This week’s Photo of the Week is a bit different as it was taken on a trip to Lanzarote way back in 2009. These adorable sparrows at the tourist attraction Jameos del Agua were incredibly comfortable around humans and Phil just had to take the opportunity to get some photos of them. As you will notice in the technical details below, the camera used here was actually a point-and-shoot camera that Phil had with him to take some photos while on holiday, rather than a professional-level camera, but it still did a fantastic job at capturing these cute little birds.
Phil actually edited this photo recently after finding it when searching through old photos. He applied an overall reduction of light and shadows and dropped the black point, before increasing the saturation. He then used a subject mask on the birds to increase their clarity, sharpness and saturation. Finally, he applied two gradient filters; one top to bottom which he used to adjust saturation and contrast to balance the picture, and one bottom to top to increase the contrast of the fence top.
This week’s Photo of the Week is a macro photo of a delicate forget-me-not. Phil always enjoys taking macro photos and forget-me-nots are one of his favourite subjects with how much more detail can be seen in these tiny flowers when you take the time to zoom in.
Camera details: Camera: Olympus E-M1 Mark ii ISO: 200 Shutter Speed: 1/200s Lens: Xiaoyi 42.5mm F1.8 Aperture: F4.5 Focal Length: 43.0mm
As always, this photo was shot RAW. To edit the photo, Phil selected the subject using Lightroom’s new masking tools. He loves this new feature as it allows you to easily select and edit a specific subject in the photo in order to bring out certain details in very specific parts of the photo. He then adjusted the colour balance on the flowers to make them pop more, before adding a linear filter to balance the lighting. Finally, he added a radial filter to each of the flower centres in order to reduce the highlights and bring out the delicate detail in the flowers.
Hi everyone, we hope you’re having a great week! This week’s Photo of the Week is one of our favourites – a beautiful photo of a bee on a striking red and yellow flower. Bees are truly amazing creatures and it is always a pleasure when we get the opportunity to photograph them. But first here are the technical details:
The photo was taken RAW as always and Phil started the editing process by adding a radial gradient filter around the bee. Within this radial filter he increased the contrast and lightened the shadows to bring the bee out more. He also added a linear gradient filter from top to bottom and increased the saturation to make the beautiful flowers pop even more. To finish off the editing, he balanced the colour, shadows and highlights across the whole picture.
We always find that photos like these really help us to appreciate how amazing nature is and the beauty that we can find all around us. Macro photography in particular is an amazing way to appreciate the often unseen and underappreciated side of the world around us, and we definitely recommend giving it a go to see what new things you can discover!
This week’s Photo of the Week is of this beautiful white flower taken in our garden a few months ago. But before we get into things in a bit more detail, here are the technical details:
Camera: Olympus EM-1 Mark II
ISO: 200
Shutter Speed: 1/800s
Lens: Olympus M.40-150mm F2.8
Aperture: F2.8
Focal Length: 150.0mm
The photo was shot RAW as always, which allows more details to be brought out in post. For the editing, Phil dropped the highlights to bring out the details in the flower, before raising the shadows to bring out some more detail in the bushes behind the flower. He then adjusted the saturation and the black point to balance the colours. Finally, he added a radial filter centred on the flower and made slight increases to clarity and texture to give the flower more “punch”. Phil has recently been using radial filters more and more frequently, as he finds they are a great way to adjust very specific parts of photos without throwing off the balance of the rest of the photo. This means he can do things like, in this case, bringing out more details in the flower without making the photo as a whole look over-processed, and it allows him to sharpen up a specific part of a photo in order to make it stand out.
Hi everyone and happy Wednesday! This week’s Photo of the Week is a photo of a beautiful swan taken once again at Far Ings Nature Reserve. This photo was taken on an Olympus E-M1 Mark II set to ISO 200 and a shutter speed of 1/250s, with an Olympus 100-400mm lens fitted with an MC-20 2x teleconverter set to an aperture of F12 and a focal length of 473.0mm. Once again the teleconverter contributes to the longer focal length, which has a 35mm equivalent of 946.0mm. As with last week’s photo of the dragonfly (see our last blog post to check that out if you missed it), the teleconverter allowed us to take a detailed photo of the swan from quite a distance, meaning there was no unnecessary disturbance of the swans or other wildlife in the reserve. We were lucky to get this beautiful action shot of the swan stretching its wings, and the photo really shows the natural grace and beauty of these incredible birds. Phil has been fortunate enough to photograph a good number of swans, but they never fail to amaze us.
As for editing, on top of the standard adjustments made in post-processing with RAW photos, there was some extra highlight reduction to make the feathers more visible in the photo.
Hi everyone, we hope you’re having a great week. This week our Photo of the Week is from our recent trip to Far Ings Nature Reserve in Lincolnshire. We were lucky to see a wide variety of wildlife there and this week we have chosen one of our favourite photos from the day – a macro photo of a beautiful dragonfly.
The photo was taken on an Olympus E-M1 Mark II set to ISO 320 and a shutter speed of 1/250s, with an Olympus 100-400mm lens fitted with an MC-20 2x teleconverter (hence the massive focal length) set to an aperture of F13 and a focal length of 800mm (which has a 35mm equivalent of 1600mm). The focal length is how we managed to get such a close up photograph despite sitting around 3m away from the dragonfly. This is really useful as it avoids disturbing or distressing what are very nervous insects, and is something that’s useful in wildlife photography in general to avoid scaring whatever animals you’re taking photos of.
In terms of editing, the photo was shot RAW as usual, and then just needed the standard adjustments to bring out extra detail in post, such as improving the colour balance and highlight and shadow adjustment.
We really had a great time visiting Far Ings and we would encourage everyone to visit and support nature reserves in your local area; they’re a great way to see and appreciate some rare wildlife that you wouldn’t see in day-to-day life, and they do some great conservation work as well.
Hi everyone, this week’s Photo of the Week is something a bit different, so we hope you enjoy! The building pictured is the school at Blists Hill Victorian Town near Ironbridge, Shropshire, and has a fascinating history which we will be covering in a bit more detail in this post.
The photo was taken on an Olympus E-P7 set to ISO 200 and a shutter speed of 1/125s, with an Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 EZ lens set to aperture F13 and a focal length of 14.0mm. Phil also used one of the camera’s pre-programmed black and white filters when taking the photo to give it a vintage look more fitting of the school’s architecture and history.
Blists Hill, where the school is located, is an open air museum themed around a Victorian town, which opened to the public in 1973. There isn’t much known about the history of the site where Blists Hill is today until the late 18th century, by which time the coal mining industry was well-established at the site, as can be seen by the canals and blast furnaces that are still there today. The site was closed down and abandoned in the 1950s, until Blists Hill opened in 1973.
A lot of the buildings found at Blists Hill today are old Victorian buildings that were demolished at their original sites before being rebuilt brick-by-brick at the museum. One example of this is the school in the photo. Originally Stirchley Board School, it was opened in June 1881, then closed in the 1970s and taken down from its original location in Stirchley, Shropshire in 1989, before being rebuilt brick-by-brick at Blists Hill in 1993. It really is fascinating to be able to explore old Victorian buildings at the museum as it brings a Victorian town to life, and we would definitely recommend a visit if you’re in the area.
NB: this post is not sponsored or endorsed in any way, we just love Blists Hill and the amazing experience and photography opportunities it provides.
Hi everyone, we hope you’re having a great week! This week’s Photo of the Week is of some beautiful scenery from the top of the Wrekin in Shropshire. For this photo, Phil used an Olympus E-P7 set to ISO 200 and a shutter speed of 1/400s, with an Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 EZ lens set to Aperture F5.6 and a focal length of 23.0mm.
As for the editing, Phil first applied a gradient filter from the top of the image with a dehaze one on the right with an exposure increase. He then put a radial filter around the cliff and increased both the highlights and shadows on it to further enhance it, as well as adding a radial filter in the bottom right hand corner of the image with a slight exposure reduction. Radial filters are incredibly useful for editing specific parts of photographs rather than having to change something across the whole photo, and they can really help improve the balance of an image.
The views from the top of the Wrekin really are stunning, and we feel so lucky to live in such a beautiful county. Check out the before and after photos to really get an idea of how much detail can be revealed in a RAW photo if you put in the time to make the adjustments.
The before (L) and after (R) shots really show the benefits of shooting RAW.
Hi everyone, we hope you’re having a great week. We have a really interesting Photo of the Week today, with a bit of history as well as quite a lot of technical details to cover, so we hope you enjoy! But before that, let’s cover what camera Phil used to take this photo. He used an Olympus OM-D EM-1 Mk ii set to ISO 200 and a shutter speed of 1/100s, with an Olympus M.12-45mm F4.0 lens set to aperture F11 and a focal length of 24.0mm (48mm 35mm equivalent). As always, the camera was set to aperture priority, with the narrow aperture being used due to the challenging lighting conditions on the day.
So to begin, here’s a bit of history about the building in the photo. The building is the remains of the winding house from the old Muxton Bridge pit situated in Granville Country Park on the Heritage Trail in Telford, Shropshire. The pit was sunk in 1840, with the winding house itself being constructed in 1884. It was once home to two high-pressure steam engines that were used for winding the paired shafts of the pit. The Muxton Bridge mine went out of production in 1905 and was closed in 1912. It really is a fascinating building to see, and although it is now derelict it still gives an idea of just how impressive these pits were back when they were in operation.
The photo itself required quite a lot of editing due to challenging lighting when taking the photo, with bright sunshine coming through a canopy of trees, but thanks to shooting RAW, Phil could really bring out a lot of detail in the final image – swipe to see the original image to see just how much of a difference the editing made. To begin, he reduced the highlights, increased the shadows and reduced the saturation. He then added a left to right gradient filter that dropped the highlights more, increased the shadows more and reduced the black point. A second left to right gradient filter on the far left hand side of the image also increased the shadows in that area. Following this he added a bottom to top gradient filter that increased exposure, highlights and shadows. Finally, he added a top to bottom gradient filter that further dropped the highlights, increased the shadows and reduced saturation. Again, with shooting RAW, all of this detail was already in the photo – it was just up to Phil to bring it out in post.
