Fototastic 2009

Well, it's the last day of the year (and the decade) so I hope that you have all had a good one and are planning to see in 2010 in style.

Many thanks for your support over the past 12 months and I look forward to seeing you all here again in 2010.

Just as a quick recap, here is a compilation of the 2009 posts all neatly packaged in to a video for your viewing pleasure!






HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all.

Water Art

I hope that you all had an excellent Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year celebrations.

I have had a bit of time off work over the festive period and after watching this interesting video I thought I would have another go at photographing water droplets.

You can see my first attempt earlier in the year here.

I took so many photos so it has taken a while to trawl through them but here are the 3 that I think came out best.







If you fancy having a go at this then there is plenty of help at hand on the web. I found that this video was pretty helpful.

Cathedral Light Trails

Following on my obsession with light thought I would post another light trail picture.

Took this one a few months back but stumbled across it this evening whilst looking for something else.

Beautiful You

I mentioned in this post a while back that I was doing some photography for some friends that were starting up a website.

Well, Stace & Mags now have the site up and running. Please support them by going to www.beautyu.co.uk and taking a look.

Airbrushing - Because You're Worth It!

I have been doing a few projects recently that have involved some requested photo retouching / airbrushing. I use both Photoshop and Paintshop Pro so experimented with different techniques in each until I came up with something that I was fairly happy with.

This process does differ depending on the photo but I now use a general routine for the smoothing out of skin without making the subject look fake and also trying to keep the important details.

I was looking for a model but as no one was available I had to take a quick snapshot of myself to work on. After a long weekend and lots of late nights, a retouch was just what I needed!!!

Here is the before shot, straight out of the camera.



Here is the same shot again after some retouching.



Click on the images to enlarge as the differences are more noticeable.

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Here are the steps that I look to achieve this.

Opened the original image in Photoshop and removed any blemishes with the spot healing tool

Duplicated the background layer and applied the dust and scratches filter with a radius of about 3 pixels and a threshold of 0

Applied a gaussian blur with a radius of about 1.4 pixels

Applied some texture to the image by using the add noise filter (1%)

Added a layer mask revealing all and filled the mask with black

Set the colour to white and used a paintbrush to brush in the new smooth skin

Lightened up the areas around the eyes and brightened up the eyes themselves

Applied some adjustment layers (curves and colour balance)

This technique does seem to work better on photos of women but then we are used to them having much smoother skin than us guys anyway :)

Lady In Red

......This lady is dead!

Found this dead Coccinellidae (ladybird) at home.



Thought I would capture it on camera as I've done previously with:-

The Fly


and Spiderman Part 3

Graffiti

Came across some old Facebook Graffiti of mine and noticed that you can now embed the replays. Here are few of my Star Wars inspired graffiti pictures...

Vitamin Shot

With the weather getting colder and Swine Flu still hanging around, it might be time for a vitamin shot!

Website Photoshoot

Some friends of mine are starting up a website and asked if I could take a few pictures for the site so I spent an enjoyable evening on Monday taking a variety of shots for them.

As you'll notice from my blog, I don't take a great amount of people shots so it was really good practice for me, especially with a wedding shoot coming up next year. There were a fair few shots that went straight to the recycle bin (the beauty of digital!) but we did end up with some good results and they were both pleased so all is good.

Here is one of the shots taken during the evening. I will post more after their site goes live.

Stop Motion Miniatures

Following on from my Life in Miniature post, I stumbled across this stop motion video which I thought was really good.

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Up Up and Away

Caught a few shots of this passing hot air balloon passing over my house.

I bet they got some good pictures from up there!

Reading Companion

Since we have been getting a bit of September sun recently, I have been making the most of my back garden. Generally just been there chilling out in the sun and reading a good book or the paper and it seems like one of the local cats has taken a shine to my garden as well.

He quite happily basks in the sun or rolls around on the decking and seems to appear whenever I am out there for more than a few minutes and makes himself at home.

As you can see, he is not camera shy either!

Life in Miniature

Tilt-Shift miniature faking is a process in which a life-size pictures are manipulated (using an image editor) to give the impression of a scale model.

I have seen a number of really good ones online and thought I'd give it a quick try. Click on the images to enlarge as they look better in that size.





They are not fantastic but for 5mins effort who am I to complain! I think that finding the right photograph is the hardest part of this process.

To see more of these images, why not visit the Tilt-Shift Miniature Fakes group on Flickr

Zoom Zoom Zoom

Having another quick comparison between Flickr and Zooomr for photo views & stats. An earlier post on this subject can be found here.

The photo below was posted to both Flickr and Zooomr on 10 September 2008. So after one year, how do the stats compare.

Flickr Stats
Views: 153
Favorite: 5

Zooomr Stats
Views: 1275
Favorite: 29

As you can see, Zooomr still generates more interest in my photography and this picture is currently listed as my most awesome shot on Zooomr.

So Good They Named it Twice

On my way back home the other night I passed the Church of St Mary and St Nicholas in Wilton. I had my camera in the car so decided to stop and take a couple of night shots.

I always notice this striking structure when passing through Wilton, especially at night when it is illuminated.



Along the same themes as one of my recent posts, I also caught shot of the Nissan parked outside the church with streaming light trails of a passing car.


Out Take
During one of the long exposure shots, I had to move the camera and tripod to allow a car to pass down the driveway that I way blocking. The resulting image looks to me like a light painting of cyclists....possibly on a tandem!

Summers Over

The harvesting is being done, the nights are drawing in...there goes another crappy English summer where there was more rain than sun.

Flashy Motor!

After taking the shot of the pillar box in my previous post I was parked off the road so decided to have a go at experimenting using the off camera flash to photograph my car.

The result is a merge of 3 photos taken in near complete darkness.

Here are the details:-
Photo 1 - Using off camera flash to light the car - 20 second exposure
Photo 2 - Off camera flash on the back seat to light interior - 30 second exposure
Photo 3 - No flash. Caught light trails of passing vehicles - 30 second exposure

Pillar of the Community

With the ever declining trend of sending letters these days in favour of email and other digital forms of communication, I thought I'd photograph a pillar box before they are all taken away!

This was taken this evening at dusk. It was pretty dark so I used a 20 second exposure and an off camera flash.



Kept meaning to find more time to get out with the camera and tonight I finally did so look out for more posts from this evenings shoot coming soon.

iPhone Random Photos

Looking through my camera pictures on my iPhone the other day I came across about 10 really random pictures. Don't know when, where and how they got on there.

They remind me of the light paintings that can be found over in groups like this on Flickr.

Here are a selection of 3 of them.







...and here are a few of them merged together!

What a Job

Now, this is a job that I'd like to do....

Behind The Scenes - Photoshoot from Chris Benny on Vimeo.

Symmetry

I have seen many articles which report things like symmetrical human faces are more beautiful. I wonder if the same thing goes for photos?!?

New Computer

The last new parts for my new computer arrived on Friday and I completed the build so here she is in her naked beauty!...



Finally got all the data across, all the applications that I used installed so it is now pretty much finished and I'm typing this on it now.

For anyone that is interested in the specification...

Enclosure: Antec Sonata III with 500w Earthwatts PSU
Motherboard: ASUS P5Q3 iP45 Socket 775 ATX Motherboard
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz
Memory: 4GB OCZ DDR3 1600Mhz PC3 12800
Video: PCI-E Sapphire HD 4730 512MB
Storage: 1x500GB (OS) 2x750GB mirrored with RAID 1 (Data)

It is so quick compared to my old desktop so image editing should now be a breeze rather than the long chore that it used to be.

Stop!

No Entry sign a few streets away from where I live.

Beer Anyone?

Now that I'm back in regular employment, I am able to spend a bit of my redundancy money on things that I need (or want, to be more precise!). Currently building a new PC to give me more processing power as mine was pretty slow especially when editing 12.2 Megapixel photos from the 450D. I'm just waiting for a few more parts to arrive to finish it off (oh, and find the time somewhere!). As I was treating myself to a new computer I thought I'd get a large 26" monitor to go with it (another thing I'm waiting for delivery for) and also a new desk.

My old desk was pretty big and had lots of storage and the new one is pretty minimalist glass and chrome so I've spent a lot of time sorting through everything there plus loads of other stuff in the house. Thrown out a lot of stuff and boxed up other bits and pieces to be relegated to the loft. I've been hard at it again tonight and am now on the homeward stretch so thought I'd settle down to a nice cold beer.

Keep thinking that I've been neglecting the blog a bit recently due to everything else going on but thought I'd catch a quick snap of the beer using the macro adapters.

Cloning is a Crime

Sorting through some stuff the other day, I found an old BB gun which I thought I'd use in some photos.

Here is my attempt at a multiplicity shot using the gun as a prop - created by merging 3 photos of moi.

Rockin' Robin

In my back garden this summer, I have been getting very regular visits from a local Robin. He (or she) seems pretty tame and continually drops in to the garden whilst I'm out there. He will even let you get within a foot or so before flying off.

Whilst out working in the garden at the weekend I managed to get a quick photo with the new telephoto lens.

Telephoto Macros

I was at a BBQ at the weekend so whilst waiting for the food to be cooked I experimented with my new telephone lens and the macro adapters for the 450D.

It will not focus with many of the adapters but does work pretty well with the +1.

Here are a couple macro shots that I took of lillys.

First Picture With Telephoto

Been a little preoccupied with looking for work recently so haven't been able to take as many photos or blog as much as I'd have liked so apologies (again) for the lack of updates. Luckily, I have been offered a job today and start next week so normal service will begin to resume!

I was out doing a bit of shopping the other day when I came across a 2nd hand lens in a used electronics shop. After seeking some assistance I was told "we don't sell camera accessories, the lens comes with the camera"! After explaining to the shop assistant that there was no Canon camera on display, just the lens he dutifully went and got it for me. It was in excellent condition and in full working order (so I was told) so I handed over the cash for this bargain (over £75 off the RRP).

Pleased to say that the lens tested OK and is in full working order so I'm now the proud owner of a Canon EFS 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS telephoto lens.

Haven't had much time to play with it so far but here is the first random photo that I took with it whilst testing out.

Making a Splash

I finally found some time to time to play around with my new flashgun. I wanted to test it out taking some water splash / drop shots.

Not a particularly fancy set up - just filled a pint glass with water, placed in the kitchen sink and got the tap to drip. I used a sheet of A4 paper behind the bowl for the background.

As you can see in the picture below, the result was ok but was not what I was aiming for as the background was all wrong.



So, I then reset the tripod to put the camera at the same height as the top of the glass and tried again. This was better (although the focusing was off) but still not what I was looking for.



So, I then added a blue Rosco photo gel filter (another recent purchase) to the flashgun and tried again. I was a little happier with the results. The focusing could still be better and I was using the built in camera flash to trigger the flashgun which was off camera to the right which is why there is a mixture of white and blue light plus the white streaks and shadows with the drops in the last 2 shots. Still a lot of work to do to get some results that I'll be really pleased with but not too bad for a first attempt with a basic setup.

Sack the Weatherman

At the start of the week the forecast for the weekend was pretty dire saying it was going to rain. This worried some friends of mine who were off to the Isle of Wight festival.

Anyway, luckily for the festival goers and little old me it looks like the weathermen got it wrong again as the weekend (today especially) were great weather wise.

I always like clouds in landscape photography as I think they add a more interesting depth to the shot.

Infrared With Canon EOS 450D - Part 3

Right, here we are with the final installment of infrared photography with the Canon EOS 450D.

Here I will cover the questions that I've been asked on this topic.

Q: I'm playing with IR too but I having problems with noise?
A: If your ISO level is set to automatic I would manually set it down to something like 100 to help reduce noise.

Then try taking a shot with a smaller aperture / slower shutter speeds. It will take some experimentation but should reduce noise. I always use a tripod for IR shots due to the long shutter speeds.

Your photo editing software should have something like a digital noise reduction filter which may also improve the image but sometimes this may also reduce the clarity of the image.

Q: I'm pulling my Hair out trying to do some IR photography. No matter how hard i try it doesnt work at all.... i just get a horrible red and black image.
A: Sounds like a white balance issue. Follow the suggestions in Part 2 which should help to correct this.

Q: My images are coming out very blue and overexposed?
A: When using slow shutter speeds in sunlight it is important to cover the viewfinder to stop extra light entering through to the sensor.

Q: Can you take IR shots in cloudy weather conditions?
A: Cloudy weather can work with IR too, it just may mean longer exposures and larger apertures (lower f/ numbers) to allow more light in. Here is a shot on flickr which inspired me to get an IR filter. As you can see, I've still got some way to go!

Q: Would you suggest a modification of the Canon EOS 450 to remove the factory shipped IR cut filter?
A: I have seen the process to remove the factory fitted IR cut filter on sites like ghonis2.ho8.com but it is not something that I would carry out on my 450D at the moment.

With some experimentation, you can get some good results on the 450D without the modification.

Q: Do you have any other tips?
A: I've found that looking at other IR photos can be of help (especially when you can see all the camera settings that were used). There are some good IR shots in these Flickr groups....

www.flickr.com/groups/infrared
www.flickr.com/groups/55027594@N00

Also, some other good tips can be found here





Please use the links below for the other 2 parts of this topic.
Part 1
Part 2

Architects of Air

Last week I stopped off in Salisbury Cathedral close for a spot of lunch and to read the paper. What I found was a large inflatable in front of the Cathedral.

On further investigation I found that it is called Architects of Air and is a visual arts exhibition which is part of the Salisbury International Arts Festival.

According to their website...."Enter and be amazed...Drop in at any time and immerse yourself in an environment of saturated and subtle hues through labyrinthine tunnels and cavernous domes." At the time I just thought it was an elaborate inflatable kids playground!