Landscapes
Kids, bright colours, trees, snow and mist!
Sun Jan 24th - 6:23pm
One of those rare times when I post a non-work picture just because I like it. Shot this frame today while doing event photography at the Aviemore sled dog rally.
Ruthven Barracks and Kingussie snow panorama
Tue Dec 22nd - 3:31pm
Last week I posted a panorama of Ruthven Barracks and Kingussie. Today we have another one, this time from a different angle and with lots of snow. This one weighs in at just shy of 50 megapixels, which is over 14,000 pixels wide. Click this small version to see a 2000-pixel wide version, which is still very small compared to the full-size version but you can see a fair amount of detail.
Ruthven Barracks and Kingussie panorama
Sun Dec 13th - 11:53am
Yesterday I produced a 60-megapixel panorama showing Ruthven Barracks, Kingussie and the surrounding landscape. Click this small version to see a 2,000-pixel wide version, although that's nothing compared to the full-size version which is over 17,000 pixels wide and prints 60 inches long at 300-dpi.
Tip: When shooting a landscape that has lots of sunshine and lots of shade, set your white balance to shade. That way the shaded areas will appear natural and the sunshine areas will take on a nice warm glow. If you set your white balance to sunshine then the sunshine areas will look okay but the shaded areas will appear blue and the picture will look too cold and unnatural.
Hay bales in Balblair field
Sun Oct 19th - 5:47am
They don't come along often, but one of my favourite jobs is when I get to make the long trek round to Cromarty to photograph a concert at the Old Brewery. That's what I did yesterday, with a quick stop on the way for this Balblair landscape…
HDR composite from 6 exposures.
Portmahomack and Tarbat Ness landscapes
Sat Oct 18th - 12:14am
Once in a blue moon (or an orange sunset) I do still do the occasional landscape. Here's one from Friday evening in Portmahomack:
And an hour later, over at Tarbat Ness but without the lighthouse:
Both pictures were HDR composites, using 7 and 6 exposures respectively.
Megapixels? No. We’re talking GIGApixels!
Thu Sep 25th - 1:48am
Unless plans change at the last second as they frequently do, this week's edition of the all-singing, all-dancing Ross-shire Journal will feature a panoramic view of Dingwall and the surrounding area taken from the top of the Macdonald Monument last Saturday during Doors Open Day.
At the time, that was the largest panorama I'd ever created, weighing in at around 53 megapixels. If you click the thumbnail to view the larger version then what you'll see is still only about 5% the resolution of the full version.
It took a fair bit of work to stitch that panorama together as it was created from a series of 17mm vertical frames, so there was considerable wide angle distortion. It's preferable to create panoramas from telephoto images, and that's exactly what I did for this next image which is a proof-of-concept for a much larger project. This image isn't meant to be of any great interest or artistic value, it's only an illustration of what can be achieved. This one is 137 megapixels but that's small compared to where the project is heading, which will be in the gigapixel range.
When you click through to the larger version of that one, what you'll be seeing is less than 2% the resolution of the full version.
Sunbeams this morning
Fri Aug 31st - 9:01am
People usually photograph crepuscular rays in close-up but I think they look more dramatic when shown in context with more of the sky.
Daybreak and sunrise this morning
Thu Aug 30th - 5:39am
This was the view from the end of my garden at daybreak this morning, pretentiously titled "The Night Clears" because the sky was dark, dark, dark and then it drifted open to reveal the new day. Or something like that. Click to enlarge.
Update: I was just heading off to bed (yes at 6am) when I noticed the tell-tale orange of a good sunrise approaching. So here it is…
Full moon
Mon Aug 27th - 11:29pm
We won't see the total lunar eclipse on this side of the planet but here in northeast Scotland we do at least get a full moon with a reasonably clear sky.
Moon Illusion
Mon Aug 27th - 10:14pm
This photo shows the effect of the Moon Illusion that causes the moon to appear larger when it is low in the sky. There's a school of thought that says the illusion is only apparent to the naked eye and doesn't come across well in photos, but I disagree. It's only when you combine multiple exposures taken throughout the moon's ascent (example) that the illusion is lost.
