Christmas delight

The best camera you have is the one you have with you. Taken with the iPhone 4 held close to the window to capture the expression of Jack and the light shining on his face.

Topaz - Photoshop/Lightroom Plug-in

Having fun discovering some new photo processing software from http://www.topazlabs.com/ These photos show just one example of what this software can do.

 Click and open this post to see both photos.
 Click on the individual photos to see larger size.

Before Topaz

After Topaz Adjustment

Drive By Shooting

Photography provides artistic expression, conveys a message and records family life. Photography can also be just fun and experimental. This is a shot taken hand held with my Canon S90. I had previously set the ISO at 400 to get a faster shutter speed as I had been taking photos in low light. ISO 400 is about the maximum for this camera without getting too much noise. The aperture was also set at f2.2. Exposure Compensation was dialled back -2/3rds EV. As I was using Aperture Priority the camera determined a shutter speed of 1/25th of a second. Again great image stabilisation to deal with my hand held camera shake, while the movement of the car creates a nice motion blur.

Beautiful Bokeh

First shot taken with my new prime lens. A Canon 50mm f1.4 lens. This shot taken wide open of course to test out the bokeh (out of focus area) and shallow depth of field. Details: 1/640 sec at f/1.4 ISO 1600

Happy New Year

Spent a couple of nights in colourful Canberra to see in the New Year. Travelling light I only took my Canon S90 and the above photos are an example from the little point and shoot camera. However it was not that simple. The graffiti shot is an HDR created by combining 3 bracketed shots. The S90 is a bit slow for the three shots taken handheld. However Photomatix does a great job of aligning the three images together. The second photo was taken handheld again with a shutter speed of 1/6th of a second. Amazing image stabliser. Exposure Compensation was -2/3rds of a stop. It should have been a full stop but I would really need a tripod because the shutter speed would be lower and would have caused motion blur. Got some bargain photography books at the old 'Borders' bookshop, almost all books only $5.

Old Photos

I was going back doing a bit of keywording/tagging and came across an old favourite and decided to give it a bit of Lightroom development now that my skills have improved and the tools are better. Here is the result:

BEFORE

and AFTER

The changes are only global, no work on specific areas. I warmed up the image by about +6 , a slight increase in contrast, a touch of vibrancy and played with the noise reduction and sharpening but found that by removing the colour noise it made the best improvement without excessive smudging.

Bundanoon

KEEP AT IT
Keep taking photos. Even if you have no plan for their use. I have been so busy these last few months and have not been taking many photos. I decided to go out this afternoon to get a few shots. It was so satisfying and exciting when I found a few good subjects. I missed the light that caught my eye with this shot of Bundanoon station but there was still enough to make it interesting. I am experimenting with HDR going mainly for the more realistic look rather than the radical super saturated and detailed look. That might change. HDR is done with 3 or more bracketed exposures and merging them together. This is done in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements or via programs such as Photmatix Pro. Is this cheating? I don't think so. Great photographers of the past were masters of the darkroom. The dynamic range of sensors is limited compared to the human eye. We can see in the shadow and in the highlight but the camera can't.

Anyhoo, keep shooting,
Peter