Took some photos with my new camera. Noticed that the photo of me has appeared in the wall of fame by the library.
And then got knocked out by manflu last week. Blegh. Last year I walked across Scotland at Easter, this year there were days when I couldn't even walk round the supermarket. Double blegh.
And upon that bad pun, we were working on photographing and manipulating eyes.
This image was based around the smudge stick in Photoshop.
Another couple of shots with the Canon Ixus 950 IS. After nipping up to Tescos to get a bigger SD card (ooh, play.com doing large giggage for low poundage), I stopped at the Beach Boulevard for some low light shots.
Tower blocks. F/2.8, ISO 250, 1/8seconds, hand-held.
The Beach Boulevard (maplink) - I had to wait a few minutes until I could get an 'empty' shot. F/2.8, ISO 250, 1/8seconds, hand-held.
The only image manipulation that I've done with the images has been the cropping. Everything else is straight from the camera. I've using the rule-of-thirds grid on the LCD monitor. Photos set to 'superfine' JPG quality, and 3264x2448 pixels. Image size varies from 1mb to 4mb, depending on content.
I won a competition at work for my use of the VLE and got a digital camera as a prize. It was presented by the Principal, and wasn't just "a digital camera", but a top of the range Canon Ixus 950 IS. Woo hoo. At the end of the day I took a few shots from the top of the Tower Block and then went home to read the manual.
View of the car park above John Lewis' [f/2.8, ISO 80, 6mm], and the same shot with the full zoom on, cropped to show detail [f/5.5, ISO 200, 23mm].
View westward toward North Anderson Drive. I set the scene to beach to play around with the sunlight. I like the softening effect.
Back at base, I checked my outstanding filing. Some of the students may recognise the bees from their "bee story" project with Susan.
Expect more shots during the Easter break. Possibly pushing the image stabilisation to extremes dealing with windy days on hills and low light shots indoors and outdoors.
I normally go to the BBC News front page, in fact, my browser starts up to that page. So I didn't take much notice of the new BBC front page, BBC.co.uk. But, this link jumped out at me, so it seems quite user-specific. Of course, it isn't, but sometimes random seems link that.
How To Take Good Photos: Tom Ang presents top tips on how to get the most out of your digital camera.
A series that I'm waiting to come to BBC2 is "The Genius of Photography", which was shown on BBC4. I do not receive BBC4. The website has some information. And a link to the BBC photography homepage. And so, the cycle is complete.
Normal service will be resumed as soon as Zooomr finish moving servers and doing the 2008 update.
After leaving Braemar yesterday, I stuck with Plan A, and headed up to Glenshee intending to get some action shots of the ski-ing and 'boarding. Heading south, every car park was packed, people were stopping in the road to look at the herds of deer in the glen. We pushed on through to the ski centre where it was even worse.
With no place to turn back, and just space for a single car to pass, we had to pass by The Cairnwell, and Glas Maol before eventually passing to The Spittal, turning round and passing through the tight squeeze again. Complete chaos with cars left haphazardly in car parks and at the side of the road.
An hour to 90 minutes later, we were back at Braemar, with no photos taken and a hope that the MRT vehicles that I'd seen (about 3) weren't needed. I can't imagine any hikers being so selfish to just abandon their car in the road so that they can go and enjoy themselves. I'll never bother heading that way when it is snowing. This sort of thing isn't for me.
-9'c on car thermostat. Brr. (maplink)
Creag Bhalg, near Mar Lodge
Towards the Chest of Dee
Moving to the Linn of Dee, we parked in the NTS car park, and walked a couple of kilometres along the Dee towards the sunlight.
River Dee, west of the Linn of Dee. Maplink
Morning sunlight on the frozen River Dee
Flowing water, frozen water and melting water
Burn flowing down to the Dee
Frozen puddles and pools
New Alpkit jacket got a workout. I was toasty at -9'c with a Polartec 100 fleece and a "life is good" t-shirt. No wind, so no windchill to contend with. I've got to get more practice in blending layers with different colour balances.
A couple of experiments on a cold, clear night - except for one cloud that decides to obscure Mars. I find www.skymaps.com useful.
Orion - chosen since I can recognise the 3 stars in the belt. 55-200mm lens used, tripod and remote controller. Experiment was to try and find a decent light level. Seems that the longer I leave the shutter open, the more 'wobble' affects the image. Perhaps atmospherics, but it was a windy night.
| f5.6, 1 second |  |
| f5.6, 4 seconds |  |
| f5.6, 15 seconds |  |
| f5.0, 30 seconds |  |
I may have caught some of the Quadrantid Meteor Shower (?!) completely by accident, as I was failing to get The Plough into one shot, and captured this with a 5second exposure.
Lessons learnt - photographing space is cold and unforgiving. Automatic focusing is out, and everything has to be manually focused - a few wee dots on a background of other dots, or a dark patch. A still night so as not to cause tripod to wobble. Warm clothing. Have a plan. For some constellations, a wider lens is needed. More warm clothing. Don't do it if you are tired and have to get up early the next day.
So, next time, I'll do some research in to the timings, and see what's around to be photographed. Maybe some sort of map of the sky?
So I jumped in the car, and raced the afternoon sunlight to the top of the island. For some reason, the main road heads to Port of Ness, rather than the top bit, the Butt of Lewis. I had missed it in the past, so was not being caught out this time. Maybe it is tactical, considering the history between the Morrisons of Ness and the MacLeods of Lewis. maplink
The sunlight was causing a problem, as the cliffs were in shadow, but it did give the opportunity to catch some sharp light on the rocks.
And maybe the most lonely-looking pigeon on the island?
We shifted positions further north of the lighthouse, but the best exposure was this one of the Moon-scape, where the sea has eroded the land away. We drove south to Eoropaidh. Maplink
I should have put money on the sun not setting in the sea - I would have won.
As we arrived, a chap who was leaving noted that it was like a picture-postcard. I bit back a reply "so...why aren't you staying for the sunset?". More photons for me.
The only tech stuff was a change in lens from 18-55mm to 55-200mm for some of the shots. No filters used, though I did do some post-production work on the images to enhance the colour levels. Originals available upon request.
Before Noon, I headed down to Point to get some snaps.
Click on the above picture to get a full-size panorama of the Sutherland hills. The shots were taken near the old Tiumpan Head light house (map link). Assistance on splicing photographs from phong.com/tutorials/photostitch/
One of the hills can be seen in detail after I changed to the 200mm lens. As to its name, not until I get a chance to check my maps and books.
Shifted back to the Braigh for the last shot, before heading home to a cooked breakfast. Maplink - exposure includes the Shiants, and Lochs headlands to the right.
Sunset at Callanish. Maplink.
So, the rain stopped, my migraine lifted after looking at the bright sky for the first time in days, and I headed to Callanish. There were a few folk there, and what surprised me was that few were taking pictures of the sun on the stones. But, maybe they were.
I think I'm just being a snob, but why don't people wait for about 15 minutes-30 minutes for the light to change?
Especially if it has taken them a while to get there? But that's just me I'm in my warm hiking gear (hmm, can't wait to get the down jacket from Alpkit in the New Year - toasty), and I'm taking snaps of this and that.
Above: Original JPG version of shot. Below: Same shot, where the original RAW version has been edited using my Christmas present of Scott Kelby's "7 Point System". Cropped to remove half a stone, and some foreground for a panorama shot.
And there was no-one else taking photos of the sunset. Ach well, there'll be another sunset tomorrow. And it's not my concern.
