Project 2013 by Letrow

[Geoff F]

A pink bicycle is certainly something which is new to me!

I see some pink on the front wheel so I assume it has been 'customised'.

And the front carrying basket is also unusual. Almost like those shop delivery bicycles that we had in the UK many years ago. People who rode them, mostly 'shop delivery boys' said they were a nightmare to steer.

[Letrow]

I think they are difficult to steer Geoff. Even worse (and pretty heavy too) are the bikes young parents use nowadays to bring their kids to school.



Not my photo ;-)

I always feel pity for the young mums, especially when they go up against one of the bridges that span the canals in the towns.

[Letrow]

Took the Ricoh to work this week and near my work happened upon this sunset. I work at Schiphol and these are some shots from behind the gates. It is the view on the runway from the McDonald's there.


View of the runway


View of the testing facility at Schiphol. An aircraft is positioned backwards inside of that fenced area you see and then the engines can go on full trust. The power is guided upwards, so nothing gets destructed


No explanation needed, we all know that sign.

As Bryan Peterson always says: expose for the sky and everything should be fine. Which is what I did with the AE-L button.

[Geoff F]

Yes, direct sun shots are never easy so these have worked well.

And a nice blend of sky colours in the last image.

[Letrow]

Marble time today, as it was a very rainy day today (to start with...now that I am finished with PP it has cleared up and we have blue sky and sunny weather).

Marbles were found in the attic and I used my white studio for this. Two lenses in use here: the Nikkor 105mm Micro VR and the Kiron 105mm F/2.8 with Kiron teleconverter.



Nikkor 105mm VR, 1/200, F/11 and Nikon SB-700



Kiron 105mm with Kiron 2x teleconverter at 1/200 and F/22, with Nikon SB-700 flash

[Geoff F]

Do children still play with marbles?

I never fully understood how they could be produced with all those colour schemes.

[Letrow]

They still play with them, although it is a seasonal thing I think. I never fully understand what instigates a season start. Maybe it is just one of the kids bringing marbles to school with him one day and then the rest follows. And then it is a question of who wins and who loses their marbles.
The rules are always a bit vague and new rules are invented to suit the most cheeky player. My kids were never cheeky enough, so they lost marbles now and then. Ah well, they were cheap enough, so it was my duty to supply them with new ones.

One last one, because I love the colours so much.

[Letrow]

Inspired by a blog from Wouter Brandsma, who uses Ricoh cameras mainly for his photography I decided to try some night photography with longer exposures.
I have only tried out the Ricoh GX200 so far and suppose that the Nikon should give me better results. Still, I was happy with what I got.



Ricoh GX200 on manual: 15 seconds at F/4.6 and ISO100



Ricoh GX200 on manual: 30 seconds at F/5.7 and ISO64

I made a few other shots, but have noticed that the less distraction there is from light, the better the results. These shots (moonlight in the first shot and overcast the next day in the second shot) have an eerie atmosphere, which I like.
If you add in streetlights or other lightsources the scene lights up tremendously. Still nice to look at, but not what I wanted to convey.

[Letrow]

I tried some more long exposures. I know it has all been tried and tested (CIC has some information on it as well), but it is fun to try out for yourself to see what kind of results you get. This time indoors, as the rain was coming down heavily yesterday and I did not want to expose my camera to that.

This time I did a 30 seconds exposure of a rose and compared it to a flashphoto I had made earlier this week. The rose has aged a couple of days of course and I had to adjust white balance for this photo, but still it gives you a good idea of the difference that shows.



Nikkor 105mm VR
30 seconds at F/8 and ISO160



Nikkor 105mm VR
1/125 seconds at F/7.1 and ISO400 with SB-700 flash

The colours in the petals show up very well in the long exposure shot (but the rose has aged, so that will be a big difference regardless of all other changes). The green exposes well and I like the bokeh a lot.
I have to experiment further with this.

[Geoff F]

Flash can often look a little harsh on flowers and lose some of the finer detail.

If there is no alternative, and sunshine frequently doesn't work perfectly, I always like to use a little negative flash compensation. Any slight darkness can be recovered during editing.

But for my better results, I find that some form of carefully positioned daylight quality lighting really does make a difference; if only to reduce strong shadows which are in the wrong place.

Indoor shooting also overcomes windrock problems so those longer exposures are now possible.

So yes, you have much more detail on the longer exposures. But what is that intruding on the bottom right corner? It looks like a piece of grass?

[Letrow]

Flash can often look a little harsh on flowers and lose some of the finer detail.

If there is no alternative, and sunshine frequently doesn't work perfectly, I always like to use a little negative flash compensation. Any slight darkness can be recovered during editing.

But for my better results, I find that some form of carefully positioned daylight quality lighting really does make a difference; if only to reduce strong shadows which are in the wrong place.

Indoor shooting also overcomes windrock problems so those longer exposures are now possible.

So yes, you have much more detail on the longer exposures. But what is that intruding on the bottom right corner? It looks like a piece of grass?

Probably something small from the bouquet that I didn't notice. Ah well, makes it more real.

Flash is always a bit difficult, so first of all I always bounce it if possible. Often I like to use the flash off camera and put the camera flash in commander setting. The advantage is that you don't even have to use that cameraflash, so there is no direct light on your subject.

But photos without flash look better most of the time. Which is why I prefer to use daylight if possible when I shoot my macro photos during the summer. Flash is always visible when you shoot macros, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You can't hide it though, so I avoid it.

[Letrow]

I am starting to love my Nikkor 12-24mm DX lens for use on the FX camera. Below 18mm it can not be used due to strong vignetting, but from 18-24mm it works fine. So it comes with me when I go to town.
I'll have some Haarlem photos and a bit of street photography this week.
I am starting off with some of the photos that I converted to B&W.



View on the Grote Bavo church from the Zijlstraat.
Of the serie I like this one best. The strong sunlight lights the scene nicely and gives me good contrasts. I exposed for the sky and kept the blueness of the sky by applying a red filter during PP.



Again a view on the Bavo from the Zijlstraat. Red filter applied in PP.
What I like about the lens is the effects it can create. This couple was almost leaving the frame, closer than a meter to where I was positioned, but the wide-angle captures them nicely still. Without them it would have been an empty street.



Old couple on the Botermarkt, doing their weekly shopping. Great place to get your portion of stroopwafels (syrup or treacle waffle), Turkish bread and other nice foodstuff.



View on Van der Pigge (notice the 'gaper' (yawner) above the door) and the Gierstraat.



View on V&D and the VVV (Vereniging voor Vreemdelingenverkeer or Holland Tourist Information). This is where you get your information on what to visit in Haarlem. Lots of nice places to visit and we also have a few museums as well, one of them the oldest museum in the Netherlands, opened since 1784 (Teylers Museum).

This photo was shot straight into the sun (you can find the sun just behind that clock), exposed for the sky and with red filter applied in PP to save that nice sky.

[Donald]

Peter

Because of my enforced absence for a few weeks, I am just starting to catch up with all that has been going on since Christmas time.

I greatly admire the project you have set for yourself. Rather than go back through individual images above, I will just say that there are many fine images in the posts above and I am quite sure that many people, in addition to yourself, will learn as a result of what you are doing; for example - shooting into the sun in the last image immediately above this post.

[Letrow]

A few coloured photos



I like the face of this man. He was probably just worried about walking into my photo space, but the expression and hairdo remind me of our old minister president.



Old couple going their separate ways.

I do notice that of the 18-24mm space allotted to me, I tend to use the 18mm most of the time.

[Geoff F]

Good depth to the scene in these photos; and it is particularly noticeable with the colour options.

The horizontal lines are nicely aligned to a distant focal point.

[Letrow]

It is a nice lens to be walking around with Geoff. Nikon announced a light, short 18-35 lens for March and I am thinking of replacing this 12-24mm DX lens with it.
I have looked at the 16-35mm and although it looks great, it is a lot heavier and really long, so less suited for walking around. It does have VR though.
I am learning to use these wide-angles and most shots that I like are shots where you get really close to the foreground and have a nice, interesting background as well.

[Letrow]

Short trip out of cold Amsterdam this week, which took me through Heathrow. So, first of all, a few impressions of the view from the gate area.

Entering Heathrow, I came across this Boeing 747

I always like the way these 747s look with that hump on their back.


One of those technical looking guys. I suppose they have to wear ear protection nowadays, but I know that some of the people that worked on airports a few decades ago are pretty deaf, because in those days ear protection was more the exception than the standard.

And finally

this is the aircraft that flew me out of Heathrow, another 747.

For me, although they are getting on in age, it is still one of the nicest a/c to fly in. Lots of room and when you sit on the upper deck, you get nice storage space near the window.
KLM has them, but their chairs suck to be honest, as you can't really sleep in them. During the night you feel yourself gliding down. BA has these flatbed chairs. Great stuff.

Bit of reflection from the windows, which was unavoidable. Used the healing tool on some of the really obvious parts.
First outing for the Nikon 1V1. Nice and small to take along, well at least a lot better than lugging that big DSLR around.

[Donald]

What I particularly like and find impressive about the three images above, is the extent to which they capture the atmosphere of being in the airport and vibrancy of the airport at work. I think the third one is an excellent composition. The perspective distortion on the aircraft makes for a very powerful and dramatic image, in my view.

[Geoff F]

Yes excellent shots; sharp and well exposed.

As Donald said, the last one has everything you could want to see from an airport photo.

[Letrow]

Quick quiz for anyone who is interested in (personal) taste. I shot a couple of night shots in Miami and showed them to a couple of people.

I have my personal favourite, but it seems that my taste is different from what others like. They like my favourite, but one of the other shots that I found allright gets more positive love so to speak.

So, I guess there will be photographers who have an instinct for the 'right' photo, the one that appeals most to other people's taste and I fear that I just don't seem to have that.

Anyway, here are the three shots, if you have time let me know which one you like best, A, B or C. Motivation isn't necessary.

A:



B:



C:


All shots done without tripod at ISO400 and F/3.5 and shutterspeeds from 1.3 seconds to 1/3 seconds.

Thanks.