Sunday, January 31, 2010

Visit to London




There had been a brief snowstorm overnight and this was enough to coat the roads and cause several accidents on the M11, which had not been gritted. Consequently our coach was more than an hour late arriving in London but the light was still great. Several of the 'More London' Buildings are now finished and make an impressive skyline around City Hall or when looked upwards with the wide-angle lens.
The sunset was not as interesting as we hoped but gave nice colouring to the sky as we returned to Tower Hill

Friday, January 29, 2010

Looking Forward to Tomorrow's Trip


I spent a bit of time looking at 2009's visit to London at this time of year - we had some wonderful dark skies and sunny intervals. Fingers crossed for some interesting light tomorrow.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Black-Headed Gulls Crash Landing and Taking Off



Some pictures taken at ISO 1000 1/640 sec using a borrowed Canon 7D to investigate how much noise there is at higher ISOs.
The images were fairly noisy but Neat image has done a pretty good job removing the noise.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Cambridge 800th Anniversary

As promised here are some of the projections onto the Senate House, King's Chapel and the Gibbs Building.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

End of Cambridge University 800th Anniversary Year



To celebrate the end of Cambridge University's 800th Anniversary Year, they put on a spectacular light display, projecting onto the buildings (images to follow) and also using lasers along the river and in King's Court.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Still on Trees

I have been sorting through more of my infrared pictures of trees. These were taken with the 15mm fish eye in Epping Forest. They are 1/125 sec
so I don't think it is movement on the right of the first frame. I must check out whether images are in focus with this lens to the edge of the frames. I like the effect almost of a pinhole camera.
The second photo was of an amazing clump of trees where they had all anastamosed together to create these curious shapes.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

That sunset at Wimpole

Here is another view taken at Wimpole when there was a heavy snowstorm just as the sun was setting.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Epping Trees



Still looking at some IR images - this one converted to monochrome gives a feel very reminiscent of IR film

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Further IR Experiments



This is one of the overexposed Infrared pictures that I took at Wimpole, corrected white balance with camera profile and the exposure as far as possible in Lightroom. Then, in Photoshop, I changed the Hue and Saturation and was amazed at the result. Below is a colour image taken at the same time on the 5D

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Infrared at Wimpole

I took some images at Wimpole in the snow last week and have just started looking at them and experimenting with different workflows for converting to Monochrome.

The first pair show the original RAW image and its equivalent conversion to monochrome, adjusting the colour mix in Lightroom to produce the best contrast image.








The second pair use a profile made for the Infrared camera and then converting to monochrome in Lightroom (http://khromagery.com.au/ir_raw.html). I prefer the second conversion with the DNG profile







Friday, January 8, 2010

Snowstorm at Wimpole


Just as we were leaving after a walk round the grounds at Wimpole Hall a heavy snowstorm started. The sun was still out giving an amazing golden light.

Unfortunately there wasn't time to get the uncluttered view of this clump of trees that I had taken earlier.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Welney


I visited Welney Wildfowl Trust on Tuesday - the water level is very high and much of the water is frozen. Because of the deep water, there were very few swans feeding on the reserve but plenty of ducks - mallard, pochard,widgeon,gadwall,tufted and pintail were all present.
The Mute swan posed beautifully in front of the notice that reads Winter Wonderland.



One of the Mute Swans spent a lot of time showing off his exquisite feathers. I thought the pair with ice worked well as a monochrome. It almost looks as if the swan has broken off from the ice shelf as the wing sculpturing matches the edge of the ice.
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The Mallards looked puzzled by the ice while the Whooper swans just felt at home as it must be very like their breeding grounds in Spring in Iceland

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Moonset



The moon was extra bright this morning so decided to go out and try some photos. The first photo was taken before dawn and the sky was wonderful pastel shades. The second was taken after the sun had risen and was shedding orange light on the fields.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Amber on Ice

A rather surprised labrador having stepped on the ice and broken through.