Trying out a new combination of an old Vivitar 3x converter I just acquired and Pentax 100mm macro to create a 300mm f/8 macro lens. It lets you get really close (from a distance) Here’s one of the shots of a needle and cotton thread, photographed against the bristles of a cleaning brush that came with a food blender.
An interesting evening started out at this post box on the road over to Thorpe Salvin. I’d been considering shooting this for a few weeks, and tonight the sky was right.
The only thing I hadn’t taken into consideration was cars. The post box is on a B road but I didn’t think it would be busy. I proceeded to shoot my series of 30sec intervals. I’d set up the Pentax K10D with the 12-24mm pointing upwards at the post box and made a first exposure with my Joby torch. On the second shot a car past and illuminated the post box, and field beyond. The torch wasn’t powerful enough to light the field so the car came in handy. It flooded the post box with light though.
So a bit of layer masking I could merge the car headlight illuminated field and the torch lit post box, the frames where blended using StarStaX.
I’d planned to shoot a one hour set but the timer I was using started playing up so I decided to quite early and go off to a new location.
I chose Clumber Park. Totally spooky out of the way location and in the evening in total darkness i could hear the sort of noises you hear in those horror films where a group of teenagers decided to camp out and all get slaughtered one by one. With my imagination running wild I decided it best if I didn’t stay around long, but I did get an interesting shot that I’ll post in the gallery.
Its low in the sky and despite the time of year still quite warm – I’m talking about the sun. And this shot is direct into the sun with a leaf in the foreground photographed using the infrared converted Pentax *ist D and 16-45mm zoom. I processed in lightroom to convert the red tone to brown – the flare is natural.
I grew a tomato plant this year but then neglected it so never picked the baby toms. They’re still hanging on in there several months later! I took this photo of a clump using an infrared converted Pentax *ist D and 50mm f/1.4 and processed in Lightroom to give a black & white look.
A 5m high sculpture in front of Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium. I drove past and spotted a car boot sale outside the stadium, so went to see what was on offer. I found one stall selling magazines and was attracted to the cover of one with two free cover mount CDs. The cover had an Opeth taster, and a guy who looked Goth like. His head covered the name of the magazine so you could just see “Ter” and “er” I bought it for £1…I’m now the owner of a death metal mag with two cds of pure hell!
But back to the reason for today’s blog…the sculpture, by Andy Scott was catching the light well, so I used the iphone with Hipstamatic to record the view. Please with how it’s recorded the background clouds.
A quick snap of my web cam I got fixed up to start testing hangout style options for future epz connectivity.
I was also playing with a 50mm f/1.4 lens at full aperture. More of this type to come. I processed in Lightroom and gave it the B&W creative Selenium tone preset
It reminds me of some security camera on a wall…they’re watching!
Things are progressing well in the cinema build. The floor has been laid and a lower wall erected, along with some of the internal structure.
A cut out of matchstick men from paper and placed on an acrylic sheet with a light pointing up from below to illuminate them. Taken with Olympus E-P2 and 14-42mm lens in Art mode and grainy black & white setting.
Tonight was interesting. I spent an hour and half in complete darkness on the moors. It was very cold, but I had a rug and coat and ePHOTOzine hat to warm me up.
Why? To photograph my first proper star trail…and it’s going to be addictive. I used the Olympus EP-2 as the Pentax K20D is not fast enough at processing. You need to shoot 30-60sec exposures in succession. The K20D needs time to process between shots. The Olympus allows an instant shot after shot. I had to manually focus and it was near on impossible, but I managed. I don’t have a remote timer for the Olympus so I just sat and waited for 60 seconds for each shot and repressed the shutter. I took 66 shots.
When I got home I first created an animation in Photoshop, and then created this star trail using an action to speed things up. I’m pleased with the result.
The animation below has loads of aircraft passing through the shot, but these have been missed off in the image stack.
