Gods in Gardens

Some pictures just lend themselves to HDR and I think this is one of them. Perhaps it is the stone scenery but I didn't feel like I had to wrestle with the sliders much in Photomatix to get the look I wanted here. This was taken a few weeks ago while visiting Hever Castle in Kent. It is another feature of the magnificent gardens they have at Hever. This was taken with my D90 and though I have a D700 now, there are still plenty more pictures to come from the last month or so of my D90.

I took 3 bracketed shots for this picture and made some slight adjustments to the RAW images before saving them as TIFF files and merging them in Photomatix. Although as I said this to me is quite a natural looking HDR, I still added some filters in Nik Color Efex to give it a slightly soft and desaturated look (beyond just moving the saturation slider to the left in Lightroom).

I have no idea by the way whether this is a Roman or Greek god that is being represented here but I would guess some kind of Roman one. Just a quick joke before I go; I don't want to be remembered in some grandiose way after I die, I would just like the word 'Humble' written on my statue....(sorry!).

Victoria's Lions

Having struggled a couple of months ago to find new pictures for this blog, I now find myself with a fair few new pictures to choose from. Unlike the intention of this blog, most pictures that will be posted in the near future will all mainly be from the UK. I stated this at the start of the year, when I let it be known that due to a house move and getting married in September, foreign travel this year was going to be difficult. I am visiting Poland twice in the next 4 months (once to get married), so that will provide more opportunities for 'global' pictures and if I am lucky, I plan to visit 2 more countries by the end of the year as well, but we will see how things go.

Today's picture is another one I took while out looking for Diamond Jubilee pictures to capture around Newbury last week. I have lived in the Newbury area (with a few years in-between living in Cheltenham) for the best part of 27 years and have never come across this statue in a local park before. That's rather embarrassing as the park is called Victoria Park but I never realised there was a statue of Queen Victoria within it. At least it proves there are still gems to be found near your local area if you look hard enough (or open your eyes at all in my case). This is another HDR picture taken from 5 exposures on my new Nikon D700. I added a tiny bit of Topaz Adjust to the statues and used the glamour glow (very slightly) and cross balance filters in Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

The Old Farmhouse

Luckily we had a small break in the blanket cloud cover we have had in England the last couple of weeks, for me to capture this picture yesterday. This came out of a project I have been given recently to take some pictures for postcards of Woolton Hill, which was the village I grew up in. The brief was to capture Woolton Hill in summertime and I was fortunately able to complete most of the pictures a few weeks ago when we had a heatwave. The brief sunny weather yesterday allowed me to complete the pictures I intended to get for this project.

This farmhouse is actually just outside Woolton Hill near a neighbouring village called East Woodhay. I don't think I will be using this picture for the project, mainly because it's obviously somebody's property and I would in a normal world, probably need permission to print. I was intrigued by this scene though as I was driving round narrow country lanes, hoping that a scene would jump out at me. It would have perhaps looked more perfect at sunrise but I'll plan that one maybe for another time!

The Circus is in Town

My first HDR to have been created using my D700, this was another picture taken amongst the Jubilee celebrations last weekend. I stated on Tuesday that Newbury didn't seem to offer much in terms of Jubilee celebrations but there was a circus that rolled into town for the long weekend. I recently had a discussion regarding art with a lady during which I stated that 99% of all the photographs I take are not pre-visioned in my head. There have been some in the past such as my Building a Newbury Sunset that I already had a pre-conceived idea about, weeks before I took it. But that is rare. Most of the time I turn up to locations and events to get inspired by what is around me and let the ideas crop up in my head then. This circus box office wagon is an example of an idea that gripped hold of me once I spotted it. Having noticed there was a circus in the area (the noise from the rehearsals attracted me), I wanted to find a good photographic opportunity to capture the uniqueness of the circus. Most of the area was for the time-being closed off but obviously the ticket sales wagon wasn't and after the punters had stopped buying tickets for a moment or two, I simply took some snaps of this fantastic box office.

On an artistic note, I deliberately decided to keep the noise of the sky in the picture, though at the same time softening it. I don't normally go for a really gritty look in Photomatix but because of the rain that was coming down at the time, it worked so much more for this picture than a clean look. Keeping the noise in kept the picture consistent on all levels.

A final note; my new D700 doesn't take pictures like my D90 does in 2 stops intervals (if you want it to) but only does them 1 stop at a time. Therefore, to get the usual -2 to +2 range, I have to shoot 5 exposuress but thats ok because it gives me more pictures and therefore options to play with in post-processing. So this is an HDR from 5 different bracketed shots.

It's Raining on Jubilee

It's been a weekend of celebrations in the United Kingdom the last few days, with it being the 60th year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. I did ponder for quite a while whether to go to London or not to capture the festivities there but in the end for various reasons I decided to stay in West Berkshire and see what I could capture here. Today's picture is the first one I am posting from my new Nikon D700 camera (more about that below). It is obviously not an HDR picture but a moment I captured of Asian tourists (I think) looking a bit bewildered by the bad ('standard' if you're British) weather above all the celebrations. Being quite drizzly as it was didn't help bring the crowds out in Newbury and without having a dig at my local town, I didn't think there was a lot going on for the jubilee. I just thought there would be more that's all. I would say to end this bit 'Here's to the next 60 years!' but forgive me for thinking that's rather improbable. Being once a history student, I am very fond of our monarchy and is one of the essences of 'Britishness'. Long may it continue!

So why the D700?


This is the bit I wanted to write the other day before the bad weather ruined any chance of getting some pictures before Sunday. After my house move, I had a bit of money left over and therefore decided to upgrade my photographic equipment. Nikon has just brought out the D800, so why did I buy the camera it is to replace, the D700? Well there are a few reasons really, so where shall I start....Of course, the price does come into it. The D800 currently costs £1000 more than the D700 and is very hard to get hold of. I could have afforded the D800 but what do you get for the extra £1000? Video recording capability - not interested (even if I was, I have that on my D90 anyway), improved image quality (I'm not sure about that but will come back to it) and the 'biggie', the 36 megapixel sensor.

One of the photographic books I own is a book called 'Transient Light' by Ian Cameron (he's a good guy by the way and signed my copy before sending it to me). He is a professional landscape photographer and he makes it very clear at the beginning of his book that he still almost entirely shoots with film. He writes "Most modern cameras far exceed my personal requirements, instead offering a huge array of features that have little relevance to the way I work, and simply constitute needless clutter on a camera" (pg. 62). Now I would apply this statement to the 36 megapixel feature. I don't need 36 megapixels and in fact do not want this. The D700 is by comparison 12.1 Megapixels, which is similar to the D90 I have shot with for the last 2 years. As most photographers know (but Curry's salesman won't tell you), megapixels are not about the quality of an image but the size of it. With my D90, I print quite standardly around 75cm x 50cm, though I have printed up to A1 size. These images still look quality with perhaps only a little softer look for the A1 print I did. Unless you are a professional billboard photographer, I don't know why you would want a 36 megapixel camera. The image size is so huge that you can't capture nearly as many photographs on memory cards and I have read more than one comment by D800 users saying that their photographic software has slowed down massively as a result. I think a 18 to 20 megapixel camera would have been much more sensible for an upgrade, as I would never want any more than that.

Image quality is always the thing I care about most and if there is no difference between the D700 and the D800 here than the £1000 extra is simply a waste. I have looked at and compared all the test shots on the Nikon simulator at their website and I can't see any difference at all. I have seen some websites point the difference out if you magnify the images and start cranking up the ISO but again this to me is so minimal it becomes a non-issue. We photographers choose to pursue an expensive hobby/career, one which we are prepared to make a few sacrifices for to afford the best equipment. But we have to come back down to earth sometimes. £1000 is a lot of money for most people and when I can't notice a difference in image quality for that amount of money, then there is no way you are going to convince me to buy it. For me the D700 is a sensible choice and I look forward to using it for the next few years. I chose to buy the Nikkor 24-700m F2.8 lens with it that set me back another wad of money but hey, I saved some money with not going for the D800.

I know if I had bought the 24-70mm lens alone for my D90, it would have been a major upgrade as it is, but I have no regrets at buying the D700. I wanted a full frame camera, which I can build my equipment around in future and also have the option to shoot with 14 bit RAW files as opposed to 12 bit. In fact, the D90 and D700 are 2 different levels of camera, so all the differences aren't worth listing here but suffice to say the D90 isn't going anywhere. I still have it and will use it as backup (though I think more likely my fiancé will use it all the time). Now if only the D700 weighed less, I could say it was better than the D90 in every way, but change for bad or good always comes with compromises....

HDR Waterfall

I was going to write a post today about the new camera I have bought, which is a Nikon D700. I had it all planned out that I would post my first picture from my new camera today and write a blog about why I came to the decision to buy this camera (and perhaps more importantly why I didn't buy the newly released D800). However, for the 2 days I have owned the D700, the weather in England has reverted to type and it has been absolutely miserable. I'm obviously not going to take my new camera out in the rain and haven't felt inspired to capture anything anyway. I'm hoping to capture some pictures of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations over the bank holiday weekend (if the weather clears up), so maybe that D700 post will be raring to go on Tuesday. We shall all see!

Instead, I offer you today a picture of this waterfall (hey they don't have to be big!) that I pictured within the grounds of Hever Castle. And yes it is in glorious HDR! You don't see many of them?! I was quite impressed with myself (you don't have to be) to get this shot, as it was taken handheld and auto-bracketed using 3 exposures. I'm glad the waterfall isn't too smooth, as I like the little flowing details you can see and the light gleaming off the water as well. Used a little Nik Color Efex Pro magic to get the final touches, as well as the usual processing in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Tudor England

I like to think that historical pictures are one of my specialities in the photographic and HDR worlds and it certainly is my ambition to use my imagination to present scenes from our past. Opportunities I have had in the past such as attending civil war battle reenactments are certainly a way that I can capture a bit of historical magic and I'm constantly looking for other ideas to present history in photographic form. HDR processing helps enormously as well because for me it has always been the artistic look HDR can give to photos rather than 'capturing the entire light range' that makes HDR so special. It really helps give pictures an extra dimension and although of course I love standard photography, HDR provides more opportunities I feel to create an artistic look.

The location in today's picture is again within the grounds of Hever Castle, with the focus of this one being the Tudor Village that lies behind the castle. Now this part of Hever Castle does not actually date back to the Tudor period (1485 - 1603 for the historian buffs like me) but was created in the 20th century to house extra guests that would be staying at Hever Castle. You're not allowed to walk round it either, nowadays I believe it is specially reserved for weddings and other events. Therefore, I got this picture while stood by the castle, whilst looking towards the Tudor Village. I found it quite intriguing that there was a boy who was in and out of this boat by the village and felt this would look good as part of the picture. I'm sure he works for the castle but luckily was not wearing any kind of uniform that would look out of place in this picture.

Processing wise, this is an HDR picture taken from 3 shots and after a lot of painstaking work, I merged in a texture from a rock that I also pictured from within the grounds of Hever Castle. In the final image I did think about going a bit lighter on the texture but then I lost the authentic historical look of the buildings, which I was not prepared to sacrifice, therefore I kept the strong texture look in.

Mickey Mouse has Grown Up a Cow

Ok, so the title comes from a line in David Bowie's classic song Life on Mars? which I don't really understand but if anyone does then please let me know! There's no real hidden meaning of the title on this website, I just couldn't think of anything else to call it.

This was taken last week as I was chasing the sunset all over West Berkshire. I was hoping to come across a stretch of water such as a lake with the sun going down on the horizon but knew I wouldn't really find it. Having driven down so many endless country lanes, I came across an elderly couple watching these cows as the sun dipped down and as I drove past, my intuition said 'that's it!'. I turned the car round and parked somewhere off the road I probably shouldn't have and took quite a few bracketed shots of these cows in the field. Now I didn't use a tripod because it wouldn't stretch to where I wanted it to go anyway. I perched on a fence that quite luckily was right in front of 30mph sign and this gave me stability and a fairly steady hold as I took the shots.

It wasn't the easiest HDR to process because of the contrast in light between the foreground and background but I think the persistence has paid off. Layer masking certainly helped eradicate the movement of the cows between the different bracketed shots.

An English Summer Scene

You probably wouldn't know it but this is another picture from my day spent at Hever Castle last week. I mentioned the other day that as well as the castle, Hever has some spectacular landscape surrounding it and I hope this picture demonstrates that. I was very lucky to visit on a beautiful sunny day (hey, I live in England!) but the weather was my inspiration to go on this particular day. The bright weather made it quite difficult to capture some HDR pictures but it was still a fantastic opportunity to capture some great scenes of the English summer time.

This isn't an HDR photo but a single exposure processed in Lightroom and then Nik Color Efex Pro using the Glamour Glow filter. I wanted it to represent the English countryside in the summer but I dialled back the vibrance of the colours as my original version I felt was a bit too green. So this way I hope to have given it a more artistic look which is the aim of most of my pictures.

Hever Castle

Finally something from a new place on this blog! In fact, this photo is a bit of a change in more than just being somewhere new but in actually looking more like a real photograph. I spent all of yesterday's glorious sunshine at Hever Castle in Kent and whilst the sunshine was very welcome, the blanket bright blue sky did not really lend itself to taking HDR pictures. So it was back to my photography roots with the intention of just capturing a single shot fantastic landscape, which for this scene I wouldn't have done any other way. I will perhaps be a bit more creative with this scene in the future, like making it look a bit historical with a filter or texture maybe but with over 500 photos to go through, I'm pretty happy with this for just being back at the computer for a couple of hours.

So this is Hever Castle in Kent, a place I have wanted to visit for a couple of years now. Hever Castle is best known for being the childhood home of Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn. She lived here from soon after her birth (circa 1501 believed to be in Norfolk) to around perhaps the time she was made Queen in 1533, with a 6 year gap in the middle (circa 1516-1522) during which she lived in France. She was 1 of 2 of Henry's wives to have been beheaded, the unfortunate victim in a conspiracy to replace her as Queen (almost certainly because she had been unable to provide Henry with a son). As I intend to post many more pictures from around Hever Castle in the near future, I won't go into a complete biography of Anne Boleyn now but naturally she is fondly remembered at Hever.

You can walk round inside Hever Castle, where you will quickly learn it's not really a castle at all but a large country manor house. It can be toured inside in half hour but what really makes Hever special are the gardens and landscape surrounding the castle. There are beautiful statues, fountains, streams, lakes, mazes, waterfalls...it really does go on. It's a fantastic place for the photographer and I highly recommend it. It was a fantastic opportunity to try some creative shots within the grounds of Hever Castle and as I said, will post many more of them in the near future.