The image quality has suffered a fair bit in the transfer to the web-page. Unfortunately, I have had numerous problems getting the photos uploaded and in a viewable state. I will be giving Matt & Kate a decent DVD/CD version at some point for them to keep. For some reason Firefox previews the pictures better than IE7 (on my PC anyway!)

Note that some of the pictures are ’semi’ finished and are intended to be incorporated into an album page. (Mainly the ones of Kate, with very white backgrounds and the silhouette of them both)

Enjoy! 

[Show as slideshow]

Just click on the picture and you will be taken to the gallery page.

Enjoy!!

[Show as slideshow]

I set up my 400D, 1/60 and f8.0 with the Sigma 17-70 at around 44mm and a wired shutter release remote.

For lighting, I used a Canon 550EX on camera as master, pointing away from me and set the output to 1/64 so it would just trigger the slave. The slave was my Canon 430EX set to my left at around 3-4ft. Unfortunately, the power cannot be changed in slave mode which is a shame and had to be used in ETTL mode. I would have liked to be able to set both flashes manually and will look into how I can do this.

I have ordered a remote transmitter/receiver from Ebay which was advertised to work with the 550/430EX but their instructions state the flash needs a pc port. I raised this with the seller and he said try it and if it doesn’t work, return it for a refund. I have also ordered a flash clip for my Gorillapod so I can hang one of the flashes from doors or strap it to one of our lighting stands/tripods.

I am also keeping my eye out on Ebay for some flash guns which are recommended and/or used by the photographers who post in the Strobist group on Flickr.

I can’t wait to try it out and experiment. I will post pictures as soon as I can!

There was another that finished today that was up for £20 and had no bids. Not really surprising as it was a very high starting price and the guy hadn’t given any info about the lens. It could have been a right old minger! There are a couple more coming in the next few days that I am watching. I will try and limit myself to £10-12 this time! Another bellows auction is ending in the next day and is currently at .99p so hopefully I will get this one.

I entered a photo in the ocuk photo comp last night. Pretty early as the comp closes at the end of July but at least I have an entry in if I don’t have a chance in the next 3 weeks. A friend of mine gave it a thumbs up, so that was good enough for me!!

I have posted the original and the processed version. I had intended to give the picture a more lighter blue/colder feel to it but when I was playing about in PS I liked this version. Basically I used Variation in the adjustment menu and added two lots of blue to the picture. Prior to this, the levels were adjusted and curves played with to bring a bit more contrast into it. I may add a border to the image for the comp but I am pretty happy with what I got.

In the next few days I am going to attempt some self-portraits! Not sure yet whether to use the studio light(s) or natural light. There is more control using the studio lights, but they are a bit of a faff, however natural light is only really do-able at the weekend which is not that easy with a nearly-3yr old wanting to be involved!!

Watch this space!

The Overclockers ‘Vanishing Point’ competition has closed and my entry was:

The results won’t be out until towards the end of July but the next competition has been announced: Abstract. Quite an open ended theme! I have a couple of ideas and had a go last night to see what they look like. A couple looked ok but I only looked at the back of the camera and from what I could see they could probably benefit from a fair bit of post processing to make them look good. I will post some pics when I have a moment.

I am looking at buying a macro bellows to further increase my experimentation with Macro work. I have seen a couple on Ebay, starting at 0.99 but bidding ended upto £50 which I am not prepared to pay for something that I may not use that much. You can get them from China on Ebay for around £18.99 plus postage but I will try and get a cheap one from the UK if I can. I was outbid last night on one in the last seconds; I placed a bid of £16.87 with 20 seconds to go but a couple of people got in before me and the final price was £22 ish! Popular items it seems.

I am also watching a manual lens; Tamron 80-210 f3.8-5.6 model 103A, using an Adaptall 2 mount which apparently is a very good one. The current price is £1.20 and ends around 5.45 tonight. I think there maybe a bit of a last minute bidding war but will have to wait and see. I don’t really want to pay any more than £10 if I can help it.

A wish list (in no particular order):

Macro Bellows
Macro Flash – either ring or the other type
Macro head for tripod – will allow me make minute adjustments without moving the tripod
Wide Angle lens – either Sigma 10-20, Tokina 12-24 or Canon 10-22
Long zoom or long MF fixed, 200, 300 or 400 range

A fantasy wish list

Canon 5D
Or 1DMKII
Or 1DMKIII

Any L series Lens!

Ah well, one can only dream!!

Yesterday (Sunday 24th June 2007) was a fairly dismal day in terms of weather and a planned foray into the garden with the macro lens was not on.

I therefore had a very itchy shutter release finger! During the morning, Paige (our daughter) was watching TV, so I decided to get my new Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f2.8 manual lens out and snap away at her. (See seperate post about my manual lenses). I got a few nice images and actually managed to get round to sending 5 10×8’s to PhotoBox for printing. Hopefully they will come out ok because I am not that confident in my monitor as I am having trouble calibrating it. (Don’t want to spend money on one of those Spyder things either!)

Photos Taken With Manual Lenses

Also on Sunday, during the evening I decided to have a go at photographing water drops. This is something that I had wanted to do for a long time, but never got round to it. Pure laziness more than anything!

I put a glass bowl, full of water on top of a upside down washing up bowl and positioned my 400D directly in front of it, with the tripod set so the lens height was just above the rim of the glass bowl and about 3 feet away. A Canon 100mm f2.8 1:1 Macro lens was used, set on Manual Focus. I stuck my finger in the middle of the bowl just touching the water and focussed on this!

The camera was set to Manual, f11, 1/125th, ISO 100.

For light, I used a Canon 550EX Speedlite on the 400D and set this up as a master, with the flash head pointing at the ceiling. A second flash, my Canon 430EX was positioned to the left of the subject and set as Slave.

With my left hand I tipped water from a wineglass into the bowl, and my right hand triggered the shutter.

I was very plesantly surprised with my results and the best 3 I have added to my gallery. Its a shame about the background colour but I do like the way the tiles are reflected in the water. Mono conversions of the photos also look good.

Experiments With Water

Click to view gallery

Someone from the Talk Photography forum is sending me an article from the Amateur Photography magazine, funnily enough posted last week. So I will interested to read this and perhaps experiment some more….Watch this space!