New Kit

Now that I've splashed out on the 450D I thought it was time to purchase some much needed accessories!

When it came to tripods I have generally gone for cheap and cheerful ones from places like eBay but have always wanted something a little more substantial. After trying out a few in the local camera shops I decided to opt for a Manfrotto Modo 785B at a cost of £50. It's a full height tripod which folds up to be reasonably compact (about 45cm) and fairly light but at the same time it's pretty study. I wasn't too sure about the hybrid joystick head but now I've used it a few times I really like it. It has a thumb lock and an option for video (panning up, down, left, right) then at the flick of a switch goes in to photo mode for full movement on the ball head. It also has 3 leg width settings for different applications which have already come in handy. All in all a nice piece of kit with excellent build quality.



I have also always wanted a shutter release remote (which I couldn't get for my old Powershot S2) as it avoids having to use the 2 second timer for low light shots to prevent camera shake. It's also great for self portrait shots which I've yet to try out! I found a Canon RC-1 in a local camera shop for the same price as they are on the Internet (around £15) so went for that. It's a tiny piece of kit but so far has worked very well. It has a slider switch to select either either 2 second or immediate shutter release and then the shutter release button to take the shot. Have found this very useful so far and can't imagine what I'd do without it now.

Trip To The Sea

Haven't had much of a chance to get out and take pictures recently but did manage to take a few snaps at Ocean Village when I went to Southampton last week.

Landscapes

Couple of landscape shots taken with the 450D.

Infrared With Canon EOS 450D

After enjoying experimenting with infrared photography on my trusty Canon Powershot S2IS and lens adapter kit (see previous post), I decided to try out the 58 mm Kood R72 infrared filter on the 450D.

On the Powershot S2 you just attach the filter and you can see the shot on the screen and adjust the settings before taking the picture. It was more difficult than expected on the 450D as once the filter is attached you can barely see anything through the viewfinder (In hindsight I should have tried it in Live View mode which may have helped!!). I ended up having to compose each shot without the filter, focus then carefully attach the filter to the lens and hope for the best. It was a fairly windy day and as I required about a 15 second exposure I lost a few pictures to blur even though I was using a tripod.

I was using a custom white balance achieved by taking a photo of a white sheet of paper with the filter attached then setting that as the default but you can achieve different results by using the colour of foliage or anything you desire as the custom white balance. Many examples can be see in the Digital Infrared and Infrared groups on Flickr.

In the 2 shots below I swapped the red and blue channels in post processing to improve the colours.





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Here are some of my previous shots taken with the Canon Powershot S2








** Updated 6 April 2009 - See Part 2 **

** Updated 5 June 2009 - See Part 3 **

Light Junkie

I have always enjoyed experimenting with light in its different forms to see what effects you can capture. I spent some time playing around with the camera and using a laser pointer and a mobile phone as the light sources to see what I could produce.

Using a long exposure (generally around 15 seconds) here are some of the photos that I captured.

Using a mobile phone as the light source




Laser pointer going back and forth across stainless steel tea and coffee canisters




Laser pointer on wine glass



Outlining a garden chair with a laser pointer

Flickr v Zooomr - Update

A quick update on yesterdays post.

After posting the blog entry I put a link to it on my Zooomr Zipline and added the photo to a few groups on Flickr.

This propelled the picture on Zooomr to my most popular and the first to reach 10 faves. It also generated more contacts which is always good.

Here are the stats as of this morning...

Flickr Stats (my Flickr pics)
Views: 34
Favorite: 0
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Zooomr Stats (my Zooomr pics)
Views: 64
Favorite: 11
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Flickr v Zooomr

As you can see from my previous post, I've been using Zooomr now for around a month and have been interested to see the different exposure photographs get compared to Flickr so I decided to run a little test.

The test involved uploading the photograph below to both Flickr and Zooomr. The picture had the same title and tags on both sites and was not added to any sets or groups.



A week has now passed so here are the results.

Flickr Stats (my Flickr pics)
Views: 13
Favorite: 0
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Flickr Contacts: 90

Zooomr Stats (my Zooomr pics)
Views: 39
Favorite: 2
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Zooomr Contacts: 30

As you can see I've had 3 times more views on Zooomr even though I've only got of third of the contacts that I have on Flickr. Also, 2 people consider the photo one of their favorites.

I would have thought that the more contacts that you have the more views you would get as I'm always browsing through my contacts photos (especially on Flickr). Apparently that is not so! Either way, 39 views of a picture in a week is pretty poor which ever way you look at it :(

Zooomr does generate more traffic (well, to that picture anyway) but that may just be because the community is smaller or that particular picture was of more interest there than on Flickr. Either way, I will continue to post pictures to both sites and see how it goes.

Sometimes Life Can Be a Blur

Days, months & years seem to go by so quickly the older that you get. The pace of life can sometimes be a blur!

On Flickr I have been following the exceptional work of a photographer called rosiehardy. She produces some amazing and creative work and I wish I had a fraction of her talent. I read this post on her and aknacer's (another exceptional photographer) blog about using textures and was inspired to give it a go.


Here is the finished image - better viewed large (click on image)


Here is the original


It was a bit of a quick basic go at the technique but I am pleased with the results.

Same Bridge Different Perspective

I stayed in the same place on the bridge and came away with 2 very different photographs.

Sweet!

Playing around with the new camera and a bag of sweets the other evening!

Kids and grown-ups love it so, the happy world of Haribo :)

First Pictures

Took the new Canon 450D up to Salisbury Races on Friday afternoon for a little test run and to try and capture a bit of the action on the course.

I hadn't had much of a chance to play with the camera as it only arrived at work that morning so was pretty much just using it on the Auto modes (Full Auto, Sport etc). I'm pretty used to Canon manual settings after using the Powershot S2 for so long but the interface and buttons are all slightly different so didn't change much on the day but am now finding them all!

Here are a few of the better shots from the day. Shame that it was so overcast but that's the English weather for you!