Tag: England

Spring – Tulip

Spring finally arrived in Cambridge this week. The garden suddenly woke up from its long winter slumber and burst into colour. Daffodils, Crocuses and now tulips are in bloom.

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Spring – Snowdrop

“Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snow-drop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!”

William Wordsworth (To a Snow-drop)

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Snowdrops traditionally herald the beginning of the end of winter. Delicate white flowers peeking out from a modest plant that is often overlooked when the other plants wake up from their winter slumber.

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Spring – Daffodils!!

This looks likely to be the most christmas-like Easter here in England this year. Snowfall this week and more expected over the Easter weekend make it hard to believe that spring is actually here. These daffodils from my garden are proof that, whilst we may not think of spring, the plants have certainly made up their minds.

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External SB600 flash from left of picture. 1/250 f/3.3 ISO200
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External flash from underneath. 1/250, f/14, ISO200
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Closer still. External SB600 flash under-lit. 1/160, f/14, ISO200. Sharpened with NIK Software.

All these pictures taken outside at dusk. The black background in the photographs are a result of using an external flash combined with a high aperture setting. Final black corrections in Adobe LightRoom applied to create a fully dark background.

 

Cambridge in HDR – Punting 2

I don’t intend to flood my blog and bore you with HDRs of punting pictures from Cambridge, but I had to share this with you. The following two pictures were taken immediately after my last post and so they are slightly different in composition. However, they’ve been processed using two different software (NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and Photomatix).

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HDR Processed using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 (Deep 1)
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HDR processed with Photomatix (Evaluation License)

I liked the output from Photomatix as it was more intuitive to use and seem to allow a greater range of adjustments without making the images look grungy.

The three original images that went into making these HDRs are below (bracketed at -1, 0 and +1), and merged in either HDR Efex Pro or Photomatix.

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Image 1 of 3 – At normal exposure
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Image 2 of 3 – At -1 eV
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Image 3 of 3 – At +1 eV

All images taken in Nikon RAW mode – Nikon D7000, Tamron 18-250mm Lens at 23mm f/4.0 1/640, 1/1250, 1/320 exposures.

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Cambridge: Corpus Christi College

Founded in 1352, one of the constituent colleges of Cambridge University with a chequered and colourful history. The alumnus includes the famous playwright Christopher Marlowe.

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Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

 This picture has had to be extensively post-processed due to low-light winter conditions (4:50 according to the college clock). Processed in Adobe LightRoom and NIK Software Dfine and Color Efex Pro.

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Cambridge in HDR – Mathematical Bridge

The mathematical bridge is an 18th century wooden footbridge that connects Queens’ College across the Cam river. Although it seems to be an arch, it is composed entirely of straight timbers built to a sophisticated engineering design, hence the name. Can you see that the arch is made up of only straight timbers?

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The “Mathematical Bridge”, Queens’ College, Cambridge

Local myths talk about how the original bridge had no nuts of bolts, and how no one could put it back together once it was taken apart. However, these stories are almost totally untrue. The beauty of the design of this bridge lies in how the arch has been created to create the effect of a standard bridge.