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Weekly Random Shot: Autumn Eildons.

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Sep 272010

Bales of Hay mark the month of September in Scotland. This photo was taken in the Borders, near Melrose. The hills in the back are “The Eildons”, a landmark in this region.

While driving around in the area we came upon this beautiful landscape on the A7. I quickly managed to park my car on a small bit of dirtroad and walk back to the best angle that I could find.
Basically this was a pretty much straightforward shot but it really needed a panoramic touch as the scenery was simply too wide for a normal photo.

This one was composed of 8 portrait photos, shot at f13 in order to get enough depth of field for the hay and the Eildons. At 100 ISO I needed 1/125th of a second to get a normal exposure. Due to the many gray tones I deemed no over- or underexposure necessary. Taken with a Canon 5DmkII and a 70-200 f2.8 USM (set at 110mm).

The panorama was stitched with Autopano Giga 2 and resulted (after cropping) in a 54 megapixel image, reduced to an 8000 pixels wide one here.

Click here for this image as a dual screen wallpaper.

Weekly Random Shot: “Hollywood dancer”

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Sep 162010

While on a good ‘ol fashioned trip throughout California in 2004 I made sure to spend some time at one of my two favorite places in Los Angeles: Griffith Observatory near the Hollywood Hills (the other being the Getty). Perhaps one of the most stunning viewpoints over the city, even though it was closed at that time for massive renovations.

While strolling the park behind it I saw this girl, quit some distance away, dancing in the near-sunset. Photos like these are easy to take so I just set my aperture at f10 (more than enough light anyway) and let the internal light-meter underexpose the image by itself. The reason for the f10 was to make sure that the grasses in front and behind the girl would come out sharp enough. At ISO100, shuttertime was still 1/3000 of a sec.! Thank you California light. With max zoom of 200mm this one came out just perfect.

Coolest thing was I ran into the girl later on and gave her my card while showing the photo on my camera. She later contacted me and I was able to send her a high-resolution copy. Sweet!

Weekly Randon Shot: “Lybian Desert”

Airliners, Random Shot, Travel No Responses »

Sep 082010

For a big assignment for Dance4Life in Uganda, last March, I took this photo while enroute from London Heathrow (LHR) to Entebbe (EBB). Hoping to catch a few nice photos at sunset this one came out quite spectacular though not that easy to capture as the light was dimming fast and the window was pretty iced up after 5 hours into the flight.

With an aperture of f2.8 I managed to still get a shutter time of 1/400sec at 100ISO. All shots with higher apertures turned out to too “dirty” from the ice particles on the window and the haze that was pretty much on each shot was removed by auto-levelling them in Photoshop and then turning back the over-contrasted areas with the curves tool where necessary.

All in all, an amazing view!

Weekly Random Shot: “The Perfect Touch”

Events, Random Shot No Responses »

Aug 232010

One of my most important clients has got to be Bacardi and covering their events has evolved into a major part of my work in the past few years. Besides catching the right atmosphere in my photoseries, getting some really nice “drink shots” is one of my favorite challenges.

This one was taken at Lowlands 2010, Holland’s largest band-based festival, where the Groove Tube area is transformed into somewhat of a massive Bacardi-bar. It’s mostly the place to hang out after midnight and a seriously nice place to photograph.

In my quest for some cool photos I was hanging around the bar with my trust Canon 50mm lens (the f1.8, as the lot more expensive f1.4’s will usually break down immediately after warranty expires) and a manual setting of 500ISO, f2.2 and a shutter of about 1/30th of a second. Higher ISO rates usually tend to really oversaturate the abundant reds (bear in mind it’s a Bacardi event and there is a lot of red to come by!). A 1/30 shutter I can still manage easily without a tripod, especially since the 50mm is such a lightweight lens.

These low shutters will usually end up getting me blurry photos if my subject is moving but the “mint in glass” can be timed right to get no motion blur at the exact moment. What makes this one extra nice is the smile on the bar ladies face. It’s just a moment that speaks for itself. I hope you like it as much as I do.

The image has been slightly cropped and the Bacardi logo in the glass was darkened a little bit. A bit of a palm leave was deleted from the left bottom corner. No color adjustments were made.

Client: Bacardi Netherlands
© 2010 Fotograferen net

Weekly Random Shot: On the Beach

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Aug 012010

PLEASE help me VOTE for this image (takes just seconds)!
Just click the image and then give a “thumbs up”!

Many thanx,
Rutger

While enjoying the beach in Zeeland with our friends Bell & Britt, our two year old daughter Sacha started fooling around in the large tidal pool looking for shrimp, starfish and crabs. I jumped for my camera and got as a low position as possible to get these two enjoying the lot.

To give the photo a warmer feel I used the internal flash (on this Canon Powershot G9) with an Av set at f5 and an exposure of -2/3 of a stop. Later on I found out the flash made the water reflect on their faces giving it an ever nicer feel. Shot quite a few images before Sacha actually pointed at the water, the shot I was hoping for.

This picture is also in a Dutch Water Photo Contest, please click the "thumbs up" if you enjoy the photo and would like to help me out.

Weekly Random Shot: Awakefest 2010

Events, Partypics & DJ's, Random Shot 1 Response »

Jun 272010

James Holden uhm, rocking?, the crowd…

Photo was taken at the 10 year Anniversary party of Awakenings: Awakefest in the Recreation Area Halfweg. June 26th 2010

When I entered the tent where James Holden was performing I immediately saw this couple at the front of the crowd.
I always have one camerabody with a telelens ready to shoot at these large events (which means: set at Av). Sometimes you have to act so quickly there is no time to adjust your settings properly on manual. So this one was taken with a maximum open aperture (f5) with my 100-400mm Canon EF f4.5-5.6. While shooting I adjusted to -2/3 of a stop in order to get a darker image and a slightly higher shuttertime (at 800ISO). I was hoping to get the couple frozen (they weren’t moving, so that was easy) with a blurred crowd behind them due to movement.
Fortunately the lens has stabilization so I can take really low shuttertimes (1/13th in this image) with my pretty steady hand. Took a whole bunch of shots and this one came out nicest (some are sharper but I like the people moving next to them, like the guy on the left, in this shot).
Converted it to B&W in Photoshop to get some more focus on the couple: reds turned up in the B&W control panel and then used levels to deepen the blacks and finally slightly upped their mouthes with a mask and then adjusting with the curve tool as there was a bit of shadow in that part of the shot.

Weekly Random Shot

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Jun 232010

"Beesies" are the extremely popular World Soccer give-aways from the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands: Albert Heijn.

My wife washed them before giving them our your 2 year old daughter (you never know if they’ve been produced with nasty colorings). They were hanging on our rack in the bathroom with our little girls socks… just really liked the image.

Photo was shot (without flash) in RAW to be able to adjust for the indoor lighting afterwards. 400 ISO and 1/80th at f2.5 with a 50mm f1.8 lens.

Weekly random shot

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May 302010

While enjoying the late news on TV I had to close the curtains to keep the low setting sunrays out of my eyes. It didn’t bother my cat though and through the drapes I could see her continue her late afternoon bathing ritual. Fortunately my camera was within reach and I started snapping away.

Kind of like to spookiness and the softness of both shots and the yawning looks really scary. Too bad I didn’t get that crop perfect although it still looks kind of cool.

Used my long lens (100-400), set at about 300mm with an AV exposure at f5.6 (400ISO). The image stabilizer and a knee as a single-pod prevented motion blur at this low shutterspeed for such a heavy lens.

Added a bit (ca 15%) of saturation to regain the warmth that was lost in the camera processing of the image.

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