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.

Out in the Sticks

Out in the Sticks.

So today, I was all up for doing a still-life shot. I’ve been out and about quite a bit recently, and I think I’ve explored the local woodland enough for now. However for some reason we’re in the middle of a sunny spell up here (not to rub it in or anything!) and it was bright sunshine again this afternoon, and I thought it’d be a waste to do something indoors. So at lunchtime I grabbed my telefocal lens and headed out with the intention of getting some wildlife shots. I was out for about an hour, and by the end of the hour, I think the wildlife had become used to me and were happy to carry on with their business while I clicked away. So I managed to get some nice shots (which I’ll post up separately). The only issue I had, was shooting the bright sunlight – over-exposure was a problem today!

This little fella was bit shy to start with, I followed him for a little while then lost him. It wasn’t until I was doing a final loop home that I spotted him and his friend clambering up a nearby tree. He was perfectly happy me being about 10-15ft away while he stripped the tree of its bark. This is my favourite shot – mainly because it’s my sharpest shot of him. I know there are few branches covering his face, but still I quite like the final image. I did get some others, but like I mentioned shooting into the sun played a bit of havoc with my camera. Nothing much needed in Photoshop today which I’m quite pleased about. The settings I used to capture this shot were f/5.6, 1/125 sec, and ISO-200 – focal length 300mm.

Thanks for reading – there’ll be another post shortly following this one – then I’m done for the day – promise!

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

 

Winter’s Deer

Winter’s Deer

This is not a great shot. I’m under no illusions that it could be a lot sharper, and the composition improved. But I’m just so excited to have got this shot at all, that it had to be my shot of the day. As usual, this wasnt a planned shot. It wasn’t my intention to go looking for a fawn for todays shot – I was actually on my way to some local ruins I’d found out about. But just as I crossed the road to get there, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this little white thing bobbing away in the undergrowth. I thought it was a dog to start with (our local woodland is dog-walker-central) but I soon spotted it wasn’t. I knew I had to get a better angle, and also swap onto my telefocal lens. So once I was set, I tried to walk up the bank, but must have stepped on every branch possible and by the time I got to the top, I all I could see was this white patch bouncing away out of view. I thought my chance was gone, so continued on to the local ruins and got some shots there. Before heading home, I thought I’d have a quick look down the road to see if I could catch a second glimpse. And that’s when I found him again. (I’m guessing it was a ‘him’!) He was no more than 10-metres away in the thick undergrowth. Again I had switch to my telefocal lens (as I’d swapped back to 18-55mm lens for the shots at the ruins) so quickly got that dialled in and started getting some shots. The problem I faced was that I was losing the light fast, so I was faffing with the settings (natural photographer, I know!) trying to get the shutter speed fast enough so I could reduce the camera shake (as I was at the maximum focal length 300mm) and still get the correct exposure. I managed to get some shots, but nothing that I can argue is sharp. Then my little friend, saw another dog-walker and bolted across the road (luckily its a quiet road) but this time I watched him carefully and managed to follow him until he came to rest. Again I started trying to get some shots, but with the sunshine quick disappearing, and being under the trees the light was pretty low, so I again struggled to get a sharp image – finally managed to get a few before he took off once more – and this time I lost him. I kept looking for him, but to no avail. The woodland by our house is a lot bigger than I ever thought (we’ve only been moved in since the summer, and not really done too much exploring locally!) and I keep finding little treasures nearby, so it’s no real surprise I lost him so quickly.

This was the best shot that I managed to get, but I’ll post up the other shots a little later as I’m quite pleased that I managed to get anything like this at all. I’d known we had some deer in the woodland, but hadn’t seen them since probably late August (even then that was only from quite a distance) so although I’d wanted to get a shot, I was completely surprised to find one today.

Next time, I think I’ll be able to dial in the settings a lot quicker. It doesn’t help that my telefocal lens doesn’t have IS (Image-Stabilization) as it was a kit lens that came with the camera. If I ever upgrade it, I’ll be sure to get one with IS so I can get better shots on the telefocal without my tripod. I also think I need to invest in some ninja lessons. I think I am about a good as an elephant when it comes to sneaking up on things, so I will never get chance to get close to the local wildlife unless I improve my ninja abilities! 🙂

Thanks for taking the time to read todays post everyone.

Jake