Welcome

Welcome to my Photography Blog

Here is my contents to all the pages on this website:

My Camera

Camera Techniques
Depth of Field
Shutter Speed
Rule of Thirds
Iso
Fisheye Lens
Lighting Equipment

Unit Work
Macro
Movement
Portrait
Texture
Urban Landscape

General Photos
Snowy Photo
Summer Photos

For this blog I have published all of the photos I have taken for my unit work and or personal hobby photos. For my unit work I have focused on showing the composition on here rather than the equipment used to get to it. Please have a look around the blog and if you click the small thumbnail image it will load the image fullsize.

My Camera

This year I have taken most of my Photos using my own camera. This being the Sony HX1. Being a bridge camera it has the same features of a DSLR camera, but without the option to change the lens.

Although in many cases I have found this not to be a problem. The standard 20X optical lens is one of the most flexible lenses I have seen, and certainly wins over a stock DSLR lens. As the lens is a 28-560mm you can get some serious zoom, which is great for when taking photos of birds in the tree, or to create a great depth of field. Being a Sony G lens which is the high end Sony made lens, the quality is fantastic! Which is needed for when increasing the size of the photos up A2 size. When purchasing the camera, and selecting which one to buy, I tried not to get carried away with the camera with the most amount of pixels, I was more concerned about the quality of the lens.
The one lens feature which I have used often is the 0CM super macro mode. This means you can have you subject touching the front of the lens and it will still focus on it.

The camera has DSLR features such as aperture, shutter and manual mode. Allowing me to change the ISO, aperture size, shutter speed from 30 seconds to 1/4000th of a second and finally the focus. Also like standard pocket cameras you can change the white balance, meeting spot, in camera editing and digital filters for you photos (to give it a green, blue, red effect)

The camera has some pretty smart features that DSLR camera don't have, One of the most useful is the auto sweep panoramic. When it will stitch photos together when you sweep the camera to make a wide panoramic photo. Using the tilt screen helps a lot with this and the macro mode when placing it low to the floor. Unlike the cheaper DSLR camera that don't have LiveView.

Another smart feature is the 10fps burst mode, where the camera will shoot 10 frames in one second. (shutter speed depending)
Finally the camera shoots 1080p 30fps HD video, which is what I have been using for the videos on this blog. (They have been compressed to 720p for faster streaming on the internet and also so the file sizes weren't too big for me to upload to YouTube.

I finally had my iPhone camera which I used when I was out and around places at college. This has a 2.0Mp Camera ( I believe) Which isn't great, but it captures the moment that I put in front of it.

Lighting Equipment

Today I have been using the Lighting Equipment in the studio. It was quiet fun to set up all the flash lights and reflective umbrellas for them. I used my friend to stand in front of a white background, and here are the final photos I got.

 

These two photos you can see are of the lighting equipment and setup.

 

Here are a few photos using the rule of third and placing the person either to the left or right of the image. They have come out really well, and I like the one with the light behind Joel as I wasn’t intending to take the photo, but I thought I would take it to see how it came out.

  
These two portrait photos are my favourite. Using a bit of camera tilt on the first photo gave some interest to the photo. The other photo was of Joel moving when taking the photo. The overall effect came out very well.

Recent Summer Photos

These are a few summer photos I have taken in my garden. I used the depth of field in 3 either using a low aperture number or using the zoom.

These first two image I have created a big depth of fiel, but still made is visable what is in the background, Using a daisy both times I set the camera to focus on that (using the rule of thirds I placed it to the bottom left) and using a bigger aperture size and a bit of zoom I created the depth of field.

The first image is of a flower head in the garden, I liked the colour of it, as it contrasted well to the green in the background. The second photo is of the padlock for the shed, I took this photo as its not often you concentrate and look at this when your in the garden. Using the rule of thirds again i placed it slightly to the right, to show it was looking across the image.

 

These two images I wasn't intending to shoot, But recently when we had the volcanic ash in the air, it has been creating very nice sunsets, As i was watching the TV i noticed this, and went outside. The first image had a unusually purple effect to it. The second image had a nice red hint to it. I thought they could be used for a magazine talking about the volcano or even used as a postcard.

The last two image I have taken came out very well. The first image I managed to use a long zoom to focus in on this bird sitting in the tree, I have placed it to the left of the image as it is looking right across the image. The second photo had good colours and good depth of field, and showed the daisy coming out for summer.

Snowy Photos

These photos I took while we had the snow in January and February.

 

These 3 photos I have taken to show the amount of snow stacked on top of thing. It was very interesting how the snow changed the way things looked, as its very white high contrast showed the colours in everything else.

 

These photos I liked as the first one showed you would the snow would look like for an insect for example, I did this by setting the camera low and pointing the screen up so I could see what I was doing.
The other 2 images I liked of the telephone box, especially the first one as it has a very strong vibrant colour and the look shadow along the snow. These could even be used for winter gift cards or postcodes.

I must add that none of the photos on this page have been edited from the camera originals.

Fisheye Lens

To day I used the fisheye lens on the Nikon D90 around my home, and local primary school. I also went down to the cannel near me to see what the water looked like. After trying a few photos around the garden I have chosen my favourite photos and uploaded them.

 

These two images have come out fantastic, as the sky clouds are still clear along with the road detail, Its almost like a HDR image but not using a HDR technique. I like the fact the parallel lines of my front lawn and telegraph lines stay the same, while the telephone and post box are distorted.

These photo of the front of my mums car came out well. It could of been better if i had a better back drop, but it does show the lens working by making the building distorted in shape. The second image of the primary school dome made it look wide than it actually was. Again It has given a HDR effect without using that technique.

These two are my least favourite but it shows the lens working and what it does to the image.

The final image is quiet cool as it focuses you eye onto the numbers on the playground instead of the buildings in the background. It has the effect that the tarmac is on exploding point and the buildings are stepping back.

This final image was a test image I took while doing the video for this section.

Portrait Photography

Here are my Portrait Pictures of people. I generally like getting photos that are of natural smiles and taken without people having time to setup and pose for them. I like to keep the images unmodified to keep the environment mood in the photo.

 

These 3 photos I have taken with a Nikon D60, They have not been setup in a studio with studio lighting, and I like them because they show happiness in people and show their environment and people around or with them.

For my first photo of Bertie I could use the post processing technique of ‘lensbaby’ which is used by wedding photographers. To create the effect you create a new layer of the person cut out from the rest of the background on Photoshop, and then blur the background layer, so the layer of the person you cut of before is still in focus. you can then add a small amount of blur to the person to make him blend into the rest of the image.

  

These 2 images were taken with my iPhone as I don’t always carry my camera with me, and sometimes you can only have a natural photo once. Although the quality and resolution may be poor on them, the photo it has taken have shown the 2 people having fun on a day to day college life basics.

 

 

The final two images were setup in a studio, with studio lighting. I shot the photos in black and white to give a greater black and white contrast than colour. We were setup in a group of 6 to take portrait photos using the studio lighting and using Joel’s Canon DSLR camera. These were my two best photos I took.

I must add none of the images on this page have been edited from the originals of the camera.