Month: October 2012

Rock-Paper-Camera

Whilst looking for some android workplace tools for work today, I came across a review for a camera app called Paper Camera. Intrigued by the description, and always interested in different camera apps I jumped all in and downloaded the pay version.

I’m aware for some photographers out there, anything other than the RAW image coming from a camera is a no go zone. I for one like effects, plug-ins etc. as part of a wide mix of tools in my shed. Sometimes one wants to capture a moment as it was, other times, perhaps as it felt, and other times again – just in a different way. Each has a place (perhaps a similar argument applies to why I shoot digital and film).

I only had a chance to use it on my bike ride home, so wont go into any depth, but, its a fun little app that gives the user a host of different ‘paper medium’ live-view recreations of the photo you are taking. You can also record as well as snap pictures, which is pretty cool.

Today’s image ‘Rock-Paper-Camera’ aside from resizing is straight from the camera (via Paper Camera). My subject, the local concrete makers. Situated on a busy corner, I never get the chance to stop for a photo when driving past regularly – that’s one bonus about being out on a cycle – one can stop with ease, and moving slower you take notice of more sites that one may miss when travelling by motor.

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Welcome to My House

I took a stroll into part of Unsworth Reserve today after work. I have passed it may times throughout the years, but never stopped. A great little bush, albeit easy to walk down a dead end track. On my return leg I dove down another dead end path and came across this seat in the middle of no where.

How it got there I don’t know, but it made me think of the storybook ‘where the wild things are’, and various articles I have read about people who essentially abandon society and go bush (or desert, or island etc).

Depending how one looks at it, its either a slightly creepy image, or a cool one, imagining oneself waking up in the forest and sitting down for a morning cuppa on your couch.

In gimp I played around with levels and added a vignette lomo filter. The focus of the image was not quite right, but I liked the content, so ran with it anyway for today.

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Storm Warning

New Zealand has been hit with a mild weather bomb (depending which part of the country you are in) these last few days. Overall in Auckland we have only had a bit of high wind and low cloud. Yesterday this combined with a little light rain – nothing to get excited about.

In between appointments I snapped this image down at Narrow Neck beach in Devonport using my Ricoh with a tweaked bleach bypass setting.

Using Gimp, I cropped the aspect a little, removing some of the tree and more grey sky. I applied a light softening blur, slightly desaturated and lightly adjusting the hue. Lastly I added the rounded corners.

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Wall of Colour

As mentioned the over the weekend during one of my walks, I came across an old abandoned/condemned area which had had a lot of erosion and landslips. Some of the track had gone with it, but you could make out an alternate track that ‘adventure walkers’ had made, and I followed.

Part of the fenced off area included a large reinforced concrete area, where today’s photo came from. Although there is a difference in my head between street art and graffiti, one thing for certain is its full of bright attracting colour. If it had not been for the colour, this area would have blended in with the bush.

Shot on my Sony Nex 5N and the Sigma 2.8/30 lens. In Gimp I added black boarder and resized for the net.

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Waiting for the Tide

I headed out with an Olympus E-500, older model Four Thirds DSLR today with a lens of a 35mm equivalent of 140-600mm. Its been a while since I played with such a long focal length, and coupled with not being used to the E-500 had a mixed bag of success. I thought I had captured some great bird images, but upon getting home and looking at full screen, it look like I needed to up the iso to get the frozen images I was looking for. Never mind. I will borrow it again some time.

Mixed success aside, and being several years discontinued now, I did enjoy the operation of the Olympus. I have owned in the past a few of their compact range for pocket shooters, but never one of their DSLR or Micro Four Third units. I think if I had not made some lens investment in my Nex, I would have looked at the likes of a EP-3 or E-M5. The sensor size is great for getting a big zoom.

Today’s image ‘waiting for the tide’, after some cropping, was one of the ones I liked from today’s Olympus experiment.  As well as cropping I also pushed the contrast a few notches and applied a bit of sharpening.

Back to a camera I am more familiar with tomorrow!

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Portrait of a Sheep

I managed to get out and about to several places with my camera today. First exploring some closed off cliff tracks, and then off to Cornwall Park for a around the base walk. Cornwall is full of cows and sheep (mostly sheep) and today’s image was of one sheep who came up to me to see what I was doing.

Shot on my Sony Nex with my recently received Sigma 2.8 30 Lens (50mm equivalent), I am more than happy with the quality this lens produces, especially when you consider it is about the cheapest lens built for the Nex at this point in time (not counting the plastic holga’s and lenses with adaptors). The focal length is great and the overall size, although bigger then the 16mm prime, is still nice and compact.

I also captured some interesting shots of a graffiti covered area on my closed off (fenced off to the public) walk, but will save them for a less active day.

Baaa for now.

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Above the Grass

Down here in Auckland New Zealand we are still experiencing the changeable nature of spring. One minute it is sunny, the next rain. Temperature wise its mildish. NZ Band Crowded House once sung the song ‘four seasons in one day’. It really can apply here!  Its all a signal that summer is on the way though…I think…

Shot on my Sony Nex 5N @54mm, ‘Above the Grass’ is a simple capture of these beautiful little flowers standing out in the green grass field.

Aside from resizing, I didn’t do any post processing work on this image. I love the simple soft and peaceful summer like feeling it creates.

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Surface of the Earth

Been a pretty flat out day and I have run out of time to write much.

Snapped this on my GRD IV on the way home today. In post processing I added several selective blur layers in Gimp and cropped to play with the sizing perspective a little.

More tomorrow!

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The Tree

I got talking with a guy I sold a camera to today. Like myself, he had a collection of both film and digital cameras – the film being anything from 35mm to large format. One thing we discussed was how far the level of digital photography, or I should say its quality has come.

For the average (and non average) Joe, many of our images are either displayed on TV and computer screens, or perhaps a handful printed out. Often, they are shared on various online forums, blogs and sites at a much reduced quality than produced by the camera (for example, my first 2MP camera makes bigger prints than my resize size for my posts). Aside from some particularly nice monitors, your average TV screen is far below the quality of your average camera.

Sure, the non branded cameras can be of a lower quality, but even the average smart phone captures a decent image no days.

When specials come up on A3 and A2 photo canvases I like to grab one to print out a recent personal favourite. Looking around my room, 3/4 of all my A2 canvases were taken on my Ricoh GRD IV. Arguably it has a fantastic prime lens, perhaps one of the best for compacts, but the ‘film’ (aka sensor) is still an older CCD 1/1.8″ (larger than many compacts, but still tiny).

I guess at the end of the day, today’s rant is really just a self reminder, and a thinking point to others out there asking the question “do I/you really need to upgrade?” there are always arguments in the ‘for’ category (low light capability perhaps one), but for those of us who remember film days, we have far exceeded some of the limits film placed upon us – maybe its just a case of knowing your camera(s) and their capabilities and pushing that, rather than reaching for the next new model?
Oh – and today’s image! – Shot on my Sony Nex5N, kit lens. In post using Gimp I pushed up the saturation a little. Felt like some colour!

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Burried City

I’m fascinated by archaeology. All around the world you hear of digs where ancient ruins, cities and tombs lay. Whether it be forgotten, reclaimed by nature, or purposefully encased and locked away. If I hadn’t studied anthropology and sociology, I think I would have studies archaeology.

Today’s image is actually just a piece of art work at a central city park (a highly post processed one that that) that I snapped on my Galaxy S2 when taking a stroll through several days ago.

I wanted to create a scene where the building had been buried on a grass plane. The original of the photo is actually just next to a walkway, and behind that a main road and shops. I cropped out those items and cloned in grass – which worked OK if you don’t look too close. I then applied multiple layers and filters making the old building quite hard against its green background.

I wonder what our cities will look like a millennia from now?

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