Photowalk 47: Autumn

We may not have the variety of colours of New Hampshire, but there's some nice autumn colours around, so it was out with the S5700 to see what I could capture!

Actually, I ended up not taking many pictures of trees, and concentrated instead on the details....

Click here to download the Google Earth .kmz track with embedded photographs.

Watcher Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/640th, ISO 64, Focal Length 63mm, Hand-held

Now, this one might not look very good in your browser. I know it doesn't on mine, FireFox. Internet Explorer is a bit better, but the posterization you see in the sky just isn't evident in Photoshop Elements on my PC screen. Bah!

Update: Watcher V2.

Here's my second attempt at editing this photo. I used Photoshop CS3 this time, applied a Black and White Adjustment Layer, simulating a yellow filter, added a black to transparent gradient layer in overlay blend mode, and ran a pass of Noise Ninja on the base image. It's a bit better, but there's lots of grain in the sky. Need to re-shoot on a day with a bluer / darker sky.

Golden Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/56th, ISO 200, Focal Length 13mm, Hand-held

I was just walking along when I stumbled upon all these beautiful golden leaves lying on a tarmac path. I couldn't resist, and took several shots. At home, in Elements, I tried to simulate a real Selective Focus look, with a graduated Gaussian Blur. I think it kind of makes it look like the path is on a slope. (And yes, I did "pose" the lone leaf).

Sky Reflected Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/180th, ISO 100, Focal Length 33mm, Hand-held

Just a shot looking down into the moat at Fort Brockhurst. I applied levels and hue / sat. adjustment layers in Photoshop Elements, then played around with blend modes until I got the look I wanted.

Autumn Colours Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/400th, ISO 200, Focal Length 23mm, Hand-held

Finally some Autumn Trees! (Or Tree...) Taken against the Church opposite to where I live,I wish there was a lot more foliage like this around...

Fallen Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/125th, ISO 200, Focal Length 12mm, Hand-held

I dropped a leaf in the moat and took a shot... At home I really darkened the water, using Flaming Pears "Melancholytron" filter to add a heavy vignette.

Regal Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/250th, ISO 64, Focal Length 63mm, Resting On Rail

I was standing on the sliding bridge that gives cars access to the Fort, taking pictures of the Ducks below, when I heard splashing and I turned around to capture this excited Swan.

Merlot Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/170th, ISO 400, Focal Length 38mm, Hand-held, Polarizer

More rubbish in the moat, given an extreme black and white treatment. (Levels adjustment layers, hue / sat to kill the colour, then another levels to increase the contrast.)

Mr and Mrs Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/180th, ISO 64, Focal Length 63mm, Resting On Rail

Liked these two, I'm sure I've taken photographs of them before. I've desatureated the areas around the ducks, using a hue / sat adjustment layer with mask. I also applied a little sharpening via a duplicate layer with high-pass filter applied (overlay blend mode). I then painted with neutral grey so that the foreground / background didn't get sharpened too. (Although I could have used a "linked" mask).

On The Prowl Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/220th, ISO 64, Focal Length 10mm, Hand-held

Me taking pictures of the Ducks!

End Of Terrace Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/90th, ISO 64, Focal Length 9mm, Hand-held

Lovely brickwork! Blew out the lamp post in post processing - I should have masked it off, but I was getting a little tired and slap-dash...


Well, crisp Autumn air, some Sunshine, and a few nice Photographs. Perfect Photowalk!

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.

Comments

[Maurizio (Mozuk)]

Hi Rob,

What a fantastic collection of photos. Love them all. By the way, 'Watcher' shows up perfectly on my browser, Safari. I must say I prefer the first version, the contrast between sky and bird/cross is great.

[Rob_Nunn]

Hi Maurizio,

Thanks for the comments, I really appreciate them!

I'll download Safari and give it a go - sounds interesting.

Cheers, Rob.

[mnt07]

hi, how do you change the focal legnth?

and the thing after the aperature priority?

thanks

[Rob_Nunn]

Hi,

You change focal length by altering your zoom, and I think you're talking about the f-stop - the size of the aperture. Just go into Aperture Priority Mode and adjust it, how depends on your camera, smaller numer, small depth of field and vice-versa.

Cheers, Rob.