Bridge

Taken in Cambridge last winter, I loved the soft early evening light on the brick and water.

Ivan

More night shots...

Ventured out again a few evening ago with a Cambridge chum (not Gareth). My friend, Bob, has a new Nikon D300 - man that camera has great high ISO sensitivity and low noise. Awesome. Make the 450D look a bit shit, actually, in that regard, but I was able to get both shots below at ISO 200-400, 30" exposure, f8-9. I have also just got a remote control, so I can move to bulb (i.e. >30s) exposures with mirror lock up, so hopefully I can swap high ISO performance for longer exposures at lower ISO...

Anyway - here are my shots:

The first is looking from Garrett Hostel Bridge towards Trinity Bridge. It was a long exposure (30"), and I may have overcooked it a bit, but there's nice softness on the water, and check out the movement of the tree on the left. It was quite blowy, which has captured a nice effect, I think. What you don't get from this is quite how dark it was - it was very dark, and I only managed to focus by setting one of the focal points to a distant light, then recomposing and pressing the shutter (2 second delay, mirror lock up and then 30" exposure).



The next image is Cambridge's newest attraction. It's the so-called "Chronophage" (time-eater) clock, which forms the corner of the newly refurbished Corpus Christi college. See here or here for more details.



I took this from across the street, with the telephoto on a tripod. I wanted to get the whole thing in the shot, and avoid reflections too. I'll revisit this to get some detail shots sometime also. As it moves, a long exposure led to some very blurry shots, and the beastie couldn't be seen. So, I went for about 1/20 second exposure, to get a mostly-frozen image, and capture it as it looks, backlit in eerie blue. Interestingly (geekily), the shutter speed can be verified, since the second "hand" LEDs do one revolution per second, and there are 3 of them illuminated in the shot, 3/60 = 1/20. Also, note the time - 10:45pm, just before we headed to the nearby Eagle pub for last orders.

Ivan

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

Cambridge Panoramic

This is about 6 images stitched together. A little "bendy" in places, but it was hand held and not done properly with a tripod.

A bit of fun, if nothing else...

Ivan

Alternative Crop

You'll all have seen this image below before....



I wanted to try a new crop on it, to see if it could be improved or to just create a different effect. My crop is below...



I wanted to focus on layers; the river, the punt, the distant bridge, and bring out the shades and textures therein. Did I succeed? What do you think versus the original? Has seeing the original changed your view of the crop i.e. would you have liked the crop if you'd not seen the original for example?

Please, let me know what you think, or suggest (and post) your preffered crop.

Ivan

Let's Rock!!

A picture I took for a friend's band (this is not them, though) who were playing at Cambridge Junction in April 05. I was allowed access to "The Pit" in front of the band, so had good access, although all from below.. I took loads of images, of all the bands, and got some good ones. This was one of my first uses of my then new 350D, and I had never shot in such low and variable lighting conditions. This one is one of the best, I feel. The guitarist is backlit to some extent, and this defines the shape but hides his face and body detail. The lighting is pretty simple at that moment, and the colour palette mainly green and black which greatly simplifies things and, to me, adds spooky moody interest. It looks like a calm moment, but I think things were actually quite Rocked Up at this point... Only adjustments were some minor levels and cropping. Nothing else. High ISO and in the days before my IS lens, so handheld at speeds as low as 1/15s with the kit lens. Not bad results, considering.

Comments/views welcomed.

Ivan