Pictures of biscuits...

Phew, been pretty busy recently so not had a lot of time for updates. I have got some shoots lined up for the future though so there should be some interesting things appearing at some point. I did a shoot a couple of days ago for a friend who sells the most amazing cheese biscuits ever! There's no proper website up for them at the moment but there is a Facebook page: Cradocs Savoury Biscuits.

These photos were all taken with either my 105mm f/2.8, or my 50mm f/1.4 and lit with natural light and my SB-900 which was bounced into an umbrella.

Ok, first one of some delicious looking salmon on a biscuit. This was shot at ISO 100, 105 mm, f/11, 250 sec

Salmon Roll

Second up some olive biscuits with a couple of black olives, I really like the contrasting texture of the black slate and the black olives. ISO 100, 50 mm, f/5, 1/250 sec

Olive Biscuits

This shot was attempting to get across the texture of the biscuits. ISO 100, 105 mm, f/3.5, 1/250 sec

Broken Biscuit

Finally an image that I actually think might be a little too busy. ISO 100, 105 mm, f/4.5, 1.250 sec

Full Spread

Mountain bike for your life

I've been out taking a few photos of my friend doing some biking recently which has been really good fun, in fact the more I do things like this the more I realise this is the sort of photography I want to be doing. These photos were taken at Cwmcarn forestry park in South Wales.

This one was taken with my Sigma 10-20 at ISO 800, 11.5 mm, f/4.2, 1/5000 sec

Big Air

I set up a bit of off camera flash for this one with my sb900 on a light stand to the left, I think it gives a nice cross-flash type effect with the sun lighting him from the right. ISO 800, 13 mm, f/7.1, 1/3200 sec

Turn Around

This last one was taken with my kit 18-55 at ISO 100, 31 mm, f/5.5, 1/250 sec

Drifting

A walk along the beach

Bank holiday weekend and some sunshine, who would've thought it? Here, are a couple more from Southerndown Beach:

Ok, first one up shot at ISO 100, 18 mm, f/5.6, 1/320 sec

View from the cliffs

 This one was a bit of a mistake to be honest, I'd forgotten what settings I had left the camera on, but I kind of like it. It's got a real sense of motion. ISO 100, 55 mm, f/36, 1/4 sec

Gull in flight

Finally: ISO 320, 32 mm, f/4.5, 1/250 sec

Pebbles

Blaenafon Triathlon

A friend asked me to shoot a triathlon he was involved in on the weekend so I've put up a few shots from that. This was my first attempt at shooting this sort of thing so I don't think I did too badly :) I decided to just stick the camera on continuous high and just take as many as possible then edit them down so I would have as many decent shots as possible. This was a good plan but it did mean I was left with nearly 1,100 shots by the end of the day that I had to go through (thank goodness for lightroom). I ended up with about 150 odd pictures that I was happy with and I actually got some good feedback from the event organisers which was nice. In fact if you head over to a website called Tri247 you can see one of my photos next to the race report, it also tells you a little about the race.

Anyway here are a few shots of the cycling:

This one was shot at ISO 100, 55 mm, f/13, 1/40 sec

ISO 100, 55 mm,  f/14, 1/25 sec

ISO 100, 55 mm, f/4, 1/400 sec

This one is my favourite I think ISO 100, 150 mm, f/6.3, 1/80 sec 

All the fun of the fair

I've just started a new photography course so should be getting stuff up on a weekly basis over the next 5 weeks. I find it so useful to have a professional photographer to give critique and tell me what I'm doing wrong so I'm really enjoying myself. The first session had us walking round the fun fair in town, I don't think I really got anything outstanding but here they are:

ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.4, 1/200 sec

No Leaning Over

ISO 100, 50 mm, f/1.4, 1/800 sec

Bungee

ISO 200, 10 mm, f/4.0, 1/25 sec

Big Wheel

Got me a new camera!

Finally pulled the plug on a new camera and boy am I glad that I did! Went with the Nikon D7000 and let me tell you, it's is a significant step up from my old D40. Of course with a raft of new features it also comes with a pretty substantial manual and I'm still working my way through the 330 pages of it (all English). The feature I am loving most at the moment is the internal focusing motor in the body meaning that I'm getting so much more use out of my 50mm f/1.4 and my new 105mm f/2.8.

Hopefully I should be able to get some more stuff up in the coming days as I've been a bit slack lately. Anyway here's what I've got so far:

First up was taken with my 105mm micro at ISO 100, 105mm, f/11, 1/250 sec

Dandelion seeds

Second with my 50mm 1.4 at ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.4, 1/5000 sec

Cathy

Finally, this one at ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.4, 1/1600 sec

Phil

Phew.. 16mp files take a lot longer to upload than 6mp!

A couple more nice weather pics

I've got quite a lot to do at the moment so the photography and updating of this blog is sort of taking a back seat, nevertheless I've got a couple of quick ones here. The first is a shot of some stacked boats down at the (slightly dilapidated) river near my home town taken at ISO 200, 55 mm, f/9, 1/400 sec. Bit of a strange crop this one, but I like it.

Punting on the river

Here is a shot of possibly my favourite flower (I bet most people don't have a favourite flower) the oddly checkered patterend Snake's Head Fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris). Just taken in the garden with my 55-200mm Nikon at ISO 200, 105 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec.

Snake's head fritillary