lightroom tip – controlled black & white conversion

A couple of weeks ago, we drove down to Kipuka Puaulu, also known as the Bird Park, just past Volcano. It was a beautiful day and very peaceful. It’s only a short walk – we took our time and stretched it out to about an hour – but very pleasant indeed. You could certainly hear the birds in the kipuka but it was quite difficult to see them. 

As I started taking pictures I realised that I would be doing black & white conversions. The trees are so silvery and grey and really stood out in the early afternoon sun against the beautiful blue sky. And just that fact was the thing that I knew would help in the B&W conversion when I got the images in Lightroom.

close up woes

I’m beginning to enjoy using the Canon 500D close up lens that I got for Christmas. The best way I’ve found to use the lens (although it is a lens it is actually mounted onto the front of your normal lens just like a filter) is to have autofocus switched off and to focus manually. And you do this in two ways – with the focus ring to get you near, and then gently move your body to and fro from the subject to get the fine-focus, in this way selecting the part of the image which you want to be sharp.

less clarity please

 

One of my favourite functions in Lightroom has been the Clarity slider. It came out with version 1.3 of LR (I think) and it was an instant success in the LR blogosphere. You will find lots of hints, tips, how-to and FAQs about it on the interweb. As such I didn’t want to label as another tip as there are loads out there (even though that’s what this really is!). It’s effect is to boost the contrast in just the mid-tone regions and leave the highlights and shadows alone. I think I’ve boosted the clarity on almost all my pictures – one of the Lightroom gurus (not exactly sure who) even called this the “make my picture better” slider.

With Lightroom 2, the Clarity slider changed a bit. Instead of going from 0 to 100, the range now went between -100 to 100. Negative clarity?! eh?

pu’u o’o trail

A few weeks back we hiked the Pu’u O’o Trail, which starts from the 22-mile marker on the Saddle Road. It’s a really nice hike which takes you in and out of forests of ohia trees and open lava fields. 

We came across some berries which I cannot name. Of course, this is going to cause havoc to my tagging and keywording, so if there is anybody out there who recognises them and knows what they are called, then please leave me a comment!

We have to do this hike again, simply because we didn’t complete it. Nevertheless, there and back again made it more than a 4-hour hike, and Mira only began to moan about it after 3 hours – not bad for an 11-year old I think.

It was ever so peaceful, with the only interruptions to the silence being birdsong.

stop motion video

Saw this over at Jeff Revell’s blog. It’s really brilliant and a wonderful way to combine photography and video making. I’ve always wanted to do something like this, but do I have the patience…?

What a lovely way to go sleep-walking.

Tough Guy Challenge 2009

Mad…. absolutely mad!

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/02/tough_guy_challenge_2009.html