The result of a) finding my Ricoh GRD III at the bottom of my camera bag, and b) having nothing better to do :)

This is the third shot of my hard drive, and possibly my favourite of the set, not because it's the most interesting, but because I was determined to get a shot of the whole drive arm in context and it took me ages to get it right. Well, almost right, I still had to warp the content in post, but you get my point :)

Let me know which of the three you prefer.

captured camera lens aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality RAW converter image editor plugins (etc) cropped?

10.30am on 6/9/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 100mm f/2.8 macro USM f/22.0 .3s aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none warped

I may be completely wrong, but I suspect that this one might be a bit more popular than my previous shot of this broken hard drive. Let me know what you think.

captured camera lens aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality RAW converter image editor plugins (etc) cropped?

11.38am on 6/9/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 100mm f/2.8 macro USM f/22.0 1/5 aperture priority 0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none 16x9

Earlier this week, as you'll know if you follow me on Facebook, one of the hard drives in my NAS device failed. Rather than chuck it away, I thought I'd see if I could dismantle it, which proved to be a difficult task as I don't have any star shaped screwdrivers. After struggling with it for twenty minutes, and breaking one of my small screwdrivers, I finally managed to get the cover off so thought I'd take a few shots.

This is the first of three, all toned in the same way, and is probably my least favourite of the set. That said, I sent them to my good friend Craig this afternoon and this one was his favourite. What does he know? ;-)

As always, let me know what you think.

captured camera lens aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality RAW converter image editor plugins (etc) cropped?

11.38am on 6/9/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 100mm f/2.8 macro USM f/4.0 1/8 aperture priority 0.0 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 none no

This was taken when my good friend Craig was over in Bulgaria last October, in the same abandoned factory as this shot. I did try and produce a colour version, but, for one reason or another, couldn't come up with something I was happy with. In the end then I switched to black and white and concentrated on bringing out the detail. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out, but do let me know what you think.

And if you read my previous entry, just skip over this next bit as I'm repeating myself. If not, read on ...

In other news: if you'd be interested in some one-to-one training (either at our Blackpool office or at your own location in the UK) – on photography, post-production, or both – I now have some confirmed dates when I'll be back in the UK to provide training:

Thursday 10th February
Friday 11th February
Saturday 12th February
Sunday 13th February

Thursday 24th March
Friday 25th March
Saturday 26th March
Sunday 27th March

If you think you might be interested please email me [djn1 AT chromasia DOT com] or Libby [Libby AT chromasia DOT com] for further details.

And finally, don't forget that our 25% discount offer on our Photoshop tutorials ends at midnight on the 7th (i.e. tomorrow). Further info here:

http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/

captured camera lens focal length aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality RAW converter image editor plugins (etc) cropped?

2.11pm on 18/10/10 Canon 5D Mark II EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM 200mm f/8.0 1/30 aperture priority +1 evaluative 200 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 Topaz Detail flipped vertically

While this image (and the next one I'll post) are not quite as striking as my last one, I am pleased with them, not least because both do a good job of demonstrating the capabilities of the Ricoh GR Digital III – my new compact camera. In this instance, I was testing the macro mode, and while the Ricoh can focus a lot closer than this (i.e. 1cm from the end of the lens), I was pleased with how much detail it recorded in the old rusty ring.

If you're interested, the original cropped image is here:

.../archives/ring_and_rig.php

"Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed" – Garry Winogrand

The above is one of my favourite photographic quotes, and one that tacitly informs a lot of my photography (e.g. my beachcombing images). It's also a very liberating motto to carry around in your head; i.e. anything and everything can form the subject of a photograph – it's the end result that counts, not the subject matter.

And if you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/its_all_about_appearance.php

As you can see, my aim with this one was to bring out the detail. There were a variety of ways in which this could be done (including creating a psuedo-HDR image, as described in this tutorial), but in this instance I used a plugin called Topaz Adjust to enhance the local contrast.

Here's another daisy shot from yesterday, and I would write more, but I'm totally wiped out today. I think, having finally realised that Libby's going to be ok, that the events of this week are starting to catch up with me: I feel really tired, am probably getting a cold, and generally feel totally spaced out. I'll have an early night.

This morning, I thought we might be back to square one. Libby had a pain in her chest and difficulty breathing: the same symptoms as last Saturday, the same ones that the hospital thought might be down to either pleurisy or a pulmonary embolism. So, we went back to the doctor's (our local GP) and came away with two more possible diagnoses:
Costochondritis or Tietze's Syndrome. Both are characterised by inflammation of the cartilage that connects the inner end of each rib with the breastbone or of the cartilage between the ribs, most probably caused by a virus. So, hopefully, she should gradually improve over the next five or six weeks (or thereabouts).

Anyway, after we'd been to the doctors and her chest pain had settled down we went up to our local park for lunch. I took my new Cyber-shot T9 with me (which I recently acquired for a project, that I'll explain in a week or so) and took a few shots of daisies, tree blossom, and so on, as we took an extremely gentle stroll. One of the really fun features of the camera is its 'magnifying glass' mode which enables you to close focus to around 1cm. And no, it's not a world shattering photograph, but it's good to finally have something to put up. Hopefully - touch wood - things will be back to normal fairly soon, but in the meanwhile I suspect that I'm not going to be able to manage daily updates, but I'll see what I can do.

On a related note: thanks for all your support this week - it really is appreciated. And Libby wanted to add the following:

Regular visitors know that I hardly ever comment here (anyone remember the last time?); but I asked Dave if I could just add a 'footnote' to his comments as I wanted to thank everyone for their kind wishes. Its wonderful to read them all, and see how far around the world they've travelled. Over 2,800 people have read the comments page, from numerous countries around the world - which is pretty amazing! Not many people get over 100 'get well' messages - but I'm sure they're working as I feel much better :-))

Thanks, Libby x

I thought I'd continue the "I didn't expect this on chromasia" theme today as this is one of the very few handheld macro shots I've managed to pull off, especially at this aperture.

Oh, and if anyone can identify the flowers or the beetle(?) please let me know what they are.

7.56pm on 27/5/05

Canon 20D

100mm f/2.8 Macro USM

f/2.8

1/100

aperture priority

+0.0

evaluative

100

no

RAW

C1 Pro

no

I don't think I would have considered putting this up if my wife hadn't walked by as I was browsing through some older images. "Did you use that one? You should". So I have. That said, she doesn't much like the way I've processed it. To her mind, and I quote, "floral erotica should have more depth and texture". So, there are two versions of this shot: this one, that I like, and another one (which I really don't care for) that's more to her taste:

.../archives/no_its_a_tulip.php

In this case I suspect that you'll prefer my version, but whenever I've said that in the past I've been wrong, so feel free to tell me that as usual my wife knows best ;-)

Update: The version that's up now is a bit sharper than the one I originally posted. The version that's up now is my second attempt at sharpening this image and is quite a bit sharper than the first one I put up.

I took this one last week but didn't put it up at the time as the centre of the daisy wasn't focussed – f/3.5 and a shutter speed of 1/250s wasn't a good choice ;-) But while it certainly wouldn't make a decent print it was possible to sharpen it enough at this resolution and I thought it would be a good choice for today.

So, happy Easter :-)

Oh, and if you haven't had a chance to vote yet the Photobloggies, 2005 Awards finish at midnight today; so if you haven't already done so try and stop by and vote. Thanks again to everyone who nominated chromasia.

I'm really not sure about this one, mostly because it's not quite what I was after – it's close, but, to my mind at least, there's something missing. I guess that part of the problem is that although I've had my macro lens for a couple of months I haven't spent a great deal of time trying to take this sort of extreme close-up, and I've discovered that they're a lot harder than you might expect. Part of the problem is the very limited depth of field, but the lighting is really difficult too, particularly if you're trying to use flash.

More practice needed ;-)

Oh, and through shooting at f/18.0 I've discovered that I need to clean my sensor, ... which I hate doing :-/

I know this is pretty similar to yesterday's shot, but I couldn't resist putting it up as I think I probably prefer it. It's not as serene as yesterday's, but on the whole I think it's a stronger shot. Let me know which you prefer.

Update: I've decided to enter this one for this week's Photo Friday challenge – Glow. It's not quite as directly relevant to the theme as I'd like, but I think it's close enough :-)

We went to one of our local graveyards today, the oldest in Blackpool, so I could take some photographs and the kids could have a wander around. And I took 70 shots, or thereabouts, and absolutely all of them were terrible. Lately I think I've been trying to produce more 'straight' photography, more naturalistic perhaps, but I have to confess that I've been finding it something of a less than satisfying struggle at times.

So, having spent an hour or two going through today's graveyard shots, and getting more and more miserable about how bloody awful they were, I decided that it was time for a radical change – so here's today's shot :-)

Update: Fellow Eskimo's comment reminded me that I first read about Rain-X (used to 'encourage' the water droplets to be round) at round-here.net.

With shots like these I sometimes miss my G5, in that you could just set it on the ground and compose through the LCD. For this shot though I ended up laying on my stomach after digging a small hole in the sand to get my camera low enough to take the shot.

And I don't have too much more to say about this one other than that I thought it was quite a fitting image with which to begin chromasia's second year. And try it with the dark theme, it looks much better.

Oh, and as it is a new year for chromasia I thought I'd up the width of my images to 800px (from 784px). This is something I've thought about doing for a while, and I guess that now is as good a time as any.

And finally, thanks for all the wonderful comments on yesterday's birthday picture, they're much appreciated. And if anyone would like a printable version of the collage please let me know. I have two versions, one set up for printing on 6x4" and the other for A4. Both include the collage and the following text:

chromasia.com
David J. Nightingale (5th February, 2004 to 5th February, 2005).

Drop me an email (djn1 AT chromasia DOT com) l if you'd like a copy letting me know which version you'd prefer (both versions are 1.2MB).

On and off, I've wanted a macro lens for about twenty years, and this morning mine finally arrived, and in between doing a million and one other things today I managed to take a few shots. What I hadn't realised was just how difficult it is to compose a shot with the shallow DoF at maximum magnification – it really can't be more than a couple of millimetres at f/2.8, ... if that. Anyway, this shot isn't quite what I was after – that will have to wait for another day – but it was the best I could come up with while hand-holding the lens and trying to photograph our fidgety three year old ;-)

More small things to follow ...

I'm much happier with this shot than yesterday's, and other than that I don't have a great deal to say today: which is good, because I have no time to say it anyway ;-)

As I've mentioned, I won't be around tomorrow but hope to put something up from the wedding on Sunday.

When I took this shot I didn't expect that I would post it, on the expectation that a picture of a shell, despite the composition, probably wouldn't be all that interesting. But having looked at it I like the detail the close-focus has revealed. Besides which, I don't have anything else to put up ;-)

There are some things that work about this shot, and one that doesn't, in my opinion at least. The colours, DoF and composition are exactly what I was after, but the clarity/sharpness leaves something to be desired. A lot of the time I'm really pleased with my camera – it's small and unobtrusive, it takes pretty decent shots, and I didn't need a second mortgage to buy it – but on occasion I do wish that it would produce slightly more detailed images. There isn't anything majorly wrong with this shot, but it is a little less detailed than I was aiming for, and no amount of sharpening will restore detail that isn't there in the first place. Anyway, let me know what you think.

Oh, and we finally got a moving date yesterday – the 19th of this month. We were originally aiming to have moved by late June, so I don't suppose the 19th is too bad, but it does seem as though the whole process has been somewhat more complicated than necessary. Anyway, hopefully – fingers crossed – there won't be any more changes of plan.