Construction

I headed out for my walk, but they're installing new storm drains and I popped across the road to check out the equipment. The larger front end loader had caked mud all over the bucket, but the smaller had a cleaner bucket with a nice rust pattern and as I approached a lovely glow from the polished metal.

It started raining and my efforts to record the image as a stitch were different as the rain initially added splotches and by the time I quit, an even sheen on the part of the bucket exposed to the vertical rain.

By the time I finished shooting, exposures were up to 30 seconds as darkness set in.

Buckets and Bumpers

Abstract In Rust

And here's what it looks like at 100%, after blending five images of the top, five of the bottom, then stitching together, cropping and editing.

The crop is about 24X magnification of the full image shown at top. This would print 12 feet across, though it wouldn't stand nose on inspection, still - 12 feet...

Iron

Egg

Half of a mold - in this case, the two parts are about a cubic foot of steel - and you thought the chicken had it hard...

Leather Aprons

I was photographing at a Smithy - and these are the leather aprons worn to protect from burns.

Black And White

So why convert this image to black and white? Well, I felt the image was a bit flat, but didn't want do drive the colour to unrealistic levels, and wanted to emphasize the form rather than colour (after all it only had one colour).

I converted the image with a B&W conversion layer, no special filtering, then added a curves layer and then a threshold layer to check for diving the image to pure white (or not). This I did by moving the top right corner of the graph to the left, giving me a straight line that was steeper. I then adjusted the curve of the line to an s bend to give the image more contrast.

I then added another curve with the top right moved leftwards and applied it to the light on the boiler below the saddle. Lastly I used my warm tone action, with the saturation turned down a bit.

I could have done all this with the colour image, but where in black and white it has some power,m in colour it would be over the top.

What do you think?

Tractor Seat

I'd noticed this seat on a steam tractor last time I visited and liked the shapes, but it was rather high off the ground. This visit, I tried harder, and found a trestle sitting on the other side of the lot. I brought it over, climbed aboard and raised my tripod to its maximum (no centre post but it's the four section legs RRS so it goes sig. above my eye height (5 foot 9 in my dotage).

I did have a short stool in my previous car - time to dust it off. Oddly, there's a lot of editing to this image. For a start, it's four vertical images stitched horizontally - just what worked while perched on my trestle - then there were a couple of areas of green in the background that needed to be toned back and a hint of magenta added. The sun started to peek through for the right sided images and the boiler in the background was too intense in colour - so a bit of desaturation and less yellow.

There was a cob web - so the healing brush, and a small amount of pigeon poop on the saddle - so a little bit more. I used Akvis Enhancer, toned back to 75% then entirely masked out, and only brought back on a very small section of the front of the saddle (where the focus is). There's no blur in this image - just shallow depth of field with my 120 macro at f5.6

I cropped a little off the left and right and bottom - the sides to reduce the amount of light area, and the bottom to bring the edge closer to the dropped part of the saddle.

I do wonder if a little field blur in the upper right corner might be appropriate. Might try it - soften that sharp edge between very dark and very light.

Rusty Container

Forge

I quite like this image from earlier today. Not entirely sure about the white in the fire pit. I already cropped a little off the bottom to minimize it and still wonder if I should take it out entirely, but I'll put the print up on the office wall and live with it for several days before making a decision.

I've just made a print and compared to what I'm seeing here it looks a bit flat, so I'm adding a little contrast - see if I can get closer to what is on the screen. Image colour is not too difficult to match but brightness can be a bugger - even though I have screen brightness set way down as per the colourimeter (Colormunki).  Yep, the second print is better - an S shaped curve adjustment layer, no masking.

Industrial Equipment

Peony Post Prime

Pentax 645Z, 120 macro, shot indoors.  I used a combination of shallow depth of field with judicious use of field blur and gaussian blur applied selectively via layer duplication and masking.

This, That, and the Other

Interestingly, the first and last are lit with artificial light. I picked up some 312 LED barn doored variable colour rechargeable battery operated lights and stands. I was very afraid of an artificial look to the images but compared to the flat lighting of the second and third images, I'm thinking I should reshoot some of the farm implements with some additional lighting to add some directionality.

I really like the LED lights - cool, compact, no power requirements, can take an umbrella. Perhaps not bright enough for hand holding and moving objects like portraits, but for the work I do....

I also like that I can control the colour temperature. Yes, I realize I could get a brighter output with non adjustable temp light, but for balancing the available light and to give realistic highlights and shadowing, very nice thank you.

Pioneer Acres- Black And White Or Colour

They're different shots so a straight out comparison isn't fair - but working on the top image it seemed to make sense to go to black and white to avoid the distractions. Given the lower image is more tightly cropped, I liked the colour and in fact feel this is the stronger image - a series of diagonal lines and the complete wheel.

1949 Cadillac

A little change of pace - not only a car, but shallow depth of field too, and I'm quite happy with the result.

More From Johnstons

Johnston's Canyon 2015

This image was made from two shots, 75 or 120 mm. lens, the former I think, with the Pentax 645Z, shot from the bridge over the lower falls pool.I did think to increase contrast and make it 'zippier' but prefer this rather muted version. I did use Akvis Enhancer, but with a black mask and then painted into the mask, mostly in the lower dark rocks and pool.

Ken and I had a good day - I made it to the upper falls and my iPhone tells me I climbed 31 flights of stairs, took some 12000 steps and traveled some 7.8 km - certainly by far the most I have walked since the hip replacement.

Given we woke at 3 to leave Calgary at 4 to be at the canyon at 6:10 and beat the crowd, that I'm stiff and tired to night - well that's ok. We did meet a few people in the canyon at 6:30, but were the first vehicle in the parking lot - I was tempted to auction off our prime spot in the parking lot as we left.

The interesting thing about this shot is that everyone has made it - literally a million tourists over the years, but I'm guessing few framed it this way, and if next week I discover someone else has, well that's fine.

Bluerock

Jura Canyon 2015

I started the day with my 25 mm. lens on the Pentax 645Z - but noticed exposures weren't right - and I hadn't screwed up the settings. Checked the lens to see if I'd taken it off of auto aperture - and notice the lens seemed a tad loose, and on further inspection, very loose - between the base section and the middle section - and it wasn't quite square either. Odd, as I'd used it not long before. It will have to go in for repair.

Spent the day using the 35 mm. lens - smaller, lighter, sharper at the edges, but obviously not as wide - so did a lot of backing up, and much more stitching than I'd normally do with this camera. Where I needed both great depth of field as well as stitching, I shot at f22 and got pretty decent coverage from front to back of the images, as well as decent sharpness. On this oversized sensor camera, f22 is eminently useable, which it never was on 35 mm. cameras.

Britannia Mine

Really pushing the boundaries of acceptable sharpness, yet I like the effect. The exposure is .6 seconds, f4, ISO 1600, shot as the mine train bounced it's way along the tunnel. The goggle 'eyes' are ear defenders, the hanging yellow can, the bell.

 

 

These three images are from the main building, where the ore was crushed.

Centre Street Bridge

 

Ken and I went out 'snapping' after dark last night. Though the Centre Street Bridge has been done many times, we still felt it worth tackling. The top image is a homage to Lewis Baltz, the bottom a rather ordinary image except for catching the rays from a passing vehicle headlights.

 

The Whole Shot -- Theatre Chairs

I was asked to show the whole shot and here it is. OK, but not as good as cropping to the right side only.

Turntable II

Reminds me of a Japanese painting. I did wonder about increasing the contrast but I like the subtlety here so backed off on pushing it further. The other question would be whether I should have trimmed off the rivets and brackets but I didn't want to lose the material at the bottom and think the framing by this material works. As usual, click on the image to see it 1000 pixels wide.

Chair

 

I did something radical here - I cropped the left half of the picture - there was a second chair, with weathered wood and some white stuffing sticking out in a nice arc, but it detracted from all this - which is what really attracted me to the chairs in the first place. So it had to go.

The obvious question is why didn't I shoot it this way in the first place - all I can say is 'wish I had'.

Hanna Turntable

From the north side of the turntable, with the remains of a snowdrift next to it reflecting in the shiny metal. Two images, stitched, minor cropping (I'd originally included rivets at top and bottom but prefer this look.

Widowmaker Continued

This is a two image stitch, then cropped a bit off the top and bottom, and slightly at the sides. The light rocks have been tamed, the shadowed rock opened a bit, some 50/100/0 unsharp mask applied, and then the image toned using my add a solid layer, set blend to colour.

Kananaskis River - Widowmaker II

I photographed here last summer, and today Ken and I went back out. Forecast was for freezing rain so we were not sure the trip would fly, but as we left town, there was even a little sun breaking through on the horizon.

As we went west the clouds built up and they reached down to the ground and had those streaks in them that tell you it's wet somewhere. We actually hit snow as we pulled onto Highway 40 for Kananaskis Park, but with winter tires and a bit of care, we pulled off for the river.

I put on some studded overshoes and had no issues climbing around on sloped rocks, while Ken stepped gingerly without, but neither of us fell.

We had a good three hours photographing - my endurance is improving leaps and bounds compared to a few weeks ago when after an hour I had to sit down or fall down - so nice. I could have done a variation on the shot made last summer but instead concentrated on the rock formations across the river, and also behind and above me as I stood on river's edge.

Both images are stitches. The first is with the 300 mm. lens at f22 (and the foreground isn't sharp) but I figured it wouldn't really matter given the water was moving anyway. The second image is with the 120. By the time the stitching is completed, the irregular edges are trimmed and then there is some compositional cropping (very modest), we're looking at about 120 megapixels.  Interestingly, the first image looks better small, while the second is best full screen. You can click on either to see them larger (1000 pixels wide).

Stand by for some more images from the shoot in the next couple of days, and I think there is more to be made of the location in a future trip. I must sometime post an image of the white water when the dam is open and the kayakers find it lives up to its name - whole n'other setup!

Banff

We had four days in Banff before I started back at work last week, half time for now. I took the gondola to the top of Sulphur mountain and photographed with the Pentax, aware that with such a well known location and limited chance to move I wasn't going to shoot anything original, but it was fun, and my first day shooting outdoors since the surgery - I even hiked (slowly) over to the weather station and back to find some other views.

I don't know what peak this is. I made the photograph with the Pentax mounted vertically, and three images swung horizontally. It was an interesting shooting situation. Except for right next to the gondola building where there is a concrete pad, all of the boardwalk is very bouncy and the tripod shakes with every footstep, even ones 40 feet way in some situations.

I also found that there was a great deal of atmospheric disturbance - the image literally swam on the lcd - so I cranked up the iso to 400 (remember it was very bright) to give me a shutter speed of 1/1600 af f10, the lens my 300 FA f 5.6.

This was a high enough shutter speed to deal with shutter shake (exc. when people were nearby) and also to 'stop' the air movement. The result is an image that is reasonably sharp, considering. Below is a 100% crop. The full size print is 62 inches wide at 300 dpi.

Post Hip Replacement

It's five weeks tomorrow and 8 days till I can drive again - what a relief. Recovery has been going well - fatigue being a bigger issue than pain, but even that is improving. Haven't felt the need for pain medication in the last week and am just back from a six block walk, albeit with one crutch. Don't use an aid in the house but better safe outside in the winter. Fortunately it's a really mild January with temps above freezing so walking is very pleasant.

Did go photographing on Saturday but it was exhausting after about 90 minutes and I sat and waited for my friend, and even wandering around The Camera Store after was tiring. But today's walk was much faster than the one only two days ago and the more active I get the better I sleep.

I return to work part time Feb. 2, with mixed feelings.

Went to the 4mp movie yesterday, no crowd. Saw Imitation Game - great movie!