Boston Waterway (HDR)

Back in Spring 08 I took a week off, and took myself off for one fine day up to Boston, in Lincolnshire, to take advantage of the sunny blue skies. It was – as is normal for me – a day of experimentation, and this picture is fairly nondescript (I think)  in terms of both composition and subject. But it was a great sky and I thought it would make a useful tester for when I got around to doing some HDR techniques. And so it proved:

Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm EX lens at 12mm, 1/400 sec at f 16, ISO 200, hand held no flash. Great shooting conditions. Triple processed in Photoshop CS3’s Raw converter (exposed at zero, -1, +1.5), then HDR processed in Photomatix Pro, then resized and sharpened in Pain Shop Pro. Yes, a clunky procedure but you should see my fingers flying over the keys, it’s like watching Rick Wakeman. Anyway, the result’s pretty pleasing to the eye, and more or less a technical success. By the way, I absolutely don’t mind about the VW Golf parked across the water, this wasn’t meant to be art, and it’ll certainly never go up before a panel of judges…

Dogs in Darkness

Lazy Saturday night in for me and Marie, but nobody told our two puppies. So what was meant to be a cosy evening in with a DVD or two ended up as a play session with the dogs. This was taken with a powerful flash gun, aimed directly at them – which made the background go almost pitch black. A bit of work in Levels later, and here we have the finished, slightly Marxist, image of a couple of bouncy little Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, planning their revolution…

Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm EX lens at 10mm, 1/60 sec at f 5.6, ISO 200, hand held with flash. This was pretty much as it came out of the camera, I darkened a touch but I was in experimental mode and found that aiming the SB-800 flash straight at them created this striking, low-key portrait effect.

Paw Show

Here’s Beefy the cat, taking up a strong defensive position against our two dogs:

Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm EX lens at 20mm, 1/60 sec at f 5.6, ISO 200 hand held with flash. Location: under the sideboard in the hallway.

An Incredible Photo Blog

Now this is what I’m talking about:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_year_2008_in_photographs_p.html

No one person could put together a blog like that, of course, but that doesn’t diminish Boston.com’s claim to have produced the greatest photo blog – ever.

Old Shep’s Funeral – Part Two

On Friday 5th December, 2008, we travelled as a family to Barnsley Crematorium to say a final farewell to Ken Shepherd, Marie’s beloved granddad. ‘Old Shep’ would have been happy with where we went afterwards, and what we did. Here’s Marie’s dad, John, traversing the difficult South Face of The Midland Working Men’s Club, in Royston. Fine beer-carrying technique:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm lens at 42mm, 1/60 sec at f 5.6, ISO 1000, hand held with flash, shot in mono. For all shots I used the Nikon 24-70mm, which is ideal for this sort of close-quarters, indoor family gathering. Shooting in mono gives the images a nice newsy feel. Note John’s wife, Bev, seemingly growing out of his right shoulder. Not an ideal composition, and I could have cloned her out in Photoshop, but then John’s always complaining that Bev is constantly on his back…

And here is Bev, with the delightful Uncle Eric – Old Shep’s brother. Eric lives in a foreign land, namely Wakefield, but occasionally pops down Barnsley way to see how the lower classes live. He’s a polite, very sprightly young man and full of character.

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm lens at 35mm, 1/500 sec at f 2.8, ISO 1600, hand held with flash to fill in, shot in mono. I use a Nikon SB-800 flashgun and I was – as always – experimenting with the settings. They were well backlit by the window (although the weather was dull), so I used the soft filter and angled the flash upwards to keep the light well balanced. To be honest, flash photography is one major area that I need to work on, and one day I aim to get myself off on a course – preferably one aimed at Nikon users with the SB flashguns. It’s very technical, and I have only scratched the surface despite having most of the kit for over a year now.

Below, I captured the emotional scenes when Old Shep’s widow, Jean, actually stopped talking for one precious moment in time. Marie’s brother, Craig, is both disbelieving and cynical (sure enough, it only lasted half a second), his granddad Ralph (partially obscured) is clearly ecstatic, and grandma Annie Oakley simply burst out laughing with sheer joy:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm lens at 58mm, 1/160 sec at f 2.8, ISO 1600, hand held with flash, shot in mono. Great high-ISO performance from the D300 as always. I’ve sharpened the pic in Paint Shop Pro, as usual, but that’s the essence of digital photography – in my opinion. Modern kit gives you all the help you need, both when shooting and in post production, and there’s no real excuse for an out of focus picture any more. But you still have to be there, you have to frame the shot, and you have to have the trust of your friends and subjects, so that they act naturally.

Here’s Jean back to normal:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm lens at 70mm, 1/60 sec at f 7.1, ISO 200, hand held with flash, shot in mono. This came out much darker due to the low ISO, so it needed some simple work in Levels to brighten it up. Note the evidence, in the foreground, of what the day’s main activity was. Not all of these glasses were Jean’s, although by the end of the afternoon she needed the help of three strong men to get her into the car.

Here’s John, Marie’s dad, wisely not commenting on Jean’s never-ending opinions:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm lens at 66mm, 1/60 sec at f 7.1, ISO 400, hand held with flash, shot in mono. When Marie saw this, she said: “Look at his ear, it’s like Plasticine.” John’s famous in the family for having a head formed from rubbery materials, particularly in the lipular area (see beer-carrying pic above). Marie’s inherited the lips, which was a bonus for me.

Our boy Devon and his granddad John snuck off for long periods to the pool table. I got so many good pics of them (mainly of Devon taunting his granddad), that I might do a separate blog at some point. In this picture, I think John strikes a suitably funereal pose, as Devon sinks yet another Stripe:

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm lens at 29mm, 1/320 sec at f 3.5, ISO 1600, hand held no flash, shot in mono. I scraped through mainly without flash in the pool room, although most of the pool table shots will need sharpening considerably before they go on view. The above pic was representative, of average sharpness, but as always even at ISO 1600 there’s enough crispness in there thanks to the excellent 24-70mm lens on the D300 body. I like how the light strikes Devon in this picture.

Just before we all went our separate ways, the kind lady behind the bar cleared a space for us all to stand, and I got up on a Midland WMC chair to take this family group photo. So sad that Ken Shepherd himself couldn’t be in the picture, but then he’d stood at this particular bar many, many a time and we all felt his presence in the room – in a good way.

Nikon D300, Nikon 24-70mm lens at 24mm, 1/60 sec at f 7.1, ISO 400, hand held with flash, shot in mono. From left, we have:

Marie Hiseman (born Oakley, my wife), Denise (grandma Jean’s friendly next door neighbour), Joe (Jean’s grandson), grandma Jean Shepherd (Old Shep’s widow), Marie’s dad John Oakley (making a sarcastic remark about photographers taking too many pictures), Marie’s mum Bev Oakley (Old Shep’s daughter), old family friend John, Marie’s Auntie Linda (her dad’s sister), our boy Devon, generous grandma Anne and turbocharged grandad Ralph ‘Byyyy… Turn That Heating Down Annie’ Oakley, and finally Marie’s brother Craig Oakley, owner of Shafton’s least appropriate (but most handsome) pet dog, Marley the insane husky.

One of the better days, we all agreed, and the memory of Ken Shepherd will never fade in the many people who were lucky enough to know him.

See Part One from this day HERE.

Rutland Rock Star

To clear out the cobwebs on Jan 2nd we visited The Rockblok rock climbing centre at Rutland Water’s Whitwell centre. Devon did three laps of the sky circuit and went up and down the climbing wall a couple of times. He was his element:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 82mm, 1/250 sec at f 5, ISO 400, hand held no flash. For this quick trip I used the Nikon 18-200 VR superzoom, which is a perfect all-round lens for a family day out. Devon loved the harness and wants to go back to Rockblok every day now.

Here’s the big wall with part of the sky circuit on the right. Spot the 8 yr old making his first ever ascent: 

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 18mm, 1/250 sec at f 8, ISO 200, hand held no flash.

In the pic below, note that Devon’s wearing no gloves. Given it was very cold (3 degrees), he did pretty well to get up and down the wall twice before announcing that he’d lost all feeling in his fingers:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 112mm, 1/400 sec at f 8, ISO 200, hand held no flash. Like most photographers I live in pursuit of nice crisp pictures, and for a relatively budget ’superzoom’ lens, the Nikon 18-200 really delivers. At the start we had some lovely light and the above tack-sharp photo needed nothing other than a quick sharpen in Paint Shop Pro.

This one almost has a studio-like quality:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 65mm, 1/320 sec at f 5, ISO 200, hand held no flash. Paint Shop Pro has a nifty (and simple to use) ‘Clarify’ function which I often use to give a quick injection of character to photographs. You can produce much more refined results using Levels in Photoshop, or by adding some HDR in Photomatix for example, but cheap and cheerful old Paint Shop Pro is great for ‘quick fixes’, especially if you’re producing images for the web.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for Devon up on the ropes:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 150mm, 1/100 sec at f 5.6, ISO 640, hand held no flash. Here’s an example of that ‘Clarify’ command at work.  By this time we’d got him a pair of gloves…

Just in case you thought it all looks too easy, here’s how high it was:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 18mm, 1/1600 sec at f 4, ISO 200, hand held no flash. Up there with Devon is the excellent Rockblok instructor, Richard. You buy a certain amount of time, and Richard had told us most young kids get around twice within the time, but sometimes they manage a third. Devon, bless him, managed three easily and would have gone for thirty three, but by that time his Grandad John, Grandma Bev and mum Marie had begun to ‘chelp’ about how cold it was. His faithful Andydad, on the other hand, was itching for a go himself… so next time it’ll be Man and Boy up there.

Devon gives us hell most holiday days, which consist of regular portions of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Drake & Josh, The Wizards Of Waverly Place and (although he doesn’t admit to it), a whole lot of Hannah Montana. That, and man-sized portions of PlayStation 3 (we’re into Little Big Planet now). So it was great to get outside for some real activity at Rockblok. He absolutely loved it: 

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 65mm, 1/1000 sec at f 5, ISO 200, hand held no flash. This is a close crop from Lap One of the sky circuit. Note the difference in confidence levels in the picture below, which is from Lap Three – by which time he was spending some quality time scuttling along using the pulley, feet hanging in space, and to hell with ropes (which are, after all, for kids…):

 Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 135mm, 1/1000 sec at f 5.6, ISO 800, hand held no flash. I’d switched to spot metering by this time, and was exposing for his face. It had grown more dull, and we’d lost the blue sky.

Here’s the main man simply swinging around:

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 150mm, 1/1000 sec at f 5.6, ISO 800, hand held no flash. 

It was a great half hour for Devon, and good practice for me

Here he is afterwards with his new-found mate, Richard.

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 35mm, 1/500 sec at f 4.2, ISO 800, hand held no flash.

So now we can add Rock Climbing to Hip Hop, Karate, Guitar Lessons, Football Practice and Golf Lessons… One day, he might actually finish something