Classic Car Sparkle
Topaz Labs have released another great little plug-in – Star Effects. They seem to like to build plug-ins that are focussed on a particular area (detail, black and white, lens effects etc). The good news with this approach is that the price-point is much lower than with more integrated plug-ins, like Nik Software’s [...]
Drown the Gown
Have you heard of the “trash the dress” concept or in this case “drown the gown”? Basically, it is taking photographs (usually of a bride) as she wades into the water, dives into the surf of any other manner of water-based “damage”.What I like about the style of it is the sense of drama you [...]
OnOne Software PhotoSuite 6 – On Sale
I use OnOne Software tools because they make it really easy to quickly produce exciting effects. One of my favorite tools in the suite is FocalPoint 2 which allows to you recreate blur in a way that accurately reflects real lenses. You can select the mode of lens you want, for example the Canon 50mm [...]
Capturing Insect Macros
This little bee was quietly feasting on the nectar; nice and peaceful at the end of the day. I used my 100mm f2.8 macro on this one. You can take these photos hand-held but really the tripod does help. It allows you more creativity in terms of ISO and Aperture. My tripod has [...]
Black and White Long Exposure
For this long exposure shot I used the rocks in the sea as a counterpoint. For the lens I used the 24-105mm at the long end. Again the key is to focus on manual before attaching the ND filter. If you don’t have a camera release cable then set it for a 2 second delay; [...]
Long Exposure Fun
I’ve been having some fun with long exposures using an ND8 filter. The trick is to take a photo which has movement but also some static, solid objects (like rocks). It pretty much goes without saying that you need a tripod for making these photographs! With the camera set on the tripod I [...]
A little drama
A bit of drama! This photo was taken using natural light, there was just enough to light the face. This is another great example of the Canon 7D’s low-light capabilities, any noise cleaned-up with Noiseware. I really hope that the makers of Noiseware bring-out a 64-bit version of this super plug-in soon. It’s my favourite [...]
Long Exposure Drama
Usually I like realistic looking images but this time I thought I’d get a bit more “creative”. I understand if this processed look isn’t your cup of tea but… I like it! This is a longer exposure shot using the 9-stop filter, the single RAW was then processed in Photoshop. To take the shot [...]
Fire In The Sky Over Mana Island
I broke my tripod last week and this is limiting the number of HDRs I’m taking. Have you tried using a monopod for this? Slightly better than useless… Thankfully, there was a trash can nearby that was in just about the right location – it proved a pretty stable surface! I’m glad that I still [...]
Beach Boy
Now to try and remember what I did on this one… I think the composition and expression was pretty good but it did look a little flat. The option to go black and white was there but that lovely gold tone was too good to lose! So, I took it into Nik Color Efex Pro [...]
Make the effort
Sometimes you just have to make the effort to get the shot. For me the early mornings are really hard; this explains how few sunrise shots I have! The morning light often has the blue-ish look to it where as sunset has a golden glow. Of course these days we tools like Photoshop and [...]
A Week on Camp
A week at school camp was a real blast and now I’m wading through all of those photos. The camp was for what we in New Zealand call “year 7 and 8” (about 12-13 age range). It’s almost of the end of the school year here and this will be the last major event/camp these [...]
On the road… off to camp!
You can’t beat the sweet smell of a rose, can you? I’ve been watching these lovely orange rose grow as we head towards summer. If only we could capture the smell of these? I told me son to smell a rose. He gave it a little sniff; I told him to give it another [...]
Capturing those special moments
What a fun privilege, capturing moments from someone’s wedding day. I would guess there is no other day quite like it for bringing together wider family and friends. A day when happiness is king! It’s important to get all of those “standard” images; family groups and important moments. The ring, the vows that first kiss…The [...]
Looking Back for Inspiration
In New Zealand we have caps on broadband. I’ve got quite a bit – 40GB but thanks to a guest that we had staying this month, its all been used up! That means we’ve been reduced to dial-up speeds for the last week. As you can imagine, this has limited how much I’ve been [...]
Red Bubbles!
Some for a rainy day? When the rain starts falling I like to get out the macro lens and see what I can capture at home. There were no bugs around the place so I decided to try and create something. In this photo I took some food colouring into some water and then added [...]
Glorious Sunset
I almost this one; I was driving around in an unfamiliar place, trying to find the sea. I could see the Sun falling into the horizon. Time was running out! After a few wrong turns and couple of dead-ends, I found the sea. I had literally minutes to spare. There’s no thrill like “sunset chasing” [...]
Smile!
There’s just something about a smile… so much said with no words. I like when the smile is captured on the photo without ever saying those words – “smile!” I seem to remember reading that smiling in photos is a fairly modern thing; perhaps it started after the Second World War. Here’s a family photo [...]
With the end in mind
Sometimes it helps to pre-visualize the photo; that’s what I did here. I was thinking that the scene could look interesting if it was converted to black-white using an Infrared effect. So, the photo was actually taken in the middle of the day with quite bright sunlight (though with cloud as you can see here). [...]
Over the line – try time!
Even if you know about rugby you may not know why the score or touchdown is called a “try”. Interestingly enough it is because way back when rugby began there were no points for the touchdown. It just meant you could “try” for the kick over the goal. (You still get that kick after [...]
Its Kickoff Time!
I tend to use panoramic photos when shooting landscapes. In this picture I needed to capture the size of the field and the awesome sky towering above. So, I took a series of portrait shots with the 24-105mm attached to my Canon 7D. Really a pretty focal range on that lens for this shot; [...]
The Wonder Of Dance
Look at the concentration on that face! This girl is dancing with the New Zealand native “poi”. Song and movement are mixed together; I know I couldn’t be that co-ordinated! As they sing, they twirl the pot around and around. How they do this without a huge tangled mess is a mystery to me [...]
Fisherman at Sunset
The sun was setting, the last few minutes of light but still enough time to capture this fun moment; Man and Boy against the sea! While I was at the beach taking wide-angle shots, I kept my eye on this fisherman. Waiting to see if there was any action taking place… I was just [...]
Peacock Show-off!
The little show-off! Imagine how it must feel to open-out those lovely feathers. I was on hand with the 70-200mm f/4 to catch this moment. I thought of framing the bird closer then normal so focus in on the brilliant blue. On the post-processing side, I used a little Topaz Clean; it can make [...]
