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Wordless Wednesday: South West Coast Path
Category Archives: 18-55mm lens
Wordless Wednesday: Lake District
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What I Am Working On: Keeping Up With the Kit
What’s in my bag these days:
The bodies: Canon 50D and Canon 80D. A working film camera, it is a Canonete 28, that belonged to my great-uncle and has been passed on to me.
The lenses: 50mm 1.8, 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, 11-22mm f/3.5-3.5 IS, 70-200mm f/2.8 IS.
What I’ve learned along the way is that if you don’t get to know the gear you have, you won’t be able to create the best possible photo. I’m a firm believer in trying out a new camera body before you purchase it. Does it feel comfortable in your hands, are the buttons and menus set in ways that make sense to you? If there is something not quite right here for you personally, look at other options.
Since we are not travelling or getting out a whole lot right now, I have taken to switching out my lenses on my 80D and taking it on my walks around the neighbourhood. I’m doing this to stay familiar with the camera body and the lenses, how they work best, what sort of thing each lens is best for. My Canon 50D is mostly retired now. It has some sensor issues, so I keep it as a back-up. The film camera is something that I use the least. I am still working on when I would like to use it and the ways in which it works best.
Just for fun, here is my gear shot in the app Hipstamatic:
Added to Lens Artists, My Photography Journey.
January Squares: What’s Up
Don’t mind me, just walking past this huge elk:
The square edit:
Honestly, I was so glad that this elk didn’t seem to mind our presence as the path we were walking on passed really close to where he was sitting. I took a few quick photos and then went on my way.
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Added to Day 30 of the SquareUp Challenge.
January Squares: Lit Up
When I was working with this image:
I wanted to make sure that it retained what I thought of as its charm. I cleaned it up a bit with a crop first. Then I used the sky enhancer slider as well as increasing the small details and boosting the luminance of a few of the colors. I then applied a filter called Classic Chrome. I really liked what it did, but it was too strong on the sky portion of the image. So, I applied a mask, set the brush to 50%, and erased the filter from the sky. Here is the result:
It had been my original intention to create a square version with a different filter, but when I cropped for my square, I still really liked the filters I had applied, so I stuck with that:
This photograph was taken on a riverboat tour in Budapest. I would recommend that in any place you visit, if taking a boat tour is an option, to do it, places look completely different when seen from the water.
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Added to Day 28 of the SquareUp Challenge.
January Squares: Dust Up
This was an interesting tussle to witness. It seemed more like a minor display of dominance than a full up fight over territory or a female. These two walked away but stayed near one another a few minutes later.
I’ve used Luminar AI for this edit. I added the Warming Sun template at 75%, it highlighted the warm tones in the image, but set at 100% seemed a bit over the top. I used the dodge and burn tool to lighten the face of the elk. Your thoughts on the edit are welcome below.
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This image was also added to Day 21 of the SquareUp challenge.
January Squares: Up on the Hill
I was working with a file that I shot in February 2020, it’s the Liberty Statue in Budapest. I had a few different ideas in mind. I wanted to create a standard landscape crop and also a square crop. Mostly, I just wanted to see how the crop would change the story of the image.
The original file:
The first edit:
In addition to a crop this first edit has also had some of the lights at the base of the statue removed. In Luminar 3 I’ve also used the sky enhancer and polarizing filter sliders.
Then it was on to the square crop:
In addition to the different crop I’ve also added my custom filter that I call vintage film.
While the crop does make a difference in the photo I ended up thinking that the filter changes that I made is what makes these two edits distinct from one another. Your thoughts on that are welcome below.
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Added to the Square Up Challenge on Life of B.
Monochrome Monday, Deer
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January Squares: Sizing Each Other Up
It’s already the 7th of January, but this post is my first entry to the January Squares challenge that is running over at The Life of B. I chose to start my entries to this challenge with this one because it makes me smile:
In case you are concerned, this was an encounter that went well. The driver of this vehicle was parked and the elk walked up to it, the driver had not attempted to attract the animal in any way. When the elk began to lick the car, the driver restarted his car and reversed slowly away and the elk lost interest.
But this split second, when the two are sizing each other up, made for a good photo. It was shot on my Canon 80D and then edited in Luminar AI. I’ve added the “Instant Result” template at 80%. Your thoughts are welcome below.
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Wordless Wednesday: Battle of the Bulge Monument at Mardasson
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Photography Journal Blog: Volume 2 