Scotland photos, student loans, Manfrotto tripods and snow
Ryan Li
during the New Year for over a week now, just finished uploading all the
photos that I think are presentable. Please find them on my web site
http://ve.vzero.com/ (look in the Landscape and Rivers/Waterfalls sections).
They had all been shot using a Nikon Coolpix 995 and processed using various
packages (PSP 5 and GIMP on WinXP, Photodesk 3 on RISC OS) for cropping,
curves, saturation, B&W conversion, fixing blown out skies etc. The quality
is to my eye adequate for A4 prints to give to friends etc., but esp. with
the WC-E63 in place and viewing at 100% on screen, it's far from tack sharp,
so I'm looking to blow my student loans and bursaries on a DSLR at some
point later :) I'm finding myself to fall in love with the wide-angle
though, landscape just works so well at 24mm. But the most essential
ingredient in the brew, other than the camera itself, was the camera was the
present that I received this Christmas - a Manfrotto 190 ProB tripod with
308RC ball head.
Having been used to a no-name, cheapo, flimsy, plasticky excuse for
three-legs, the Manfrotto (marketed as Bogen in the US) was a godsend. It
was tested to the limits when I took it up to the Cairngorm ski centre with
me. The winds were so strong that I couldn't even stand still, but the
Manfrotto stood solid, it just would not wobble at all. I found myself
holding on to it to prevent myself from getting blown into the icy cold
river! Result - one happy owner of the Manfrotto 190 Pro. I will never do
any location shooting without my Manfrotto again. Ever. Trust me, a sturdy
tripod is the best thing you can use to improve your pictures - not only
will you eliminate camera shake, but it also forces you to slow down and
*think* about composition. (I found that I had to crop much less than before
with this set of photos)
There wasn't nearly as much snow in the Scottish Highlands during the trip
compared to everywhere over the UK in the past two days (and unfortunately
my home town is probably the most photographically boring place in Britain,
despite the deep snow), but nevertheless the Highlands were every bit as
photogenic as it should be. If any of you have to chance to go to the there,
don't miss it! (and don't forget your tripod :-)
And please enjoy my site :-) (the URL is repeated below)
Thanks all
Ryan
--
Ryan Li - replace no.spam with vzero.com to email
VZero [ http://vzero.com/ ]
Weird Things In Video Games [ http://weird.vzero.com/ ]
Visual Experience: Digital Photography [ http://ve.vzero.com/ ]
That Annoying Twit...
Just checked out your site... Very nice stuff indeed....
About the only the thing I could fault you for is that the four links to
Landscape photography take you to the same gallery.
Andrew TAT
"Ryan Li" <ry...@no.spam> wrote in message news:4bb260b...@no.spam...
Ryan Li
That Annoying Twit...
<YesYouTo...@TheSocietyForThePublicCastrationOfSpammers.com> wrote:
> Just checked out your site... Very nice stuff indeed....
> About the only the thing I could fault you for is that the four links to
> Landscape photography take you to the same gallery.
Thanks for your kind comments. Yes - that's the way it was designed. Now
that you mention it maybe there's a more logical way to do it... I'm in the
process of redesigning the site so watch this space :)
--
Ryan Li - replace no.spam with vzero.com to email
Weird Things In Video Games [ http://weird.vzero.com/ ]