Diagonally.. (Not Alley)

I wonder at times what makes me like a view. When I am out walking it is generally the wide open vista's but at times a much smaller part of the view can stand out.

The hills in the South Wales valleys have many wonderful views and one thing that they have in common when you get waking on the sides of the valleys is that they are steep

What I like about these steep views is that you can get a whole tree in a view that has more interest than a flat open field.

Here are a couple taken on a recent walk that show what I am talking about

Here's the one tree which is (almost) all in the picture because the slope allows it to be.

And if one tree is not enough of a view there were four more along the track which re-enforced the view for me 

Old St Mellons Fete 2011

I only had a few minutes to pop over to the village fete this year and decided to take a long rather than standard lens. This means you can be unobtrusive and get some interesting pictures rather than just crowd shots.

So here are a selection from the day.

1. WHY have they given me a spoon to eat this Ice Cream ?

2. Careful !

 3. I CAN have a manly conversation whilst holding onto a pink balloon animal - Honest!

4. Who are you looking at ?

And my favorite...

5. I AM going to eat this hot dog even if it's nearly as big as I am !

It was a nice day and it was really good to see people out enjoying themselves

Craig Cerrig Gleisiad

I've been neglecting this blog for the last few months because I've been working so hard on my other projects and at work, but I hope to find more time from now on for the rest of the summer (ha ha) to be back here

So it's about time I posted dome summer views and her's one I took on a recelt walk in th esunshine

I know I was walkin gin the sunshine because it was hot, but it stopped being so sunny and I took off my sunglasses and put them down somewhere, and that's why there are a pair of sunglasses littering the countryside because I forgot to pick them up again

Just on the switch between the two states, I took this picture. The skies were wonderfully threatening and much more dramatic than the blue skies that we'd had earlier

Hardly any adjustments to that picture, simply point, shoot, process, upload

When the scenery is that good who needs more

Chocolate Box Photography

There are very many superbly artistic photographers out there

I don't count myself amongst them

However what I do think I can do is appreciate a nice view

Like Castel Coch in Tongwynlais near Cardiff where I live

It's a place I know well. it should be... I got married there

And yet when I look through my photographs there was hardly a picture of the place in the collection

Thankfully this has now been rectified in part, but it;s also left me realising that I need to do more. I had a walk I was leading in the area so rushed off to check the paths were OK before the day and realised I was there, the light was nice and I had seconds with one lens and a few seconds before a hoard of people walked into the shot

So here's my chocolate box view of Castel Coch and I think I could see it adorning many a suitable box of local delights..

Now I just need to sell the idea to someone :-)

What you can get away with

On a recent event in Dan yr Ogof (Wales Premier show cave) I was asked to take some pictures and record the event

However as I was also organizer, part event leader, rounder upper of people and general dogsbody as well I found the whole timing aspect quite a challenge

Suffice to say that I rapidly decided that setting up tripods and even using creative flash was out of the question as there were too many people doing too many other things

So I went for the click and prey approach to taking pictures and it's amazing what you can get away with in Digital

Take these for instance

These are both taken on the E-30 with the 14-54 lens and they are taken hand held, no tripod, and using the show cave lighting which was only on for a short period of time as we went through ( the caves were not open yet for the season). ISO 800 and F2.8

OK I'm not going to win any competitions with them and they are to be honest not pin sharp when you look at them full sized on a good screen, but a few years ago I would not have considered taking such pictures. Even when I stated with the e-Series my E-500 was not up to these type of pictures and I would have had to do noise reduction, but these are straight out of the camera, resized and posted.

As I say - an example of what you can get away with

Learning a new Lens

Back in November I was pleased to take delivery of an Olympus 7-14mm super wide angle lens


I had been able to test one at one of the Olympus e-group meetings in South Wales a few years ago, but had not been able to afford one until recently so I was really pleased to get this in perfect condition from a member of the e-group who was downsizing at a significant reduction to the list price


It's a beast of a lens with a domed front element and a real case of "mind your feet" if you point it downwards, especially in portrait mode


With poor weather and work commitments I've not had the time to play lens properly until this weekend when we went to Southerndown on the River Severn to look at the Jurassic Lias cliffs (geology note!)


I've still got some practising to do to get the hang of what levels of distortion are going to be acceptable in a picture (some is inevitable with close items and this lens) but I an happy with these as a first real use


I would have liked to be further back from the cliff for this one, but the tide was too far in

 The pebbles on the right are a little too distorted for my liking, but it's fun to be able to get down and close to the ground

Of these three this is my favourite one, in the corner where the gryphaea can be found and looking back towards the main area of cliffs

Geological Note

These cliffs are Jurassic in age. that's about 190 Million years old in this case. They are known as Lias from the German for layers and are layered limestone's and shale's which contain marine fossils telling us they were laid down under the sea Gryphaea mentioned above is a type of fossil oyster that grows in a very curved manner and is often referred to as "Devils Toe Nails" because they look like the toes of gargoyles

Picture of the Year 2010

In an earlier post I mentioned that there was a Picture of the Year 2010 competition on the UK Olympus e-Group

At that time as voting was still open I thought it inappropriate to talk further about what I had been really happy with in 2010, but now votes are in and counted so I feel free to talk.

So my top three were

Ice plants - these were sedges crowing on Mynydd Llangynidr that I really liked when we saw them in the winter of 2010 just after new year - this wonderful day out was a superb way to start the year and getting down close and personal with these natural ice sculptures was a wonderful way to start the year. More of these Here This was taken with my E-510 with the kit 14-42 lens at the long end, it's F8 at 100 ISO

Goldcliff

As Spring wore on I was happy to spend another wonderful day out with Rhian who I persuaded to pose for me in this picture taken on the mudflats at Goldcliff. She'd been working whilst I spent a wonderful 2 hours taking pictures of the mudflats and the fish traps.This was taken with my new (at the time) E-30 and the absolutely wonderful 11-22mm lens at f5.6 to give a reasonable, but not ulttrasharp DOF and -1.7 ev because I was shooting into the sun

 in writing this I've realised that I never put any of these in my website. I will develop a gallery for the River Severn as it's so photogenic around here

Last and by no means least is my weekend in Tenby

We had planned to be lead on a field trip by Professor Brian WIlliams, but Rhian received a phone call at work.. "Hi Rhian... I'm phoning from the Hague.." The trouble was that was the weekend of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland which is why there are no planes in the sky and I didn't need to photoshop vapour trails out of that weekend's pictures at all. It's also taken on my E-30 and once again the 11-22mm lens. Tenby is always a pleasure to visit and take pictures of as you can see Here 

P.S. if you want to make a model of the Volcano .. http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/highlights/iceland/3dVolcanicModel.html

Homeward Bound

One of the nice things about My Tree is that it's got a wonderful view back towards home so whichever way you turn there is a picture

Snow shots are often criticised for being somewhat grey so I don't know what the purists will think of my orange snow, but this was the view a few minutes after the last shot in the My Tree section. I used a fairly small aperture (f16) because I wanted a good depth of field on this picture, and +0.7 ev (exposure variance) to keep the snow bright even thought I was shooting into the sun. 

Clearly a couple of blown highlights in the sun and one at the bottom, in the reflection, but I'm going to not worry too much I'm not a pixel peeper

The long and winding road is the way home. it's about 2 miles and along the way there are many fine pictures to be seen. This one is a little closer to home I've only about a mile to go before I will be warm...

or so it seems because this was actually a few days before and I was going in the other direction and had to shelter in the pub when the blizzard landed ....

At least that's my excuse.

In this picture I opened up the aperture to F8 which is a good compromise in terms of depth of field and still being bright enough for a reasonable shutter speed. Once again +0.7 ev because it's predominantly a white scene 

Using exposure variance in this way is important in pictures that are dominated by Bright or dark because scenes because your camera will try to adjust to an average  

We DID make it home eventually...

My Tree

A couple of years ago I was persuaded to go to our local real ale establishment by my dear wife (she's always referred to as such when she drags me to beer)

Sitting outside in the beer garden we were treated to a wonderful sunset and enjoyed the last of our drinks as the sun slid down behind the church.

It was a little cold so we headed off and, to our delight as we got onto the top road and had a better view the sky turned a deep rich orange colour and the views were spectacular.

I knew that I needed to find a spot to take pictures and I needed to find it fast so we headed quickly to a place where I had stopped to take a shot of a tree in a field about a year previously

I was not disappointed





Tree in a fiery Sky

  

As the darkness drew in the fire did not abate and I settled in to enjoy the view but it got harder t take pictures this is handheld at 1/15th



Up Close and Personal with my tree in the dark

Since then I have been back in the sun and I've enjoyed a number of visits to "My Tree"



My Tree enjoying some sunshine

  

 I've been there in the snow as well ...

In the Snow

So why sound so possessive.

Well on walking around a local Christmas market I came upon a picture of a tree I recognized. It's not this one it's the one in the field across the road from it. I've since found another local photographer to takes pictures of that tree as well .. and I have to admit so do I, but until now I've not seen another picture of "My Tree" so I'm claiming it.

I have no rights to it I understand and I quite expect that there has been someone out there recently eyeing it up and event taking some quite excellent pictures of it, but when I'm there and I'm the one enjoying the view I like to think I've found a little somewhere special of my own .

I'm sure someone will prove me wrong

I'm also sure I've not yet recaptured the majesty of that first night - I will need to try harder

How to abuse camera kit

As you can see in this picture I take my cameras underground. This picture is taken in Dinas Silica Mines in South Wales.


The picture is taken with my E-500 and the kit 14-42mm lens with the camera on a tripod and the lighting coming from a Scurion caving light which was being worn by my friend and fellow caver photographer Andy Morse. 


The object in the near ground is my camera bag in which you can see my E-30 sticking out with a flash trigger unit on the top. This level of protection is only possible because the mines are fairly easily accessible and you do not need to get muddy. Even so everything I took with me needed a very good cleaning before I used it again

Main Passage Dinas Silica Mines, Wales, UK

Geological Note

The Dinas Silica Mines are famous worldwide because ot the quality of firebricks created from this rock in the local brickworks

More pictures from this trip and an explanation of the geology and history of the site are available on my website at  http://www.shenstone.me.uk/galleries/underground/dinas/info.html