[Blut00]

October 6, 2012 at 3:55 pm

Mental allright. Very clever photoshopping.

[Blut00]

September 20, 2012 at 6:10 pm

Super macro’s, love the spider shot.
I’d like to know more about the soft-box you’re using.

[Blut00]

September 10, 2012 at 9:05 pm

Love the last picture, the smiles are infectious.
well done on all 4 smiling and looking at the camera.

[Blut00]

September 10, 2012 at 8:57 pm

Thanks Brendan, glad you like it.

Jason, had a look at that guy’s website, impressive alright. I think you’re right, this country and it’s climate are probably less suited for long exposure/night photography but therein lies the challenge.

[Blut00]

September 9, 2012 at 3:04 pm

Lovely shot Brendan.

Not content with influencing me to add a Metz 58 to my wishlist, I now need Lee filters……..fast.

[Blut00]

September 9, 2012 at 2:53 pm

Great light and clouds.

I’d also like to see it without the blurred effect.

[Blut00]

September 9, 2012 at 2:51 pm

Thanks guys.

Spent half an hour looking for this fella, he was sitting there quite happy to pose……only got 5 shots before my 3 year sons got a lock on my location and came stomping over.

[Blut00]

September 9, 2012 at 2:47 pm

Thanks for your comments.

Dave, tips for night photography……putting me on the spot here.

-I normally use my (cheap) tripod as low as possible to avoid any shake, no straps swinging in the breeze.
-Mirror locked up and use either a remote release or 2sec timer, again to avoid shake. None of my lenses have IS/VC but I guess it should be turned off when mounted on a tripod.
-Going against normal landscape convention, I would close down only 1 stop from wide open to sharpen-up.
-I saw a discussion somewhere here regarding manual focusing, back a shade from infinity seems to do the trick for my wide angle. For other types of shot, just guess the hyperfocal distance and use the dial on your focus ring.
-Composition, again I seen a tip somewhere here from Jenny, lens wide open, highest ISO and fire a shot for a couple of seconds until you’ve got your composition right.

To my mind there are 3 main variables when you’re shooting –
Exposure Time
Aperture
ISO
I tend to fix the exposure time and vary the other 2, I think using 3 variables lessens your control over what’s happening and you’ll get lost, this is important if you’re dealing with changing light, clouds etc as there is so much time between exposures.

I’ve watched a few tutorials on really long exposures and I’d love to give it a try, 30 or 40 minutes………..hours even. The results look fantastic but I haven’t been brave enough to try it yet, I’d love to hear from someone who has…………what do you do when standing in the middle of nowhere, in the dark with your camera shutter open for 40 minutes?

I hope there is something useful here that falls into the ‘tips’ category.

……..nearly forgot, RAW!!! Shoot RAW……only RAW :-)

[Blut00]

September 8, 2012 at 1:46 pm

Without post

[Blut00]

September 8, 2012 at 10:02 am

Thanks John, I’ll have a go at removing it later and post the result.

Thanks Niall, That was taken at 22:14, Only hung around for about 10 minutes after that, once the moon cleared the clouds I couldn’t expose the stars correctly without burning highlights.

[Blut00]

September 6, 2012 at 9:10 pm

Fantastic Picture, just want to climb in.

[Blut00]

July 12, 2012 at 7:58 am

Alsace by Blut00, on Flickr

Thanks Alan,
OK, the pylons were easy, did a bit on the barrel distortion, as much as I could without loosing too much.
Yeah I love the second one, A real ‘Smash & Grab’, I passed that field the previous day and regretted not stopping so yesterday I did just that. Only had a couple of minutes but got X3 types of shot I had planned….wife and kids sitting in the car is a great incentive to get the shots and get out of there:-)

[Blut00]

July 11, 2012 at 8:12 pm

Le Sunflower by Blut00, on Flickr

Thanks guys, here’s another flavour of summer from this afternoon.

[Blut00]

June 29, 2012 at 9:59 am

Wow!!!

Great capture and I love the colours.

[Blut00]

June 20, 2012 at 11:51 am

Hi David,

Alan covered all your options there, I would love a dedicated macro lens like his Canon 100mm L IS but I’ll have to settle for macro extension tubes for the moment.

€50 including postage for a set of 3 tubes, 13mm, 21mm & 31mm. I would advise you go for ‘AF’ tubes that support auto-focus and TTL (even when manually focusing, AF confirm is very useful). These tubes have metal contacts that maintain the electronic/electrical connection between body and lens for the functions I’ve already mentioned but probably the most important function is aperture control, without electronic/electrical connection to your lens, it will always shoot wide open, resulting and a very shallow DOF…………….which is already challenging in macro photography.
Unless you intend using a fully manual lens, I would rule out the use of bellows……….for the reasons above.

I only have my macro tubes for a little over a month, so I’m speaking here from limited experience.
I seem to always use the 31mm tube with a 28-75 f2.8 at the long end f11 and above, I’ve also used a 18-200mm at the long end…..with some good results. I tried a 50mm prime with all combinations of the tubes and very quickly binned that idea.
I’m still experimenting, but a Speedlite seems to do the trick most of the time, I have an LED macro ring-flash but that has produced mixed results……..so far!!

Hope this is of some help.