North Beach

by Posted in Landscapes Leave a comment
northbeach-1

North beach is one of the five beaches around our lake. I was out walking the dog early tonight and took these pictures around 6:15pm just as the sun was going down. By the time we’d walked back to the house it was practically dark.

I don’t usually go for High Dynamic Range (HDR) too much. It’s too easily overdone. In this case though I didn’t really have much choice. The foreground was in fairly deep shade and even though the sun was going down the background was comparatively bright. I wasn’t going to be able to get them both exposed properly. So I thought I’d try out the RX100’s HDR capabilities. I don’t usually shoot .jpg either, preferring RAW but in this case again I had no alternative as the RX100’s HDR mode does not support RAW.

For those unfamiliar with HDR Imaging Resource describes it as follow in it’s review of the RX100:

The Sony RX100 HDR mode takes three images in rapid succession, one nominally exposed , one underexposed, and one overexposed, then combines them into one high dynamic range JPEG automatically. Lighter areas from the underexposed image are combined in-camera with darker areas from the overexposed image to produce an image with increased dynamic range. The overlaid images are micro-aligned by the camera, but it can only correct for so much movement. If it can’t micro-align successfully, an icon indicating HDR capture failed will appear. For best results, the subject should be static or there could be “ghost” images, though the RX100 seems to do a good job at avoiding them. There is also a manual mode where you can select 1 EV (“weak”) to 6 EV (“strong”) difference in exposures…the effect can be quite subtle with no difference between some of the settings, however the Auto setting did a pretty good job at boosting shadows, reducing highlights, while still retaining enough contrast.

I used the manual mode and tried a variety of settings. On reviewing the pictures I preferred this one (unfortunately I don’t recall which manual setting this was – other than that it was one of the lower ones).

All things considered I’m pleased with the result. It doesn’t look too over-processed – I hope.

Drooping Roses

by Posted in Black & White, Flowers, Nature Leave a comment
droopingroses-1

I usually take pictures of flowers because a) they’re convenient – we have lots of them in the garden thanks to my wife’s never ending ministrations; b) my wife likes me taking pictures of her flowers; c) I like the bright colors – they cheer me up. However, because of the above I’ve been taking a lot of flower pictures of late and I’m getting a bit bored with taking flower pictures. So I thought I’d see what a black and white conversion would do to one of them. I was interested in seeing what/if the picture would lose something if the colors were taken away. I quite like the result.

Taken with a Sony NEX 5n and Carl Zeiss Jena 58mm f2 Biotar (Exakta mount) in our garden at the Lake House.

New York Air Show – Static Display

by Posted in Events Leave a comment
nyairshowstatic-1

There were two static displays to supplement the flying portion of the airshow. I only managed to get to one of them, which was a pity because the other one apparently had an F-15 and F-16 and I would have liked to have seen them. It was just so hot that I didn’t feel like walking all the way in the sun. Above UH-1 HUEY Helicopter.

nyairshowstatic-2

C-130J Hercules – Nose

nyairshowstatic-3

M230 chain gun on Apache attack helicopter

nyairshowstatic-4

AGM-114 Hellfire Missiles on Apache attack helicopter

nyairshowstatic-5

Hydra 70 rocket pods on Apache attack helicopter

Hallowe’en’s coming

by Posted in Things Leave a comment
halloweencoming-1

Seen outside a local supermarket while shopping: rows of hallowe’en pots/buckets on shelves. I liked the contrasting colors: the greens of the plants; the purples of the shelves; and the bright oranges of the pots. I also liked the contrast between the textured plants and the smooth pots. Also the repetition of the pots and the plants and the fact that the pattern is broken by one of the pots that’s turned away.