Autumn sunrise at the Forth

Went to get some sunrise photos this morning at North Queensferry. Learnt how to use bracketing at the end of the session. Good results in the end.

Thank you for viewing my images
Jacques le Roux

Halloween light trail special

As Halloween will be here shortly we went hunting for the elusive ghost train.

A bit of long exposure light play at the trains station at South Queensferry. It’s a learning curve and we went out experimenting on Friday night.

So we stood at the end of platform 2 facing the Forth rail bridge and as trains went past tried to get the light trails working. After a struggle we eventually got some good shots.

Then it was onto trying to shoot the end of the train as it’s stationary and moving away. The only problem with this is the delay between trains arriving at the platforms. 15-20min wait and then a single photo. I have eventually decided to get my 2nd (my back up camera, I replaced the Canon 1D MKIII with another 7D) Canon 7D involved to increase the possibilities of some good shots. I had to use a camera backpack as a make shift tripod but will invest in another tripod for the future, I might even need another lens as the wide angle is a bit to short at times.

Here’s the results of us facing the Forth railway bridge:

And then moving to the back of each train working out how long to start the exposure before the train moves away to get
the illusion of transparency while having enough detail to see that it is a train.

 

Thanks you for having a look
Jacques le Roux

Grabbing the camera as a after thought and visiting the local zoo

Went to 5 sisters zoo today with the kiddy. Thought I might as well take the camera in case I get the opportunity for a few photos. I wasn’t disappointed actually the opposite.

The zoo has grown and blossomed into a zoo on par or better than Edinburgh zoo. It’s very family orientated and has so many animals that you can really enjoy your day out. As a photographer it gives you so many opportunities for some good photos. I will go back again on my own so I can spend the time on photos and don’t have to worry about the little monkey I brought with me running away and joining the zoo’s troop. They should have the 4 new lions by then.

Some of the photos were shot through the fence or through a glass wall. As long as you get as close as possible you can normally get away with it as the lens focuses on the subject in the distance but the further away the fence/glass is from the lens the worse the results are. The Lynx enclosure fence was a 1.5-2m away from me for obvious reasons so you should see some issues with it even though if you push the contrast hard enough you can sometimes get very good results.

Just because you’re under time pressure to get some decent photos doesn’t mean you should leave the camera at home, the opposite should be the case. Limited time makes for you homing your skills and shows you where you are lacking experience. I found mine today to be not knowing how my AV and TV settings would behave on my Canon 7D. That is due to lack of time/experience using them, I thought great I don’t have time to spend on setting let’s let the camera do some work for me. Hmm wrong I was, live and learn.

This is under water and through the glass enclosure. Through the fence but it was against the lens so shouldn’t effect the outcome. Through the fence but it was a distance away so it affected the photo. Photographs by Jacques le Roux …