Uploads from Gareth Scanlon, tagged high, with geodata

Day of the Buzzard ....(+6 in comments) ... 4/365

nobody@flickr.com (Gareth Scanlon) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 10:05:16 -0800

What a grim day, damp, foggy, misty, cloudy, dark, winters day. Not a day to go and photograph birds ... but .... once again spent the day on the Black Mountain and decided to go out and look for another of my favorite birds, Common Buzzards, and my god are they common up here. The one thing about Buzzards is the huge variation in colours as can be seen in the below pics, no two are the same, all of the below are different birds. They are however quite shy so you really have to get a bit sneaky peaky with them, which is hard when you only have 280mm f/4, but an ideal time to try my new christmas pressie, a Kenko 1.4x Teleplus PRO 300 DG to use primarily on my 80-200mm f/2.8 which gives as above about 280mm f/4. It is a great teleconverter, really great I can detect no loss in sharpness even when pixel peeping. However had a bit of a dilema today, becasue the weather was so god awful 90% of the shots taken were at ISO 1600 or higher at f/4-5.6 to maintain a high enough shutterspeed. I found myself debating, should I gain the f/ stop by removing the TC and shooting a smaller image at a lower ISO and cropping or keep shooting at f/4 live with the noise for a bigger image and less cropping .... don't know if I did the right thing, but stayed with the latter and bumped the ISO for 280mm. Some of the shots below in the rain were taken at ISO 2500 f/4 'cos it was so flippin' dark !

Can't wait for ny chair hide to turn up. Will make things a lot easier !

Ah well, learned some new things, as I do everyday, hope you like the images .... just thought it would be a challenge to go and get some images in far less than perfect weather conditions.

Guinness

nobody@flickr.com (Gareth Scanlon) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:36:09 -0700

Gareth Scanlon posted a photo:

The drink of the gods !!

What an incredible day !!! Bird lovers - PLEASE READ ON (+11 in comments)

nobody@flickr.com (Gareth Scanlon) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 07:06:05 -0700

Gareth Scanlon posted a photo:

Dippers - Cinclus cinclus

Before I get into the nitty gritty all images taken with my Nikon D300S and brand spanking (wohwoo !!!!) Nikkor AF-S 300mm f/4D IF-ED prime lens with a Kenko 1.4x PRO DGS Teleconvertor (which strangely now gives exif !!) ... all images are at 420mm well over ISO 500 and shot wide open at f/5.6, and mostly in poor crappy lighting and also through bushes, trees, grass etc etc - I got dirty !!! whilst mounted on a tripod or via my trusty campod bean bag.

What a lens .... and I mean man ... what a lens - it is FAB !!! so so so sharp, prime lenses rock.

Well, where do I start ... I finished my night shift this morning at 0700, by 0730 I was on a fast flowing river 2 miles from my house. I was "introduced" to the river by my partner's dad, an exceptional fisherman, after a conversation about Dippers (a bird resident to high altitude rivers). I've always wanted to see one, and as most things turn out (read as - Red Kites, Kingfishers etc) it means I set myself a personal quest to find out a much as I possibly can about said topic usually by buying every available book on the topic and going out and studying their behaviour (which helps make better photographs). Anyway I digress, so on getting home, put on my camo jacket and trousers grabbed the camera and tripod (but not hide - GOD DAMN !!!!) and set off in search of Dippers. The image above was the first glimpse of a Dipper for the day taken at about 0820hrs, a male perched nicely) .......... continued in comment BELOW

Huw & Zoe's Wedding ... Happy New Year ... 1/365 (+ 8 !!! in comments)

nobody@flickr.com (Gareth Scanlon) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:50:30 -0800

Gareth Scanlon posted a photo:

Firstly and foremostly, happy new year to all of you .... my new years resolution this year is to start a 365 project (hope I can stick to it !!).

Thought I'd post a few quick edits that I've done of a beautiful wedding we attended yesterday, new years eve. Waw ... to say that it was a beautiful wedding is the understatement of the century.

It gave me the chance to use a new piece of kit, my new Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 which turned out to be a real gem for wide shots. All were taken with my D300S, coupled with my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8g, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 and the above Tokina. Used mainly on camera flash with a few off camera flash captures.

Thoroughly enjoyed the day ... it was fab ... just gutted that I had to go and do a 9 hour night shift after shooting it !!! Bummer.

Zoe & Huw, I hope you like them, these are just a few quick edits of many many images captured !

Again .... happy new year !

First Attempt At A Milky Way Shot

nobody@flickr.com (Gareth Scanlon) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 16:30:25 -0700

Gareth Scanlon posted a photo:

Taken with my D300S and Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 . Been wanting to have a go at this for a long time, semi pleased with the result, will have another ago and try and bump the ISO up to 6400, this shot was taken at f/2.8 manually focused to infinity at 17mm (which is more like 15/16mm on a Tamron 2.8) with a 30 second exposure at ISO 3200 with Long Exposure Noise Reduction (LENR) on, will try another tomorrow night if there isn't any cloud cover at ISO 6400. You can really see the falloff at 2.8 in the corners, need that higher ISO to minimise trailing.

This shot was taken in a the general direction of the north (ish) on the Black Mountain in Brynamman (trying to minimise light pollution), will try the same location tomorrow with a higher ISO. Would have been nice to have captured something in the foreground and thus tilting the camera more to the horizon. Minimal processing in CS4, loved the mini galaxy on the mid right and the plane in the top right.

Had to give it a go ... thought I'd post it to hopefully show how tomorrow's shot will be better !!!

Nadine ... Fuji Neopan 400CN

nobody@flickr.com (Gareth Scanlon) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 12:39:11 -0700

Gareth Scanlon posted a photo:

Taken with my £5 Nikon F50 and Nikkor AF 50mm f/1.8D at f/2 on Fuji Neopan 400CN.

Wanted to try the CN as I can have it developed locally. This was developed at my local ASDA (dare I say it !). I like the picture and am finding that the images are certainly more contrasty than the last roll of standard Neopan 400, there is also a lot more grain ... so I have a slight inclination that this could be down to the developing (my exposure was set by my Sekonik L358 as per the last roll) ... learning experience, learning new things everyday at the moment !

Hope you like it, I do ....

Mk2 Golf

nobody@flickr.com (Gareth Scanlon) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:10:36 -0700

Gareth Scanlon posted a photo:

A quick quick capture of one of my very dearest friends beloved Mk2 Golf ... this car has been a long time in the making and I am overjoyed for him that it is finally rolling ... albeit not yet in the full guise he desires. Was taken quickly in the p**ssing down rain, can't wait to get some more shots of this beautiful car. Been playing about a lot with flashes as of late ... am missing my nature stuff :-( but ah well still having fun, gonna invest in two YN460's next month !!

Taken with my D300S and 18-55VR kit lens in the pitch black. Strobist details are as follows, SB600 front 50mm 1/1, SB28 28mm 1/1 vehicle rear right, Jessops "el cheapo" camera right, all fired with cactus V2's.

Edited with CS4 with the use of two layers, selective colour and dodge tools !