ABOUT ME

I live in a camper van with a West Highland Terrier for company.
My passion is creating images but it is a work in progress.
I am always willing to share what knowledge I have and can be contacted through the comments on this post or e-mail ADRIAN
ALL IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WITH A LEFT CLICK

Saturday 3 April 2010

AS CLEAR AS MUD (03/04/10)

We have had an unproductive, cool but for some inexplicable reason, very enjoyable two hours wandering around the estuary.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA  Nothing much about, the light was fine in an overcast sort of way.

  OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA     The path from Ravenglass is attached to the side of this railway bridge which carries the Barrow to Carlisle railway. Scafell is on the left at the head of Eskdale. The snow fell a couple of days ago.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA     I think these may be Red-breasted Mergansers. Too far away to tell, they were too big for Grebe and thinner than Tufted duck.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   The usual gulls looking for breakfast, apart from a couple of Oyster Catchers this was all we saw.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   Ravenglass, we still have acres of mud to paddle through.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA   Very soft mud it is too in places, I could easily have lost a wellie, been good for a laugh, for you anyway.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA      We regained solid ground, yes she is filthy but not as bad as she might have been. For all that there’s a depressing paucity of pictures I enjoyed the wander.

The next couple of images are really nothing to do with today. There’s been comment and I believe a multi posting of Bokeh images.

 OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA     The three or four circles in the background are what I have understood Bokeh to be. Not something that I’ve ever sought to produce except here as an illustration.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is what the word appears to be starting to mean. This is just very shallow depth of field as I understand it. Cheap lenses can produce a quite distracting effect wide open with dark circles and light edges . These are pretty neutral and the least obvious are light centres that fade out.Both these images are straight out of camera though both effects can be created in Photoshop.

Can anyone clear this up for me?

  

14 comments:

  1. Great selection there Adrian. I love the one of Molly! She's very cute.

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  2. Red-breasted Mergansers, or Goosanders; like you say, hard to tell.
    As for bokeh, I think you're right on both ideas, although I've always thought of it as the depth of field bit.

    Interesting link here.....
    http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/bokeh.htm

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  3. To be thoroughly confused try reading this, especially the discussion following the article.

    http://www.diyphotography.net/diy_create_your_own_bokeh

    BTW some interesting ideas and experiments come up on this site. I subscribed to the RSS feed as it made a useful quick reference to articles of interest to me.

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  4. Well, I, for one can't help. I'd never heard of bokeh until this recent caper and all I had to help my understanding was the Wikepedia article which says "In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, OR [my emphasis]'the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.' Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions. Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it often associated with such areas. However, bokeh is not limited to highlights, as blur occurs in all out-of-focus regions of the image. Bokeh can also be viewed by forcefully blurring one's vision while looking at a small light, like an LED."

    Does that dilute the mud?

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  5. It is just another art form. I also do not try to create this effect but I do have photographs where it appears.
    Estuaries are pretty much bland with great expanses of mud flats...but often rich in bird life.

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  6. Lovely pictures Adrian, and to Molly, your messiness is beautiful.

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  7. They look very Red-Breasted Merganza-ish and Molly looks very grubby (and pleased to be so!).

    I'm wondering if you know this blog

    http://oliviergachassin.blogspot.com/

    Lucy

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  8. I sometimes spend way too much time playing around with shots like these. I like your dog and who gives him a wash up?

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  9. Angie, thanks I wasn't much cleaner.

    Keith, ta, will try and find them tomorrow. I'll have a look at the link.

    John, thanks for the link, I'll have a dose of confusion.

    GB, thanks, yes I thinks it is chromatic aberration round light sources. Whatever, the problem with point and shoot cameras is that most struggle to produce it as depth of field is what they have in abundance.

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  10. Trevor, so have I but try and avoid it by looking for light sources in the background. Suppose it can be attractive.

    Lucy, thanks and I will have a look.

    Abe, I like shallow depth of field, and used to have a lens that produced near perfect polygons if pointed at fairy lights and defocussed.
    I put her under the hose usually she finds a stream and swims it off.

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  11. Lucy, have signed up to this blog, some great images.

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  12. Keith, that's cleared it up thanks a very well written article.

    John, seen this when I was surfing the other day, I'll now subscribe, I pretty well ignored it the first time around as it was the diaphragm shape I was looking for then.

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  13. Wonderful photos, especially with Molly :) Happy Easter Adrian :)

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  14. Urszula, thank you and a Happy Easter to you.

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