Close Up

f/5.6 – 1/800 – ISO 400 – 300mm

Never put your camera away  even after you think there is nothing left to shoot.

One day, on the way back home I saw a group of Cattle Egret, and decided to come back the next day to try and take thier picture. I failed miserably. I could not get close enough and my 300mm lens is not long enough. My best attempt could be seen here. As you can see, it is cropped a lot, and  the noise reduction proccess has completely removed the feathers.I finally said enough.  On the way back to the car I kept the camera on me in the hope that there might be somthing more to photograph. I got lacky. A beautiful butterfly landed next to me and spread its wings to warm.

As always, I would love your comments, suggestions and most of all criticism about either or both the original and the processed photographs. I take every comment I get to heart and try to learn from it. Feel free to contact me by commenting to this blog, email or private message in one of the social media site.

Israel Independence Day 2010

f/7.1 – 1/160 – ISO 100 – 18mm

During Independence day in Israel we have a lot of “traditions”, most of them are just some things we got used to do again and again. One of those examples are a small ceremony for the kids in the kindergarten.  Imagine yourself in the midst of 250 kids, from the age of 1 to 5, all standing in the sun listening to the kindergarten teachers lecturing about independence day from a piece of paper the is so worn from use it is almost yellow. none of them understand what is this for, but all they know is that somewhere along the ceremony they will be allowed to dance in front of their parents and this is the only thing they wait for. I personally hate this, but my child loves this and was waiting for this from the day they started teaching her the dance. One thing good to be said about this event is that it is a great photo opportunity.

I have to admit one thing. This photo is a little “cheat” by me. The day the photo was taken was a hot sunny day with not a single cloud in the sky. So to make it a more attractive photo I just “planted” some nice sky. The original photo can be seen here if you wish to see the difference.

f/5.6 – 1/160 – ISO 100 – 70mm

Another “tradition” here is to have a BBQ with as many people as you can host in your chosen location to set the grill. In this day in Israel there is almost no place you can pass without seeing someone on the BBQ (including some traffic circles). For this image I only ran a Photoshop plug-in named Tupaz, and used one of the presets to highlight details. Original can be found here.

As always, I would love your comments, suggestions and most of all criticism about either or both the original and the processed photographs. I take every comment I get to heart and try to learn from it. Feel free to contact me by commenting to this blog, email or private message in one of the social media site.

A Boat Cruise in Twilight

f/5.6 – 1/1250 – ISO 100 – 300mm

It is the weakest excuse in the world, but I did not find time for taking a photo for the blog this months due to personal reason. So I used one of my early attempts at HDR. You should have a look at the original (here) to see how much it is changed. It was shot hand held, in the Port of Ashdod and most of what you see is a Photoshop manipulation by creating 2 tiff files from the same image with different exposures and then combined them together with Photomatrix. Together with Kelby’s 7 point system you get the result you see here. hope you like it, please feel free to comment about this post and images.

Happy Passover.

A day at the ZOO

f/5.6 – 1/320 – ISO 800 – 300mm

For this post I have selected some photos I took in a local zoo (for those who are interested it is the Hay Park in Kiriat Motzkin).

To capture those photos I have used my tripod as a monopod (really not convenient, but good enough) and my 70-300mm lens.

Since I do not have VR (vibration control), and there where a lot of people pushing their way, I set the camera to Shutter speed and set it to one over the lens longest telephoto distance (1/320).

I had a real hard time making sure the eyes are in focus, especially since most of the animals were moving. I have selected a few of the best and added them at the bottom of the post (click any image to view in bigger size).

Post processing is very minimal, using the basic of Scott Kelby’s 7 point system.

Hope you enjoy this post, as I had a lot of fun capturing the images for it.

As always, i would appreciate you comments, remarks and advise, either by posting a comment to the blog, email me or contact me in any of the social networks.

Chocolate Factory

f/3.5 – 1/160 – ISO 200 – 18mm

Next time you visit the Sea of Galilee, make sure to visit Gailta chocolate factory. In this image you can see the view from the sellers stand. I have gotten their permission to come behind the counter to shoot this one. As you can see, as much of the shop as I could include in the widest lens I have. It was shot hand held at shutter speed priority and flash fired. in post processing I have darkened the image, added some contrast, removed a little yellow and added a bit red.

You can view the original here.

While you are visiting the chocolate factory, do not miss a chance to visit the cowshed.

f/16 – 1/15 – ISO 200 – 31mm

This image was shot bracketed (3 shots) on tripod, with no flash. Stitching of the images was done with Photomatix. Photoshop was used to add a little contrast and red.

If you wish to view the one image that the camera meter has selected as the correct exposure you can view it here.

As always, if you think I could do something better while taking the shot or in processing, please post a comment. I make sure to read all and learn from all.

Side Note:

I could not get permission to enter the factory to shoot inside. Afterwords I found that the chocolate is not made in Israel. It is shipped in big chocolate blocks here from Belgium, and they only melts it here and recreate it in the forms you see in the photo

Queen Of The Road

f/16 – 1/25 – ISO 200 – 18mm

For my first blog post I choose this photo of my daughter which was taken as part of an assignment from Photography.ca forum.

This blog will be a monthly blog, as photography is currently only my hobby, and I still need to do full time work and care for my family.

The assignment was vertical cityscape photo, which is a little harder then horizontal, which is almost all of our panoramic photos.

When trying to take this picture I tried to add the traffic circle in the middle of the road, but was unable to find a place on the road that includes this street and the circle.

In the middle of crossing from side to side to look for a place, my daughter set down on the sidewalk in the middle of the road, and as soon as I saw it I knew this is the shot I am looking for.

I have used all the book rules I have learned to create this shoot, camera on tripod, sunny 16th rule, circular polarize for bringing back the blue of the sky and a flash to freeze my daughter in the low shutter speed.

On post processing I have cleaned up the sensor dust, added a small S curve, fixed a little the light on my daughter face, and added a little red using LAB colors to return the red of the stone on the sidewalk .

I would love to hear your thought on this shot and on the post processing about what you think I could/should have done to create a better photo.

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