An Afternoon Photowalk From Lee To Hill-Head

It was just after two o'clock on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, the sky was cloudy but the Sun was starting to peek through. Suzanne and I walked along the beach from Lee On Solent to Hill Head, enjoying the sea breeze, the activity out on the Solent, and the chance to spend a couple of hours together.

Here are some of the photos I took that afternoon.

Thanks, Rob.

Rowner Married Quarters Redevelopment Photowalk

(Watch a slideshow of all the photographs by clicking here.)

Gosport is a town of contrasts. There are marinas with hundreds of very expensive yachts and housing estates that look like areas of Beirut. The good news is that some of these areas are being re-developed, and one such area is in Rowner, around St. Nicholas Avenue.

Former Naval Married Quarters are being renovated and improved, bringing some better quality much needed housing stock to the area. While this is happening the houses offer an interesting photo subject, so last Sunday I took a short walk to take photographs of anything that caught my eye.

I took some wide shots to set the scene, then concentrated on looking for details that added depth to the story. Of course the obvious missing element is people. There was one security guard walking around, but I didn't want to try and take a photo of him!

I hope you enjoy the photographs!

 Thanks, Rob.

Photowalk 71 - Different Locations Please!

On Wednesday evening, I had a couple of hours to spare, so I grabbed my Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT, my camera bag, and jumped in the car. Scanning the skies as I drove, I realised I didn't just want to go to my usual haunts - Priddy's Hard, around the Explosion! Museum, and the local beaches - so I tried a couple of different locations.

First stop was the "new" flats at Mumby Rd. I say new, but they've been there for years. I've always liked the architecture, and was determined to try to get a shot. There's a handy car-park right next door, so I strolled around clicking away, with the 350D sporting the Canon 50mm F1.8 Mk II on the front. I was looking for a nice angle, and the prime 50mm forced me to move around rather than use a zoom to re-frame.

This shot is a black and white HDR, processed from 3 images using Photomatix. I was exposure bracketing with plus and minus 2 ev, much more than I used to with my Fuji S5700, and I have to admit I was shooting hand-held, when it would have been better to set up a tripod, but hey, I'm a spontaneous kind of guy! (In other words I was too lazy).

Mumby Road Flats

The next photograph is another HDR, this time I toned down the colour a bit.

Mumby Road (Towards Town Centre)

Next up I jumped in the car and headed to Gosport's Boat Lake, and the rather unusual Cafe.

Peppers Cafe (Gosport Model Boating Lake)

Peppers Cafe Entrance

Behind the boating lake is a large car-park, which was mostly empty at this time of night. I liked the different shapes on the horizon.

South Street Car Park

Next is a photo best viewed large. It's another HDR, but I had to do some masking with the Swans, who had come out blurred after going through Photomatix. I opened the Tone-Mapped HDR in Photoshop, then copied the original, middle exposure, into the same file on a different layer. A quick "Edit", "Auto-Align Layers", and a mask on the normal image, then I could "paint in" the OK water and swans.

Peppers Cafe And Model Boat Lake

Finally, the glowing Sky called me to Lee-On Solent, with another HDR. This time I had to "mask in" the walkers, and quite a lot of the detail.

Lee On Solent Sunset

To finish the night, a "normal" photo, from a slightly unusual angle.

Street Lamps Against Sunset

All photo's in this set were taken with the 350D / Rebel XT and the Canon 50mm F1.8 Mk II lens.

Cheers, Rob.

Photowalk 70 - A Bad Case Of Wind

Last night I grabbed my Canon EOS 350d / Digital Rebel XT dSLR, jumped into the car and did a quick run to the beach, then back up towards Portsdown Hill with an eye towards a motorway shot and perhaps a pano.

However, the wind was blowing, the light was disappearing fast, and I didn't have much time...

Stokes Bay, Looking East

There's two main beaches in Gosport - the more developed, touristy Lee-On-Solent, and my favourite, the much emptier Stokes Bay. No sand on either I'm afraid, but they both look across the Solent and can be the location for some great shots.

In the above photograph I'm looking away from the sunset - I saw the interesting clouds, and the stone slabs for foreground interest, set up my tripod and shot a 3 bracketed exposure burst for a Photomatix HDR in post processing.

Stokes Bay Looking West

I turned around and shot towards the Sunset. The light wasn't great, with little real contrast in the sky, so again I went for a bracketed exposure to turn into a HDR. Shooting "stony" beaches is always a bit dodgy, and this photo could do with some foreground interest, plus the top of the sky is pretty empty.

Portsmouth Harbour From Portsdown Hill

After visiting Stokes Bay, I headed back away from Gosport, through Fareham, and up onto Portsdown Hill, to take a photo looking down onto Portsmouth Harbour. The wind was blowing hard, so my tripod again got some use.

It looks ok large, but if you look at the original, it's very soft. Needs re-visiting!

M27 Looking West

Determined to have a crack at this months photo assignment on long exposures, I parked up near to a motorway bridge, and set my tripod and camera up near the edge. My technique was simple - I just set my ISO low, then closed down the aperture to really limit the amount of light entering the camera, shooting in Aperture Priority Mode. I think I ended up with about a 13 second exposure - and I just turned the shutter delay on, and took a few shots.

What I didn't take into account was the wind, and how wobbly my £6.99 Asda Tripod is with a heavier dSLR on it.... You can see how bad it was all moving by the light trails, which are really jagged!

Anyway, it was good piece of practice, and as I'm writing this I'm listening to Martin Bailey's latest podcast, which is all about taking great long exposure shots, so hopefully I'll get some inspiration for better shots, but I wanted to include this one in my stream to share my learning's.

Cheers, Rob.

Photowalk 69: Getting To Know You...

As you know, I recently got a second hand Canon 350d / Digital Rebel XT from eBay, and I paired it with a Canon 28-80 f3.5 lens that was fitted to my EOS 50e Film SLR. I've also just got a M42-EF Lens Adapter, so that my old Praktica Film SLR lenses and macro tubes will fit. What this means is that I've got a new camera and a number of new lenses to learn, and yesterdays photowalk was the first time I got to play around with them.

It was an overcast evening, but any time to shoot is a good time to shoot, so to start I stuck the M42 adapter onto my 350d, added the Soligor 90-230 with a couple of Macro Tubes, and headed out into our garden.

Using this old zoom with macro extension tubes means that I can get really magnified shots, without having to push the lens right up against the subject - great for insects, etc. I was probably about 2 feet away for the above photo. The Depth of Field is small, and if I want to use a tighter aperture I've got to focus first then "stop down" to get more of the subject in focus, but the long focal length, combined with a tight aperture means that camera shake is a real problem, so I tripod really is ideal.

Another advantage to being able to shoot macro from a distance is that I can use my Rebel XT's built in flash without having to worry about the lens casting a shadow, so I'll be playing around with that in the future too.

The above was again shot with the Soligor Zoom, combined with extension tubes, hand-held, up into one of the rose bushes in our garden. The light was poor, and at 1/80th of a second I was lucky to get a shot that wasn't too blurred, but it shows potential. A bit more Sun, a higher shutter speed, and some water droplets sprayed from my trusty trigger spray and it could have been very nice indeed.

All these photo's were shot in RAW, then worked on in Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop CS3. I did my usual curves, b&w, colour adjustment and levels work, then on a couple I applied Noise Ninja and some selective high-pass filter for sharpening.

Just messing about with this one, seeing if the Soligor was up to my typical "brick" shots. I was shooting hand-held, through a chain fence, and it looks OK, if a little wonky!

Another test shot for the Soligor - this time at full zoom, and stopped down (I think!) to F5.6. I had to rest the big lens on the railing at Forton Lake Bridge, and again, it came out OK, and would be better with some nicer light.

I used my Canon 28-80mm F3.5 lens for this one, and again, it came out OK, but I really need some better lighting conditions (or go HDR) for my usual b&w "look".

As I was looking through the shots, and the meta-data, I discovered that my 350d is "stamping" the old owners name into the exif info for each shot, so I'll have to install the Canon software and change it to me!

Overall, an interesting walk, but it does feel like I'm starting again, camera wise, getting used to the different strengths, weaknesses, buttons and settings of my new camera and lenses. One good thing about this is that it's forcing me to freshen up my photography and try new things, or old things in a new way. I'm experimenting again, which is always a good thing for any photographer.

Cheers, Rob.