24 hours on Anglesey.
- Thread starter Wayland
- Start date
The photographer we met came from Failsworth so I'm beginning to see a trend here.
Magnificent shots, Gary ... almost tempts me to go back to it but with modern kit. I still have the deVere 5x4 enlarger and the old Leica left from the B&W film days but my hands can no longer cope with the weight of the old camera. I suppose I should sell it all really but it's nostalgia. I really do like your stuff ... do you put it up on one of your blogs?
My computer is nestled between a wall mounted De Vere 54 and an LPL 7700 enlarger that I ought to pack down and put in the attic but the place wouldn't feel the same without them.
They are not really worth anything these days apart from their sentimental value to me.
Stunning pictures. Somebody may have already asked this but why post them on open forum? Surely that devalues the work if you wanted to sell them? Clearly nobody can use them for commercial purposes but do you not need to protect them in some way or is it just that with editing software and all that these days there is little point?
20 minute exposure, f4, 800 iso. Long exposure reduction on.
Into PhotoShop as a Smart Object, Shadow/Highlight adjustment to lift the shadows and mid-tone contrast.
Spotting layer to remove hot pixels here and there and the rest done with Graduated, "Soft Light" layers to balance tones.
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This one started as two 25 second exposures, f4 6400 iso. Again Long exposure noise reduction on.
There is a useful rule of thumb for how long you can expose the stars for before they start to trail.
Divide 500 by your "effective" focal length based upon a 35mm full frame to give the maximum number of seconds. (Some people use a figure of 600 but 500 is safer.) (Remember to apply crop factors for smaller sensors.)
In this case the lens was set at 19mm so that gave me a figure of 26.3 which meant that 25 seconds should be fine.
I had determined where the Milky Way would lie using an astronomy app on my iPad and had waited up late so that some of the dust clouds around the galactic core would be visible obove the horizon. I had to shoot upwards to use the hill to shield most of the light pollution but still silhouette the memorial.
In PhotoShop I stacked the two shots as layers, masked the foreground from one and rotated the upper layer around the celestial pole to register the frames then blended them together in the colour dodge mode.
Once that was done I stamped the layers to create a flat copy layer, added a curve to remove some of the light pollution and then warped the layer to correct the perspective of the memorial and the bench but not distort the sky too much.
To finish off, I applied some selective exposure control and a curve layer just to enhance the dust clouds of the Milky Way a little.
The new camera by the way is a 6D
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I put them on open forums because there is not much point taking pictures if no one is going to see them.
I only put small versions up and they are tagged with Copyright information, although occasionally some forum software strips that.
I make regular TinEye searches for my work and if I find any that have been ripped off, I descend from a great height like a ton of bricks.
I'm not very commercial about my images, photography is mostly a hobby for me these days, but I do protect my rights vigorously.
In fact, I have often been tipped off about illegal use of my shots by people that recognise my work from forums like this.
Good for you; more creative people should be vigorous in protecting their copyright.
I remember being at an archaeological illustrators conference a few years ago where this was debated; only one of the attendees actively policed his work.
Sadly, big organisations like the National Trust, that ought to know better, are just as bad as the public these days.
When I found one of their local offices using my picture I was told that their local web manager had made a "genuine mistake", which was utter rubbish, but they knew darned well that there wasn't much a small independent photographer could afford to do against the legal and financial clout that they have.
I had to be satisfied with having the picture taken down after the event which means they had advertised a successful paid event with my picture for free.
Interestingly, that was not taken from any of the forums or web sites I posted it on but from the publicity set used to promote the landscape photographer of the year.
I certainly would not want to dissuade you from putting them up on here because they are amazing so I'm glad you've worked out how to protect your copyright on them as best you can.
holy.. wow!
these are so beautiful they look fake! who sold you your camera, Aphrodite?
I'll take that as a compliment.. I think...
The camera helps of course but there's a lot of work goes into shots like this as well.
