I took this back in July, at much the same time as this one, and would have posted it sooner but wanted to show it to Andy first (the guy on the left). He lives reasonably close to us but, for one reason and another, we didn't bump into each other until earlier this week. Anyway, he liked the shot, so here it is.
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
5.45pm on 17/7/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
70mm
f/3.5
1/60
aperture priority
+1/3
evaluative
400
no
RAW
ACR
none
minor
This is the last of the shots I'll be posting from the wedding I shot recently with Craig: one of the cutest kids I've photographed in quite some time :)
Elsewhere ...
My recent interview with PhotoNetCast is now live:
.../photonetcast-52-talking-photography-with-david-nightingale.html
And I'm currently taking part in the inaugural game of HDR Tennis:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/HDR-Tennis/105060586224248
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
2.59pm on 11/9/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
200mm
f/4.5
1/800
aperture priority
+1/3
evaluative
200
no
RAW
ACR
none
no
This is the last of my seascape shots from my recent trip back to the UK, and while it's not the most striking of the ones I've posted, I do like it. The good news is that I'll be back in the UK again next month (6th-16th), so should have some more seascapes to post then :)
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
12.08pm on 10/9/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
32mm
f/5.6
1/400
aperture priority
+2/3
evaluative
100
no
RAW
ACR
none
no
If you've been following my recent posts you'll know that I posted quite a few portraits from the recent Bodygraphia photographic symposium out here in Bulgaria, many of which were shots of Iva Sakarova (e.g. this one and this one). I also spent another morning with Iva, just before she left to study in the UK, and have two shots from that session that I'll be posting. Both were adjusted in Lab Color mode (hence the rather odd colour balance), and both show a slightly different side to Iva's character.
In other news ...
I've just finished uploading the video for our latest Critique Slot Screencast, based on an image supplied by Ricardo Herrera. If you're already subscribed to our tutorials you can view the screencast here. If not, then there's some further info linked below:
.../tutorials/online/critique_slot_screencasts.php
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
10.52am on 4/9/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
40mm
f/14.0
1/160
manual
n/a
evaluative
100
580EX II (1/2 power)
RAW
ACR
none
no
This is the penultimate image I'll be posting from the wedding I shot with Craig recently, and one of my favourites from the set. There are three reasons I like it.
First, it's a nice, happy shot: I love photographing people who are genuinely and unselfconsciously enjoying themselves.
Second, it was dead easy to post-process. Now, much as I like mucking around in Photoshop – I find the whole process very therapeutic – it's always rewarding to actually nail a wedding shot that requires very little work. In this case, just two adjustments: a black and white conversion using the Channel Mixer, then a single Curve for brightness and contrast.
If you're interested, the Channel Mixer conversion was biased towards the blue channel. This accentuated his facial details, and had the added bonus of lightening his jacket (both my black and white tutorials cover this technique. Further info here and here). All I then needed to do was brighten the image and add some contrast using a fairly strong S-curve, a topic I spend quite a lot of time discussing in my Tonal Range and the Curves Tool tutorial.
The third, and probably less obvious reason I like this one is that his camera looks implausibly small and fragile. Don't ask me why that's a good reason to like this image – I really have no idea why it appeals to me – but for me it's one of the elements that makes this shot.
As always, let me know what you think.
Oh, and Craig has also blogged a shot from the wedding today too. If you're interested, you can take a look here:
http://www.id7.co.uk/portfolio/archives/1009251900_clean.php
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
3.10pm on 11/9/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
200mm
f/4.5
1/200
aperture priority
+1/3
evaluative
200
no
RAW
ACR
none
no
I almost didn't bother trying to post-process this one and, if you've taken a look at the original, you'll know why. Craig and I had been shooting in relatively bright sunlight, but just before I took this shot the sun dissapeared behind a small, but particularly dense cloud. The effect was pronounced: the sky remained bright, but the sea became very dark, dull and flat.
Anyway, as I liked the composition, particularly the cresting wave to the right of the end of the groyne, I thought I'd see what I could come up with, and once I'd added an extremely steep masked curve (to lift the foreground detail), the image looked a whole lot better. The only thing that didn't quite work out was the colour balance, i.e. using an RGB curve to make such a pronounced difference in brightness and contrast also added a massive boost to the saturation – the sea was now an electric shade of blue. I did try changing the blend mode to Luminosity, but this unbalanced the image in a different direction – the sky was blue, but the sea was virtually monochromatic. This could have been fixed – I could have toned the sea, but not the sky, or vice versa – but the simplest solution was to convert the image to black and white. A slight cop-out, but in this case an effective one.
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
1.43pm on 10/9/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
24mm
f/11.0
1/80
aperture priority
+2/3
evaluative
100
no
RAW
ACR
Topaz Detail
minor transformation
Here's another image from the wedding I shot with Craig in Kendal the weekend before last: the grandmother of the bride.
In other news ...
I'm the invited guest on this week's PhotoNetCast podcast which will (probably) be broadcast live on Friday, at 4am GMT, that's 7am local time for me (further details here). We'll be chatting about a variety of topics, including Extreme Exposure (my latest book), so tune in if you're around.
Also, you will probably have noticed that I've added a Tweetmeme button and Facebook Like button to most of my blog pages. I'm fairly sure these are working as they should, but please let me know if you have any problems with them.
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
3.01pm on 11/9/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
200mm
f/4.5
1/400
aperture priority
+1/3
evaluative
200
no
RAW
ACR
none
none
Here's another shot taken during my recent trip to the UK, and beyond that I guess I don't have too much to say about this one, at least not in terms of the image itself.
One thing that is worth mentioning though ...
As you can see from the original, this was shot on a dull flat day. In many ways, particularly in terms of post-production, I prefer flat light – an image with a reasonably restricted tonal range is often much easier to edit than one with harsh shadows and highlights. The downside of shooting in these conditions though is that the sky is often a uniform shade of grey, or subtle variations thereof. In these circumstances there isn't a lot you can do, i.e. you can try increasing the contrast, but if the sky is very dull this just results in all of it getting brighter or all of it getting darker: there's just no detail to bring out. In these circumstances toning an image (as described in my Toning Colour Images tutorial) can be a useful solution, i.e. rather than having some interesting detail in the foreground, offset against a grey nothingness in the background, the toning unifies the image, tying the foreground to the background.
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
11.55am on 10/9/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
50mm
f/5.6
1/320
aperture priority
+2/3
evaluative
100
no
RAW
ACR
Topaz Detail
minor transformation
While weddings are clearly events that centre around the bride and groom, one of the things I like best about them is that they're also comprised of a myriad of small but wonderful moments like this one.
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
3.12pm on 11/9/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
200mm
f/4.5
1/125
aperture priority
+1/3
evaluative
200
no
RAW
ACR
none
none
This is the third seascape that I took while back in the UK recently, and I have two left that I'll post at some point next week. I can't decide which I like best from this set, but I'll be posting Libby's favourite on Monday.
In other news: my good mate Craig has just blogged one of his shots from the wedding we co-shot last weekend:
http://www.id7.co.uk/portfolio/archives/1009181900_clean.php
What with one thing and another he's hardly blogged over the last year or so it's been great to see that he's getting back into the groove. If you followed his blog in the past, stop by and say hello, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.
capturedcameralensfocal lengthapertureshutter speedshooting modeexposure biasmetering modeISOflashimage qualityRAW converterplugins (etc)cropped?
1.59pm on 12/9/10
Canon 5D Mark II
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
24mm
f/5.6
1/200
aperture priority
+1/3
evaluative
200
no
RAW
ACR
Topaz Detail
lens corrected
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