Monthly rpn's 2013-12 E.T.C. Challenge - December 12.4 Writings on Photo Added

I like both of these.
The smoke art is much the same as water drops once you've got your set up ie exposure focus and that right it down to shooting loads and picking the best. Good job

Your planet is good too with a nice seemless join, just a shame there was not more blue in the sky but thats been an issue for us all this last year!
 
Thanks Michael,


I like both of these.
The smoke art is much the same as water drops once you've got your set up ie exposure focus and that right it down to shooting loads and picking the best. Good job

Know what you mean, very addictive and easy to just keep on pressing the shutter button…... that would be a good one….... oh, another one …. and another….. :D



Your planet is good too with a nice seemless join, just a shame there was not more blue in the sky but thats been an issue for us all this last year!

I didn’t know the sky is blue! :p We’ll be lucky just to get a dry day up here. Been snowing in the last few days!
 
This series of shots were taken last week and only just managed to process them. It was a pretty cold and windy morning to stand about in the beach and so I did hurry a bit and hence the waves didn’t quite matched up.


3.3 Panoramic

33PanaramicSeascape_zps5f4b67c6.jpg
 
Hi Stan :)

Smoke art usually leaves me cold (which is why I haven't done one!), but yours is great. I really love the almost solid looking twist to the bottom part.

Mini planet works really well with the flats and the sticks in the ground. Shame about the grey sky, and I'd have liked a bit more saturation I think.

Your panorama is very very nice. Great sky :)

Tilt shift works well, with a really good high vantage point.

Harris shutter works better than I'd have expected with only the sea moving. Great shot :)
 
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Good second tilt shift Stan, but I wonder if it might have been better with the in focus part on the busses?
 
I like your planet pano and your first tilt-shift best. I think the 2nd ts may have looked better if the band of focus was a bit lower IMO , still a nice shot though they both give teh "miniature" feel.
 
That looks good. I think 2b works better than 2a; maybe they do need some fairground blur not just background.
 
Hi, Stan, uber catch up...

Night Lights, good detail and I like the trails, looks a tad blue.

Water Drops 1, that's a cracker. Great colours, detail and composition.

Multiplicity, another cracker. Well composed, good white balance and just very funny. Slightly wider DOF, maybe to get all in focus.

Contre Jour, yup, on theme and a real wintery feel to it, with good light.

Natural Light, good detail and I like the close composition.

Triptych, nice idea, well composed. Could do with a bit of punch to the yellows, maybe.

Bubbles, wow they are hardy bubbles. Good low perspective.

Smoke Art, on theme and cracking black BG. Some whites look a tad blown.

Planet Panorama, well spotted and works really well for me. Pity no fluffy clouds.

Panoramic, good detail and colour, especially in the sky.

Tilt and Shift 1, like that, great vantage point.

Harris Shutter Effect, on theme but possibly a stronger subject would have worked better.

Must keep up from now on :D

Cheers.
 
Hi, Stan, was the grad for the sky?

Can't say about the rocks as wasn't there :D, but they look OK to me.

I'm a fan of smooth water but over time, I've tended to prefer a slightly less smooth water. That said, it's a personal preference and takes nothing away from the photograph.

Cheers.
 
Thanks Andy for dropping by. The ND Grad was to balance the forground rock and the middle 'white' water but ended up with the background slightly under exposed.

I know what you mean about the too smooth water and I actually took another shot but with a 0.6 ND + 0.9 ND (5 stops) filters instead of the big stopper. I think my big stopper is about 11 stops! Will post that up later for comparison.

Cheers
 
Hi Stan. I do think the water in the first shot is far too smooth, making it rather unnatural.

The second one is much much better; as Andy says it has far more texture. I think the extra green you have in there improves it as well. Finally, although they're very simillar, I think the composition in the second one is better somehow.
 
I like that Stan, good choice of subject. Very colourful, and a very neat zoom effect. It looks like a flower itself!

Was it done in camera though? I ask because of the very clean centre circle.
 
I like that Stan, good choice of subject. Very colourful, and a very neat zoom effect. It looks like a flower itself!

Was it done in camera though? I ask because of the very clean centre circle.

I agree, lovely colours. The fall off :thinking: between the in and OOF is vey sharp.

Cheers.
 
I like your 2nd long exposure the waters come out well and there's lots of detail in the foreground.

The zoom burst is interesting, very neat & very sharp in the centre
 
I like that Stan, good choice of subject. Very colourful, and a very neat zoom effect. It looks like a flower itself!

Was it done in camera though? I ask because of the very clean centre circle.

Hi Mark, the zoom burst shot is a Photoshop post processing effect.


I agree, lovely colours. The fall off :thinking: between the in and OOF is vey sharp.

Cheers.

Thanks Andy.

I like your 2nd long exposure the waters come out well and there's lots of detail in the foreground.

The zoom burst is interesting, very neat & very sharp in the centre

Hi Adam, thanks for the comments and I agree with you about the second Long Exposure shot however, the settings were only 2 second at f11 so I'm not too sure that 'qualifies' as Long Exposure! :thinking:
 
I prefer the rocks in the first one and the water in the second :D

I like your zoomburst, these always give me eye ache though.

Very nice colouring.
 
Thanks Mark, glad you like the shot.


Here’s my take on the Black Card theme for this month. I was planning to go out early Sunday morning for this shot but the rain put a stop to that and ended up with a mid-afternoon shot which isn’t the best of time for landscape photography. Anyway, there’s only one stop different between the sky and the foreground and to enable enough time to actually hold and remove the card in front of the lens I have to use a couple of natural density filters to bring the shutter speed down to a reasonable duration.


4.3 Black Card Technique

 
Looks good. Wouldn't have thought it was a black card attempt. I don't think it is, but there looks to be some movement in the upper left clouds :thinking:

Cheers.
 
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Looks good Stan, with the wide dynamic range the technique is designed for.

I can see a line where the edge of the card was I think, unless it's something else. Did you jiggle the card to avoid that?

Andy, there IS movement, but it's the clouds moving during the exposure.
 
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Another first for me; timelapse photography. I was going to give this theme a miss but having seen Mark’s (Southdowns’) two effects I decided to have a go at it. So a BIG thankyou to Mark. :clap:

Taken this Sunday afternoon, 345 shots at 15 seconds interval and the video is about 55 seconds long.

4.4 Timelapse
 
Hi Stan.

I like both of those zoom burst shots, but have to give the first one more credit for being done in camera! I love the colours too.

I'm glad I encouraged you to have a go at time lapse :). Your results are really good, with a great sky and interest on the water. I do think your frame rate is a bit low though (about 6 or 7 frames per second?), because your interval between shots is too long. That makes the movement a little jerky. I found a great guide to the appropriate intervals for different types of movement, which suggested:

1 second: fast moving clouds, moving traffic, drive lapses (I used this for my driving one).

1 to 3 seconds: slow clouds, sunrise/set, crowds (I used 2 seconds for the London shots to get the fading light).

15 to 30 seconds: moving shadows, sun across the sky with no clouds, stars.

Longer: fast growing plants, construction projects.

These are then put together at 30 frames per second.
 
Thankyou Mark for the in-depth comments as I’ve never done time-lapse before it was more of a trials and errors and hoping to learn from that too.

I used iMovie to compile the video and set the individual frame duration to 0.1 second. Only after I’ve created the video that I realised the interval was too long but at the time I tried to compromise between the number of shots, final length, memories and also enough ship movements to make the time-lapse more interesting. While I was setting up there were two vessels leaving the harbour!!

Thanks for the info on the durations for the various scenarios and will keep them in mind for the next time.
 
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