An Apple a Day

An Apple a Day.

So this is my first proper non-project365 blog, due to the problem of not having a camera! (see yesterdays post for details!) So I thought I’d give everyone a run down on my Mac and how I am getting on with it!

I wouldn’t really call myself an Apple Fanboy – but I just love their products. I’ve read Steve Jobs Biography, and although I thought as person, he was a bit of a , his ideas on products really did make sense. I’m not an old skool Apple boy, though, I did only enter the Apple ‘franchise’ in the last decade – but I’ve pretty much bought into the Apple philosophy now!

I’ll start back when my interest in Apple products started. It was all down to my girlfriend (at the time, now beautiful wife!) who asked me what I wanted for my birthday one year. I knew I wanted an mp3 player, but was also pretty darn adamant that I didn’t need or want one of those expensive Apple iPods – they all do the same thing – why pay extra for a gimmick? Right? So imagine my surprise to open up a nice new shiny iPod ‘mini’ (1st Gen) on my birthday. At the time I was working in an electrical store, so I knew what the competition was like, but we didn’t sell Apple products, so this was the first time opening up one of those little white boxes. Needless to say within 10 minutes, I was utterly impressed. The simplicity, and the track pad to control the screen was just awesome. Fast-Forward 10 years, I’ve been through another iPod min (3rd Gen), an iPhone, an iPhone4, an iPad, and now my iMac. (Yes, I realise my Phone is really behind the times!)

So having played with my iMac for a little over a week – what do I think? Well firstly, I think I should say that I’ve only ever used Windows on a PC previously – so I was expecting a really step learning curve. However, it’s not as different to Windows as I thought it would be. Perhaps it’s because I’m used to the iOS on the iPhone, so I was already used to the Mail application, Safari, and a few of the other built-in applications. Then there is still an equivalent to Windows Explorer (Finder) which I use all the time, and is really easy to navigate, there is the equivalent of the Start Menu, and a tool bar that has File, Edit, View, etc… So a lot of it is quite familiar. In fact the biggest difficulty I’ve had is with the keyboard! There is no backspace key! I’ve subsequently found the corresponding shortcut (function + delete) though. But I’m also baffled why the @ and ” symbols have swapped positions – so I am forever typing email address “iCloud.com or “hotmail.com which is getting a tad frustrating! That all being said, I still like the feel of the keyboard, but the mouse – WOW! Effectively being able to use the mouse as a touch pad is brilliant. I was bit concerned how I would cope without a right button on the mouse – however, those concerns were soon laid to rest when I configured the “secondary click” and I was soon up and running. Being able to swipe my fingers across the page to flick between pages, pictures and documents is brilliant! It’s been pretty straight forwards importing all my music, photos from my old laptop, and with my iCloud account I’ve been able to easily import all my bookmarks, and contacts. So the transition from PC to Mac has been pretty smooth!

So having got over the differences – is it any good? Well thats a resounding yes! In terms of speed, its just stupidly quick! It used to take at least 3-4 mins for my old laptop to boot up, this does it in seconds. Opening a webpage? No problem says the iMac – ‘there you go sir’. Want to look at some photos? – already done sir. Oh, and I’ve already taken the opportunity to sort them by person using my funky facial recognition technology. Listening to some music sir? Here you go. You can do that at the SAME TIME as doing EVERYTHING else. All this while by old laptop is still booting up! Its ridiculous! It might be an unfair comparison as my laptop is about 7 yrs old, still running Windows Vista, but I’ve recently played with Windows 8 on a brand new machine – and that did just baffle me. It was quick, but certainly not as quick as this. But Windows 8 tiles are (in my opinion anyway) very childish, and really detract from what is probably (not) a half decent operating system. But I was sure I’d rather move to a Mac or stay on Windows7 than go to Windows8. I’m sure it’s great the for the majority of people, and I’m not a big hater of Windows – like I say, I’ve used it all my computing life – but Windows8 was a step too far for me.

So what about the software? Well, to begin with, I wasn’t over impressed with iPhoto – and there are certain aspects that I’m still not fond of. The aforementioned facial recognition is pretty cool for grouping all your photos for quick reference, but the “Events” view is pretty rubbish – I just stick with Finder to navigate to my Pictures directory. Safari does exactly what I’d expect of it, and at the minute it’s doing everything I need it to do. No doubt I will at some point download Google Chrome, but until then I’m more than happy with it. I’ve played quickly with iMovie and Garageband, I’ll probably not use either on a consistent basis, but Garageband was pretty cool, so anyone who takes playing or creating music more seriously than me might have good fun with that. iMovie seems cool too, but I do need to spend more time find out exactly what it can do. iTunes is still iTunes, either love it or hate it. I obviously love it! I’d pretty much mastered MS Excel and Word in a previous life, and I’ve got no interest in learning Numbers or Pages to be honest, so for now they’ll remain hidden from view. I’ve already installed the Mac version of Office, (as I got it cheap through a work offer) and that seems to be exactly the same – so no issues there. I might try Pages if I need to some publisher-esque work, but Excel and Word are fine thank you very much.

As you know I’ve really purchased this to do my photography work on – so I am really yet to start my trials of Lightroom and Photoshop Elements. But I already know I’m on a winner. I decided to go for the larger 27″ model of the iMac – so being able to get right into the detail of my shots will be pretty easy – the display is perfect. Its like looking through a window! Importing my photos is great – and the ability to quickly upload/download to Facebook is great – no more creating an album in IE (or Safari now) – just create a new folder in iPhoto, and the software does the rest!

On a final note, I just what to share with everyone a fantastic website I’ve found – www.pcclassesonline.com – David Cox does some fantastic video tutorials for not only Mac, but Windows, iPhone, iPad on a variety of subjects. Best of all, they’re all free! You just sign up on the website and you’re granted access to an ever-expanding library of excellent tutorials. You can also find him on YouTube and highly recommend subscribing to his videos. They’ve helped me through the transition really easily. Can’t praise them enough.

On that note, I’ve noticed I’ve written over 1300 words – so I guess I should end the blog there!
Congrats to anyone who has made it this far! Thanks for reading – and I mean it this time – you’ve really done well to keep going this far!

Jake.

Teddy Bear’s Picnic

Teddy Bear’s Picnic.

From Top Left, in a Z shape; 1. Trees; 2. Squirrel; 3. Lungs; 4. Blue; 5: Bluer; 6. Early Bird; 7. Red; 8. Gotcha; 9. Fern (click image to enlarge)

So I went down to the woods today (see, now the title makes sense!) and these are the results. Some of the shots aren’t great, but I’m not too proud to show the problems I have with some of my pictures so I can at least try and track some improvement over the year.

1. Trees – I had to include this one as the light is just and fantastic. I’ve not even touched this in Photoshop, the colours were that vibrant. Nothing overly exciting, just the colours really!

2. Squirrel – this is another one of my squirrel shots, not quite as sharp as my shot of the day, and the bright sky obviously caused issues. It’s not as obvious as some of the other shots, but some of the branches have a green and purple outline (which I assume it due to the lighting – I’ll need to do some research later).

3. Lungs – I picked this shot as the branches remind me of those microscopic pictures inside from inside lung and I think it looked quite cool!

4. Blue – here you can really see the purple edges to the branches, but the yellow chest is really quite bright, much more so than in bluer (see below)

5: Bluer – in this shot there isnt the green and purple edging, but the subject isnt quite as clear.

6. Early Bird – this robin has clearly caught one too many worms. He was happy to sit on that branch chirping away while I took some shots within a few feet of him. This was my favourite as I caught him mid-chirp.

7. Red – again, green and purple edges ruin the shot, but he’s a nicer looking robin.

8. Gotcha – this shot was really ruined by the over exposure. Its a shame, because the shot is great of the squirrel, and it does look like he’s stopped midstep to look at me. Hopefully he remembers me next time and I can get more shots – maybe when I’ve figured out how to fix that problem!

9. Fern – I liked this shot as again the sunlight just catches the leaves and the colours are a nice contrast between the green and the stone. Also the shadows are quite interesting from the leaves and I like the depth of field in the shot.

As I said, I know these aren’t going to win anyway awards (except most over-exposed shot of the year) so if anyone has any comments on how I can avoid getting those purple and green edges on my shots – or alternatively how to get rid of them in Photoshop, it’d be appreciated! Sorry for anyone who saw this first time without the text – i’d pressed Publish instead of Preview.. so am now updating accordingly! Right, thats me done for the day. Thanks for reading my latest ramblings, and apologies if I’ve filled anyones WordPress reader with rubbish! Back to one-post-a-day tomorrow!

Jake.

A-Weekend-a-Wandering

A-Weekend-a-Wandering.

From Top; 1. Cove Harbour and Cottage; 2. Beached Motor; 3. Coastline; 4. Cover Harbour; 5. Chain; 6. St Mary’s Church; 7. Nungate Bridge.   (click for larger images)

As promised, albeit a little late, here are my favourite shots that I took over the weekend. As I’d mentioned in my 365 posts, I was out at Cove (Berwickshire) and Haddington (East Lothian) over the weekend. On a side note, I’ve just found the “Gallery” option within WordPress to be able to showcase these images a little better than I had previously! So apologies for the rubbish thumbnails in some of my earlier posts!

1. Cove Harbour and Cottage – looking at this shot again, I’m not sure why I didn’t pick it as my shot of the day. I really really like it. The colours are great, its got a nice foreground element with the boat, the lead-in lines from the pathway up to the cottages and even the background element of Torness power station. Like I said in Saturdays post – its difficult to not capture a picturesque shot at that place!

2. Beached Motor – this one didn’t get picked as the motor simply isn’t sharp enough. It was a difficult shot to take as I couldn’t use the viewfinder and was relying on using LiveView on a tight angle to try to focus the shot. If I’d had a waterproof sheet that’d let me get down to take the shot without getting covered in wet sand then I’m sure I’d get it pin sharp. It isn’t too bad, but there was enough competition for it not to be selected. I do like the contrast of the industrial motor and the pebbles and sand though. I think it’s an interesting shot – maybe just not enough colours either – a lot of browns and oranges – maybe this one would be good in a sepia filter or perhaps black and white.

3. Coastline – I like this one mainly because of the stunning, deep blues in the sea. There is a very strange coastline which you can just about make out, the rocks in the sea form very straight lines and look almost like slabs of concrete that have been dumped there (but they’re not). To improve this shot I would have needed to come back later in the day when shadows have moved away, and the shot is in pure sunlight – not complaining though – there was plenty of sunshine on the other side of the cove!

4. Cover Harbour – another one of the harbour, I like the bright colours of the boats in contrast to the stone and sea. Again a beautiful sky really adds to the picture and I really like the sharpness and detail in the shot.

5. Chain – this was hidden in between the rockpools, and must have been used to anchor the boats previously. I really liked the shot as it had the sun beaming down on it, and also the colours are great. The brown rusty chain is complemented by the yellow and orange shells and contrasted by the bright green seaweed.

6. St Mary’s Church – I liked the depth of field here, the sharpness of the gravestone with the church in the background. The vibrance of the bush and grass is a great contrast to the greyness of the gravestone, and the orangey-red colour of the church. I did take more of the church, some looked really good – but with the sky being so overcast and grey, I am sure I can get better shots with a nice sky, so I’ll save that for another time.

7. Nungate Bridge – I liked this panorama, and the shot – although just a single shot cropped to a panorama was taken with this in mind. I wanted to capture the old brick bridge and the white bistro on the opposite of the river. Again, I like the colours with the brick and grass in the foreground. Even the white in the buildings provided a nice contrast to the grey sky.

Hope you like these shots as much as I do – feel free to leave a comment or any feedback on them!

Jake

An Excursion John Muir Country Park

                                                                 
An Excursion John Muir Country Park.
(click the thumbnails for the larger images)

So, as per my previous post, we spent the afternoon wandering about our local Country Park, which I love as it give you the option of going to the beach, or into the Woodlands, or right next door there is a farm. So there are plenty of opportunities for some great shots – and its generally a nice afternoon stroll!

So first up is a cool/weird bench overlooking the North Sea. I do like the composition of the shot, it’s just unfortunate that the angle needed to really include the sea in the shot was impossible due to the size of the flood plain and between the bench and the dunes and sea. That’s pretty much the only reason it didn’t get picked for shot of the day.

Second shot is a cool looking shot I’ve tried on a few occasions, but never got the exposure quite right. I think I managed it this time, so it was cool to get a lens flare finally. (So no, this wasn’t added later in Photoshop!) This shot was a close second today, but perhaps the composition just wasn’t exciting enough.

Next up is another shot of the flood plain, and what I think it’s the outlet of the River Tyne (according to Google Maps anyway.. I think I was looking at the right place!) Again, loved the colours in this one, but I think it’s just missing that foreground element, so its more of a view than a landscape (a mantra I’ve picked up over the last few weeks).

Fourth is another attempt at a beach shot with a foreground element. In this one the colours just aren’t quite right – I’m not sure if the blackness in the driftwood detracts from the overall image, but for some reason I preferred the shot I chose today.

Finally, another shot overlooking the flood plain, and with some foreground element. I just think the composition on this one is lacking a bit. The driftwood (or whatever it is) is probably too horizontal, I should have tried to give it more angle in the shot. In this shot it looks like it’s getting in the way really. Still, I really like the colours for this – so that’s why I’ve included it here.

I really enjoyed going out today and I’m starting to dial in my camera settings a lot quicker – for some of them I was even managing to get the shot first time. Hope that means I’m coming to terms with all the requirements now – just need to maybe improve my theory a bit more to be sure I capture those one-off shots quicker. Its easier for landscapes – they don’t tend to move too much – so the only thing rushing me is my wife as she freezes in the wind! But with those shots that need a quicker setup and take, I hope I’m getting better to be able to capture those better!

As always, a pleasure writing for you folks. Thanks for spending a tiny part of your day reading my rambles! Hope you are all enjoy it as much as I am writing it!

Jake

Foraging for Deer

So, for those of you that read my earlier blog post this evening, you’ll have already read my adventures of the day. (If you haven’t click here). I was so pleased at capturing this (relatively!) elusive animal that I wanted to share the other images that I managed to get on my expedition! As I said in my earlier post, these aren’t great – most are blurred due to camera shake or the exposure was terrible – I’ve tried to improve these a little in Photoshop to make them a bit more pleasing on the eye, but here are the shots. Click on the images to see the full-size images.

These are the very firsts shot that I managed to get – as you can see very blurry. This was taken a f/8, 1/30sec exposure with ISO-400. The focal length is maxed out at 300m, which is why the camera shake is so bad. The exposure needed to be at least 1/300sec or I should have increased the ISO to about 1600.

 

After that second image, he’d bolted to the other side of the road, so I had a little chance to compose myself and adjust the settings, trying to get a cleaner shot. These next two were taken with exposure of 1/80, ISO-400 and f/5.6 apeture, still not enough really – these were both really under-exposed (especially the b&w image). Photoshop has saved them (a little)

 

Then by upping the ISO to 1600, I was able to get the correct exposure (ish) but still not enough to avoid the camera shake. It reduce its effect, I tried reducing the focal length (to 130mm) to get the following shot, but really he’s that far into the undergrowth you can only really make out his bob-tail.

So as a compromise, I set the focal length to 220mm, kept the aperture at f5.6, ISO-1600, but reduced the exposure to 1/80sec to get my final image, and was just lucky to get a sharp enough shot. I’ve never really played with the ISO setting so much before, so I was surprised how much of an impact it had on fixing the exposure of the image. Next time (assuming similar light conditions) I’d probably whack it up to 3200 with the other setting the same and work down from there. Still, full enjoyed my expedition, and next time I know I’ll be slightly better prepared to get some better shots!

Thanks for reading, hope that was useful to someone!

Jake

 

Getting to grips with Photoshop

Route One (just outside San Francisco, CA)

Let me start with the original image first, and explain why it’s so bad! Firstly it was taken with old(ish) Compact Digital camera, not my DSLR. Secondly, we were probably doing 50-60mph at the time it was taken, which was by reaching out from the convertible Mustang. (sorry, had to add that bit of detail – it was a rental (and my dream) car!) I should also add that the photo was taken by the passenger – not the driver!! So that explains the severely wonky horizon, and the faded colours anyway.

So why and how? Well firstly, the photo has some personal sentiment attached to it – it was taken while we were on honeymoon in 2012, and from one of my favourite days – a day-trip driving down Route 1 from San Francisco to Big Sur (stopping off at Santa Cruz and Pebble Beach on the way) – it’s a beautiful drive – the scenery is breathtaking (despite how it looks from the original image!). Oh, and did I mention the convertible Mustang! (sorry, last time!)

I’ve been wanting to get my teeth into fixing my bad pictures such as this one, and I finally found a video tutorial (on a free CD that came with Digital Photo magazine) that showed me what I needed to do. The tutorial properly introduced me to Adjustment Layers – I’d known about their existence, but clearly not about their potential! But before I set to work on improving the colours there was some basic editing to be done. The first thing to sort out was the skewed horizon,  simply rotating and cropping the image fixed this. I then used the Wireworm plug-in (as mentioned in a previous post) I removed the unsightly telegraph pole. Then it was time to use what I’d learnt in the video tutorial. By using the lasso tool, and feather edging I was able to select the foreground of the image and create a Levels Adjustment Layer – by tweaking the highlights, shadows and mid-tone levels  and increasing the saturation and vibrance, I was able to make the image look a lot brighter and more interesting. I applied the same process for the mountains and hills on the horizon. I also tried this on the sky, but due to dullness of the sky there wasn’t too much I could do except make it more blue.  My only option was to create another sky. A quick google helped me find a replacement image (and one more similar to how I remembered it), and then by using a blending layer, I was able to replace the sky with the one the appears in the final image. To do that I followed a quick online step-by-step tutorial (here) which wasnt too complicated to follow. Once I was happy with the overall colour of the shot, all that was left was to look at the composition. The horizon was still too close to the middle of the image, so by applying the rule of thirds, I cropped the image to bring the horizon closer to the bottom third of the image, it also tidied up the foreground as there was probably a little too much road in there. A final few tweaks using the dodge, burn and sponge tools to pick out highlights and shadows, and reduce some of the saturation (also learnt from the video tutorial) I was finally happy with the image.

I think a lot of what I’ve done can be repeated on Photoshop Elements, or Lightroom, and its a really useful technique. Now I think I understand photography better, I hope I don’t take too many of these bad shots in the future – but its good to know I can now use Photoshop if I am really struggling!

I’ve tried to not go into too much detail on what I did in Photoshop, as I wasn’t intending on turning this post into a tutorial, but if anyone wants any info the specifics of the tools I used, I’d be more than happy to share the detail – and if I can find an online version of the video tutorial, I will certainly post the link.

Thanks for reading peeps, as usual, and feedback or comments would be greatly appreciated!

Jake

Wireworm.. and not the garden pest variety!

If you google “wireworm”, you get some ugly little centipede/beetle kind of thing – urgh no. If you google “wireworm photoshop” however, the first link you’ll find it an very VERY useful (and free!) plug-in for Photoshop. It takes the pain out of removing those annoying wires and cables that can ruin a photo. I first downloaded this a few weeks ago, but never had much reason to use it – my photos often weren’t worth the effort of removing the wires – they would still look rubbish! But, today, I had a nice photo (in my opinion at least) but the telegraph cables running along the bottom of the image did kind of spoil the shot. So having a bit of spare time this evening I thought i’d give wireworm a shot, and I have to say I was pretty impressed with the end result. Granted, if you zoom right in, I am pretty sure you can still see the “residue” of the poles and cables that i’ve removed – but I think you’d do well to tell in the shot below. With a bit more practice (and patience) I think this tool would be pretty powerful, even for close up examination! I do have another shot of a leopard “ruined” by the cage (thankfully) between me and my subject which I may try to ressurect using wireworm. I’d recommend it to anyone (and no – its not my creation before anyone asks!) who dabbles in Photoshop like I do.

I was dubious about downloading and installing plug-ins onto my already slow laptop, but this one was easy to setup, and worked first time. There are some other examples on the website (link here) which probably show off the power of the tool better than I have, but below is my attempt at playing with it. (I’d also tweaked the colours a bit.. not sure if its better or worse for it though!)  If I get chance to actually do it, I’ll post my attempt with the leopard photo too.

Thanks for reading peeps!

Tantallon Caste, North Berwick and a bit of Photoshop..

       

Right-to-Left : Tantallon Castle, Port Hole View, Tantallon Entrance, Panoramic Composition, Shadows.

My photo of the day was really a toss up, between the Bass Rock, Tantallon Castle, Port Hole View, Tantallon Entrance. In the end I went for the Bass Rock shot as it was one I’ve been wanting to take for a long time, and I think it was actually the best of the bunch anyway. Tantallon Castle is a photo I liked if only for the colour and clearness of the sky. It really made the image stand out (in my opinion anyway) but the reason I didnt chose this as its a pretty “standard shot”. I know Bass Rock is just a “standard shot” too, but it means a bit more to me personally – and I think its a better composition.

Port Hole View was a close second, I couldnt really tell on the camera, but it’s not as sharp in the foreground as I’d wanted, and the background is a bit too fuzzy. I was shooting in the direction of the sun, which wasnt going to help the exposure of the background – perhaps at a different time (earlier in the day maybe) the sun might have been in the other direction and allowed a better shot. This is definitely one of my favourite shots – just a ashame it didnt quiet come out as i’d wanted it to.

Tantallon Entrance is a result of me playing with Photoshop, although it doesnt look like it, it was shot at about 1.30pm. But playing with the gamma settings in Photoshop gave it a really nice look – although admittedly I was just playing around, and wasnt trying to style the image like that intentionally! The reason why I didnt pick this one was because maybe it was too editted – I think I like the idea of playing with the camera settings to get the right shot, instead of using photoshop to make a lot of corrections.

The Panoramic Composition was the result of my not really liking any of the images on their own – their composition wasnt great individually, either too much sky, or too much sea or in the case of the beach shot – too much shadow in the foreground. But by cropping each image and turning them into panoramic shots really did work well. I really do like this final image – and might actually be one I print out. I do need to spent a bit more time on each of the images, making them the same size (each image is slightly different height) for a start! But hey, its Sunday, its dinner time, and the SuperBowl starts in a few hours!

Finally, Shadows is just a mess around shot really that I like the desaturated image off. Again, the lighting at North Berwick gave us extra long shadows which I thought looked pretty cool – but when I got home the shadows weren’t as sharp as i’d have liked and the colours were a bit washed-out, so a bit of playing gave the above result. Not really a fantastic shot, just something a bit more fun I think!

Really enjoyed today, having the chance to get outside more than anything! Maybe just need to perfect the art of getting these shots quickly – especially in this weather as I often found the wife had gone on without me to try and keep warm!

Wow, bit of a long post – they won’t all be this long thats for certain! Thanks for sticking with it (if anyone did!) Feel free to add a comment or any suggestions on how I can improve these shots!

Thanks!

Jake

Feb 3rd edit: I’ve re-done the Panoramic Composition now – it was far to easy to fix, so I’m a bit embarrased I didnt bother first time round! So I’ve removed the old image and put the new version up – also as promised, I’ve printed it out and its now hanging in my office.

Anticipation

Well its almost midnight and I’m still looking around at other people blogs and wanting to post more on here! Its been a while since I’ve been this excited about a project! Can’t wait to get out and get some more shots to post! With a bit of luck the weather clears up tomorrow and I can get out to Tantallon Castle and North Berwick with the wife. Hopefully I can come away with at least 2-3 decent shots!

Spent most of the evening playing with the new blog adding a bit more content to it and playing around with the customisation options. Really starting to get into this – only been doing it for 6 hours!

Welcome

Welcome to 365aphotoaday. 365aphotoaday is a blog where I can share 12 months of photos – one taken every day. It’s really that simple. I’ve never written a blog before, and I’m not even sure if anyone will read it. But here goes…

First things first though – lets clear up any misconceptions! I’m not a photographer. I’m not even a blogger. I’m a geek with a camera. And Photoshop.

I bought my first DSLR (Canon EOS 1100D) in Nov 2013, and i’ve taken plenty of photographs and I love my camera. This blog is for me to showcase my photos to no-one in particular (if anyone) and see where the year takes me. I’m going to try and blog as often as possible – ideally uploading a photo every day – if not bulk uploading. The one thing I hope this doesnt become is a diary. I don’t need a diary. I won’t be telling you how my day went thats for sure! I’ll just try and give a little insight into why I’ve taken todays photo and maybe anything else that’s photo-related.

So with all that being said.. lets give this blogging thing a go!

Thanks for reading.

Jake.