Category Archives: Photos

Brenizer Panorama, Landscapes, Pentax K200D, Tair-11a

Picnic By the Lake, Under the Tree

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This is another Brenizer Panorama I took yesterday at the Mt Cootha Botanic Gardens. Shot with the Pentax K200D and Tair-11a 135mm f2.8 lens, at 2.8.

Shooting and Processing as Follows

  • Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF) – 94 shots
  • Import into Lightroom 2.5
  • Export to 16 bit TIFF with ZIP compression
  • Stitched using Autopano Giga 2
  • Rendered to 16 bit TIFF
  • Imported into Lightroom 2.5
  • Heavy crop (94 images was for a much bigger scene, but I only liked this part of it)
  • Edited as shown below (Basic tab only)
  • Export to JPG for Web

If you like this shot, have a read of my Tair-11a Lens Review or have a look at my other Tair-11a shots

Architecture, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D, Project 52

Project 52 – #1 – It Begins

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Southbank Peace Pagoda

Originally uploaded by jezza323

Here is the first shot for my 2010 Project 52 which I have decided to use the theme of “Brisbane Landmarks”. It is a Nepalese Peace Pagoda located at Southbank in Brisbane, QLD Australia. It was built for Expo ’88 and petitioned successfully to remain on the old Expo site (which is now Southbank).

This photo is a HDR, combined from 11 shots. All shots were taken at f16.0 and ISO 100, and shutter speeds were – 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30 secs.

Processing as follows :-

  • Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
  • Imported into Lightroom 2.5
  • Shots exported to 16-bit TIFF
  • Photomatix generated HDR from 11 16-bit TIFFs
  • Photmatix Tone Mapped using Tone Compressor
  • Saved as 16-bit TIFF
  • Imported new file back to Lightroom 2.5
  • Cropped in Lightroom 2
  • Edited in Lightroom  as shown below (settings not shown were not edited)
Landscapes, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D

Cedar Creek Long Exposure

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Cedar Creek 3 Falls
Originally uploaded by jezza323

Here is an older shot I took. This is of Cedar Creek just outside of Samford not far from Brisbane. No processing details from this one as it is from quite a while ago. Although I can promise that the PP was minimal, just some white balance tuning, tone curve and maybe a slight exposure adjustment.

This was taken quite early in the morning, the sun was still hidden behind the trees. I combined this with a circular polarising filter, and a Cokin P sized Tian Ya ND8 filter on my K200D with kit lens at 18mm and my trusty tripod.

The exposure was 8 seconds at f11.0 (where I find this lens to be the sharpest).

Post your water long exposure shots in the comments section!

Pentax K200D

Summer Storm vs Shutter Speed

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We just had a lunchtime summer storm roll through Brisbane, so while it was raining I took some shots of a tree near my house with the rain coming down on it. I thought it would be interesting to see the difference in the image of the rain with some different shutter speeds.

I setup my Pentax K200D on my tripod, mounted the Tair-11a 135mm f2.8 lens to get in close to some of the rain, and to keep the background blurred I set the aperture to f2.8. I set the camera to Aperture Priority mode (Av) to let it meter itself. The ISO was set to 400. This was the achieve a nice short shutter speed, and the resulting exposure was 1/640 sec and is shown below.

The following exposure I set the ISO to 100, and added a TianYa ND8 Cokin P sized filter in front of the lens (just held it by hand). This was to achieve a much longer exposure, and we end up with a 1/30 sec shutter speed and is shown below.

Take note of the difference in the rain drops. The first shot freezes the drops in mid air, while in the 2nd shot you get a long streak of falling water droplets. I personally prefer the first image, it conveys a sense of action to me that the 2nd image does not.

Processing on the first image was as follows :-

  • Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
  • Import into Lightroom 2.5
  • Processed as shown below (settings not show have not been altered)
  • Export to JPEG for Web
Brenizer Panorama, Pentax K200D, Tair-11a

A Backlit Brenizer Angel

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A Backlit Brenizer Angel
Originally uploaded by jezza323

Another Brenizer Panorama from the Toowong Cemetary taken yesterday. This one is again with the Tair-11a on K200D. Its 58 images stitched with Autopano Giga 2 and edited (cropped, curves, colours, exposure brush) in Lightroom 2.5.

Processing :-

  • Shot in Manual Mode, ISO 200, f2.8, 1/320 sec shutter – Pentax RAW (PEF), custom white balance.
  • Imported into Lightroom 2.5
  • All shots in pano exported to subfolder “Pano-5″ as 16 bit TIFFs
  • Stitched using Autopano Giga 2
  • Saved-as 16 bit TIFF
  • Imported result back into Lightroom 2.5 library
  • Edited in Lightroom as show below (click pics for more detail). I did use a preset for most settings. Also cropped but not shown.
Exposure Brush to show more detail in the Angel
Develop settings
Brenizer Panorama, Pentax K200D

Flowering about your Resting Place

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Another Brenizer shot I took today in the Toowong Cemetary in Brisbane. This one was also taken with the Tair-11a 135mm f2.8.

  • 42 shots taken with K200D, manual mode, ISO 100, f2.8, 1/640 sec, custom white balance, shot in JPEG (to save space)
  • Import into Lightroom 2.5
  • Stitched with Autopano Giga 2
  • Save as 16 bit TIFF
  • Import result into Lightroom 2.5
  • Edit as shown below
Lightroom Edits (click for larger)
Brenizer Panorama, Landscapes, Pentax K200D, Tair-11a

Rusted Shed on a Cloudy Day

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Rusted Shed on a Cloudy Day
Originally uploaded by jezza323

This is a Brenizer pano of a shed I spotted on the side of the road near Minden, Qld. I shot it with my Tair-11a (135mm m42 mount) wide open (f2.8). It is a 45 shot panorama. I would have liked to get a bit closer, to narrow the DOF a bit more. But this is as good as I could get without gumboots.

Shot in JPEG (to save space on my card)
Stitched with Autopano Giga
Adjusted levels and colours in Lightroom 2.5
UPDATE: I have since re-cropped this image and re-posted, it works much better with a tighter crop.

Pentax K200D

Photobuddy for iPhone

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I mentioned this iPhone app in a previous post briefly, but its worth its own post. You can find the official page here. It is VERY full featured and easy to use. It has the following things to offer a photographer :-

  1. Sunrise/Sunset time calculator based on location
  2. Exposure adjustments. Set an exposure (ISO / aperture / shutter speed) and add a filter, or adjust shutter speed to calculate what aperture is required for the same exposure etc.
  3. Exposure presets – some basic settings for certain situations, great for a camera with no light meter, or just to learn
  4. Depth of Field (DOF) calculator. Input your lens focal length, aperture and subject distance (you can calculate any 1 of these provided you have the others). You can then adjust various settings to work out how to get the depth of field you want.
  5. Flash calculator. Input your ISO, aperture, guide number and subject distance (you can calculate any 1 of these provided you have the others), then adjust as required.
  6. Angle of view calculator for your camera/lens combination
  7. Bracketing calculator for those manual mode HDRs (or if you want to do a larger EV variation than your camera’s bracketing mode allows)
  8. Distance calculator. Input your subject size and focal length and find out how far away you need to be to fit it all in the frame.
  9. Grey wedge screen. Displays a greyscale image on the iPhone screen for helping with colour adjustment. Of course its not that useful because the iPhone screen is not colour correct either.
  10. Colour Temp chart. Some common scenarios and  the associated colour temperatures.
  11. Bulb timer. Know how long since you started your bulb shot.
  12. Bellows compensation calculator. Calculate how much light you will lose for a given focal length and bellows (or extension tube) length.

The items I find most useful are the Bulb timer, I always use it for any bulb shots I do. The Exposure calculator and the sunrise/sunset calculator. These alone make it worth the asking price, let alone all the extra features!