March 7, 2010 at 2:29 pm (Black & White, bokeh, March, photoblog)
Tags: 365, black and white, bokeh, digikam, extension tube, macro, photo, photography, project 365
Got my extension tube out again today as part of my macro/monochrome theme of the month. I used the natural light coming through my kitchen window to overcome the light degradation caused by using the extension tube (and by simply being indoors with no flash).
Decided to edit the photo in Digikam today – one of my favourite open-source image organising/editing programs.
In the Digikam image editor program, I went to Color>Black & White… where a side-window comes up with a variety of adjustment properties…Film, Lens Filter, Tone and Lightness.
- In Film, I chose Ilford Delta 400 Pro 3200. Having worked in a darkroom for only 5 minutes in my entire life, I have no idea about the properties of this kind of film, but it generated a look in my image that I liked. My Mum has vast experience, but I was too lazy to ring and ask! If I find out, I’ll let you know.
- In Lens Filter, I chose the Green Filter as it gave me the best contrast for my image.
- In Tone, I added +10 on the contrast slider.
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March 4, 2010 at 3:01 pm (Black & White, bokeh, March, photoblog)
Tags: 365, black and white, extension tube, GIMP, photography, project 365, ufraw
My watch through the eyes of an extension tube.
I almost forgot to take a photo today…close call!!
Photo processed through UFRaw using the Fluorescent White Balance setting. I had taken the photograph underneath a fluorescent lamp.
In GIMP I added a soft light layer and adjusted the Value curve to make it lighter. This still didn’t bring out the detail in the watch dial however, so in the base layer I adjusted the Value curve in an inverted s-curve fashion. In a vague explanation, this lightened the shadows a little and darken the highlights a touch. At least that’s what it looked like….hmm….it worked in this instance anyway!
A few explanatory notes: The Value curves is found under Color>Curves… and is the first tab/choice (the others being red, green and blue). The S-curve is a well-known curve adjustment which, funnily enough, makes the curve line look like an S. Mine today looked like a backwards S.
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February 26, 2010 at 9:01 am (bokeh, February, photoblog)
Tags: 365, bokeh, digikam, photo, photography, project 365, summer daze
For those who don’t know (which would be nearly all of you…), I’m in the midst of writing a novel…or in the midst of trying to write a novel. I worked on it tonight a little, so decided to use it as inspiration for today’s photo.
Photo processed entirely in Digikam using the in-built editor (quite a powerful little thing!). I adjusted the white balance, levels and curves to get rid of the yellow tinge in the original shot.
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February 21, 2010 at 7:11 pm (bokeh, February, Landscape & Outdoors)
Tags: 365, bokeh, digikam, extension tube, GIMP, grass, macro ring, outdoor, photography, project 365, summer daze, water
Rain rain rain….and more rain. Everything is damp and thinking about going all mouldy! Not pleasant. Today’s photo is once again ‘un’-inspired by the weather.
I FINALLY got Digikam going – hooray! So I was able to read my camera card through linux. Yippee!
Today’s processing was done with UFRaw and GIMP. In UFRaw, I adjusted the white balance to Cloudy and added a touch of Saturation, and a little more exposure.
In GIMP, I did a lot more. I made a duplicate layer and made it soft light. In curves, I adjusted the Value graph to the lower side to darken the layer, which in turn added a lot more contrast to the image. I wanted the dark dreary feel today. I couldn’t get much detail into the highlights on the raindrops due to my added exposure in UFRaw. This was a little disappointing, and was also another reason I added greater contrast via Curves and layers.
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February 19, 2010 at 7:32 pm (Black & White, bokeh, February, Landscape & Outdoors, photoblog)
Still playing catch-up.
Well…it’s been raining and raining and raining and…I think you get the picture. So, my inspiration is rain! I’m sure I could find a lot more interesting things to take pictures of besides rain drops on plants, however, I’m not brave enough to face the mosquito plague swarming around outside the lovely protective fly screen. Having said that, this photo is obviously a picture taken outside. My method….set the camera up before dashing like a sprinter to the already identified rain drop, snapping away like a crazy thing for a few milli-seconds, then I ran, jumped, skipped, flew, flapped and spun to evade the mozzies blocking my path back to relative safety.
See the post from day 48/365 about my explanation of why this photo was processed in Lightroom, which it was. Again, this is part of a series of catch-up photoblogging photos, so processing was quick and nasty. Well, maybe not nasty, but I didn’t really get to jot down my methods.
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February 19, 2010 at 7:03 pm (bokeh, February, photoblog)
I had a choice of a few images today, but I thought the one of the toy was more appropriate – basically because I spend the day with my girls acting as a playmate, referee, diplomat, slave, chef, and senior cuddle-giver.
I’m pretty sure this shot was SOOC (straight out of the camera). I just finished processing a bunch of blog images and can’t remember exactly though.
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February 19, 2010 at 6:19 pm (bokeh, February, Landscape & Outdoors)
For all you astute bloggers out there, you may have noticed I managed to skip day 43/365. I did take a photo this day however! I’ve been backlogging myself recently, and I managed to accidentally miss day 43. Thankfully I realised, and am now adding it into my photoblog.
I was using my extension tube again this day. Short description I’m afraid – still catching up.
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February 9, 2010 at 2:30 pm (Black & White, bokeh, February, night & long exposure)
Tags: 365, B&W, black and white, photography, project 365, silhouette, summer daze
Long day, little chance to photograph, played sport that night, came home, and proceeded to panic because I hadn’t taken a photo! So, 1030pm I was crazily running about the house snapping things. I ended up with a couple that were ok. The silhouette trolley (a toy) was the winner.
Due to my scrambling efforts last night, I definitely needed post-processing. This image was very boring as a colour shot. In B&W, it became interesting.
I processed in GIMP today. Through UFRaw (my RAW processer), I selected Camera WB and the Auto Exposure button. Once in gimp, I desaturated the picture using the Colorize option in the Colors menu. I chose to do this instead of using the Desaturate selection in the same menu. Adjusting the Levels using auto levels, I duplicated the layer and made the top layer ‘soft light’ at 75% opacity. Done.
Oh, I must mention, the image is grainy because of the higher ISO (400) I used.
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February 9, 2010 at 1:18 pm (bokeh, February)
Tags: 365, bokeh, bug, insect, outdoor, photography, project 365, summer daze
I found this little bug when hanging out washing. At one stage, it was being hassled by an ant. Poor thing.
No processing description today (or yesterday), sorry about that. I’ll get back on track when more time is available. But, one note, the way the colour turned out was very disappointing.
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February 6, 2010 at 8:20 am (bokeh, February)
Tags: bokeh, photography, summer daze
I had a few responses on my flickr photostream about my Day 33 photo sparky:
I was asked how the photo was achieved, and the answer is quite simple. A star-shaped hole, in a piece of black card was put over the lens.
As long as you have shallow Depth of Field (DoF) and focus on a nearby subject, you create the bokeh effect. For instance, in my sparky photo, the candle was within a metre of the camera, the lights 2-3m behind that. This bokeh effect will work with anything that has highlights in the background, not just fairy lights like I used. For example, reflections off of water (see this example), highlights from a field of flowers (another example) and reflections off everyday items (see this example).
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