Old and New

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

A juxtaposition of the recording mediums for my two different kinds of cameras. Film and flash memory.

Pentax K-x - 1/50 sec - f/? - ISO 800 - ~75mm

Daylight.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, crop, scale and watermark for web.

I was really unimpressed by the qualities of the backdrop. It was a last minute grab and shoot sort of thing, and I think it shows. I'd like to shoot the some subject again and improve the background, lighting and composition.

Pizza Fairy.

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

A friend of mine told me the pizza fairy had been, meaning that he'd bought a pizza home for me. I added the wings with an LED light during the long exposure.

Pentax K-x - 20 sec - f/? - ISO 400 - ~34mm

Lit using an Achiever 300D flash triggered by a Ricoh XR-2 with self-timer. The flash was in a white wardrobe with a mattress protector hung over the opening. The wardrobe door served to block (most) light from hitting the background. The wardrobe is to the camera right of the subject.

Used GIMP to adjust levels and darken the foreground floor (particularly a messy pile of stuff that was quite well illuminated and distracting). Cropped (lit ceiling was in the shot too) then scaled and watermarked for the web.

I would really quite like to get some proper flash gear, but I do have fun with what I've got. my control of the spill wasn't very impressive - I didn't really want the room in the background to be lit. I'm not sure what I could have done, its possible I just don't have enough space to avoid light bounce.

Layers

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

A slice of an onion, lit from behind. Inspired by this shot of a tomato lit from behind. When I next get a tomato I'll have a go with that.

Pentax K-x - 1 sec - f/? - ISO 200 - ~82mm

Lit using an Achiever 300DX flash held pointing at the (whitish) floor, to bounce up through a thin plastic chopping board (to diffuse light) to backlight the subject (which was about 40mm above the chopping board on a transparent plastic container).

Used GIMP to adjust layers, clean up a rough edge and desaturate using channels or something (it was only faintly coloured, but I played with different settings to get steep contrast). Scaled and watermarked for web.

I'm looking forward to getting radio flash triggers.

Crowded Boats

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

I went for a walk with my grandfather, who showed me how many more moorings had been added to the local marina.

Pentax K-x - 1/120 sec - f/? - ISO 800 - ~82mm

Daylight, overcast.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, crop, add border, scale and watermark for web.

Yawn

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

My cousin's daughter yawning, held by my mother.

Pentax K-x - 1/15 sec - f/? - ISO 400 - ~71mm

Indoors. Probably window light.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale and watermark for web.

American Car

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Hundreds of old style american cars were pouring into town for an annual event.

Pentax K-x - 1/24 sec - f/? - ISO 200 - ~36mm

Daylight.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale and watermark for web. I'm posting quite a while after editing, and I think I may have actually cloned something out in the background, but I can't remember.

I deliberately went for a slow shutter speed, but I think I could have done better with a slightly faster speed - the motion blur of the car is evident at full size. Perhaps I should have panned better?

The Dog III

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

The dog, chasing a stick at the beach.

Pentax K-x - 1/4000 sec - f/? - ISO 400 - ~45mm

Midday sun.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale and watermark for the web.

I would have liked to have composed better for the reflection.

Morning

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Sunrise by the hut, with distant mountains on the horizon.

Pentax K-x - 1 sec - f/? - ISO 200 - ~40mm

Sunrise.

Used GIMP to rotate, crop, clone out some dust on the lens and rescale for web.

Half the route plan was made in the hopes of getting photos like those I've been seeing on Hikr.org where the mountains look like islands in the clouds, and people apparently wake up in these wonderlands. The actual experience of this part of the trip was not up to expectation, but the trip was fantastic. Although photos may have been the excuse, it was never intended to be the primary source of enjoyment.

Mountain IV

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

The mountain, around sunset, seen from its secondary peak.

Pentax K-x - 1/250 sec - f/? - ISO 400 - ~27mm

Sunset.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, increase saturation of blue. Played with the other colours a bit, but didn't like them.

I've taken so many photos of this mountain from other angles and with other colours happening, with different light, and different foregrounds. I can't decide if this is actually a good image or not. Please comment.

Budding Photographer

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

The photography bug is contagious. My smallest brother, using one of my cameras to take photos of a flower as we hiked.

Pentax K-x - 1/100 sec - f/? - ISO 400 - ~63mm

Early evening skylight.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale for web. Considered cropping, decided the context was important.

Bunny

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Bunny graffiti on a transformer not far from my parents place.

Canon PowerShot A720 IS - 1/1500 sec - f/4.5 - ISO 100 - ~10mm

Daylight.

Used GIMP to crop a little tighter, adjust levels, scale for web. When I first cropped I went for just the transformer, but then decided that the bunny needed to be able to see a little of the street (clearly he's looking at it).

For some strange reason the aperture was in the exif Ubuntu displayed, this time. I checked back for the picture taken on the 18th of Febuary (when I first had a problem) and it wasn't displayed. I don't understand. Edit: It was taken on my canon compact. Still not sure why the aperture doesn't show up on the pentax photos.

Moutain Sky III

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Mountain in the early evening.

Pentax K-x - 2 sec - f/? - ISO 200 - ~75mm

Falling light post sunset. Car tailights.

Used GIMP to manually adjust levels, using all three points to get a bit more light on the foreground without having the sky turn blue (auto settings lightened the sky too much, making it look like daytime). Resized for web.

This has several flaws to improve on next time. There's a car parked where the light trails end, which is confusing (the car that made the light trails is practically invisible). The concrete wall I sat the camera on appears in the bottom left corner, but I still managed to shake the camera enough that there's a secondary horizon (not so apparent on the web, but its a definite problem if this were a serious picture). The powerlines, and general setting are not particularly appealing to me.
The mountain had a double cap going on, which looked pretty cool earlier in the day, but I was unable to photograph it at that time.

The Dog II

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

The family dog.

Pentax K-x - 1/640 sec - f/0 - ISO 200 - ~75mm

Shade, overcast.

Used GIMP to crop, adjust levels and scale for web.

I'm sort of happier with this one than my first photo of the dog. The other one is much tighter though.
Also, I'm going to just round whatever the exif says, for now. And f/0 means it was my 50mm manual lens (which gives no aperture data, but I usually shoot wide open at f/2), where as ? means its there in the exif somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment.

Big and Small

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Mum, taking a walk on the path down behind our place. She likes those big sprouty bits of the trees.

Pentax K-x - 1/639 sec - f/? - ISO 400 - ~49mm

Daylight, probably overcast.

Used GIMP to rotate to horizontal, crop, adjust levels, clone in a corner (where rotation left a gap) and then burn everything except the tree and mum. Scaled for web.

I've been using Ubuntu lately, and the exif data I can find by clicking properties no longer includes aperture, and the shutter speed appears to be actual, rather than selected.

Caught

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.
I set up the camera to be triggered when birds ate the bread I left on a post. None came, so I pretended so that I'd have a photo.

Pentax K-x - 1/800 sec - f/0 - ISO3 200 - ~75mm

Daylight, overcast.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale for web.

I used pentax's trap focus, after reading a good tutorial on how to do so on pentaxforums.com

Purple Hair

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

A friend, who has purple hair.

Pentax K-x - 1/2500 sec - f/0 - ISO3 200 - ~75mm

Shade, probably overcast.

Used GIMP to adjust levels (manually), crop and scale for web.

Why was I trying to take a portrait with the ISO on 3200? Dumb mistake leaving that set there.

House

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Our house from across the valley. We have a pretty big back yard (and a smaller, level one too). Visible if you look are two sheep, and the bits for a water slide (the hose, carpet and rolled up plastic under tires).

Pentax K-x - 1/1000 sec - f/0 - ISO 400 - ~75mm

Overcast daylight.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale for web.

In the Rain

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

On a rainy day I decided to try to imitate this but with raindrops. I used my own DIY Bokeh Masters Kit and gelled my flash with a blue gel from photogels.com. It didn't work nearly as well as I would have liked, so I hope to have another try at it sometime.

Pentax K-x - 1/180 sec - f/0 - ISO800 - ~75mm

Daylight, blue-gelled flash Achiever 300DX mounted on the camera to get reflection of water drops.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale for web. Note: the raindrops are all done in hardware, not post.

Potpurri

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Some multicoloured flowers. The colour may be because they are on their way out, and my mother (who acts as my AD when we go walking) was pointing out all the healthiest flowers, but I like these ones best.

Pentax K-x - 1/800 sec - f/0 - ISO 200 - ~75mm

Daylight.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale for web.

Gran's Flower

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

A petal fallen from the flower of a tree my Gran bought for our garden.

Pentax K-x - 1/1000 sec - f/0 - ISO 400 - ~75mm

Daylight.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale for web.

I was shooting the flower itself, and felt it was pretty ordinary, when i noticed the colours and textures of the leaf litter below. I quite like this picture, but it was hard to pick from the many shots I got, with varying angles and compositions. It would only have made it harder, I think, if I'd gone so far as to stop the aperture down (I'm still addicted to absolute minimum depth of field).

Pohutakawa

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Flowers at a friend's place, for mum's use again.

Pentax K-x - 1/15 sec - f/0 - ISO 200 - ~75mm

Daylight.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, scale for web.

I would have liked (looking back) to have gotten one with the tips in focus.

Mountain Sky II

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

The mountain, in the early evening.

Pentax K-x - 1/200 sec - f/0 - ISO 200 - ~75mm

Early evening skylight.

Used GIMP to adjust the levels, clone two trees from the foreground, crop and scale.

Found myself a little torn between this and another photograph. In the end the other wasn't as good a photo, and even though I've already done one of the mountainous skyline, I just felt this one was the better photo.

Red Rocks

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

Some colorful rocks at the peak of a nearby mountain.

Pentax K-x - 1/200 sec - f/16 - ISO 200 - ~75mm

Daylight.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, clone out some specks on the lens, scale for web.

The Dog

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

The family dog.

Pentax K-x - 1/320 sec - f/0 - ISO 400 - ~75mm

Late afternoon shade.

Used GIMP to adjust levels, and scale for web.

She's not really very keen on sitting for portraits, but I could have done better. I failed to adjust my settings and overexposed the best pose. I also could have worked this better if I hadn't caught a triangle of sky in her eye. I think it spoils it a little. I'd like to try again on this.

Mountain Sky

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

The mountain in the late afternoon.

Canon Powershot A720 - 1/101 sec - f/3.5 - ISO 80 - ~85mm

Daylight.

Used GIMP to rotate, crop and adjust levels. Histogram showed three bumps, foreground, middle ground (mountains, clouds) and background (sky). Set low point to bottom of middle ground (effectively blacking foreground), adjusted middle point to bottom of background (darkening image). I cloned some sky back in, after rotating, but it was too apparent once the levels were adjusted, so I cloned again. Scaled for web.

I freaked out when I first tried to find today's photo as I'd only taken one on my K-x, of an out-of-focus suitcase lying on a bed. I took the dog for a walk on this day and took my compact camera along, to try to get the sun setting behind the mountains. This shot was taken early, as a safety, and good thing, since I didn't find a better vantage point, and only took a couple of blurry photos (nice composition, but it was too dark, may try again with a sturdier tripod and my K-x, which is better in low light).

Flower for Mum

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

A photo of a flower, taken to provide my mum with a red photo to go with the lounge colour scheme.

Pentax K-x - 1/20 sec - f/0 - ISO400 - ~75mm

Daylight

Cropped (probably), cloned out an insect, adjusted levels to bring out the red, attempted to bring green background back up, but that looked wrong. Tried to use some sort of colour adjustment to get a darker red look to the foreground flower, didn't get it to work.

Splash II

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

My youngest brother landing in the water at the end of the slide, almost on top of one of his friends.

Pentax K-x - 1/1000 sec - f/5.6 - ISO 800 - ~27mm

Daylight.

Used GIMP to crop, then went and cropped it again. Used auto levels, manual levels (including playing with the midpoint slider) and manual curves. Liked the manual levels adjustment best and scaled for web.

I wanted to make each day be significantly different. This is taken on a different day, from a different angle, but is pretty similar to Splash. I like his expression in this one better, and the composition / action in the other.

Flying

This work by Adam M is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

My mother on a flying fox.

Pentax K-x - 1/25 sec - f/0 - ISO 400- ~75mm

Very late afternoon light.

Almost cropped in GIMP, but didn't. Adjusted levels and scaled for web.

I took a lot of photos like this of all of my family using this flying fox (Dad in particular, he couldn't stop having goes). There's only a very small fraction that didn't come out unusably blurry. Even this one would be no good at a larger size. I should have shot at a higher ISO and faster shutter speed, and I probably could have still had a blurred background. Perhaps it was my technique though.