POTD Exmouth Star Trails

I know its been a while since the last Picture of the Day, so I thought we would star back off with some star pictures. In my rear garden I have this weather vane attached to my garage so I decided to use it as the foreground interest, luckily for me the vane has rusted a little so is stuck in position.

Using my tallest tripod set to maximum height I managed to get my Nikon D3 and 14-24mm lens as close as I could it the vane and on the 14 end of the lens I could get a good field of view of the sky. The camera has a built in interval timer (you can get cable releases with built in timers which can be purchased pretty cheap on ebay check this one foe Nikon here). I set the time gap at 15 secs and the number of images at 200, the exposure was set at 3 secs at f2.8 on ISO 3200. I then left the camera to run its course.

Below is just one of the images, you have to try and keep the under 10 seconds because of the speed that the Earth rotates you with start to get movement in the stars.

Once I have all the images onto the computer I then used a free program called Startrails for PC or Starstax for MAC user, you load in the images and it blends the altogether. You should end up with something like the image below. I also pointed the camera at the North star to give a central turning point.

Similar as what what I said before about the speed of the Earth turning you also need to keep your gap between picture around 5-15 seconds. Below is an earlier examples of mine where I had the gap set to 30 seconds.

You can see the gaps that have appeared in the lines.

You will also notice on the stacked image a single dots that is not in the center  when I looked back through the images it only appears in one. I noticed it a bit more when I loaded all the images in Adobe After Effect and played them out on a time line.

After some discussion we think it was probably a meteorite as if it was a shooting star it was probably appear in more than one shot.

What do you think?

Picture of the Day Dartmoor Weather

Today's picture of the day comes from Dartmoor National Park, I would have liked to said sunny National Park, but it was far from it today. The rain rarely let up all day, at some points it was rally hammering it down. Stopping two bridges near postbridge the river was nearly bursting it banks, I was looking for a way of showing how full the river was. There was a very short break in the rain, so I went up onto the stone bridge. Armed only with my Nikon D3 and a Nikon 28-300mm lens, I was really missing my camera bag and tripod. Firstly for my neutral density (ND)filters which would have heled me slow my shutter speed right down and get some silky smooth flowing water and secondy my tripod to put the camera on when using these really slow speeds. So instead I had to see want I could make the camera do on its own. First, I set the ISO all the way down to 100, next was setting the aperture to f22 this gave me a shutter speed 1/10th, which was just about enough to give the impression that the water was fast flowing. To help alleviate camera shake I gently place the camera on to the stone bride and aligned my shoot using the live view.

Once I had the image onto the computer and into photoshop I adjusted the levels and contrast and the applied a Topaz Detail filter to the image before turning it black and white. Finally I used the burn tool to just bring the edge down. Please let us know what you think of the image of the day

Picture Of The Day - The Frozen Fountain

This picture of the day come from The Frozen Fountain at The Chateau Impney Hotel just outside Droitwich. Whilst on route to a corporate job at the hotel itself I passed the fountain, I checked my watch I I had some time before I had to be there so stopped.

For this picture of the day I just wanted to show how using different lens and angles can produce different pictures at one location. 

After  getting a closer look I could see that there were lots of different elements to the fountain that I wanted to photograph.

So starting with my Nikon 14-24mm lens I took a series of pictures including the one above. The lens has a minimum focus distance of 28cm which enables you to get in real close to a subject. Shooting at the 14mm end of the lens on a full frame Nikon D3 can give a slightly distorted view, but can be used to make small spaces look vast.

After working my way around the subject once I switched over to my Nikon 24-70mm lens, which can still produce good wide shots, but also zoom in the close your background down too.

Use low angle to give a different point of view to the normal 5 foot 10 inch view.

Get low and shoot at the same level as the subject. (This is also something you should do with children and pets).

Looking at the picture above and comparing it to the the first picture in the post you can see how the use of different lens closes down your background.

After working my way around for the second time, I then switched over to my 70-200mm. With this lens lens I was able to step right back and throw the background out in the pictures.

Lastly I put on my 300mm to just get right in on some of the ice, I wish I had my macro with me but unfortunately not this time.

As I was leaving the job I passed back by the fountain and just stopped quickly to get a night shot of it.

Again please let us know what you think of the posts and the pictures.

Picture of the Day - Loch Lomond

Recently we were doing some feature work up in Scotland just outside Loch Lomond. When we took the opportunity to go to the Loch and take some images. We thought we would use this to show how shooting at different angles can improve your pictures.

Armed with a Hassleblad H4D and a 35-90mm lens, which takes some getting use to after using a Nikon for so long.

Below you so a picture of of a piece of rope leading in to the water. The shot is taken from the same angle that we see thing from everyday 5'10" (roughly), this doesn't make for a very interesting picture. Taken at ISO 100, f5.6 and 1/180th

Now we have changed the angle of view to a really low vantage point you can see that the picture looks more interesting. Taken at ISO 100, f8 1/60th on 50mm

Just for one last adjustment we have now zoomed into 90mm, still using the same exposure settings but the zooming has reduced the depth of field. The rope was still position as a leading line through the image. We then turned black and white, added some contrast and then added a light layer of Topaz Detail.

Please let us know what you think.

New look website

We have been re-working our website for the last few weeks you can now check it out at www.serenityeye.com

Picture of the Day - London Skyline

Recently I was very fortunate to board the HMS Ocean as she sailed up the River Thames, the Royal Navy carrier which is being used as a support platform to house personnel who are being used during the London 2012 Olympic Games. It was an impressive feat to see the largest carrier Britain has manoeuvre up the river, but it did in turn offer a very interesting view point. Not often do you get to see the city from about 5 storeys up and from the middle of the river.

Using this vantage point I moved to the side of the carrier switching my Nikon D3s over to Aperture Priority (Av) setting f8 as my aperture to give me maximum sharpness (maximum sharpness of a lens is generally 2 stops from its widest aperture). Using the bracketing function, I set the camera to take 5 shots 1 stop apart. As I did not have a tripod with me at the time, I switch the D3s over to shoot in Continues High (CH) which allows the camera to shoot up to 11 frames per second (fps). By using this it gives you very little movement between pictures (you require a camera that shoots above 5 fps). 

Once I had the images on to my computer I used Photomatix to combine the 5 shots in a high dynamic range (HDR) I used the adjusters with the program to give the image a grungy and slightly surreal look. Once I was happy I saved it out as a tiff file which I then opened in photoshop, here I then boosted the contrast and added a crop to make it a little longer and thinner. I also used Topaz Detail 2 just to make the image pop that little bit more.

It just goes to show that sometimes it can be about being in the right place at the right time..

Please lets us know what you think by leaving a comment.

Thanks for reading.

Picture of the Day _ Caylee Fairy Shoot

This shoot was a themed shoot for Caylee, we combined two of her favourite things. Them being fairies and bubbles. 

The scene is lit using 2 Bowens lights and 2 Nikon SB-900's. The bowens were lighting Caylee herself and the flash unit were to light the back ground.

The bowens light were fitted with 60cm square softboxes and placed on lighting stand about 3 feet of the ground bringing them nearer to Caylee's height. They were also set to f5.6 to give an even f8 at the center of the set.

The SB-900 were set to 1/16th power each to give us a rough 1/8th power across the background. Both flashes were placed on the floor facing up towards the white background, the left hand unit had a green gel fitted and the right hand unit a red gel.

With a bubble machine on a small stall of to the left hand side, Caylee was dressed in her favourite Tinkerbell outfit and she was then told to run around and pop the bubbles. Emz had the camera set to f8 at ISO 100 and used a shutterspeed ranging from 1/125th - 1/250th.

At some points during the shoot you can see when Caylee had moved towards the back of the set and as she is now getting some green light from the flash on her side and face. Which added a nice effect to the image.

The images also made a nice black and white conversion in post production.

If your interested in doing a studio, location or themed shoot with us then please go to our contact page.

Also please let us know what you think.

Picture of the Day - If Need Be Use Your Phone

Picture of the Day - If Need Be Use Your Phone

I know it has be a little while, so I have done this quick one just to show you that you don't need to havee your camera with you to take a good photo. I took this using my iphone while doing a wedding recce. It is on the route to the reception so we will be making a pit stop on route after the ceremony.

The picture was then run through the app snapspeed to just enhance the colours, contrast and to add the boarder.

  This one was taken on a trip to the park, I managed to catch the timing right of Caylee was her head out of the train window. Again it was adjusted through snapspeed, to crop out the train and add the boarder.

This last one was just an opportunity I couldn't miss when round at the sister-in-law's. Her dog can get a little over excited, so they just let her calm down in the conservatory. She was continually ticking her head through the cat flap. Using snapspeed I turned it black and white, added a bit of grain and a boarder.

So it just goes to show you can get some good shots on your phone.

Please lets us know what you think.

Picture of the Day - Exmouth Seafront

Today's Picture of the Day comes from Exmouth Beach, which I am pretty fond of. These pictures were taken on Saturday, we had been out for the day with our friends and children to the play park on the beach. Generally we'll take a camera along to get some shots of the littlen playing, but unlike most the camera we took was a Nikon D3s and a Nikon 28-300mm.

As we were walking back to the car and the dark clouds loomed above us, this lone boat came chugging by. I quickly picked up the camera and crossed the road. Having been in the park the camera was set in Aperture priority (Av) so I didn't really have to think also the exposure too much. Thinking more about composition I managed to capture a few frames before it sailed past us.

The D3s was set to ISO 200 and the exposure compensator was dialled in to +0.3 this is something that I do when shooting in RAW or nef format on Nikon, I also have it set to 14 bit so it will retain more information and then you can over exposure the shot up to a full stop and still pull the highlight back in RAW conversion. With the aperture set at f8 I used the full range of the lens to produce wide and close up shots.

Once I had the images on to the computer I boosted the contrast and cropped them to my desired format. I also burnt in the edges of the image slightly. I used Topaz Detail which is a plug in for Photoshop just to make the detail in the images pop.

It just goes to show that it is always good to have your camera with you as you never know what may present itself.

Please let us know what you think of our picture of the day by either liking it on our facebook page, tweet us @Serenity_Eye or leave a comment here on the blog.

Thank you for reading

Picture of the Day - Burnham-On-Sea

This picture of the day comes from the weekend just gone by. I found myself at Burnham-On-Sea on the seafront. The reason I picked these pictures to show is that I wanted to show that it doesn't have to be a nice day to go and get good pictures. The weekend weather was pretty miserable for most, but I decided to make the most of my time as Emz was on another job near by.

I decided to shoot for HDR (High Dynamic Range), this is were you take a series of the same picture at different exposures and then combine them using a program call Photomatix. There are two ways of doing the pictures for this. Firstly you can put you camera on a tripod therefore getting shots that will all be aligned correctly and then manually adjust your exposure to under and over expose the image, plus you could use the bracketting feature of your camera if it has it. This is when you can sent the camera to automatically a set number of frames.

Or if you have a camera that shoots at 5 frames a second or higher used in conjuction with the camera bracketting feature you will get very little movement bewteen the pictures. Photomatix also has a align feature built in.

Also I use the a plugin filter for photoshop made by Topaz Labs called Detail which has some selected bulti-in filters of which my favourite is bold detail. When using it I duplicate my image layer and then apply it to the upper layer. Some the effect can be pretty harsh, if this happens I reduce the opacity of the upper layer.

I also did a some none HDR shots as well

If you have any questions regarding HDR or anything that you have read please ask.

Picture of the Day - Fenit Harbour, Ireland

This shot was taken by Emz in Fenit Harbour in Southern Ireland just outside the town of Tralee. Emz and I were attending a family wedding near by and were making a long weekend of it. We were returning to where we were staying as the sky started to suddenly break into this glorious sunset. Turning from the direction of our accommodation, we headed for the harbour and got there just in time to catch the sun beams bursting over the hill. 

It was shot on a Nikon D2x with a 28-70mm on ISO 100 at f5.6 1/125th. The image fits a panoramic crop easily with a nice 50/50 reflection.

I shot the scene as well but favoured a longer Nikon 70-200mm lens. I focused in more on the boat itself with the castle ruins in the background.

Picture of the Day - Chicago

This shot was taken underneath the central train loop right that runs around the center of the city of Chicago. I was actually on my way to Willis Tower as I wanted to try and do some cityscapes from the top. I had about an an hour and a half to kill before I had to leave to catch my flight. Although I never got to shot any pictures from the top of the tower due to a very unlucky timed arrival. I just missed the start of the 20 minute video on the tower (which I didn't want to watch) so that combined with another 20 minutes watching the video I didn't have enough time to get up down and back to the hotel.

Luckily, on the way to the tower as I crossed the street I saw this scene. I loved the way the light shone down through the grid pattern of the rail track onto the road. As I jay walked across the street I stop in the middle and quickly shoot off a few frames. I love the leading line of the shadow and the metal framework that creates a natural frame in the image. Ironically had I not stop to take this I may have made to the video at Willis Tower.

What I can tell you is that it was shot on a Nikon D2x and a Nikon 28-70mm lens. I would love to give you the shooting information but sadly the original files were lost in a hard drive crash in late 2007, before I had backed it up. It just goes to show you the importance of backing up your digital files. Lesson learned the hard way!

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Jamie and James

Please take your time to look through some of our latest wedding picture of Jamie and James, who were married at Bicton Botanical Gardens followed by a reception at the Royal Beacon Hotel.