ProjectVISUAL » Nature

The Effect Wind Has On Rice

Stephen — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:00:43 +0000

It’s been an eventful weekend; I’m just back home from a Mikoshi Festival in central Hyogo. A miskoshi is sort of like a portable house that is supposed to have a particular deity inside it. The local people move the mikoshi around the town on wheels and then carry it on their shoulders into the destination shrine. Sounds easy right? Oh yeah the mikoshi weighs 2000kg!

If you’re interested in knowing how I made this, along with my other photos, you can check out my HDR Tutorial

Technorati Tags: japan, sanda, sun, yellow, hdr, tone mapping, nikon, d300, projectvisual, “hdr photography”

Fungus Rock Bathed In Light

Stephen — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:50:36 +0000

You’ve already seen Fungus Rock in a previous post, but it seems to be some sort of special tourist attraction in Gozo so I thought I’d post it again from another angle!

This was one amazing view – possibly the highlight of the sight seeing part of my trip to Malta. The weather was great, plenty of clouds in the sky, annoying tourists all around me. Actually, scrap that last part, they were really annoying.

Also, a couple of people have asked about prints – I swear I’m getting around to it! It’s just that the printing site I’m using doesn’t seem to be showing good thumbnail / previews of the photos I upload to it – the colours seem washed out a little. I just want to be sure that what I upload is what gets printed

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Gozo, Fungus Rock, Heaven, Light, Clouds

Looking At A Scene From A Different Angle

Stephen — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:00:19 +0000

One of the great things about using a proper tripod and head is that you can quickyly position your camera at almost any angle quickly and easily for those out of the ordinary shots. I use a Manfrotto joystick head with my tripod now and it’s truly the best – a quick squeeze of the handle and my camera swings around any which way I want it. Also, with the joystick head I’ve been taking a lot more portrait like shots.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, Tripod.)

Aperture: f/8
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/1600s

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Mdina, calm, Gozo, Mediterranean

The Sky Watchtower of Valetta

Stephen — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:30:59 +0000

I really should have some sort of St. Patrick’s Day photo today but Malta just isn’t that green…

We walked around too much on our first day in Malta, from our side of the bay Valetta looked liked the obvious place to check out first. This involved walking around our section of the bay and then momentarily getting lost by heading up an off track part of the coast.

I took this shot while wondering whether to keep getting more lost of just head back the way we came – then some old guy with minimal English stopped us and explained ow his dog’s name (Prince) was so amazing. Luckily he didn’t kill us afterwards.

Camera Settings (1 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, No Tripod)

Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/2000s

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Valetta, Bay, tower, watchtower

A View Of Phoenix Park

Stephen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:00:50 +0000

This is Phoenix Park: the largest public park in Europe! Wooooo!

I’m still in Malta (I left on Tuesday), and will get back on Saturday, in the meantime, hopefully everything is running smoothly here!

Camera Settings (1 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, No Tripod)

Aperture: f/5.3
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@105mm
Shutter Speed: 1/100s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Zoo, Dublin, Chimp, Ape

The Babbling Bruck

Stephen — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:45:34 +0000

This stream/bruck/river/cadever runs near my college and is home to some of the most rickety bridges known to man. They can carry one stream of traffic; so if you happen to be standing on one such bridge and another person wishes to get by, you have to lean over the edge and pray to Poseidon not to pull you in.

Did you get yesterday’s post at full resolution (4319x2866pixels)???

Camera Settings (5 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens)

Aperture: f/8
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/500s, 1/250s, 1/125s, 1/60s, 1/30s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Dublin, River, Nature, Water, Stream, Bruck

The Skeletal Statue

Stephen — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:00:02 +0000

This is simply a weird statue on display in Stephen’s Green. I was waiting for ages to take this shot since there were a pack of douchebags acting like dickheads at the stone pillars behind the statue. A few of them were on one side while another stuck his fat head through, making faces. Uhhhh…

Apparently I’m heading to Malta next Tuesday for 5 days so I should have a fresh batch of shots to process – my Paris set is running a little dry.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens)

Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/50s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Dublin, Statue, Stephen’s Green

The Unusual Hanging Tree

Stephen — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:45:10 +0000

I don’t get this tree. OK I’ll elaborate a little, it’s the only tree of it’s kind in the entirety of Stephen’s Green. It looks so out of place and every time is pass it I wonder ‘Why?’.

I had taken 5 exposures using a tripod but in HDR Max the underexposed shots were too strong and were dulling the blended exposure shot too much so I just went ahead and tonemapped the metered shot.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens)

Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@36mm
Shutter Speed: 1/25s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Dublin, Tree, Stephen’s Green

Pigeon Feeding Frenzy Part 2

Stephen — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:30:55 +0000

More pigeons! This is the exact same scene, just a few moment in the future. These flying fuckers swooped down in an instant, practicaly killing some sweet someone’s nan who was just trying to spread breadcrumbs out for them. Flying rats meh.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens)

Aperture: f/4.2
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@36mm
Shutter Speed: 1/30s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Dublin, Pigeons, Flying Rats, Stephen’s Green

Quack, Quack, Quack

Stephen — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:30:38 +0000

This probably soon to be somebody’s dinner was wandering about in a small park area beside the Eiffel Tower, with not a care in the world. He reminded me of foie gras.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file)

Aperture: f/8
ISO: 640
Lens: 18-200 @200mm
Shutter Speed: 1/200s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Paris, Nature, Green, Grass, Duck, Bird, Nature

When Five Equals One

Stephen — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:00:15 +0000

Usually using multiple exposures when creating HDR photos can give rise to ghosting in the picture – whereby moving objects are in different positions in each exposure. It’s usually really annoying but for once it’s actually work to this pictures advantage – the small flock of five birds all flying neatly one behind the other is actually just the same bird five times!

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, Photography, Stephens Green, Dublin, Lake, Water, Bridge, Birds, Calm, Peaceful

Reflections In The Pathway

Stephen — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:00:58 +0000

OK last snow picture I swear! The snow has officially left Ireland and I’m depressed by it. No more snowballing random people with umbrellas, no more ducks slipping over ice covered lakes, no more high heeled D4 girls looking like flamingos hopping through a cactus patch. Oh well…..

This was taken as a jpg, I tried tone mapping it in HDR Max but since there were not many tones in the picture to begin with it didn’t have too much of an effect

Technorati Tags: Olympus, 850sw, snow, ice, white, trees, reflections, winter, ireland

The Lonesome Traveller

Stephen — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:00:50 +0000

It snowed rather unexpectedly on Thursday in Dublin so I was caught without a camera. I had to head back to my accommodation, pick up my compact and return to campus. Footprints had already destroyed the homogeneous white of the snow blanketed ground almost everywhere, which sucked, so I was lucky to find this one set of footprints by themselves. I wonder where their owner is now?

My first time-lapse video has been on hold for a week now on account of it being freezing cold at night – with any luck the weather wont be so bad for the coming week and I’ll be able to get it finished…

Technorati Tags: Olympus, 850 SW, Photography, projectvisual, snow, winter, wall, footprints, frosty, ireland, white

The Slippery Path

Stephen — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:00:54 +0000

Unfortunately the snow is melting now – soon Dublin will forgot it ever snowed

This is another jpg shot with my Olympus – I’m pretty surprised/impressed the way they are being processed by HDR Max, I’ll have to try shooting in jpg some scenes with more colour to see what HDR Ma does to them.

Technorati Tags: Olympus, 850 SW, Photography, projectvisual, snow, winter, bikes, frosty, ireland, white

Snow Covered Bikes

Stephen — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:00:05 +0000

In what seems like a once in a decade event, we had some proper snow in Dublin yesterday! About 100 students in my campus formed gangs and proceeded to annihilate, with snowballs, anyone they saw using an umbrella to shield themselves from the falling snowflakes! Sounds fair right?

I didn’t have my D300 with me so I took this with my Olympus 850 sw as a jpg and then ran it through HDR Max just to see what kind of result I could get. There wasn’t much dynamic range in the photo to begin with anyway (it’s all white!). So if you like snowy pictures, that’s all you’ll be finding here for the next week or so – I’ve got to make the best of this rather rare Irish event

Technorati Tags: Olympus, 850 SW, Photography, projectvisual, snow, winter, bikes, frosty, ireland, white

The Sky With Attitude

Stephen — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:34:11 +0000

I always think that for an outside shot the sky is at least on equal par for being the most important component of what is in your lens’s sight. A bland sky makes for a bland picture.

Also, it’s been snowing like a motherflipper in Ireland all day today! I took some quick snaps with my Olympus 850 SW (I don’t lug my D300 everywhere I go unfortunately!) so I’ll be posting some hopefully pretty snowy pics over the next few days!

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, HDR, Photography, projectvisual, sky, clouds, attitude, character, trees, nature, wood, pathway

The Summer Fountain In Wintertime

Stephen — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:35:03 +0000

Although winter in Ireland is usually cold, wet and windy, on this particular day it was unusally calm and sunny.

In other news I have submitted 7 pictures to the Ariea macbook competition – fingers crossed!

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, HDR, Photography, projectvisual, Dublin, fountain, lake, UCD, water

Stephen’s Green Fountain

Stephen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:00:45 +0000

Another shot from Stephen’s Green – one from the top of the Arc de Triomphe is coming tomorrow I prommise…

On the timelapse photograpgy front I’ve now got about 1 minute 40 seconds done, and I’m wondering what type of muisc would go well with the video. I’m thinking I might make a few versions of the video, each with a different soundtrack to see which appeals to who.

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, HDR, Photography, projectvisual, fountain, water, sprinkle, stephens green, park, grass

An Unusual Statue

Stephen — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:50:08 +0000

This stature stands within my college beside out resident lake. It’s a mystery to me – I don’t know who built it, when, why, for how much, I know nothing about it! What I do know is that it makes a great photo

It’s my last day in Paris , I’ll be back this evening to trawl though all my new pictures though!

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, HDR, UCD, lake, stature

The Uncomforable Stone Bench

Stephen — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:50:39 +0000

Does this look comfortable? Don’t think so! Originally I was planning to shoot this from a high angle above it, but then decided to shoot from below to give it more presence in the foreground. What do you think?

It’s day five in Paris, only another one day left now

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, HDR, Stephens Green, bench, stone