Trawling for landscapes #2 - Tidbinbilla

Dunno if this really counts as a landscape, but I took it with that intention so it is! Again around midday (ARGH!), again 10-20mm, again same old composition,albeit with a slight macro twist. Fiddled with it in post. Focus ain't spot on and I'm workin' off a jpg. I dunno how people make money from landscape photography. Honestly I have less than 10 landscape photos that I'm happy with in the last 3 odd years of owning this camera.

Trawling for landscapes - earlier this year

Taken out near Broken Hill on our drive back to Adelaide for Xmas. This is the best of 12, still needs composition work as it looks boring. Has anyone done a landscape course and is it worth it? Or am I just using the 10-20mm all wrong? Also could someone tell me if my blues are verging too much on purple? They look fine on my big monitor but a little to purple on my el-cheapo secondary. I get the feeling the spyder2express doesn't work too well on wide gamut monitors.

A Wedding

The practice day before

An opportunity arose to do a wedding for friends in Brisbane. Luckily I got the day before to check out the venue and do all the "details" photos as the day itself was hectic, comprising of

1) the "engagement party"
2) the surprise wedding
3) the reception

yes, a surprise wedding! Most guests were blown away, stoked, looking for the candid camera etc. The practice day had the most gorgeous sunset and wispy clouds, it was near perfect. I was hoping for the same on the day itself, but it was overcast, good for no blown highlights, but took a bit of effort in post to add colour and punch, plus it meant running the D200 up to 400 ISO, which ain't the best setting for it. I really think its time for a new body something that's smooth and creamy up to 1200-1600 ISO plus I'm well over 1/2 way on the D200 shutter anyway.



Gotta love that graduated filter in Lightroom, lets you bring a little more contrast in clouds etc



I thought I was crazy to have 3 flashes at the reception, two off camera remotes via wireless radio triggers as well as slaving off an on-camera commander with ttl slaves. but it was great. I could fill a space with light and just wander around.



80-200mm f2.8 worked a treat but really could have done with something that focused faster. SAVE SAVE SAVE.

Thanks to Claire, and the OCAU boys for loan of their gear.

And thanks to Tiff and Michael for trusting me with their special day.

National War Memorial - what not to do

Had a chance to go to the War Memorial on a sunny day (a change from the last 3 weeks in Canberra). Took this photo which was a learning/remembering exercise in what not to do.

1) Don't photomograph at midday - why do you forget these things?
2) Don't hesitate when photomographing unless it contravenes 3).
3) Don't photomograph people if you don't feel you should - especially children, as you will contravene 2) whilst trying to decide if you should/shouldn't have them in focus.
4) Don't photomograph from your boring eyelevel of 5'10", it's only really interesting for the wee people

So conceptually 5/10 for me, but perhaps a 3/10 for resulting excution.

Foriade 2009

Clearing a back log of photos, here are some from the nice days at Floriade 2009... should have gone in with a specific photo in mind rather than "I'd like some floral stuff for the walls"

Umbrella Jo - a new recruit.

It feels like I've been doing wedding photos forever, so I needed a quick assignment to keep me thinking creatively. Inspiration came from this, though it was very clear very quickly that I needed a big ass shade to diffuse the light as they have.

I got a moment with Umbrella Jo to try a bit of outdoor portraiture. I think I need to switch to shoot-thru brollies as I'm losing way too many light stops using bounce flash. Plus I think I need a bigger brollie to spread out the light and be able to get it further from the subject without it acting like a point light source. Also a reflector/shade wouldn't go astray in the midday conditions as was when we shot. In post, I opted for as different as possible rather than theme. I've been feeling and as Jo so rightly pointed out, I've been using post as a crutch for bad photography, so I'm on a mission to tighten my shot discipline.

I can see a limitation of the 80-200mm f2.8. At longer focal lengths and f-stops below 3.5, it's soft soft soft. But between 80-160mm at f3.5+ you could cut glass. Not too shabby for 20 year old tech.

A postscript to this entry is 3 days later Jo broke her nose at a game of full contact netball. In a conversation soon after the incident, she said what I was thinking "Thank god we got those photos before I broke my doze". Hey she said it! I was just thinking it!

One for the ladies... Poppies

Taking a break from wedding photo PP, thought I'd crack one out. Two flashes, one main, direct on the top flower with a tight beam focus on the SB900 and another secondary gridded snoot behind left of the two lower yellow flowers. Exposure care of Nikon CLS iTTL, 0.0 FEV on main and -0.3 FEV on secondary. would like a 3rd flash (maybe a ring) on front with -3.0 FEV for some slight fill, but didn't want to use onboard camera flash as working distance was too close and lens would cast a shadow.

FYI: 90mm macro, stop f32, note diffraction softening in exchange for DOF, brought back in post with sharpening to a limited degree. Black point raised to make sure background was black black and to add to contrast.