1 October 2008
Photowalk 40 – Forton Lake Bridge
Posted by Rob_Nunn under: photowalks .
Well, the Sun came out, the Polarizer went on the front of my Fujifilm S5700, and I headed down to Priddys Hard to see if there were any decent clouds around so I could take some nice landscape shots.
As it turned out, all the pictures I chose from this Photowalk were taken while standing on Forton Lake Bridge, so it’s more of a Photo “walk up a down a bit”!
Forton Lake Bridge Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/750th, ISO 64, Focal Length 7mm, Hand-held, Cokin A Polarizer
The sky was beautiful today, a real deep blue, despite the fact that the time was about 1040 in the morning and the Sun was well up in the sky.
On this sort of a day a Polariser really comes into its own – i use the Cokin A System, so the filter simply slips into holder I always have screwed to the front of my camera. All I then have to do is choose my position (at right angles to the Sun is best, but it has an effect almost in all directions), compose the shot, then turn the filter until the sky becomes bluer and all the colours saturate a little more.
Oh For A Seagull… Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/1000th, ISO 200, Focal Length 11mm, Hand-held, Cokin A Polarizer
Post processing for these shots in Photoshop Elements included the usual Noise Ninja Filter pass, levels and hue / saturation adjustment layers.
Penthouse View Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/600th, ISO 64, Focal Length 7mm, Hand-held, Cokin A Polarizer
In this black and white conversion I also used a gradient adjustment layer to darken the skies, but then painted in black onto the mask to remove the effect from the building.
Livin’ For The Weekend Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/850th, ISO 64, Focal Length 11mm, Hand-held, Cokin A Polarizer
Hmmm. I kicked myself after I’d uploaded this one. What I did was used an adjustment layer mask to isolate the pole from the sky, so I could apply separate levels adjustments to increase the contrast, but I didn’t do a very good job of the mask on the left of the pole – it’s all fuzzy.
This is another type of shot where you can use you Hue / Saturation adjustment layer to strip out the colour with the master saturation channel, then darken the blues to add contrast.
Yacht Club Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/180th, ISO 200, Focal Length 37mm, Hand-held, Cokin A Polarizer
The wind was really gusting by now, so as I zoomed in to capture the detail in this building I had to increase my ISO to prevent camera blur – but it’s still a little soft.
Remember that if you use a Polarizer it really eats into your available light, so if its not a bright day you often have to pull the tripod out to get sharp photographs.
Good photowalk, nice exercise, plus it was good to take some colour photographs again!
Cheers, Rob.
Tags: photowalks
