First D40x pics - North Northumberland - Edlingham 22/05/2007

[this_is_gav]

First pics I've posted here at Hexus, my first pics with a DSLR and as such my first pics with my shiny new Nikon D40x. Using a 55-200mm lens only (not the VR unfortunately - in hindsight I wish I'd brought the 18-55mm for some of the latter shots too, but meh - lesson learned). I've corrected the horizons and edges and cropped accordingly on some. Colours aren't anywhere near right, but I've done a couple of very quick corrections on some, and these were mainly done using full automatic modes... I'd only had the thing an hour, so I'm still intimidated!

Having viewed them on other monitors at work I realise some of the darker ones are hard to see. If you can't make out a couple, then consider this a catalyst towards getting something decent with a bit of contrast.

Click for the very much full res (3800x2500 ish) pics

Looking towards Alnmouth


A favourite spot of mine - the village of Edlingham near Alnwick moors - shame about the building work in the background, but I guess it adds a bit of character in some people's eyes!


Edlingham Castle's ruins, with the old viaduct behind it. If you look up to the cars in the background, the photo above and many of the subsequent ones were taken from between the white van and the blue Renault.


The sun was well and truly out now. Some of the castle ruins.


Back up to the top of the hill/cliff/rocky outcrop/roadside. You'll probably detect a trend coming on.


My now rather dated bike. It's done far more miles than little cruisers are meant to do, the poor ickle thing. These past 2 winters weren't at all kind to it. Still, it's done me well. In hindsight I should have tried to get me reflected in the mirror. Oh well.


Peeking through the bushes at nothing in particular. Not being a total purist, I kinda like the light effect from the sun on this one.


The road I biked along to get the castle... you can't say you lot live in the sticks unless you've got roads like this.


Random sun-shine shot number *. I took 377 pics that evening, of which I'll bet 350 were of scenes like this.


I like this one. Was killing for a sun shot that didn't take away the rest of the sky, and little clouds come in handy.


No edits at all on this - it's just come out rather dramatic.


There was too much noise on this pic, so had to do a bit of photoshopping to dial it down. Should have changed the ISO manually, but it's not come out too bad.


I took the coastal road on the way to work the following morning, so you can suffer a little more. No corrections on any other than a couple of horizon levels, and one major crop.

Random road around the corner from Howick Gardens.


I happened across a colony of Kittiwakes on the other side of Howick. Here's one having a race with a Jackdaw. Not exactly in focus, but in my defence they are bloody fast.


Looking down on another Kittiwake, gliding out towards the Netherlands.


Sentry?


Racing for Holland?


Random shot of the Northumberland coast.


Being my first attempt at stepping up from nothingness, I'd appreciate any comments guys and gals.

[excalibur2]

Interesting pics.....The castle seems to be in an odd place as it's in the lowest bit of land and not on a mound.

[Nick F]

Very nice, I'm liking the bottom three pictures the best.

I would love to test the D40 against the D50 to see if there was any 'real' difference

[IBM]

Yup, random shot of northumberland coast and sentry? my two favs....very nice

[this_is_gav]

Originally Posted by excalibur2

Interesting pics.....The castle seems to be in an odd place as it's in the lowest bit of land and not on a mound.

Indeed it does seem a strange place. Reading up it appears it was a small guard from the Scot's invading Alnwick (around 6 miles away) from the west along the valley, so I guess they must have had enough prior-warning. Alnwick itself has a major castle to protect them from the apparently more common route of a straight southern invasion.

If you're really bored you can read a couple of short articles here and here.

Any suggestions or recommendations?

[Zak33]

Top two are slightly over exposed. Next time try this:

Choose an area of your shot that's mid brightness (ie not the sky and not the dark shadows) Press the button half way down while focused on it and then realign for the actualshot and press all the way.

It's hard to do, because you cant always be sure of the result, but the beauty of digital is taking several slightly different shots for no money, so then try a slightly different place to grab the brightness and focus and re align for another shot.

OR see if you can sort out something called BRACKETING, (which I think i'm sure I've got right on this)
What bracketing does is take three shots with slightly different exposures.

You need a tripod or somewhere steady to rest the camera, you need to find bracketing in the menu, and you need to choose automatic timer to take the picture so you're not holding it and wobbling all over

Having said all that, the top photo is my favourite, I just wish it was exposed right, so the greens and blues showed through.

I think dear chap, we'll be seeing a lot of you work here Nice shots

[doddsy]

I'm not very technical when it comes to photos but I know what I like. So I've stolen 0344 to be my desktop, hope that's ok?

[this_is_gav]

Originally Posted by doddsy

I'm not very technical when it comes to photos but I know what I like. So I've stolen 0344 to be my desktop, hope that's ok?

LOL, no problem, feel free. I've not doing this for anything other than the fun of it.

Thanks for those tips Zak - exactly the sort of info I'm after!

[merdat]

Yes , nice photos- hope you enjoy your new camera - remember at the end of the day pictures are to be enjoyed , so don't get to wrapped up in technical detail. Quick tip for exposure with a 'contrasty' scene is to expose for your hand. 'an old Vic Blackman tip'.

[joshwa]

The pics don't seem to be working for me

[chriswood_7]

Good tip Zak33. I will try this when im out and about. I believe the 400D has a bracketing option where it takes three pictures and changes to white balance or exposure for you to pick which one is best and bin the others.

I was wondering how to get better pictures where the greens and blues show through without that washed-out look.

Cheers

[this_is_gav]

Originally Posted by joshwa

The pics don't seem to be working for me

Working here now? The web-space was up last night too, as I was uploading a couple of rather large videos... which I'll probably post here today too.

[Rhyth]

Great stuff, thanks Gav.

If those lovely D40 pix were shot in RAW? Then maybe the exposure could be corrected on a few?

[this_is_gav]

Originally Posted by Rhyth

If those lovely D40 pix were shot in RAW? Then maybe the exposure could be corrected on a few?

Probably, yeah. Not tested RAW mode out yet. It's nothing a good a bit of Photoshopping couldn't correct if done properly though, as there's still plenty of detail.