Clare Bridge

Another image from last night.

Clare College Bridge (1640)


Info from Wikipedia:

The oldest of Cambridge's current bridges, this bridge in classical style was built in 1639–40 by Thomas Grumbold (d.1659). It survives as the oldest due to all its contemporaries being destroyed by the parliamentarian forces in the Civil War, to make the town of Cambridge more defensible. Many different stories are told to explain the missing section of the globe second from the left on the south side of the bridge. One rumour is that the builder of the bridge received (what he considered to be) insufficient payment, and in his anger, removed a segment of the globe.

I cropped it quite tightly on top, as there were lots of distractions above - is it too tight? What do you think...?

Ivan

Cambridge by night

Last night, a chum and I headed off to take some long exposure night shots around Cambridge. It was really to help him learn his new DSLR (Nikon D300, the one with the great high ISO performance), since he's quite new to photography, and never had a DSLR before. I was hampered by the fact that I have lost the tripod shoe to attach my camera to the tripod, so had to balance the camera on whatever structures were available. Not ideal, but I coped.

The first image was taken near the Mill pond, by balancing the camera on the camera bag, so quite low down. Long exposure (30", f9, 400 ISO). Got some nice colours and soft movement on the river and sky. It was very dark indeed, so focussing was an issue. I can't rely on manual focus due to wearing glasses, so I locked on to one of the distant lights as a focus point. I also used the live view, but this was bad in such low light to focus.



The next image was again 30", f9, 1SO 400. This was balanced on fence post. The original RAW was very close to this image, but slightly darkened the sky (one RAW processing) and slightly adjusted the foreground and buildings (a second processing of the RAW), and blended the resultant tiffs in PS. I then cloned out some distracting grasses that were right in front of the camera and blurry, adjusted levels, cropped a little and then the image was complete. Quite like this one. It's a shame about the bright branches upper right, but couldn't be avoided due to where I had to place the camera. I considered cloning them out, but couldn't face the hours that would take...



Comments welcomed.

Ivan

Missing in Action

Anyone know the whereabouts of Stasher1 (last seen 04 October 2008) or, more worryingly, DXBluey (last seen 03 September 2008).

Even Gareth has been very quiet of late. Now, he changed jobs in early October and has had "the shits" for the last week, but that doesn't explain it fully...

Stasher has changed jobs too (in September), and God knows what's happened to "I'll post a lot more now that I have an SLR" DXBluey...

Hope these guys are OK - can they check in sometime...we're worried.

Stat Fest!

A new website resource for assessing key elements of your DSLRs performance, with the ability to compare other models.

Makes interesting reading, esp the bit about high ISO performance - gives the highest ISO above which image quality (as defined in the blurb) becomes unacceptable. Shows that most high ISOs in consumer and enthusiast SLRs (i.e ours!) are really just spec-dressing (like high pixel counts in compacts) and offer little real ultility, until to you get to pro-spec cameras. For example, the 450D and 40D come in the 690-710 ISO range, while the Nikon D700 is at 2303.

This tallies with what I have found; that using ISO up to 400 is brilliant, 800 is OK (as it's just above the 692 calculated for the 450D) and can be worked on with software, but 1600 is quite noisy at times, and I refrain from using it.

That said, high ISO is really only useful for sports, action and wedding photography, so it's not an issue. Landscapers can use a tripod, stick it on 100-400 ISO, and get great image quality in RAW.

Ivan

A Larger View

Here is a larger view of the screen shot. Now, the file was saved as a JPEG and I have saved it as a JPEG several times so there will have been degradation of both images somewhat. Damian

More (or less) noise

So I have done something similar as Ivan to show how Camera Raw 4 handles noise for comparison with the Canon software. The image was taken outside at 530 in the morning in May so still quite dark. It was shot with my Canon 40D, fixed 50mm 1.4 lens, 1/60 at f2.0 and the ISO was at 3200. The first screen shot shows the unprocessed RAW file zoomed in at 165%. So you can see noise in the sky and along the edges of the building. The second screen shot shows the imagealso at zoom 165% but processed in Camera RAW 4. All I have done is reduced the luminance and colour noise, and corrected any colour aberrations. No other adjustments were made. Now, I didn't spend a lot of time on the processing so you can consider this as a minimal result.

Damian  

The Roaches

I'm not sure if I've posted this image before, so I did a quick search and I don't think so.

Anyway, an image taken a few years ago in the Peak District National Park. A lovely place, increasingly overrun with Manks (look that up).

The Roaches are a collection of rock formations/hills of particular scenic interest.

Another excercise in croppage

Which one do you prefer, and why?

Ivan

Note: the images are soft/unsharp - ignore that. It's the cropping I'm interested in.

River

River Cam, Grantchester Meadows, a few weeks back. Works better in mono than colour. False (PS) bokeh - does it work?

Ivan

England

Now, most of you know I'm a Scotsman - cut me in half, and, like a stick of rock, it'll say ALBA all the way through. But, I've been down here in the land of the Sassenachs for nearly 16 years, living and working; when asked, I'll say I'm only here because there are not enough clever English people to do the work, but I'm only kidding.

Scotland has it's own rugged beauty. No doubt. But this shot - which I found in my archives - sums up England in all it's rural, verdant beauty. Doesn't matter where it is, it's gorgeous.

Enjoy. Rule Brittania!

Ivan

Noise? What noise?

A screenshot showing a before and after noise reduction on a shot taken whilst in Shropshire.

The shot was taken at 1600 ISO, and is noisy. It's been brightened to show the ISO artifacts.

The after shot has been brightened by the same amount, but has had luminance and chroma noise adjusted too, using the Canon Digital Photo Professional. It's lost a little detail, but the effects are pretty good, I think.

What experience do you have with noise reduction software?

Ivan

Gone

My entry for this week is this photo showing hoof prints over the top of a dune on Sable Island. Shot on 14 January 2006 at close to 5pm. 1/60th at f4.0, ISO 200, focal=17mm I tried in both colour and BW and much prefer the latter.  All editing was done in Camera RAW (basic stuff like temperarture, levels, contrast) and the image was converted to BW in PS. Damian

original, RAW image

after editing

Photo Credit

Again, on a trawl, I found these. My two published guidebook images. For an Alistair Sawday's Travel Guide. The owner of the Castello (where we had our honeymoon in 2004) saw me taking pics, and asked if he could use them in the upcoming edition. I said yes, and when we got back, it was confirmed by the publisher, and I got a free copy with my photo credit. Both images are mine, although only one credits me. No money involved, only prestige...and they spelled my name right - thank God.

Ivan

Play ball with me?

A shot of a friends dog, Dolly, taken recently.

Very high ISO (1600, not so high these days, I guess), and converted to mono.

She waits with the ball in her lap, patiently, for someone to play!

Ivan

Before and After

Sometimes it's interesting to see how an image started, as well as the final output. I think it may be instructional to do a few of these, and get comments on both the image before and after, the artistic/photographic process, and the techniques involved.

The pair here, I used the shadow/highlight function to lift the dark shadows of the pier. Then, I used levels to bring the sky and some of the mid-tones of the sea back, to balance a bit.

Not a great image, but I think it's improved for these manipulations, which are only possible in post-processing, not in capture.

Before - deep shadows on Pier, lack of contrast in sky:


After - lifting of shadows selectively on Pier, more contrast in sky and better tone in sea:

Ivan

My first digital picture

I found this a few days ago, while looking through old files.

Taken in 2001, with a Canon PowershotS S40, which was a market-leading, 4MP compact camera with manual AND RAW (almost unheard of in non-DSLRs, and there weren't many DSLRs either...). And it cost nearly £700!! I traded that in for a Nikon Coolpix 5400 (shit camera, put me off Nikon for life, which is daft), then the 350D (which was great) and now the 450D. In that time, it's gone from 4MP compact to 12MP DSLR, and price has come down nearly by half. Progress, eh?

I think this was taken about 100 yds from my old place in Kent, when the battery was charged up and I headed outside. It's a crap picture, but I was trying to capture the movement in the wheat. At least the horizon is not bang in the middle...

Ivan

Another from the Critical Light vaults...

This post, and resultant comment, is one of my faves, as it covers photo critique and aspects of workflow too. Good back and forth between myself, Dams and G.

"What are you thinking...?"

Ivan

My picks of the three years

Well, I quickly ran through all of the blogs and chose those images that jumped out at me, for the WOW factor and the memories. Most are from Ivans' blogs which is not surprising given the number he has posted. Here they are...

Few pics to end week
Specifically the St. Margaret's Headland, Kent, UK pic. This shot is excellent and I don't seem to remember seeing it but I really like it. Great texture, great colours, great mood and interesting composition.

Wicken-fen-one-of-last-true-fenlands
The first shot. I still like this shot and seems to bring nack memories of the early blogs. 

Sorry-damian-couldnt-resist

Of all of the Miksang blogs, this one takes the biggest chunk for me, and biggest effort from Ivan.

April-portrait-competition-entry

The chocolate face is excellent.

Beachwalkers-ann-milesgareth-marlow

Love the sky of this shot and the immensity of space.

And this one

Lighten Up!
I don't recall this shot either but really like it. Different composition for a flower pic and nice and bright. 

Damian

Bridge

Last year while sailing in Halifax I shot this picture as we sailed under the bridge. It was around 5pm. It works better in BW than colour. I like it.

1/60th at f18.0. ISO 400. F=41mm

Damian

"These are a few of my favourite things..." Part 1

As part of my self-imposed 3rd anniversary celebrations for Critical Light, I'd like us to get all misty-eyed and nostaligic, and find posts and/or discussion threads that we consider to be our favourites.

They can be anything. At all. And for any reason. Serious or funny.

Among my favourites are the times when Damian and I went 12 rounds on the whole Miksang thing. We clearly have different views on this, and it's all cool now, but it wasn't always that way. It didn't get nasty (or not that nasty), but if there hadn't been nearly 3000 miles of water between us, I think he'd have come down and chibbed* me one.

*there's prize for the first one to confirm what "chibbed" means.

Here's a link to one such discussion, from the post entitled "Miksang it up a bit". It's a cracker.

A cautionary tale

New, it seems, is not always better. In the mega-pixel DSLR war (which seems to have gone nuts again after a period of relative calm), the following quote from the highly-respected DPreview.com on it's newly posted review of the new Canon 50D, the sister model (not replacement, we are told) to both Gareth's and Damian's 40D.

"RAW noise

Finally let's take a look a the raw output of the EOS50D next to the ten megapixel 40D. Removing any in-camera noise reduction and processing the images using Adobe Camera Raw (without NR) gives us the nearest thing to a 'level playing field' for assessing the relative noise levels of the two cameras' sensors. Despite the fact that the 50D is the newer camera it shows visibly more chroma and luminance noise than the 40D. Considering the 50D's much more tightly packed sensor (4.5 MP/cm² vs 3.1 MP/cm² on the 40D) this comes hardly as a surprise. It would have been unreasonable to expect Canon's engineers to overcome the laws of physics."

At 15MP, there is clearly not much room for movement on the pixel/interference/noise front vs the 10MP 40D. My new 450D (12MP) seems to be virtually identical to the old 350D, but it may show some signs of increased noise at higher ISOs. Thankfully, I don't use them that much, and the RAW software handles noise (chroma and luminance) very well, so no difference in effect to the 8MP 350D. Phew. However, it's clearly on/near it's limit at 12 for APS-C sensors, so 15 is clearly tipped over the edge. It has to be said that it's all good up to about 800, so no impact if you have a 50D, but clearly it's having to work harder for about the same/less image quality. For a shed load more money. Hmmm.

For us lot, if we did want more pixels (for larger prints or more flexibility in cropping) then it has to full size sensor, so the 5D MkII at 21MP is the clear choice, but that's the price of a decent second-hand car.

Ivan

Neither beach nor tree

Looking for something to post this week, I came across this little fellow from earlier this year. It fits in with the bands of colour theme that emerged in recent posts, I think. :) It's fascinating that a moth could evolve such vivid colours, especially given that this particular one decided to camouflage himself against a flat black post.

Apologies in advance to Ivan or whoever else might complain "not another bloody bug picture!" :D

Sable beach at dusk

I took this shot on Sable island on 11 January 2007 at 18:10, so quite late. It was shot on a tripod at 30 seconds, f9.0, ISO 100 with my 17-85mm lens set at 35mm. I selectively sharpened the sand in the foreground and left the remaining photo untouched. I really like the colours in this photo. The browns in the sand, the greens in the sea and the blurred surf zone. Damian

More on CS4

I found this good review online. Click here for details.

I think this is on my Christmas list...

Ivan

3rd Anniversary Celebrations

Dear All

Critical Light will be three years old on 25th November 2008. Here is a link to that first post. Looking at my aspirations for the blog, I think we can safely say "mission accomplished". I know blogging is soooo 2005 (according to an article on the radio recently), but I can't imagine doing this on Twitter...

To celebrate this achievement, and the fact that we have grown from only 2 contributors (myself and Dams) to now seven members (if not all contributors on a regular basis - you know who you are... ;-)), I thought it might be nice, on 25 November (or thereabouts) to post a picture depicting or inspired by the theme of "Three".

It can be anything at all, as long as three is clear or strongly implied in the image. Carte Blanche, as the French would say.

It may be good to have a small competition, where we vote for our favourite image on that theme. We can't vote for our own, but we can express our preferences, ranked as 1st, 2nd and 3rd (of course). Max 2 images to be entered per person. A deadline for submission and voting will be set later.

Let me know what you think.

Ivan

Another Sandwich Bay mono image

Just finished working on this one - really like how it's turned out in mono, the contrast in the sky and grasses, and that band of sea and beach (with tiny tiny walkers in the distance) works well to my eye.

Ivan

Sandwich Bay (Kent) mono

Taken this weekend, as we visited friends in Kent. I loved the seascapes in Kent, and miss the sea terribly now we are landlocked in Cambridge.

On this occaision, it was a bright, cold, clear day, with lots of great skies, good light, wet sand and wide open spaces. Hardly a soul on the beach, except us.



This one appealed to me because the sand was wet, picking up the reflections of the sky, which looked huge through the wide angle lens.

Mono seems to work better than colour in this case, since it gives emphasis to the tones rather than it all looking blue.

Ivan

Bench with a view

Early morning, bench on top of Hopesay Hill, Shropshire. A wonderful place to be, and a typically English vista.

Ivan

Damian's tree - cropped

I had a go at cropping, and slightly upping the contast on Damian's tree image. The hole in the cloud needs cloning out (I think), but what are the views on this crop, and what other crops do folks think might work?

Original:


Cropped:


Ivan

BIG thanks to Ivan

Well, it seems that the blog is back on form.  And this is only because of Ivan's continued effort to keep it going. When the blog goes quiet Ivan steps in and gives us all a kick in the buttocks to get posting again. I know that I certainly appreciate this. So, thanks Ivan for doing that.

Damian

  

Keeping with the tree theme

I took this photo on Sable Island on 31 Dec in 2006 at dusk. I remember this well. We were driving on our ATVs from the East camp to the West camp for the New Years Eve celebrations. It was 6pm and the weather was awful; cold, very windy and there was snow falling. We were close to the camp and I was really looking forward to getting inside but saw this tree trunk in the distance. It was one of those times when you have to think twice about pulling your camera out. But, its at these times when you get the best shots. I was also very happy to have IS on my lens because there was very little light.

1/25th at f4.5, Image Stabilised
ISO 1600
Focal length 30mm

Damian

Lonely Tree (part 2)

Another lonely tree from the Shropshire shoot. This time, in the middle of a newly harvested field, with some tiny sheep around. I liked the lines and shapes of the field, the imprint of man, with this tree isolated. The sheep are a semi comedic touch.

Ivan

Beautiful Clouds

Another one from the recent Shropshire trip.

This time, I noticed these lovely clouds that seemed to echo the land formations, and almost looked like some further distant hills, catching light. Minor adjustments for levels, and cropped to be panoramic.

Ivan

Photo competition

Damian

You wondered about the other images in the recent competition I entered at CCC? Well, here is a link to all 94 images, and if you click on them you'll see the title, photographer and what (if any) award was given:

Results of the Second Projected Image Competition

The images entered for Monday's competition are now available to be viewed with the Titles, Authors and any Awards (click on thumbnail to display these).

Please note that, in the haste to finish the meeting, some awards were omitted from the final run-through although they were on the Judge's Award list.

More information at: link

Ivan

Vertorama tutorial

This is from a contact on Flickr, called Panorama Paul - check out his site, it's excellent.

Anyway, this link describes his way of stitching two images vertically to get a "vertorama" (his word, not mine), and simulate a kind of high resolution, medium format type approach. Some of his images done this way are nothing short of spectacular.

Check out the tutorial, and check out his photostream for inspiration. Lots of good descriptions on there and excellent shots.

Ivan

The future of low-noise, high ISO cameras...?

From an article seen on DPReview.com. This new technology looks like it may have future applications for incredibly low noise, higher ISO detection. Imagine, image quality of 100 ISO at 25,600 ISO or more, as this material is said to have 100x light sensitivity to conventional silicon based sensors. Also, it is said, that this material can absorb light at a wider range, including infra-red, so you could switch to infrared mode as if putting in ir film (and no PS mucking about). Also, sensors could remain small (APS-C) and have many more pixels on them, as the sensitivity would be greater, and resolution, but with little/no image quality trade off. If you like grain - and digital grain - this could be the end of the road.

You saw it here (nearly) first...

Too early to shed light on Black Silicon say developers

Creators of the 'black silicon' that has been much discussed, following an article in the New York Times, have said it's too early to discuss what their material's benefits might be for digital photography. The novel, doped silicon technology holds out the promise of increased sensitivity but is still in development by SiOnyx, a Harvard University spin-off.

The company holds the rights to develop and commercialize a silicon doping technology that research has suggested absorbs light (including in the infrared region of the spectrum that can be detrimental in conventional photography), more readily than conventional silicon chips. Although initially believed to be a result of the conical structure formed when lasers impregnate the surface of the silicon with sulfur compounds, the company now believes it's these compounds' effect on the electronic behavior of this surface layer that is more significant. The company's patents are not restricted to the use of Sulfur however, and cover the doping technique itself.

ATV tracks---GONE!

Upon the suggestion of Colin, I have removed the ATV tracks from the image.



This image will be a part of my limited edition catalogue and on sale at the November Nova Scotia Design and Crafts Council Xmas Craft Show (a very up market show).



what do you think? any difference?

Damian

Photoshop CS4

Lots of new features, and I REALLY need to upgrade from CS...

Summary of details (plus some nice Quicktime movies) here.

Look at the content-sensitive scaling movie - looks awesome...

Ivan

Tonight's Digital Competition at Cambridge Camera Club

Hi

Well, not as grand as Damian's exhibition (which looks great, btw), but I managed a minor first this evening...both images placed in the internal digital image competition tonight. The limit is two entries, and I always enter two, but one does OK/quite well, and the other nothing (or both do nothing). This time, "Roman Vase" got a Highly Commended, and "Peek-a-boo" went one better, and got a Third place grading.





Also, rather than agonising over my choices for ages, I just banged these in, late on Sunday morning before leaving for the airport for a work trip. Little thought, but good result. Just goes to show, eh?

Ivan

My first exhibit is almost over

Last Saturday night (18th October) I spent a few hours at the gallery where my work is showcased as part of the Nocturne event. Essentially, 28 galleries kept their doors open until midnight to showcase their art...all sorts of art from music to video to paintings and photography. Two city buses, which were ilustrated with photographs and also had music on board, moved people from venue to venue.  The Hydrostone Gallery where my work resides was part of this event. I had my camera and took a few pics inside and outside of the gallery. Images were also projected on to a screen and through the window.

The opening reception of the exhibit was great, with lots of people and the gallery offered wine and beer.  I found it all quite daunting though and was somewhat shy to discuss my work. It is an odd feeling like you are exposing a part of yourself for people to see and in some cases judge.

Preparing for the show was also stressful. The images were printed on Hahnemühle fine art paper with Epson UltraChrome pigment ink. It gives the photograph some texture and looks far better than standard photographic paper. It is far more expensive though. The framing was a little tricky. I thought metal would work but then opted for a rich brown (expresso) wood and kept the frame and mat (white) the same for all of the images. The next issue was the size of the print. Some images work best at particualr sizes. To solve this I printed photographs at different sizes starting at 12 by 18 and moved up to 20 by 30. Most of the images seemed better at 15 by 24 while one of them worked much better at 20 by 30. I had sevenphotographs in all, less than I originally planned. However, space was an issue since Nick also had seven and his were quite large, at 30 by 40. 

Nicks images were captured in a very different way to mine and make my images seem like child play. His images are sharp, with deep colour, a very precise composition and were captured through a long exposure.  So, there was a lot of thought and planning involved. At 30 by 40 they are quite impressive.  The presentation is also different; printed onto a fine aluminium sheet and laminated. 

In contrast, my images were captured through spontaniety.  When the frozen sand landscapes were created I wandered through looking and shooting at images that jumped out at me. I had no tripod, the images were captured in fractions of a second and the weather was windy with sand blowing around my face and camera. 

Nevertheless, there is a similarlity between Nicks' images and mine. There is a lot of space, a sense of nothingness and structures that, in the case of Nick's images, were consciously planned while in the case of mine were created through random movement of air. 

The exhibit ends a week Sunday. I have sold one piece of work, the largest actually, which makes it certainly worthwhile for me. I fully intend to do another exhibit next year and hope that they get better.

Damian

Fog, Light and B&W

First of all, I like to thank Ivan for inviting a frenchy to this blog. I will try to bring my thoughts on photography :)

to go straight to the point, here is a picture I posted yesterday on flickr :


I got a comment on the light at the top left corner of the picture. I then try a square crop on the original one, but I then faced another problem: does the BW suit to the picture, or would a colour work do it? here are the options:

Let me know what are your point of view!

Seb

Bridge

With late afternoon autumn sun behind me and threatening clouds rolling in from the east, I think this week's post looks like a painting.

Click this Google Maps link to see where this bridge is located.

18mm f/13

Any better...?

Colin made the good point that the wide angle effect made the foreground look a bit odd. I agree, and have cropped it again to try to reduce this effect.

Colin - what do you think?

Ivan

Now, this is my kind of recession...

Geddit?? Eh??

Ahem.

With all the doom and gloom about global recession, at least this is one kind we can all enjoy. Taken on the same morning as the lone tree below, but a little earlier, using the telephoto at it's long (450mm) end, IS. Lovely light and mist, creating fading layers like theatre scenery (flats). Took loads of these, so may post more, as the light was changing all the time and creating new effects. The jpeg compression used for this web post doesn't do justice to the fine gradation in tones in the original RAW.

Ivan

Lone Tree on Hopesay Hill

An image taken recently on a visit to my in-laws. They live in Shropshire. Shropshire has hills, with great views. Cambridge does not have hills. I miss hills.

Ivan

Breaking News - Visual artist strikes out and wins!

Damian Lidgard, Kyle MacDonald, Chris Lockerbie

Art on the Bus

The Halifax Regional Municipality’s Department of Cultural Affairs, in conjunction with the Nocturne: Art at Night Committee and Metro Transit commissioned black & white artwork for the interior bus boards on various Metro Transit Buses. Artists were charged with the design of artwork that considered the properties of light and illumination. Three local artists were selected, each with their own interpretation of the theme. HRM Cultural Affairs, Metro Transit and Nocturne: Art at Night are delighted to display the work of local artists, Damian Lidgard, Kyle MacDonald and Chris Lockerbie.

Occupied

Seeing Damian's previous post reminded me of this image I took a few months back for our attempted neighbourhood theme. It's similarly overly busy, perhaps. This house was in fact occupied in this state, including some kids who would wait for the school bus in the morning. The house has since burned down.

Technical info: taken from inside a slow-moving vehicle. No way I was going to go stand in their garden with a camera, especially with a 'no trespassing' sign in the front door.

Abandoned

Last weekend Sue and I visited Digby Neck/Long Island/Brier Island, Nova Scotia. On the way home we stopped at an abandoned house and I took a few shots while Sue waited patiently. Initially I shot from the outside but then climbed in through a window and took a few inside with a tripod. This shot was actually taken from the outside through a window. For me, the stairs added to the sense of abandonment and lonliness of this house.

The inspiration for stopping at the house came from a local photographer, Angela Carlsen, who  focuses her efforts on shooting abandoned houses and has created some great images. 

1/40th, f5.6, image stablised, ISO 1000,  53.0mm

Damian

Fen Sunset

My effort for the week (must post,must post). Taken this summer near Little Downham. Nothing special but kinda like it all the same. ISO100, 55mm, f16, 1/6 sec. Touched up in LR2.