Serengeti Morning

I was working on some of my Tanzania photos this past week as part of a project I’m putting together with my oldest child. One of our safari drives in the Serengeti was an early morning one that allowed me to take a few sunrise photos. I’ve never really taken a lot of sunrise photos and I think that shows when you compare them with other types of photos that I have taken. This file below though is one that I just revisited and reprocessed that I was pretty happy with:

ISO 2500 f/14 1/60sec 22mm

To me, one of the biggest challenges of sunrise photos is that the real thing is pretty spectacular and that can be hard to capture in camera. I’ll keep working at it though! This particular file was taken in December 2017 with a Canon 50D and a wide-angle lens. Another photo that I processed this week with the same set-up and for this same process I posted here.

Added to Lens Artist Photo Challenge, Morning. This made for a great challenge topic for me this week.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Morning

In the morning, you can often find me outside.  I love being out in the light and quiet of the early part of the day.  I’ve just moved over this summer, and so my landscape has changed.  Meet one of my new neighbors:

ISO 100 155mm f/13 1/100

Between the two lakes I visit in the morning, there are five adult swans.  There are plenty of other birds and the beautiful haze of morning light.  I don’t usually take my camera with me first thing, I’m out for my morning run or walk just soaking in the day, not yet photographing it.  Yesterday morning, I made an exception, I went out with my camera before going out for my run.  I got a few photos of these swans, I took them from several angles so the light looks different in them.  This particular one, I shot into the sun.  I wanted the saturated light of the sun to be in the photo.  What I lost by doing that was detail in the swan.  To bring back some of that detail when I was editing in Photoshop, I duplicated the original layer.  The bottom layer I sharpened.  The top layer I put a mask on and then masked back in some of the details in the swan.  This meant that the more hazy feel of the light could stay in the photo.  Then I cropped the photo, because as you will see below, this swan was not by himself:

ISO 100 155mm f/13 1/100

To me, these edits made a pretty radical difference.  To be honest, I’m not sure which I prefer.  The second seems more like a snapshot and the green near the second swan just kind of bugs me.  But the overall feel of the light I do like in the second photo.  There is another photo from this series that I am editing that I am having a similar struggle; I’m just not sure which version of the photograph I prefer.

Do you run into this with your photography, having difficulty picking between two versions of an image?  What do you think of my versions, do you have a preference? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Good Morning!

This photo was shot on a sunny morning over the summer.  I pulled it out of my archives in part to re-edit it.  In my Photoshop class we have covered split toning and I thought this image might be a good candidate for that.  Here is the edited version:

ISO 200 50mm f/5.6 1/250

Here is the original photo:

ISO 200 50mm f/5.6 1/250

Split toning can be done in Camera Raw if you have Photoshop.  Basically what I have done is first convert the image to grayscale.  Split toning then allows you to bring a hint of color back into your photo.  In this case I set the hue slider to yellow and bumped up the saturation until I go the image that you see.  I then sharpened the image a bit.

Photoshop is not the only editing software that has split toning.  If you are interested in knowing a bit more about the topic I would recommend this blog post by Sonel.  I have provided a link to a post she wrote about a month ago where she explains in some detail how it works.  She has also included screen shots of her process which are very informative.

This post was written in part as a response to the WordPress weekly photo challenge which has the theme, Good Morning!

Thanks for stopping by, feel free to leave a comment about split toning or my image in the comments below.

Cheers!

Another Frosty Morning Photo

I was out a few days ago taking frost pictures. Today’s picture I decided to edit in black and white.  Yesterday’s photo was in color, but I thought black and white would be a better choice for this spent dandelion stem:

 

Since there was a lot of frost on the ground and I really wanted to draw attention to the stem, I cropped this photo pretty severely, making it more of a panorama style image.

The original image was shot using a bracketed exposure.  In this case -1, 0, and 1.  I combined the three images into one using Photomatix.  Photomatix gave me several black and white options, but I chose this one because I thought it gave the image enough sparkle without being over done.  Then I did my cropping and sharpening in Aperture.

So what do you think?  I welcome your comments below!

Cheers!

Fun with Frost

It was chilly here this morning, so I went out to take a frost photo:

ISO 100 50mm -1ev f/2.8 1/200

This was a exposure bracketed photo that I then edited in Photomatix.  I was trying to get as much detail of the frost as possible.

Cheers!

This Goat Has A Beard

Promise, it does,

ISO 500 44mm f/4 1/125

it just isn’t in the picture.  I was trying to get as many people as possible out of the background.  So no beard in this photo.  The other distracting factor was my youngest screeching about how another goat was going to eat all my stuff.  I don’t know if some people can manage that decibel level at 8am, but I can’t.  The goats didn’t seem to care.

I did lighten this up a bit in post-editing.  I think I should have tried the shade setting in WB, and the photo might have been better straight out of the camera.

Cheers!

Best of the Morning Walk

ISO 100 85mm f/5.6 1/5 tripod

Yes, this photo has some post-editing done to it.  I messed with the color and cropped the photo.  I was surprised that the color in camera came out a bit washed out looking.  It was cloudy out, so I thought the light would be pretty good.  Any suggestions on shooting on cloudy days?

Had to make a quick exit as well, the skies opened up just minutes later.

Cheers!

Gorilla in the Garden

I guess technically it is supposed to look more like a jungle or something like that as opposed to a garden, but you have to have a catchy title right?  These photos were shot in the morning, under an overcast sky.  I haven’t done any post editing, what kind might you do with these photos?

ISO 100 135mm f/7.1 1/8

What I like about the one above is that the gorilla was looking at the camera.

ISO 100 127mm f/7.1 1/6

The “problem” with both pictures is that you can tell the gorilla is behind a plastic-like window.  The result is that the color isn’t great.

ISO 640 135mm f/5.6 1/50

This one I like the color better, but you can still see the reflection of the enclosure.

What settings would you use in this situation?

Cheers!

When all else fails, check the blog

In this case I am not talking about checking the blog to avoid cleaning the house or doing the laundry.  I’m saying that one of the reasons I started this blog was to keep track of what settings I have tried in my camera, what worked, and what I should try next.  Part of the thinking was that I am not good at remembering numbers, so I’ll just consult my own blog, then go set up the camera. Brilliant!

So, this morning I stumble outside, set up the camera, come back in, start morning tea,deal with offspring, take a few pictures, turn on computer, check blog, see that the settings I used this morning, I have used like a million other times, sigh.  Sometimes, I am  tempted to brew the tea a bit stronger, maybe that would help.

I am posting this picture in part because I love these shades of the color of blue.  Not a great picture of the bird, but a pretty good blue.  Also, a gentle reminder to self, try something different tomorrow:

ISO 400 60mm f4.5 1/125

Cheers!

Overrun with life and I haven’t even left my yard

This bunny is responsible for starting the morning madness:

ISO 200 135mm f/7.1 1/125

Out to eat in the yard, so I have to try and sneak up on it.  Didn’t get too close.  But then I found this:

ISO 200 135mm f/7.1 1/125

This is a handheld image.  I didn’t have the tripod out this morning because I was “too busy”.  OK, or not, or yes I am busy, but that other stuff is going to have to wait.  I’m dashing back inside for the tripod and shutter release to take some more pictures before the light is gone and I also have to be moving on.

ISO 100 135mm f/29 1/2

ISO 100 120mm f/22 1/2

Thoughts on the three egg photos? Do you have a favorite?

So, I got some photos and my youngest made it to school on time. Yippee!

Cheers!