Last Night

[allymac123]

Like onefivenine I headed out last night expecting to see some nice light. Much like him I was also rather dissapointed The sun couldn't get through the haze.

I did plan on going down to the Forth bridges as I still don't have any nice photo's of them. The light shot that in the head though so I had to find other stuff down there to shoot.

Exif is embedded so viewable with exif plugins etc.

#1 - Pretty much the last of the sun before it dissapeared

#2 - Spotted a Heron so did some stalking


#3


#4


#5


#6 - Though I'd have a go at this driving photography


#7 - Spotted this monument/tower thingy. So doubled back with the thought of doing some lightpainting. This is about 7 flashes from my 430ex on full power.


C&C welcome as always.

[TG V1P3R]

Great shots (I'm not gonna say again, again....) ally..... I like them all, but the last one and the driving one are probably my favourites.

This is the second 'driving' shot I've seen in the last couple of weeks, which leads me to asking how on earth you take that picture?!?!?! Such a cool shot, and I know I'd impress the family if I could produce one as good as that....any tips most welcome

Edit: Also ally, I really like the border/frame you've used for these shots....again, any pointers most appreciated, as I don't seem to be able to put a frame on my shots (I'm using PS Elements 5).

[Liquid101]

Nice shots ally.

I like the last two as well. Great driving shot - you need to stay veeeery still though

The last one is my pick, nice colour and you've exposed it perfectly. Anymore would have looked too false, this is just righgt.

Nice work

[jamesbryan17]

#6 & #7 are great, 6 is nice and sharp how did you get the camera to be so stable? 7 has some beautiful colours.

well done

[Gizmo 76]

Really like No. 7 here, you've done a great job

Also like the in-car one, these just always look cool

[ghibbett]

Sorry for the slightly OT response but......presume that's an A-class you're in. Looking at the EXIF data that was a 4sec exposure. That must be either 1. a very smooth road or 2. an extremely smooth riding car!!

This shot was taken on a new (<1yr old) bit of tarmac that is super smooth compared to all the other (so called) roads around here and I only managed a 1.3 sec exposure...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1203/...49fea8fc6b.jpg

[ghibbett]

P.S. Love shot #7

[onefivenine]

Love #1 and #7.
Is that Cammo Tower? (The one you see if you drive from Maybury to Barnton).
That's a really good effect with the flash, I've got to try it sometime. Did you just hold it off-camera? Only ask as the EXIF says there was no flash - I was expecting it to say you went crazy with the flash!

[allymac123]

Originally Posted by AFC Lee

This is the second 'driving' shot I've seen in the last couple of weeks, which leads me to asking how on earth you take that picture?!?!?! Such a cool shot, and I know I'd impress the family if I could produce one as good as that....any tips most welcome

Originally Posted by ghibbett

Sorry for the slightly OT response but......presume that's an A-class you're in. Looking at the EXIF data that was a 4sec exposure. That must be either 1. a very smooth road or 2. an extremely smooth riding car!!

Yup A-class

I didn't find any of my shots really suffered from in car blur. That was not a particularly smooth road either and the A-class doesn't have particuraly smooth suspension. (much like your beemer I suspect). I mount my (lightweight) tripod with two legs extended and extra wide a notch so that they press up against the front seats and the doors. The rear leg I push into the slight gap between the centre rear seat and backrest. The tripod then is pretty much rock solid and bumps in unison with the car.

For AFC Lee. Around dusk is usually a good time as there is less contrast. A just set it to aperture priority but check what sort of exposure that will give me (you probably want 1-5s or such like) and adjust aperture accordingly. I then set it to 10s timer and slung the remote into the front. I would press the remote and then 10s later the camera would expose.

Originally Posted by AFC Lee

Edit: Also ally, I really like the border/frame you've used for these shots....again, any pointers most appreciated, as I don't seem to be able to put a frame on my shots (I'm using PS Elements 5).

I have it set up as an action so it's simply a case of applying the action each time (providing I have kept the 6 x 4 aspect ratio.

But this is how I set up the action (or do it for differenct aspect ratio's):

Create a new action and click the record button,
Go to Image -> Image size and make it 790px (the other size should change accordingly) - Click OK

Then go to Image -> Canvas size and make it 2px bigger in each dimension (792 by xxx) Set the colour at the bottom of the tab to white. - click ok

Then go to Image -> canvas size again and make each dimension 8px bigger (800 by xxx). This time set the colour to white. click ok.

Volia. (press stop on the action)

You can then quickly resize and border all your pics by playing the action.

NB. If you have a 6x4 format picture in portrait orientation rotate it 90degree's prior to performing the action. (rotate it back afterwards)

N.B. 2 - If the picture is made up of more than one layer make sure you flatten it first (or put this into the start of the action). You can flatten an image by rightclicking on a layer in the layer pallette.

Originally Posted by onefivenine

Love #1 and #7.
Is that Cammo Tower? (The one you see if you drive from Maybury to Barnton).
That's a really good effect with the flash, I've got to try it sometime. Did you just hold it off-camera? Only ask as the EXIF says there was no flash - I was expecting it to say you went crazy with the flash!

Yup thats the one (didn't know what it was called).

re the flash - I ran up to the monument and crouching down pointed and fired the flash at it. Moving around occasionaly to get a softer light. (it's a techinque known as "light painting" if you wanted to look it up). The camera has no idea a flash was used that's why it doesn't show in the exif. (you can use any source of light ie. torch, car headlamps etc.) Just make sure you don't stand directly in line of the camera and where you point the light, as a silhouette of yourself may be visible.

P.S. You can see where one of my flashes lit the ground at the top right of the ground in the picture.

[ghibbett]

Just a quick one on applying borders. I found this one out recently.

Use the stroke tool. It works in both CS2 and Elements. Go to "Edit" and then "Stroke". This will bring up a box that will allow you to taylor a standard border (of your colour choice) to your photo, no matter what the photo size. Just select something like "inside" and "20px" and this will give you a decent border. Of course you can play around and layer the borders for different effects.

And allymac123, that sounds pretty much like what I do with my tripod in the back of the car. As you well know, any bumps in the road will have the camera moving in unison with the car thus keeping all inside the car in focus. However the view through the windscreen can be pretty jumpy. Probably not helped by the fact that I have M-sport suspension and 18" alloys of course!

Cheers,

[allymac123]

Originally Posted by ghibbett

Just a quick one on applying borders. I found this one out recently.

Use the stroke tool. It works in both CS2 and Elements. Go to "Edit" and then "Stroke". This will bring up a box that will allow you to taylor a standard border (of your colour choice) to your photo, no matter what the photo size. Just select something like "inside" and "20px" and this will give you a decent border. Of course you can play around and layer the borders for different effects.

And allymac123, that sounds pretty much like what I do with my tripod in the back of the car. As you well know, any bumps in the road will have the camera moving in unison with the car thus keeping all inside the car in focus. However the view through the windscreen can be pretty jumpy. Probably not helped by the fact that I have M-sport suspension and 18" alloys of course!

Cheers,

Just had a play of the stroke tool and although it does as you say the problem I have with applying a border like this is that it impedes on your original photo. ie. you loose pixels from your photo's as opposed to adding them to the outside and preserving everything already present.

Didn't realise you were talking about stuff outside the car. tbh it didn't really bother me and I hadn't actually really noticed it. (It'll bother me now though!!)

[ghibbett]

Originally Posted by allymac123

...is that it impedes on your original photo. ie. you loose pixels from your photo's as opposed to adding them to the outside and preserving everything already present.

Good point !!

Originally Posted by allymac123

(It'll bother me now though!!)

Whoops, sorry!