Category Archives: Lockdown Logs

Lockdown Logs

The Lockdown Logs #29

The Lockdown Logs

Dateline: May 3rd 2020

To pass the time today, I’ve been looking over some old wedding photography files, and playing with image manipulation.  This one is an image of Inch Abbey near Downpatrick, Co.Down.  I’d been photographing a wedding at Loughanisland, and after the ceremony I took the bride and Groom over to Inch Abbey for some romance, – only to find that because it was a bank holiday, the site was packed with tourists, including a council-employed tour guide, dressed as a monk, who was eager to assure me that he wasn’t a real monk!

Today, I dredged this image up from the digital slurry pit where the old wedding files live, and gave it some Lightroom treatment, (when this image was made, around 2008/9 I didn’t have Lightroom). I increased its presence, desaturated the ruins and the sky, and gave the grass and trees some saturation, then put it into a edge/border mask and framed it with my standard frame.

Here’s what it looks like…

Inch Abbey_UP.jpg
Nikon D700, F=70mm, f/10 @ 1/400th Sec, on ISO400
Lockdown Logs

The Lockdown Logs #28

The Lockdown Logs

Dateline: May 3rd 2020

There’s this white flower growing among the bluebells in the Cocoon garden. Apparently it’s a wood anemone, and I haven’t a clue how it got there, for it wasn’t there last year! Anyway, I’ve just shot it.

FlowerUp.jpgFujifilm X-T30, with Nikon 300mm Macro Lens, MF, f/8 @ 1/400th sec on ISO1600.  Focus Peaking on.

Lockdown Logs, Still Life

The Lockdown Logs #27

The Lockdown Logs

Dateline: May 2nd 2020

Here’s a coffee-pod holding device sitting on our kitchen bench, located in the Cocoon kitchen.  You may well ask, why would anyone in their right mind make a black and white photograph, with a Fujifilm X-T2, of a coffee-pod thingy anyway?  There may be several reasons:

  1. Sheer boredom.
  2. The photographer concerned in actually NOT in his right mind.
  3. Beause, like Mt. Everest, it is there.
  4. Because said photographer is half deaf, and thought the man with the lisp was ordering a graphic for his pod-cache.

YOU be the judge!

Coffee.jpg
Fujifilm X-T2, F=18mm, f/3.6 @ 1/60th sec on ISO400. Acros Film Simulation.

 

Lockdown Logs

The Lockdown Logs #26

The Lockdown Logs

Dateline: May 2nd 2020

Even when you are in lockdown, and you’re confined to the house, it’s worth having a camera with you all the time!  This morning I went upstairs to my study at the front of the Cocoon, and looked wistfully out my window, wishing I had somewhere to go, or some work to do, when I saw this sight, a couple on a tandem cycle, resting on the pavement below.  I had the Fujifilm X-T2 on the desk, with the 18-55 kit lens fitted.  It was set to the Acros film simulation, and manual focus, and I just couldn’t resist the urge to press the shutter.

DSCF7544_pe.jpg
Fujifilm X-T2, F=55mm, f/10 @ 1/125th on ISO400

Let this be a warning to other cyclists.  If you park your bike outside the Cocoon I may shoot you.

Lockdown Logs, Photo-Technique, Training

Ghosting Techniques

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Last night I read an interesting post by Dee Tutor on LinkedIn about Ghosting Techniques, and I thought one or two of you readers might like to make it an interesting project for next week! All you need to do is nip over and read Daria’s blog, find an old and particularly interesting looking graveyard, (now that we’re allowed to visit graveyards again) and have a go!

Read D Tutor’s Blog Post HERE.

Try to shoot from the back of the headstones, – to avoid someone being offended that you’ve used their family grave in a photo.
 Continue reading Ghosting Techniques →

Lockdown Logs

The Lockdown Logs #24

The Lockdown Logs

Dateline: April 30th 2020

Raining outside the cocoon today, so I looked around for an indoors subject and settled on an ‘uplighter’ lampstand that I bought many years ago in B&Q.  I fitted the Nikon MF 50mm lens onto the Fujifilm X-T30, – the full frame equivalence would be around 75mm.  The aperture was set at f/8, to achieve pin-sharp focus on the pattern of the glass, using the camera’s focus-peaking; the shutter speed was 1/250th sec and the ISO was 800.

The lamp is set against a background of white louvre blinds, backlit by the natural light from outside, so the bokeh produced a simple white backdrop.   The lamp is silver, the backdrop white, so I chose to use the camera’s ACROS film simulation mode.

 Here’s the result:-

DSCF5242B_pe.jpg

 

Lockdown Logs

The Lockdown Logs #23

The Lockdown Logs

Dateline: April 28th 2020

I had to be at a funeral this morning, and of course, no matter where I go the camera goes too.

Later, in the cemetery, I noticed some wind chimes hanging from a tree. I just snapped… using the 300mm MF lens, F=300mm, f/4 @ 1/500th sec (the wind chimes were moving in the wind – as you’s expect) ISO200. Weird sepia effect added in post-capture processing, and over-saturated.

Wind Chimes Up.jpg

Lockdown Logs

The Lockdown Logs #21

The Lockdown Logs

Dateline: April 26th 2020

Bluebell macro!  Back garden photography with the Fujifilm X-T30 and a Nikon MF300mm lens (Macro). I keep the shutter speed fairly high on these, – that lens is heavy and moves about a bit, so 1/640th sec for this shot.  f/4, ISO800.

BluebellUP.jpg