Storm

A couple of days ago we had an amazing thunderstorm and I managed to capture a single image of the lightning.

Red sky

Hopefully I'll be able to update this blog more often now that I can post directly from my phone.

Here is a photo taken moments ago of the red sky over the bus stop.

October

I've been busy recently so haven't been able to update this site.

Here are a couple of new photos taken on the LG G2 mobile phone.

Next week I'm attending the awards evening for the Basingstoke in Bloom competition where I got Highly Commended in the Plant Portrait category.

Starry Night

Just a quick update today. The photo below was taken a few days ago using a long exposure (approx 20 minutes) with a 18mm focal length to get as much space into image as possible. The stars are rotating around Polaris.

I'm hoping to goto Marwell next week so will put some photos up from there if I do. It is also the Perseids meteor shower this weekend so hopefully the sky will be clear tonight or tomorrow when it is at its peak.

It's also my birthday so I've invested in some new photo gear which should arrive early this week so will no doubt have some photos from trying it out. I've bought a Vanguard 263AT Tripod with Vanguard GH-100 trigger head, a 0.45x wide angle converter which if my calculations are right should make my 18mm on DX the equivalent of 12mm, and also a Meike LED ring flash for close-up work. I'm hoping to also get a proper flashgun as well if my budget allows.

The Return

Well, I haven't updated this site for a month now. Whoops. This is mostly down to being crazy busy at work and then spending time relaxing on holiday. I will aim to update more regularly now and hope to set up a website for C Smith Photographic to display my best images at some point.

But for now, here are a couple of photos from the weekend. I visited Royal Victoria Country Park in Southampton. 

The first photo is of a bumblebee inside a flower. The bee was seemingly asleep in the flower as he did not move for ages until another bee tried to enter the same flower. The photo has been cropped slightly from the original.

The second flower shows some sort of wasp on the edge of a flower. The photo has been cropped from the original which showed a much greater proportion of the flower.

The third photo was taken at the War Cemetery and shows Commonwealth War Grave Commision gravestones for soldiers who died during WWI. The photo has been edited in Lightroom to remove the background of trees by reducing the shadows to black. 

The fourth photo shows two container ships docked in Southampton Water. The photo has been converted to B&W using Lightroom to create a more artistic image from an original which was very faded due to the distance and lighting at the time.

The final photo shows a boat on Southampton Waters from the sailing club. The colours have been boosted using Lightroom to provide a more contrasting image.

Bugs

Have had a busy time this week, but have managed to get some new photos taken over the weekend. I was hoping to goto Kew to take some photos of the flowers there but will now be going at the end of term instead so I can hopefully use a tripod as it'll be a week day.

Anyway, here is a photo for today. It was taken yesterday in my garden while experimenting with my Tamron 70-300mm and various close-up filters. This photo was taken with just the Tamron lens without any filters. I'm very happy with the Tamron lens and as you can see below it provides a nice depth of field perfect for having the entire daddy-long-legs in focus with the background dropping of quickly. 

North Wales Photo Series

Today's images are a series of photos from North Wales. Three have been converted to B&W, while the final one has been edited in Adobe Lightroom to change the colours completely.

Photo one was taken from the main car park in Porthmadog. Off the left of the photo would be Snowdon in the distance if the weather had been nicer.

Photo two was taken from the carpark opposite Snowdon. By the time we reached Snowdon, the cloud level had descended and left the peak partially obscured by cloud.



Photo three was taken from the Cob on the footpath running next to the Ffestiniog Railway.

The final photo was taken from a layby just before Criccieth. Using Lightroom, I've changed the colours of the original HDR effect image from Greens to Blues to give a more wintery feel to the image. The highlights on the ground now look like snow, and the clouds look moodier.

Basingstoke in Bloom

Just entered my first photo competition. Three categories of photos with two photos per category.

Wildlife

Plant Portrait

Macro

Supermoon

So finally managed to capture some images of the Supermoon after some terrible weather conditions over the weekend.

 All of these were captured on the Sony HX200V while handshooting as the Nikon was on a long exposure on the tripod.

Pop Out Arms

Today's picture is a photo taken at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens which has been edited in Photoshop Elements 11 to create a pop-out effect. I really like this effect and have several other images from back when I first got Photoshop Elements which I can't find at the moment but when I do I'll upload some of them.

Trying out Photoshop

I've signed upto Adobe Creative Cloud thanks to the education discounts provided by Adobe. I wanted to upgrade my Lightroom 4 to 5 anyway and figured £190 a year for all the Creative Suite would be better than paying £60 for Lightroom 5 upgrade and being stuck with Photoshop Elements 11.

So the above image is one of my first photo manipulations in Photoshop CC. It's a combination of two images taken in different parts of the country. The castle is Criccieth Castle in North Wales and was taken earlier this month on a crazy one day trip to Snowdonia. It was taken on the Sony HX200V from a layby on the way into Criccieth, roughly 3/4 of a mile away, using the built-in HDR painting mode. The background sky image was taken in Basingstoke also this month but using a Nikon D5100 with 18-55mm kit lens. It was taken at 18mm with an 8 sec exposure and has been modified in Adobe Camera Raw to darken the space and brighten the stars.

All in all, I'm extremely pleased with the Creative Cloud so far and will hopefully be able to share more creations from Photoshop, Lightroom, After Effects and Premiere shortly.

Part Deux

Today's photo is one of the very first photos I took with my Sony DSC-HX200V. It was taken in my back garden using the built-in macro settings.

Day One

So I've decided to start this blog to document my adventures with my cameras. Hopefully I'll be able to post regularly with new pictures.

So here's the first image. It was taken at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Ampfield, Hampshire. I have no idea what type of flower it is, but I liked the way the wasp is entirely within the yellow centre of the flower. You can also see some water droplets on the flower since it was a rainy day.