ESEA Photo

Blackberry test

ESEA photo — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 06:14:17 +0000

This is the first posting from my Blackberry phone. The image was taken a little while back with the phone at the Cannes fireworks festival final night.
Hopefully this will help to get me posting more often!

End of the Cannes fireworks festival

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Filed under: Abstract, Events Tagged: app, beach, blackberry, Cannes, fireworks, milkyway, night, people, silhouette, stars, wordpress

Lightroom Preset “On Guard” added

ESEA photo — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:52:23 +0000

Just added the preset for the image “On Guard” As you can see the “RAW” image is rather flat and desaturated but just remember “RAW” files have so much more info locked inside

Filed under: Adobe Lightroom., Lightroom, photography Tagged: Adobe, ESEA Photo, Lightroom, photography, presets

On Guard

ESEA photo — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:44:45 +0000

I found this rack of “Fencing Masks” down at the local hall where my son sometimes practices his achery.
The Mask, including a bib which protects the neck. The mask can usually support 12 kg on the metal mesh, 350 newtons of penetration resistance on the bib, however FIE regulation masks must withstand much more, 25 kg on the mesh and 1600 newtons on the bib. Some modern masks have a see-through visor in the front of the mask. These can be used at high level competitions (World Championships etc.).Fencing is a family of sports and activities that feature armed combat involving cutting, stabbing, or bludgeoning weapons that are directly manipulated by hand, rather than shot, thrown or positioned. Examples include swords, knives, pikes, bayonets, batons, clubs, and similar weapons. In contemporary common usage, fencing tends to refer specifically to European schools of swordsmanship and to the modern Olympic sport that has evolved out of them.
Fencing is one of the four sports which has been featured at every modern Olympic Games. Currently, three types of weapon are used in Olympic fencing:
Foil — a light thrusting weapon; the valid target is restricted to the torso, the chest, shoulders, and back; double touches are not allowed (see priority rules below). This weapon follows the rule of “right of way”
Épée — a heavy thrusting weapon; the valid target area covers the entire body; double touches are allowed. There is no “right of way”
Sabre — a light cutting and thrusting weapon; the valid target area is the saddle line, which is from one side of the fencer’s hip to the other, and up, this also includes the head. The target area does not include the hands. This weapon follows “right of way” The saber is also used for training because of its light weight.
The word fence was originally a shortening of the Middle English defens, which came from an Italian word, defensio, in origin a Latin word. The first known use of defens in reference to English swordsmanship is in William Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor: “Alas sir, I cannot fence.”

Filed under: Sport Tagged: fencing, grill, mask, mesh, photography, protection, Sport, sport equipment

Lightroom Preset “A Corsican Dawn” added

ESEA photo — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:35:57 +0000

It has been a while and as the presets are popular I thought I had better keep up with the demand.

Just added the preset for the image “A Corsican Dawn”

Filed under: Adobe Lightroom., Lightroom, photography Tagged: develop, Lightroom, photography, presets

Feed Me!

ESEA photo — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:37:59 +0000

At the window by my desk I had this scavenger of the seas come begging little did I know that my colleague had been feeding it when I was away sick last Friday.

Filed under: photography, Wild Life Tagged: bird, cooliris, eye, Lightroom, Monaco, photography, Port Hercules, seagull, water

A Corsican Dawn

ESEA photo — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:04:33 +0000

A very clear morning from my apartment ( just 5km NW from Antibes France 43°36N 7° 4’7E, elevation 139m) looking over Le Cap d’Antibes and lighthouse to the Island of Corsica rising out of the Mediterranean sea. The closest point on Corsica is 175km, bearing 130°
The viewed width: 162km but would be less due to the curvature of the earth.
Island length: 184km
Island width: 83km
Highest peak: Monte Cinto 2706m
Area: 8680km²
Coast line 1000km

Corsica (French: La Corse; Corsican and Italian: Corsica) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia.

Corsica is one of the 26 régions of France, although strictly speaking Corsica is designated as a “territorial collectivity” (collectivité territoriale) by law. As a territorial collectivity, it enjoys greater powers than other French régions, but for the most part its status is quite similar. Corsica is referred to as a “région” in common speech, and is almost always listed among the other régions of France.

Although the island is separated from the continental mainland by the Ligurian Sea and is much closer to the Italian than to the French mainland, politically Corsica is part of Metropolitan France. It was once briefly an independent Corsican Republic, until being incorporated into France in 1768.
Corsica is famed as the birthplace of Napoléon Bonaparte. His ancestral home, Casa Buonaparte, is located there.

Filed under: Adobe Lightroom., Lightroom, Marine-scape, photography Tagged: Alpes-Cote d'Azur, Antibes, Corsica, dawn, France, lighthouse, marine, morning light, photography, Provence, water

A use for the old linear polarising filter.

ESEA photo — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:55:54 +0000

I sill have my film equipment from my Canon T70. One item, the linear polarising filter, I had found out is not good for the auto focus system (struggles to focus) on digital cameras and it was recommended to get a circular polariser instead. So this has been stashed away in the old bag with the rest of my film equipment, for years. I was watching the new season of DTOWN TV (Now they cover all things DSLR not just Nikon) where they mentioned that with fast glass (wide apertures like 1.2 /1.4/1.8/2.8 ) it is hard to set a wide aperture to get shallow depth of field when it is bright outside even when you have cranked up your shutter speed and brought down your ISO. The answer is to pop a neutral density filter (or stack if needed) on the lens and if you have not got these at hand the next best thing is to use a polarising filter. This got me thinking as I have now come across the problem particularly using the 50mm 1.8 lens I got last year. I do have a circular polariser in my bag so I thought what if you had two, like if you had two stacked polarised sunglasses, the more you twist them the darker it gets. Tried this with two circular polarised filters but the effect is minimal, id anything there is a colour shift from a yellow to a blue shade. I puled out my old linear filter and bingo! I had a variable density filter. I can turn the circular filter to have the normal polarizing effect and then if I turn the linear one I start to get darker shades the more I turn it. One thing I have noticed is that it gets a dark blue tint when I really crank it up to the darkest. I will be doing some experiments with this and I will keep you posted.
As you can see below two images shot into the sun with a relatively slow shutterspeed of 1/3200 and 1/500 even shooting at ISO 400. With the double polarising filter in its lightest, 1/8000 shutter was not fast enough and was way over exposed. The images are nothing special and it was a quick and dirty test. I will be doing some experiments with this and I will keep you posted.

Exposure: 1/3200 sec at f/1.8
ISO: 400

Exposure: 1/500 sec at f/1.8
ISO: 400

Filed under: photography Tagged: circular polarising filter, filters, linear, polarising, polarising filter, sky, sun

ZOOM-IN Porsche

ESEA photo — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:51:26 +0000

Another “ZOOM-IN” technique used on the winner of the Porsche Cup at the Monaco Grand Prix last year. The Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens lend itself to this technique an it has a very smooth zoom function that you can both twist or slide. To achieve this “ZOOM-IN” affect a relatively slow shutter is required while a fast smooth zoom action is applied during the shot. This can be done hand-held or for a sharper focal area a tripod can help.

For the Lightroom develop preset download page click on the image below

Posted in F1 Monaco Grand Prix 2009, Lightroom, photography Tagged: Adobe, Automobile Club de Monaco, F1, Lightroom, Monaco, Monaco Grand Prix 2009, presets, zoom, zoom in

RAW files

ESEA photo — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:37:47 +0000

I am sure that most of you know that RAW files are inherently dull and lack punch but have a lot to offer to the creative eye. For those of you who are happy with you JPG files and do not want to spend time processing read no further but you still might find this intresting. As each of us have a slightly different take on what looks good. The RAW files have so much more to than JPG. My tool of choice is Adobe Lightroom. Using this (or you can use your tool of chioce, Adobe Bridge, Aperture to name a few) we can unlock that creativity,without affecting the original file and we can always make virtual copy’s and apply slightly different treatments. I refer to further info on RAW files at RAW files Explained. I have a page “Lightroom” dedicated to Lightroom presets where you can download some of the .lrtemplate files I have used on my images.

Posted in Lightroom Tagged: Adobe, develop, Lightroom, photography, presets, RAW

A Wide Perspective

ESEA photo — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:29:33 +0000

Two boats, that my company I work for designed, at the Monaco Yacht Show last year, either side of the port, gave an interesting perspective of scale and size. This was an attempt to create a “Tilt Shift Lens” image. this was first a hand-held pano of about 10 frames in the portrait format. I Spliced them in Photoshop hen crated two layers with different amounts of blur applying a mask to keep the boats in focus.

Posted in Marine-scape, photography Tagged: boats, marine, Monaco, photography, port, Port Hercules, super yacht, tilt shift, water