Photowalk 43: Hello Blue Skies!

Oh yes, the Sunshine was back today, so with batteries fully charged, Polarizer on my lens, a blank SD card in my S5700, and TWIP on my Ipod, I was off!

My Walk Today. Download the Google Earth .kmz track with embedded Photos.

Trio Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/350th, ISO 64, Focal Length 15mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

Man, I love it when the Sunshine comes out, the sky is a lovely blue, and there's the odd fluffy white cloud to add a little interest. My Cokin A Polarizer gets slipped onto the front of my Fujifilm S5700 to saturate the colours a bit more, and lose some glare too.

Follow Me Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/250th, ISO 64, Focal Length 9mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

I was on a bit of an almost abstract trip today - isolating shapes and colours that looked interesting.

I took my usual walk along Priddys Hard, but it was far too bright for traditional landscapes, and not enough cloud detail for the type of HDR's I like to do.

Grasp Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F5.6, 1/160th, ISO 64, Focal Length 29mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

The other trick I use in-camera is to knock the exposure down 1/3 e.v., in aperture priority mode, using exposure compensation, and set my cameras colour mode to "fujichrome".

Post processing was my usual mix of levels and hue / saturation adjustment layers in Photoshop Elements.

Drape Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/340th, ISO 64, Focal Length 20mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

The three pics you see in this set of the red leaf below, the one above, and the photo of the tree with the red berries were taken with the Fujifilm S5700 Flickr Groups Red Photo Assignment.

Red Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/220th, ISO 200, Focal Length 23mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

Call Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/170th, ISO 64, Focal Length 16mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

Here's hoping that this Autumn / Winter they'll be plenty of crisp, clear mornings with plenty of Sun and Blue Skies. Fingers crossed!

Sharp Shadow Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/125th, ISO 100, Focal Length 16mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

This was one of those shots that was the last of a series of the same scene - I gradually got closer and closer to the shadow on the wall, trying to remove all other distractions from the frame.

Con Trail With Lens Flare Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F6.8, 1/350th, ISO 64, Focal Length 11mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

I wasn't sure whether to include this one. Is is heavily over processed, and has huge lens flare. I'm also not happy with the way that the tree in the bottom left is cut off, but the jet was moving pretty fast, and I only captured one shot before it crossed the Sun.

Red 2 Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/240th, ISO 64, Focal Length 13mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

Another one that I'm not that sure about. I wanted the red berries to really stand out, but I also liked the shape of the house, but I think they're too far apart. I like the cloud though.

I felt invigorated after this walk - good exercise, and some nice shots. Bring on tomorrow!

Cheers, Rob.

PS, A note on camera exif data. Being a bridge camera, my S5700 has a crop factor because the sensor is a lot smaller than on a dSLR, so when you're looking at the focal lengths bear in mind that the S5700 has a focal length range of 6-63mm, which is the equivalent of 38-380mm in a 35mm dSLR. Also the aperture and shutter speeds given are approximate, as for some reason sometimes they're different in the PC exif data than what I actually took, but its usually just the next step up or down.