360: White Evening View

Settings: f/4, 1/6, ISO 400, DA 16-45 (30mm.) White balance and tone curve adjustments.

354: Frozen Field

Settings: f/8, 1/50, ISO 200, DA 16-45 (16mm.) Tone curves adjustment, slight distortion correction and sharpen.

348: Hedge Pylon

Settings: f/8, 1/250, ISO 200, DA 16-45 (29mm.) Tone curves adjustment, crop to 4:3.

323: Amazon

Last night was a foggy one, and I ventured into the cold to grab some shots of buildings and lights in the foggy night air. Only on starting back home did I notice the fair had come to town, and I noticed this dramatic angle of a large ride with a floodlight behind the sign.

Settings: f/8, 6s, ISO 100, DA 14-45 (45mm,) tripod. Levels & colour adjustments, cleanup.

318: Bridge-Train-Tree

A spur of the moment shot, as a train and I both approached a bridge.
Interesting how the tree on the left is visible through a gaping hole in the engine vehicle.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/640, ISO 400, P-FA 50mm. Levels adjustment and crop.

309: Fireworks Night

It's the time of year for bulb exposures once more, and I'm at least consistent in turning up to the same fireworks display for the third year running - with the same main intention. The difference this time is that I brought along my 16-45 instead of the 18-55. Favouritism, I know, but wider is more appealing.
The main challenges in this event seem to be anticipating where and how wide the fireworks will burst, and trying to avoid the glow from the massive bonfire on the left.

Ironically, most shots didn't seem to need 16mm wide - if only I was right over the field with the lighting crew. That'll never happen, but maybe next time I'll try to find a radically different spot to shoot from (that doesn't involve stepping out into the forbidden zone.)

Settings: f/10, 3s, ISO 100, DA 16-45 (38mm,) remote release, tripod.

273: Perched Aloft

"It's just a pigeon..."
Not great, but not bad for an equivalent 1600mm lens hand held.

Settings: f/16, 1/250, ISO 400, EOS D30, Tamron SP 500mm adaptall, 2x teleconverter.

267: Yellow Lines

I'm used to a fixed focal length lens, but a fixed focus lens is something I'm just not used to using with an SLR. It takes me back to the days of little plastic 110 and 135 compacts, except with a better viewfinder for starters.

Like the last time, I used electrical tape to fix a lens to the camera... Bad practice! Don't do this at home unless you expect things to fall out now and again.
I really need one of those double threaded M42-M39 step-down rings. Much better than tape.

Settings: f/4.5, 1/320, ISO 100, 50mm Paterson 1:4.5 M39, M42-PK adapter.

258: Moonglow

...Made A Halo of Your Chimney.

One of those rare situations that I use my infinity-focus M42 adapter. I knew I'd be postprocessing this image quite a bit, as I was certain the camera's JPEG wouldn't look quite as I wanted (even though it was quite faithful.)

Settings: f/5.6, 6s, ISO 200, 135mm Soligor 1:2.8 M42, tripod. No sharpening, noise reduction, luminance curves, rotation, saturation reduction, slight crop; 2 dust spots removed.

244: Sunset Dance

Settings: f/8, 1/250, ISO 200, DA 18-55 (18mm)

184: Six Jets, Smoke Trails

The Red Arrows, performing at the Waddington Air Show. I'm not sure if they were supposed to only be flying six jets that time; maybe some of them were not ready. I also can't tell if there are five of six smoke trails here, but I reckon it's probably five.
I particularly like how the sun shines brightly though the peak of the smoke trails.

Settings: f/6.3, 1/1000, ISO 200, P-FA 50mm.

165: Clouds 2

Settings: f/10, 1/80, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm.

142: Chapter House at Three

Lincoln Cathedral, straight from camera JPEG, no cropping, and a degree of predicatble (18mm) vignetting that seems to tie up the contours of the upper image quite well.

Settings: f/8, 1/125, ISO 100, P-DA 18-55 (18mm)

135: Skull Profile Cloud

Settings: f/22, 1/200, ISO 100, EOS D30 & Tamron SP 28-105mm f/4-4.5, luminance curve adjustment.

123: Yellow Under Blue

Everybody needs to shoot a by-the-numbers landscape to understand how they can improve their technique. I certainly need to do more of them as a matter of practice. Although I could really do with a better wideangle lens too; that DA 12-24 looks awfully good, but not for the horrendous price Pentax is asking for it now. In fact, rule out any of their lenses, they just seem like a rip-off nowadays. Some have almost doubled in price over the last couple of years. I really wish I had bought some more before so I could flog them at a profit now! Of all the lame reasons to want to go back in time for..!

No excessive tweaking, mind you. If there's one thing I can do with less of, it's those artfully-bodged-looking scenes with too much contrast and colour saturation.

I think I captured those clouds at a nice moment.

Settings: f/16, 1/80, ISO 100, P-DA 18-55 (18mm.)