Conwy Castle.. at last!!!

I finally got to go for a little photo walk to conway in the evening. Unfortunately it was a little bit later than I would have liked and I was quite restricted by how long I could stay. I did manage however to grab one shot that I liked the look of, granted there are definately elements of the photograph that I would like to change (lampost placement, Dark sky), so a revisit is required. Even so I thought I would share this one with you.

Getting ND10 Exposures Right

After seeing some great shots by a Flickr photographer Ian Branham I was keen to attempt some similar slow shutter exposures during the day using an ND10 filter.

An example of Ian's great work is below:Upon reading the description I rushed down to my local camera shop to purchase the darkest Cokin P Series ND filter I could.

I was informed to stack an ND8 along with my current ND4 to produce a similar effect. This by no means produced the same results and gave a horrible artificial red tinge (OK I know the picture above is black and white but I am sure that it was correctly coloured from the offset). I scratched my head for ages and thought that it must be something that I was doing wrong.

It turns out that this is a common complaint and is summed up perfectly within the following thread/entry:

Cokins not so neutral density filter

I am therefore going to switch to either the B&W filters (as used by Ian, thanks for the info) or the Lee Filters, yet more cost!! Hopefully I will have some results to post soon and will be happy with the output from these.

A useful article that I found for determining the rating of these filters is:

Single Serving Photo - Neutral Density Filters

Chasing The Light - Day Three

My third day of 'Chasing the light', and I think last from this location. Unless I can get hold of a wide angle lense at some point I am farily limited to what shots I can get from the same place all the time. I need to find another good location, Any suggestions would be gratefully accepted.

It was a perfect morning to go down to the woodside Ferry Terminal as a)it was nice and dry and b) HMS Illustrious was docked in Liverpool.

Unfortunately HMS Illustrious is still in the shade quite a bit at this time. On some it obviously shows up better than others.

Chasing the light - Day Two

My second attempt at getting a good shot of the Liverpool waterfront. Another morning another early start (06.30 leaving the house).

Much happier with this one on the whole. I took it from a slightly different location and obviously the sky was far more active than the last image I got. The cloud cover seemed to be pretty low and therefore the clouds were moving quite quickly above me.

Took on the advice offered within Flickr and blog and modified the composition of the blog to change the feel of the photograph.

Very slight adjustment to the image just to add some slight grad to the sky otherwise this is straight out of the camera.

I have some others that I am quite happy with that I will try to get posted soon. This was probably my personal favourite though.



Flickr photo page with larger format image can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7358451@N03/2923227047/

Chasing the light

Yesterday whilst on my way to work there was an amazing sunrise over the Liverpool waterfront. Unfortunately as is alway the case I did not have my camera. It inspired me to get up nice and early and attempt to get the perfect capture of the sunrise behind the Liverpool waterfront, no matter how many attempts it takes. I have seen a book called 'Chasing the light' and to an extent I think that is what I am doing.

I will keep posting my attempts until I get the perfect capture. Please help me by commenting on how the image could be improved. Or by simply passing comment.

My first attempt was made this morning, just before 07:00 am (I had to get out of the house for 06:30 to get this). Unfortunately there was no dramtic sunrise just the gradual change in sky colour. I quite like the cool blues of the image, it is by no means the image I am after though. I actually think that the buildings aren't as sharp as they should be as the tripod took a bit of wind on the Seacombe front. I'll take a weight with me next time.

Watch this space, for more (hopefully better captures).

Marc