Thursday, 23 July 2009

blog merged

Hi all,

Ive decided to stop this blog and just post everything on my other one.

Please click here to view.

Thanks

Sunday, 31 May 2009

Kimmeridge Bay

Went out to Kimmeridge Bay this evening, was quite lovely there. We sat on a rock with our feet in the water watching the calm ripples come in.


Solar

Kimmeridge Bay

Musing

Tranquil

Some of the better shots from the last few days

With the garden in full swing now, and our 7 roses and 3 clematis starting to run at full steam, its hardly surprising I cant put the camera down!!


Rosa 'Peace'

Clematis

Rose

Sunday, 24 May 2009

some new flower shots

Everything is coming into bloom now in the garden.. we have 7 roses, 1 of which is now really showy. And the clematis are just magnificent. Heres a few shots I took this morning.

Yellow Rose

Honey Bee

Clematis Vyvan Pennell

Clematis

Clematis Vyvan Pennell

Sunday, 10 May 2009

A walk on the railway

Went for a short walk this morning as it was lovely.


Brimstone feeding
Brimstone feeding
I think this might be one of the best insect shots I've ever taken. (x4 macro filter)

Wild Spanish bluebell
Spanish Bluebell

Dandilion Clock
Dandelion Clock (x4 macro filter)

Growth
Green!

Pieris rapae - Common White
Common White

Stinging Nettle
Stinging Nettle

Power
Power

Out for a walk
Out for a walk

A vista vista
A Vista vista

Platform
The Old Platform

Friday, 8 May 2009

macro close up filters

Got some new close up filters today.. only £20 for 4 different optics. All they do is reduce the minimum focal distance of a lens, enabling you to go much much closer than you'd normally manage. Seeing as a good macro lens is hundreds, its worth a shot.


Hummingbird heaven

magnolia Macro

Osteospermum
got the focus slightly wrong on this one, its SO hard to hold it steady at that magnification

Wednesday, 6 May 2009

depth of field

Depth of field is literally the range in the image that is in focus, its useful for showing off the focal point of the image that you intended.

parker

In this image, the nib is in focus, but the foreground and the background isn't (you can see by the lines).. this is a very shallow depth of field, forcing the viewer to focus on what you wanted :) taken at an aperture of f2.8.

The smaller the aperture the shallower, or shorter, the depth of field. If you were taking a picture of a landscape, you might choose a deep depth of field in order to get everything in focus, as its the entire vista you intend the viewer to see.

Kiska

In pet portraits its very useful to pick the depth of field so that the head is in focus, but maybe the body isnt. In this shot of Kiska I have focus fading out at the neck, so that her eyes and facial markings look more striking :).

It takes quite a bit of practice to get used to it! On modern dSLR's you often have a 'depth of field preview' button so that you can see live how the image will look, enabling you to fine tune it to your requirements.

There is a trade off however, the smaller the aperture (the opening in the lens), the less light enters the lens and hits the film/CMOS sensor, so you might find yourself in situations where you want a shallow depth of field, but do not have the light for it! this is when we refer to a 'fast' lens, a lens that has a very low aperture ability which gives you more flexibility in your shot selections.. the smaller the minimum aperture, the more expensive the lens gets! especially at long focal lengths.