Juvenile wood pigeons perched on a post

Sometimes you can't always be in the best place to get 'clean' photos of the things you're looking at, in this case a couple of juvenile common Wood Pigeons captured sitting on a street light post shot through a window. The original (below) was a little flat in contrast due to the way the glass of the window tended to refract and reflect ambient light and objects, especially when it's at an angle (acts like a prism in some ways); it doesn't necessarily need to do this in obvious ways (so you actually see the reflection of something).

That meant getting the photo on a photo editing app; I use Corel PhotoPaint for any and everything 2D. The corrected original is bottom of the two shots. The thing is though, it can be tricky to 'correct' shots like this without blowing out the darks because the image is already high contrast in the sense that it has some strong light and dark areas; add too much image contrast and you kill detail in the shadows. Bottom version is 1440x900 for those looking for desktop backgrounds.

Original photo of the to juvenile wood pigeons, a bit washed out due to being taken through a window

The corrected photo of the wood pigeons with adjusted contrast and slight colour tweak

Some other photos

Desktop: white flowers

Foxes Whiskers - Foxglove (Digitalis)

Yellow garden flower

A series of photographs of a juvenile (young) Blackbird, not quite sure at this point if its male or female as it still has a fair bit of it 'baby' colouring that camouflages it in the nest. I was standing about 6 feet away and had to zoom the 5600 almost all the way out to get the close up, and anyone that uses a camera will tell you, that gets tricky to shoot with because zooming like that 'amplifies' camera shake so you have to compensate with a faster shutter speed or lower F-stop (open aperture). It was also sitting in the shade.

Blackbird sitting still in a redcurrent bush

Close-up of the Blackbird resting in the redcurrent bush

Blackbird standing in the sun

Posted 30 Jun 2009 • kenb • link to this article

Sonia adaptor lens test on a Fuji S5600

Finally managed to do a quick test on just what differences these types of screw-on lens adaptors do so the following makes use of Sonia's 1x, 2x, 4x and their macro lens adaptors for the Fuji S5600 - which for all intents and purposes just means the lens rings fit the S5600's 55mm screw thread; they're not specifically made for the Fuji.

The general upshot of using these lenses is that you can pile the magnifiers on top of each other and still get usable results, even using the macro lens. However, if you are boosting the macro lens it's best to use one of the lower powered magnifiers otherwise severe image 'zooming' can occur as well as potential issue with 'tunneling' - the edges of the lens housing being visible in shot create a 'peephole' or 'tunnel' effect. Additionally, these types of adaptor magnifiers and macro lenses rings generally need to be used whilst in the cameras default 'macro' or 'close up' setting; because they effectively change the focal length of the camera it makes it difficult to focus on anything out of macro/close up mode.

From a practical point of view the 'multiplier' type lens adaptors simply magnify what you're looking at whilst you remain at the cameras minimum focus range. The macro on the other hand may allow you to get closer to an object but at the risk of overshadowing what you're looking at.

Posted 21 Jun 2009 • kenb • link to this article

St. Stephens church, York

A couple of photos of St. Stephens, York. Intend to go back on a better day as it was cloudy/hazy sun which just whites out the sky making it difficult to get a good backdrop without bleaching the sky out. Incidentally, they still chime their church bells, not sure if they're real bells or a recording blasted out over a loud PA as I didn't see anyone enter or exit the building before or after the bells tolled.

The earliest grave I could find dated from the 1830's, very late Georgian (William IV, son of George III). Having said that though the building itself seems far too symmetrical and stylised to be anything other than some Victorian concoction for which they are notorious - taking the best bits of the past and putting them back together as a 'paraphrased' homage to it. It's entirely likely then that there may have been an earlier church on site which probably serviced the old village of 'Acomb', which sits around Acomb Green, and what was then the surrounding farmland.

St. Stephens church, York

St. Stephens church from the graveyard, York

Posted 30 May 2009 • kenb • link to this article

Photographs and free desktop background images

Adding photographs to the site that can be used as desktop backgrounds on computers. For the most part these are in 'wide screen' format and typically 1440H x 900W pixels in size but they will re-size automatically depending on your PC's desktop settings - note that using these on older monitors may result in some distortion as the images proportions are automatically sized to fit the 4:3 screen ratio. Just click the photo preview below to open the larger image and either "right-click>save" or "right-click>set as background". And yes, these are free to use (for commercial use get in touch).

Desktop background image "Blackcurrants" by NYArt.co.uk

Desktop background image "Honeysuckle" by NYArt.co.uk

Posted 30 May 2009 • kenb • link to this article

Camera lens adaptors

Well, the other lenses arrived a week or two ago; a wide angle and 3x zoom adaptor, both using a 52mm mount which screws into the end of the Fuji S5600 lens housing. Whilst the wide angle is good (although I've only done some test shots to check for problems), the 3x zoom adaptor is appalling, I mean to the point of my wondering why they made the thing (except to sucker people like me). Or yet, why on earth the fundamental problems that are so self-evident during use weren't spotted at the products design conception. It says in the manual that you should fully zoom the camera by default to minimise something called 'tunneling' - basically the effect of sticking a cardboard tube onto the end of the camera lens; zooming 'pulls' the tunnel closer supposedly eliminating the presence of the 'walls'. What they neglect to say is that doing that it reveals such poor optics and lack of clarity that the camera can't even focus properly on what you're looking at.

Add to that the problem of shaking that's always present when you 'super-zooming' a camera like that and all I'm left thinking is that it's an utter waste of cash. So stay away from zoom adaptors, although you have little choice for lenses when using point and shoot, bridge or cam-corders, it's best to avoid zoom multipliers unless you can test them in shop (providing you can find someone stocking them). The lens I tested was a 3.0x zoom adaptor made in Japan by Merkury Optics.

Posted 07 May 2009 • kenb • link to this article

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