Nik Software has finally released Version 2 of its popular Silver Efex Pro application for converting colour images into black and white work. Having used version one for some time, I’ve been eagerly awaiting this upgrade and will be putting it through its paces over the next few weeks. There are many new features in...
After I completed my earlier review of Capture On Pro 6 in a black and white conversion test with Silver Efex Pro, I had some feedback from several people who asked me to add Lightroom 3 into the mix to see how converting the same RAW file would work out by comparison with the other...
This review is a follow on from my earlier ‘First Impressions’ article looking at Capture One Pro RAW processor’s new Black and White conversion capabilities in their latest, Version 6, release. In this fuller review, I’ve compared it directly with an equivalent workflow in Adobe Camera Raw 6 with Photoshop CS5 and the popular Silver...
Relatively hot on the heels of version 5, Phase One have just released version 6 of Capture One RAW processor. My work is predominantly monochrome at present, so I was very interested to learn that the developers have improved the black and white conversion workflow of this new release. For the first time, the release...
Ladies Morris teams are a common site in the villages around Oxfordshire. In fact, it is said in some corners that Morris dancing traditions might have been lost had it not been for may dances and tunes being preserved by enthusiastic women archivists work over the past hundred years or more. This is a shot...
Here’s a Plum Jerkum dancer having a puff after running out of puff dancing at Wallingford Bunkfest in early September. Plum Jerkum hails from Warwickshire, their name being derived from a cider made from the local Drooper plum. Apparently it has the local reputation of ‘leaving the head crystal clear while paralysing the legs’! Here’s...
For a recently converted Leica fan, there are a very few specialist on-line galleries where you’d want to have your work showcased, and Leica Fotographie International is perhaps the most prestigious. It’s the site I go to most often to be inspired by wonderfully creative images shot by Leica based photographers from all over the...
Having missed the grand opening of Oxford’s new Ashmolean Museum some months ago, I wanted to see what the project architect, Rick Mather, and sixty million pounds of refurbishment had delivered. There’s no doubt that he has created a wonderfully light and airy space with a stunning, eighty foot high, glass roofed, central atrium that...
Even in November, Devon’s fishermen are still hauling their boats into the sea to make a small catch to sell in the beach wet fish shop. This image was taken on the beach of a little fishing village called Beer in South Devon as a boatman was dragging a heavy steel hawser down to his...
This case study takes a Nikon D300 image, shot at a classic car race meeting at Silverstone, through various post processing steps from the RAW NEF file through to a smart monochrome final image. Along the way we will use Photoshop CS5, Camera RAW, Noiseware Professional and Siver Efex Pro to produce the finished result....
A pictorial, retrospective review of the excellent Nikon D300 camera body fitted with a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.0 VR telephoto lens and used in the context of a motor racing photoshoot at Snetterton race track in Norfolk. The review discusses why, even today, the thoroughbred three year old D300 is still a great camera for this kind of sports photography and offers some example shots as evidence of its capabilities.
August Bank Holiday in England is sometimes a sunny affair, which helps enormously if you’ve spent the last year organising a musical extravaganza. For the past forty six years Towersey in Oxfordshire has held a folk music festival which has become a firm favourite with folk aficionados from all over the country. Always a successful...
No doubt the result of falling water levels or an extreme spring tide lifting her beyond retrievable, and much subsequent neglect. Taken on the Isle of Skye using a Nikon D70 SLR fitted with a 12-24mm Nikon zoom lens, shot at f10.0 at 1/400th at ISO 200, exposure compensation -1/3rd stop, saved as JPEG; camera...
Shot on a day with very poor weather – one of the few during an excellent short break in Key West, Florida earlier this year. It’s one of a sequence taken at the Dolphin Research Center on the island of Marathon. It took several attempts of course because timing was critical so as to catch...
This little six megapixel beauty was purchased by me in the US some years ago and used for all sorts of quick images – for straight out of the coat pocket and back again kind of shots. It never failed to impress me with its unfussy menu system and ‘grab it’ point-and-shoot utility. When it...
During the cooling of Cornwall’s landmass, vertical fissures opened in the granite and boiling magma bubbled up through them from the earth’s molten interior. These intrusions contained many minerals, and, as they crystallised, they formed seams of tin, copper, zinc, lead, iron with even a little silver. These minerals could not be mined horizontally, so...
Watch Out – it’s behind you! Seriously, this was shot on a fairly grey and blustery day on Saint Ives beech in Cornwall using a Nikon D70. The image was shot at f7 at 1/800th sec, ISO 200 using a Nikon 70-210mm telephoto zoom lens, single shot, hand-held. Remarkably, it’s cropped from less than twenty...
Where’s his head?! Caught these chaps just un-roping having reached the summit of a steep headland climb near Saint Agnes in Cornwall’s mining coastal area. Very dramatic views from this area.You can just see the derelict engine house on the hillside in the middle of the picture. This was shot on a Nikon D70 fitted...
This shot was taken on my Nikon D70. Not the first digital camera I owned but the first serious digital SLR worth its salt. It comes from a set of images snatched on the beach at Saint Ives Cornwall in July 2004 with a 70-200mm telephoto lens hand-held at quite a distance. It is only...
This image was originally shot in colour on a Nikon F90 film camera with a 100mm Nikkor lens under studio lighting. The very beautiful model was a local girl who had not posed before but volunteered provided that we all donated at least one finished print towards her portfolio. I don’t know how she had...
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