Journeys around Britain

Warwick Castle

msparshatt — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:55:57 +0000

Last year I went to a wedding in Warwick. The following day I went round Warwick castle.

Warwick castle is a medieval castle which was built by Henry II. It was constructed on the site of an old motte and bailey castle that had been built by William the Conqueror.

The remains of the castle are near the center of Warwick, just fifteen minutes walk away from the Warwick train station. Entry is about £17 for an aldut and £10 for children.

The castle is in a reasonably good state of repair, with most of the outer walls surviving as some of the inner buildings. It is possible to go round the ramparts of the castle and climb up one of the towers. Be warned, though, that this involves lots of steep spiral staircases and that it’s one way. Once you start going there’s no turning back.

You can also go round some of the buildings, which have displays of the furnishings of the time and of several suits of armour.

The castle is home to a trebuchet, the largest working seige engine in Britain. I didn’t see that while I was at the castle but I did see an only slightly less impressive Balista.

You can read more about the castle at the castle’s site or Wikipedia

Why I like Vibration Reduction

msparshatt — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:41:40 +0000

This weekend the frogs in my parents’ pond were spawning. One end of the pond was crowded with frogs. The only way to get a picture of them was to stay a long way back and to use my 300mm lens at it’s maximum zoom.

Even though it was a quite bright day, this is how the first picture came out:

Photo without VR

Fortunately the lens I was using had vibration reduction, so I switched it on and tried again.

Photo with VR

Which was quite an improvement.

Updated gallery

msparshatt — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:21:04 +0000

I’ve updated my photo gallery with pictures from the last few months. You can see them at:

http://gallery.mjsphotographs.co.uk/

I’ll try to keep the gallery more up to date from now on, as well as this blog.

A useful site

msparshatt — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:53:33 +0000

This is a useful site I found recently which allows you experiment with the different camera settings. It lets you see how aperture, shutter speed and sensitivity affect the exposure of picture. It also shows secondary effects such as noise, camera shake and depth of field.

If you’ve always used your camera’s auto mode and want to try the more advanced settings then this is a good site to play around with.

Camera Simulator

My Work Flow

msparshatt — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:39:20 +0000

This is a short description of my usual work flow when I get home with a memory card full of pictures.

First I create folder hierarchy like this:

year/month/day

Then from within DigiKam I copy the raw pictures into that folder and create a subfolder for storing the jpeg versions in.

Once the pictures are in place I go through them deleting any that I don’t like. I then apply tags for the location and contents of the picture.

Tags Sidebar

I open each picture in turn in the editor. Generally the pictures start out looking dark and lacking contrast.

Starting image

I generally perform the following steps:

I run the auto correct tool (colour -> auto correct). Usually I use the autolevels options which improves the contrast of the picture.

Auto correct tool

If necessary I’ll then use the brightness control (colour -> brightness). I use this to further tweak the brightness and contrast of the picture.

Brightness tool

I run the colour effects tool (colour -> colour effects) and use the vivid option to increase the colour saturation of the picture.

Colour Effects

With this done I save the modified picture as a jpeg.

Saving

The end result

Final picture

I’m still working on refining my work flow but this is how I’m currently processing my pictures.

BTW I’ve recently downloaded the latest version of Digikam (version 0.10). One advantage of this version is the fact that it works on Windows. I’ll write more about it later.

Padley Gorge

msparshatt — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:07:16 +0000

Situated near the village of Grindleford, Padley Gorge is just a few meters away from the Grindleford station (which lies on the Sheffield – Manchester Picadilly line).

The gorge runs along the Burbage Brook. I followed the brook heading roughly north, coming across a large number of small waterfalls that are dotted along its length. These provided some good photo opportunities.

When photographing moving water like this there is a choice to make. Of wheter to use a fast exposure in order to freeze the water or a slower exposure in order to create a greater sense of motion. This can be seen below.

I’ll be writing more about this later.

After following the gorge for about a mile I came out on the B6521. Opposite was the Yarncliffe quarry where rock climbing goes on. I was also just a short distance from Langford Estate. However due to the miserable weather, by this time I was ready for a hot chocolate, so I headed to the visitors centre.

From the B6521 both Higgers Tor and Carl Wark are clearly visible. These are both areas I’d like to visit in the future.

I had decided to come to Padley Gorge after reading about it in a magazine. It said that the best time to visit is in the autumn. The beginning of spring certainly isn’t a very good time to visit. The trees are still bare and dead looking. Looking out over them, all you can see is a sea of brown. However I can see the area being a lot nicer in the autumn when the leaves are first starting to turn.

The path through the gorge can get quite muddy and slippery, so good walking shoes are a must.

You can see more pictures at my gallery

Site update

msparshatt — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:36:23 +0000

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been updating my website and gallery. The main changes are:

My gallery now uses ZenPhoto rather than Gallery2. The main advantages are it’s more lightweight and it has better support for Dynamic albums (That is folders which are based on a search rather than a folder that exists on the computer)
The gallery and site are both styled the same.
There’s a better selection of pictures in the gallery.

You can find my site at http://www.mjsphotographs.co.uk and my gallery at http://gallery.mjsphotographs.co.uk

Snow

msparshatt — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:52:23 +0000

This week the country has seen some of the heaviest snow fall in the last eighteen years. In the last few years any snow that’s fallen has only lasted a couple of days. Whereas this time not only is the snow from Monday still around, but there’s still more falling.

I’ve been taking this opportunity to get out and take some snow pictures.

You can see more at my gallery

Web admin is hard, let’s go shopping

msparshatt — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:18:33 +0000

Is what I thought when I logged into my admin page and saw there was another update to wordpress to install.

Updating wordpress isn’t really difficult but it’s something I’d rather not have to worry about. So I’ve moved my blog onto the wordpress site. Let them deal with any upgrades.

It can still be accessed through the old address (photojournal.mjsphotographs.co.uk) though not through the origional one (photojournal.mjs-website.co.uk).

I’ve imported all my old posts and will now work on getting it looking right.

Exhibition

msparshatt — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:48:16 +0000

Next week between Tuesday the 4th and Saturday the 8th of November, myself and two other photographers (Dan Udall and Richard Smith) are holding a photo exhibition at Dobbies Garden World.

The pictures are for sale and all proceeds from the sales will go to Ashgate Hospice.

The exhibition is being held at

Dobbies Garden World
4 Highwood Wa
Barlborough
S43 4XN

Here are some of the pictures that will be on display: