When I first left school I trained to become a photographer and after 3 years I decided it was not for me.
I have still had an interest in photography and I plan to start up again, so this is where my photos will be for everyone to see, lets hope they are OK.
16 October 2017 I had the pleasure of attending the Savage tour date at the Brighton Dome, fantastic night out and a few photos.
So for the second night on the trot the moon has been out and I have had the time to take some photos, tonight I thought I would add some filters to see if it would define the craters and ridges in more detail, still not too sure about it’s success.
So way back in 2014 I tried my hand at taking some photos of the moon take a looa at: Luna photography for an idea of what I was doing.
Tonight I thought I would give it a second attempt and I think the photos are much much better with quite a bit more detail to show.
To see a larger version of the image please click on the photo.
So some fun tonight in Hastings with long exposures.
I need to bring the time down quite a bit as they are a little too light in places and the images are suffering as a result, I will go back to the spot and play again in a few evenings times and hopefully the outcome will be better.
The nice thing about mistakes is the ability to learn a little more.
So after an age I have been able to start with doing some water droplet photography, this is my first try and a few lessons learned.
Firstly the boring bits:
Lessons learned
Focus:
I need to work on the focus a little more, the water is fine but the droplets are not as clear as they should be, perhaps I need to move the focus up a little.
Background:
While black is doing the job I may need to have a play with other colours but we will see for next time.
Lighting:
The lighting is not as simple as it appears to be, I need to work on that quire a bit.
I have loved star trail photos for quite some time now so I thought I would have a play.
This image of from a set of images taken last night, not the best night for star trails as there was a almost full moon but I needed to try out the theory.
The image below is a composite image from 55 photos stitched together, each photo was taken with a Nikon D5100 using the inbuilt “interval timer shooting” option.
The camera was mounted on a tripod and set up to take images with the following settings.
F-stop : 5.6
Exposure time : 15 seconds
ISO Speed : 1600
Focal length : 22mm ( I was aiming for 20 but hay ho)
The images where then stacked using StarStaX a fantastic little freeware application.
This is the resulting image:
Now there is lots wrong with this image, there is too much light pollution from the street lamps but it was able to prove the concept.
The next time I do this there will be no moon in the sky and I will be in a more remote location without street lamps and with a bit of luck it will be a lot nicer.
I thought I would try my hand at Luna photography and after a little messing around with the settings I was able to get a few shots off.
The following are the four that I have selected out of the 9 in focus photos that I was able to take tonight.
ISO : 400
F-stop : F3.5
Focal length : 23mm
Flash : None
Shutter timing : 1/80 second.
ISO : 200
F-stop : F2.8
Focal length : 23mm
Flash : None
Shutter timing : 1/80 second.
ISO : 200
F-stop : F2.8
Focal length : 23mm
Flash : None
Shutter timing : 1/125 second.
ISO : 200
F-stop : F2.8
Focal length : 23mm
Flash : None
Shutter timing : 1/125second.
I then went on to crop with the, with different degrees of success, I think that cropped image 3 is the best one.
It has been a while since I had the time to play with the manual mode of a camera as as the local school was having a fireworks night in my back garden I thought I would have a play.
So I set my Nikon D5100 up on a tripod got out the IR shutter release and had a play.
The base settings are:
ISO : 100
F-stop : F11
Focal length : 18mm
Flash : None
Shutter timing : 1.9 – 5 seconds.
With the exception of some cropping I have not done any post editing at the moment, I plan this week to take one or two of the images and play with them in GIMP / Photoshop and see what I can do with them.
I have always liked the “Scraping Back Time” photos that I have seen around so I thought I would give it a go.
I am currently working in Guernsey one of the Channel Islands and the only part of the UK that was successfully occupied during the Second World War so I thought I would try to create one of the time images, I only have my phone with me for the of the modern image but it did quite a good job.
I need a better understanding of post image manipulation in GIMP / PhotoShop (I still have not decided what one to use) but this is the outcome, it could do with a little more of what is going on today in the image but it’s not too bad for a first try.
Note: I do not know who took the original photo of the march but if you do I would be happy to credit them.
On 6th March 2011 I was treated to a flight in a helicopter while one of the few remaining spitfires fly around us, it has to be one on the most wonderful experiences I have had.
This is a set of photos from the day.
