On top of the Forth rail bridge!

Thanks to Barnado’s children charity we were able to buy tickets to go up the Forth rail bridge and see the world from 110meter up. It was a quick 30min experience but so worth it, I hope they will be doing this again.  I know there is talks about making a tourist attraction on top of the Forth rail bridge, I hope this goes ahead.

Cheers
Jacques

Shop now open

Finally got around to opening a shop for images, I will keep populating it as I find more and more images I want to add.

Please have a look and send me some feedback, I would greatly appreciate it.,

Shop can be found at: www.Jacquesle Roux.co.uk

Always look both ways when taking photos

I was taking photos of the Forth road bridge and didn’t take make notice of the Forth rail bridge. It’s been taken to death BUT when I turned around I got this image.

I loaded it up on Viewbug and got into that month’s featured photos.
My best results so far on a single image. 50 peer awards and 120 likes as well as having 6 Photo Trifecta awards.

The actual image I was there for that night was this one.
I took a walk on top of the road brigde to see the sunset and new bridge.

Thanks for the visit.
Jacques le Roux

North Queensferry revisit

Doesn’t matter how many times you visit the same site you are surprised by the different results you get.

Jacques le Roux

Forth during foggy Guy Fawkes night

Foggy night’s has great potential for awesome photos.

 

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

Forth bridges at sundown

Another visit to the remarkable Forth and the bridges crossing it.

Joined the photography club in the outing and as usual found it to be a fun and rewarding experience. Found a area I’m lacking experience and will have to work on.

I prefer the black&white image over the colour one

One of the club members played as a model for this shot.

A bit of steel wool play at the end to top the night off.

Photographs by Jacques …

Early morning at the Forth

A quick post of 2 photos taken at the Forth during the past winter.

New Forth road bridge being constructed.All the Forth bridges in one photo.

Photographs by Jacques …

The Forth via wide angle lens

Looking out of the window at the winter darkness and seeing a few stars I decided on the spur of the moment to take my new Canon 10-22mm EF-S F/3.5-4.5 Ultra wide angle lens for test drive. Once I was outside even though I could see some stars I saw the rain falling pretty hard but I was already ready to leave so continued on my test shoot.

I expected sunrise to be at 0815 but in actual fact it was at 0840. I arrived at South Queensferry just after 0800 and drove towards the foot of the railway bridge. I stopped halfway and saw the harbour sitting between the two bridges and decided it looked like the perfect spot. Let me just make it clear these photos don’t for one second give you a idea how bad the weather was this morning. I ended spending a good 2 hours in rain and wind chill. The car said 2’C but it must have been -10’C in the wind and all for the love of art, lol. I lost feeling in my hands 3 times and in the 2 hours it went in cycles of rain, clear skies, wind and then rain and wind and no feelings in the hands, gloves on, gloves off, blowing hot air, getting on with the photos and then all over again. I’m happy to show it was worth it all in the end.

Now the lens. The EF-S F/3.5-4.5 Ultra wide angle lens was what I decided to get for my Canon 7D. I was tempted to go for the Sigma but in the end decided to stick with Canon glass. I’m impressed with the photos in daylight but I need to play with it more in low light as I’m not sure the image quality is as good as the L lenses I have. I know L glass can’t be used as a comparison but there are just no decent wide angle lens options for the 7D). I’m going to get rid of the Canon 1D MKIII and get another 7D as a backup so I needed to get the right long term lens. 

I have one photo in my mind I want to go take with this lens in the dead of night. There is a old building in a field next to trees which is just asking for a night photo to be taken and this lens for purchased for that reason.

TIP: One tip I found and it was a bit of slapping the forehead moment is to get your focus sorted out and then write the lens setting down (I use ColorNote app on my phone). I roughly know where the focus is on the lenses I use but I’m not that good at working it out using the diagrams and have wasted many a minute (long exposures) not having it in perfect focus. I used live view in the past but it’s such a pain when jumping off it to reset the aperture and shutter speed. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could setup a few profiles that you can access instantly by for example pressing the Q or picture style button for 2 seconds you get selection of 5 profiles to choose from to give you your preferred aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings. Profiles can even be named: long exposure, sport, macro, portrait, etc. 
Anyway enough waffling, I hope you like my 1st attempt at using a wide angle lens.

The ones I like the most:

Here’s the start of the other photos in order they were taken.

Photographs by Jacques …

 

One day road trip, South African style

Continuing the South African theme.

I borrowed a car one day and went for a ride from Paarl over the mountain range using “Du Toits kloof” pass.

I stopped as often as possible and even went trekking through dense vegetation a few times for some photos.

Like this photo of the national flower, the Protea.I stopped at the “Du Toits kloof” tunnel and tried to get a few photos while staying out the traffic’s way.
I was lucky to be using a little Mini Cooper and I thought this looks like a nice advert for the car, one you could see in a car magazine.
Stopped at the “Du Toits kloof” resort. I attended a wedding there a while back.
Then continued onto Worcester. I heard a train and stopped where I found a safe spot. I ran back in time get a few photos of it.
I was a little surprised as this wasn’t just any train it was the Blue train, the most luxuries train in South Africa (don’t let the outside fool you).
I saw some horses in the distance and tried to get a nice photo with them and the mountains in the back drop.
Not the greatest results, I need more work on landscape photos.
Then leaving Worcester behind and onto “Bains Kloof” pass, the next 4 photos are on-route to Bains kloof”.
To my surprise I was back on this same roads a few days later for a 4×4 event but that’s for another day/post.
Stopped in “Bains kloof” and took a walk down to the river. I remember encountering a troop of bubboons 25 years ago in this valley.
Very dangerous animals and not to be taken lightly.

Apologies for the delay in these photos, life sometimes takes priority over art. I will endeavour to get my posts back on track.

 Photographs by Jacques …