And my first go at star trails for good measure...
This is 120 thirty second exposure's all blended together to show the earth rotation over 1hr between midnight and 1am this morning. 2hrs would produce better results but I was nodding off and the ghosts and owls were starting to bother me... LOL
The wide angle lens I used has skewed the perspective on the castle a little but you live and learn, will watch and plan for that next time. All in all, quite pleased for a first effort.

 

Those two landscape shots are very cool Stu!

 

Thanks. Photography is now my official full time de-stress hobby so I had to find out what all the buttons do..

 

Haha! "Figure out what all the buttons do" (and figure out how to use Photoshop) are two jobs I have on my to do list for a while now!

 

If you want to learn one, stick with light-room, its far superior for normal photo editing if you don't need full manipulation. I never use Photoshop anymore, its bloody hard work compared to LR5!

 

You aren't the first person to recommend Lightroom to me!

I've mastered how to place watermarks in Photoshop, but thats about it. I have been told Lightroom is a lot easier to use and also much quicker for batch editing: I find the watermarking process painfully slow with Photoshop as if I attempt to batch edit anything more than a couple of pictures at once my computer grinds to a halt!

 

Its just not designed for batchwork at all.
Once ive converted my raw files to how I want them, exporting to jpg with borders and watermark is a one click process. lightrooms awesome as an editor, and even better as file catalogue system. Its totally unbeatable.

 

Very impressive stuff Stu! Some lovely views.

Also, +1 for lightroom. I made the switch from photoshop to lightroom last year and what an awesome piece of software.

 

Something forum related from my last British Rallycross Championship outing:

 

Couple more forum related pictures to keep the thread going...





...and something not!



All taken at this this years BHP show at Lydden Hill.

 

they are superbly sharp but still with the great motion blur. good skills. be honest, what's your hit rate for that quality of shot?

 

Thanks! The BMW isn't quite as sharp as I'd like, but its pretty much there so I'm still pleased with it.

Down to 1/125 I'm relatively consistent now (my keep rate is probably 1 in 2 or 1 in 3), but once I start shooting below 1/100 my keeper rate drops right off, being honest its probably as low as 1 in 10.

I'm hoping with more practise I can improve my keeper ratio when shooting at lower shutter speeds!

 

Some awesome pictures in here


Brian

 

1 in 3 is impressive

 

Only when I'm making "safe" shots!

Just finished culling some shots from Canada Heights this weekend. Took just under 1000, am keeping 200: so 1 in 5 overall!

 

Stu them last pics are amazing.

 

Thanks guys.
Here is one I took of the new Diseasel on Sunday.

 

A few i made at FIAWEC Spa-Franchorchamps

 

That Sport quattro is pure car pornography.

 

It's André Lotterer's private car

 

Thats awesome: my opinion of him just jumped up!

Couple of shots from the British Motocross Championship at Canada Heights last weekend.





Really enjoy watching the motocross: get pelted with a lot of rocks though!

 

Love this pic! Looks beautiful.

 

Thanks, oddly enough i was up there last night with the girls...

 

i'm kind of new to photography, all the gear, no idea in a way.
i'm pretty much manual mode all the time, so get the functions, always using zoom lenses though. been looking into a prime lense so it can respond quicker and have slightly better detail. i'm only using a d5100, but thinking a 35mm f1.8 will be a good addition as it's effectively like a 50mm on a full frame and seems to get good reviews. just looking to push on the hobby a little and then get into lightroom and start turning the snaps into something a little more special.
any advice on kit to get hooked up with on a budget till i move onto full frame in a couple of years when nursery fees are over lol!

 

All full frame will give you is a wider angle view for any given focal length and of course some extra detail to the images, but it certainly wont make a novice take better pictures. The best thing you can do is practice and practice some more. I dont use any prime lenses day to day and whilst yes, they are optically superior, they again dont fix problems that are related to user settings.

If your not totally up to speed with how a camera works, then my best advice is STAY AWAY FROM MANUAL.

If your doing landscapes, go for Aperture mode. Sports and wildlife, shutter mode.

Please remember, you have refraction limitations on all DSLR's and they are worse on a crop sensor than full frame so I would advise you to stay away from apertures higher than F11 if you want max image quality.
For landscapes, a tripod is your best friend as you can run the best quality ISO (100 usually) set the aperture where you want it and not worry about shutter speed at all (barring trees etc moving if you dont wish them to be blurred).

For hand held shots keep your shutter speed higher than double your focal length if possible. IE: 70mm lens, shutter speed minimum 1/140th of a second and adjust ISO if necessary to achieve this. A less detailed image is always preferable to a blurred one.

For creating nice images, Google the various rules and learn about composition and only start braking the rules when your sure you are capable of going your own way.
Google the "Rule of thirds" the "Rule of space" and the "Golden ratio"

These are just guides... i break all these rules but for a beginner they will serve you well.

 

A few of mine

 

cheers for the tips, manual mode works well to be fair, especially with flash photography as i don't have a ttl flash (do not like the inbuilt one as it's very direct), had to learn what does what though discovery and reading.
I don't have issues there, just takes a couple of setup shots to see where i'm heading from, getting better judging the scene now, from last year where i was under/over exposing all the time.
i have got a reasonable/good manfrotto tripod, but don't tend to use it much, but handy to have around.
my shots come out fairly well, just getting an eye for detail and starting using lightroom for editing where needed.
just interested in a reasonable prime, just to help in low light situations where i'm not keen on popping the flash on.
i know what you mean about the ISO settings, i had real trouble at first and then realised how important sacrificing detail for stability was.

 

My trip in Bolivia at the Salar de Uyuni and around :

 

Uploaded a few shots from the World Rallycross Championship at Lydden Hill.





Most relevant for the forum, Andrew Jordan at the wheel of a "Fiesta"

 

one from classic ford show

 

Couple more from the World Rallycross...





...made my first visit to a Speedway track the day after the rallycross. Didn't get as many shots as I was hoping for, but a couple that I quite like.

 

 

Couple of shots from this years Le Mans 2014 hour...





...and one from the Goodwood Festival of Speed rally stage.

 

A few Fiesta's for the thread...

 

Couple more Fords - this time from the BTCC at Brands - to keep the thread going...





...come on the rest of you, post some pictures!

 

Nice work mate! Awesome panning.

I dont take photos of cars anymore (Mixing work and pleasure etc) as Landscape photography is my hobby, but here are some recent landscapes to brighten up a cold wet day...

Striding edge as seen from helvellyn summit (3'100ft) 2 weeks ago.



Sunrise Over Coniston last week...



Enjoying the last light over Derwentwater a month or so ago.
(After adding some tealights to the jetty)

 

Three great photos...

...but this is superb. Fantastic shot!

 

Been over 18 months since I've been to a rally, so managed to rectify that last weekend.

Couple of shots I'm pleased with...





...and one of a Land Rover having some issues:

 

Some cracking pictures

 

IMG_5015 by Brian Keith James, on Flickr

Brian