My father-in-law, possibly amused by watching me dick around with a DSLR and laptop over the weekend, decided to dig his camera equipment out of storage

These are the cameras he used, over three decades, to take the pictures for his magnum opus (so becoming the first non-Russian to be awarded the Russian Academy of Fine Arts’ gold medal). He asserted he'd always been pleased with Rolleiflex ...

The episode has a useful pay-off ... it established with my wife a new baseline for the number of cameras it is reasonable for a man to own :-)

Christmas Fairy

Wonder what she is wishing for?

Merry Xmas everybody!

Last year I made an autumn photo trip to Wicken Fen; and this morning decided, seeing the light, to have a repeat visit. It was more sombre today, but quite interesting in a muted way I think.

These are three-photo images tone-mapped from HDR with Photomatix.

I have been using a Nikon D300 now for six months, and one of the characteristics I have had to get to grips with is its default colour handling: out of the camera the colours can be a touch “zingy” to my eyes – in an effort to replicate the classic Fuji Velvia look, the colours processing gives very rich yellows, but this has the side effect of making reds somewhat orangey.

Here is a picture of some rose hips:

In real life to my eye it seemed that the central rose hip had no orangeyness to its red; the upper rose hip had just a touch of orange. But, out-of-the camera, the colour rendition here differs from what I saw: the tints are much more orange.

One solution to this lies in the dark art of RAW conversion. Many photographers roll their eyes at this business – it can require a lot of time farting around with post processing software rather than taking more photos. However, I quite like farting around with software, so am quite happy to experiment.

For RAW conversion I use the fabulous DxO Optics Pro package. This offers a host of options for converting the RAW image into a JPEG, and it has to be said that some of these (such as chromatic aberration fixing) are now finding their ways into camera bodies. However, this software still offers quite a bit more flexibility and, in particular, will fix lens distortion for certain camera/lens bodies which have been analysed.

Another useful feature is the ability to control colour rendering. Want to give your Nikon D300 pictures the look of a Canon 40D? No problem – just specify it.

For Nikon users, a DxO user by the name of Andy_F has developed some RAW conversion presets specifically targeted at correcting the colour conversion of recent Nikon bodies. The result of using one of these to process the original RAW file give this result:

Which is much closer to what I think I saw.

Even better though is Andy_F’s “landscape” preset, which attempts some detail recovery from the image:

At Granchester
Originally uploaded by alexbrn

Another in my ongoing attempt to photograph the Cam at Grantchester in the early morning. Here is was at 05:17 this morning. One day I might catch "it" right..

Dew Daisy
Originally uploaded by alexbrn

Really enjoying the capabilities of the AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G. Thoroughly recommended for all Nikon DX shooters.

All Saints, Churchill

Before dawn things didn't look auspicious in Oxfordshire this morning - it seemed likely to be one of those days which start with a succession of gradually lighter grays. But suddenly, past five o'clock the sun blazed out a lovely yellow. There was mist in the valleys and everything looked resplendent.

I hopped in the car and drove looking for a vantage point, but failed to find one. It was as if one could be in the beauy, but never on top of it. Not for the first time I thought a big step ladder would help to photograph the English countryside, whose hedgrerows are often in just the wrong places. Still, walking round in the early morning with a ladder is likely to look a bit suspicious.

Finally, I stopped in Churchill to photograph the church; and behind, a glimpse of the light in the next valley. Next time I will need to plan better.

Cotswold Dawn

I had a few minutes before a meeting yesterday – and so a chance to take a photo of Big Ben. The only lens I was carrying was the (small and light) Nikon E Series 50mm, which gives a slightly unusual short-telephoto focal length of 75mm (in real money) when used on a DX camera.

So, a trip over Westminster Bridge was necessary to get much into the frame.

I'm pleased with the painterly light/haze effect in this picture. That may be accounted for by the layer of dust I noticed had built up on the front element later in the day; or the software smudging caused by the slightly-misaligned frames which make up this 3-exposure HDR....