Tag Archives: wales

Friday Image

Friday Image No. 123

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Penmon, Anglesey, North Wales. Nikon D800, 18-35mm lens, ISO100, 1/15" @ f/16.0
Penmon, Anglesey, North Wales. Nikon D800, 18-35mm lens, ISO100, 1/15″ @ f/16.0

I find it odd that I can seldom pick my best work immediately after a shoot. In fact, I find I often need to leave a batch of images at least 6 months before I can pick the ones I’m happiest with. Often, as is the case with this image, I need to leave the files alone for a couple of years.

I shot this image back in October 2014 when I had my brief experiment with the Nikon D800. Some of you might remember this and how I hated the camera. I now find some of the image were quite good although the lens distortion from the lenses I was using was significant. I suspect my feelings for the camera distorted my view of the images as much as the poor-quality lens.

This image was shot at Penmon on Anglesey in North Wales. I used a 2 stop ND grad to darken the sky. The post processing was performed in Lightroom to convert the RAW file and then On1 Photo RAW. I remember waiting for ages at the time for the man to walk in front of the house so that I could capture him cleanly. I’m not sure if you can see him as it will depend on the resolution of your screen but I wanted him there.

Have a great weekend and I hope you get out with your camera.

Digital Photography, Friday Image

Friday image No.041

10 Comments

Rough Seas. Olympus EM5. See text for details of settings.

I did wonder whether to post this shot or not. If you look hard at the image you find it feels cluttered. It isn’t a great composition (because there wasn’t much to compose). It’s also a grab shot.

You see I shot this whilst spending ages fighting with the Nikon D800 on a tripod. I couldn’t get into position on very slippery seaweed covered rocks. In the end, in total frustration I fired off this shot with the Olympus EM5 which was over my shoulder.

You shouldn’t be able to handhold shots like this at sunset, but you can with the EM5. The base ISO is 200 (as used here). The lens is the superb Olympus 12-40 f/2.8 set at 12mm. The aperture was f/4.0 giving a shutter speed of 1/60″. And yes, it is sharp and has sufficient depth of field. Try that with a full frame camera.

I should also add that I used a 0.6 (2 stop) neutral density graduated filter on the sky. It was one of the Lee Seven 5 series which I am very impressed with.

Now as cluttered as the scene is, it also conveys the feeling of a stormy sea well. It also has some great light on the water. It’s this feeling of stormy light that comes across to me every time I look at the image. So whilst it may not be an accomplished photographic composition I think the image works well because it has emotion – at least for me.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Digital Photography, Friday Image, Printing

Friday image No.039

19 Comments

Rock at Aberdaron, Wales

This week’s Friday image was shot on my trip to Wales last week. It was 10:00 in the morning on Saturday and the rain was coming down hard from the dark sky. My friend checked the weather forecast and announced the weather would clear at 11:00 and that we should leave now to be ready for the storm breaking. I didn’t believe the forecast but agreed.

At 11:00 there was a break in the clouds and within 30 minutes the sun was breaking through the storm as predicted (Ed, if your reading this well done. All that new computer kit at the Met Office is paying off). As usual when a rain front breaks you get dramatic lighting and this was no exception. We raced over to the small coastal town of Aberdaron where we thought the light on the beach would be interesting; we weren’t wrong.

At the time I had the camera set to shoot in black and white as there wasn’t much colour from the contrasty lighting. To make the image more interesting a 6 stop Lee ND filter was used which gave a shutter speed of around 1 second. The image above represents pretty much my vision for the finished image (which by the way hasn’t had a lot of processing). It wasn’t until I saw the colour version that I realised there was a better option. Printing the two images at A4 the black and white looks good until you compare it side by side with the colour version. At A3 and larger the colour image is particularly impressive.

Let me know if you agree the colour version is better and have a great weekend.

Rock at Aberdaron, Wales