

Phew that almost turned into a rant of Mr Bunny Chow of old proportions, you’re really just here to look at some long exposure shots aren’t you.

Right then without further delay Nick of Nick Exposed and Shannon of Seeing Spots set forth another challenge following on from the great success of their Quotography challenge this time challenging us to come up with Long Exposures.

I’ve been exceedingly busy over the last few weeks so haven’t had the opportunity to really push the envelope with a tripod and super steady shots but such is the beauty of the flexibility of the Canon EOS system that I was able to produce some interesting shots none the less.

Cycle Strobe

What’s going on

Racing Corner

Please let me know what you think of them and feel free to leave comment, tips and critique.

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

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Project 52 Week 23

Posted: 07/06/2012 in photography, Project 52
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I know, I know poor form from me with week’s 22 and 23 being published almost simultaneously I’m sorry I’ll try to keep them more evenly spaced in future.

After the relative nightmare of Week 22 I found this week easy to select as the theme was Straight Out of the Camera something my hatred of the droll of post processing approves of greatly. I’ve mentioned before that if I can’t make a picture work with under 30 seconds of post processing (read a quick crop and maybe exposure adjustment) then I don’t use it.

I know that this is laziness and that the greats all work on their images either in the darkroom or digital darkroom, but I’d far rather be out there shooting than fiddling around in front of the computer wondering if this filter or that filter adds more to the image in front of me.

So with no further waffle I present to you my artsy, rusty bicycle.

Straight out of the camera

As you can see I went for the shallow depth of field effect or bokeh created by using my 50mm lens wide open at f2, otherwise it is uncropped and untouched as it come out of my new to me Canon EOS10D.

I promise that over the next couple of days I will collate some of my other shots from the weekend away and share them here or you can alway pop over to my Google+ profile for all the latest.

I’ve also shared some long exposure shots with Nick Exposed and Seeing Spots, I cannot say for sure if Nick and Shannon will be featuring my shots this time as I was late submitting them but stay tuned to these pages and I’ll get them up here regardless.

Until Next time

TTFN

Mr Bunny Chow

Project 52 Week 13

Posted: 23/03/2012 in photography, Project 52
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I’ve been very quiet this week, unfortunately I have been struck down by that most deadly of diseases Man Flu.

Luckily the kids thus far seem to have avoided it so I can’t even blame them for being disease carrying pests as I would normally do when I’m sick.

The poor dog has also suffered as whilst I have walked her a couple of times this week it’s not been as frequent or for as long as I would do normally.

Anyway moving on from my sympathy gathering attempts I’d like to talk about this weeks photography theme which was playing with light. I was really excited about this as the majority of my free time for photography is at night anyway but the battery in my little Canon IXUS died and the charger is buried under a whole bunch of kids stuff that we’re planning on selling but haven’t gotten around to doing yet. So I decided that I’d take out my other camera my bigger and much more obvious Fuji HS20EXR, something I have historically avoided during my nocturnal wanderings for a couple of reasons.

One being that we don’t live in the nicest of area’s and I’m not that keen on being mugged for it, not that I’ve ever personally felt threatened but I know plenty of others who have.

Two it’s pretty bulky and difficult to shoot single-handed which is something I need to do with the dog being held by my other hand.

With these thoughts in mind I was pretty nervous about taking this weeks shots but I must strike a pretty imposing figure in my bulky coat, baseball cap and heavily muscled Staffordshire Bull Terrier Straining at her leash as I’ve still not had any issues with the drunken yobo’s who inhabit our neighbourhood. It’s taken my a while to figure out the best settings for night shooting with the Fuji, the automatic settings that I initially tried (one-handed and looking for a base to work from) produce incredibly unacceptable levels of noise even if I limit ISO to auto 400 (capped at ISO400).

The shot I submitted after playing with the settings is below

Camera: FinePix HS20EXR
Exposure: 0.357 sec (1/3)
Aperture: f/5
Focal Length: 29.1 mm
ISO Speed: 400

 As you can tell the noise levels are still pretty high but I liked the varying aura’s around the lights enough to decide that I could live with it.

I’ve still not dug out the charger for the little Canon and have continued to tempt fate and play with the larger Fuji during my walks, I’m still not happy with the levels of low light performance that I’m getting but my shots are definitely improving especially if shooting in black and white.

Will you still love me will you still need me....

colour's also improving but I'm still not that confident with it.

a different perspective

This coming weeks theme is Night so I’m going to have to keep focussing on my low light skills to provide you with something I’m proud of. Until the next time TTFN Mr Bunny Chow