Phal's house of pics

Phal · 18 Oct 2014 at 21:28

I guess since I keep uploading pics of various types I might as well have them all on in one thread so I'll start dumping them in here!

First update - some bird action from the nearby Adur river at low tide. First walkabout with the new monopod and lenscoat for the 200-400. I can tell I'll like the lenscoat for the winter since it'll keep my hands warm! It also blocks out some of the sun whilst I look into the view finder if I want it to

1- One found a crab to munch on and the other looks like he/she's running to see if they can get some

Mine Mine Mine by Phal44, on Flickr

2- Shots like this are a reason why I'll probably get the 7d2. The AF on the 70d isn't bad but it does get rather easily confused when there's stuff in the background that isn't miles away.

Little Egret In Flight by Phal44, on Flickr

3- More Little Egret Action

Little Egret In Flight 2 by Phal44, on Flickr

4- These little buggers are quick and rather erratic flyers! Another where I'd like to see how the 7d2 performs

Flying Low by Phal44, on Flickr

5- More annoying background stuffs!

Little Egret In Flight 5 by Phal44, on Flickr

6- Alone in a sea of mud

Muddy Sea by Phal44, on Flickr

7- More Top Gun flying

Coming in Low by Phal44, on Flickr

8- Softened this one since it's all white! Now it's white and fluffy

Little Egret In Flight 6 by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 18 Oct 2014 at 21:29

9- Nice and sharp

@400mm without the extender in. I don't really notice a difference generally when I have the extender in or not but I swear this looks a little sharper because I know it wasn't in

Little Egret In Flight 7 by Phal44, on Flickr

10- Muddy feet

Little Egret In Flight 14 by Phal44, on Flickr

11- First time I've caught these on photo

It's hard for me to see this shot without imagining it going "cahcawwww cahcawwww" in my head. He/she was actually pretty vocal when they landed there. They didn't seem sure what I was or what I was doing since I was sat down pretty still on some old bit of boat that was sticking out of the mud and was relatively clean.

Curlew by Phal44, on Flickr

12- He/she investigating when they landed

Curlew 2 by Phal44, on Flickr

13- I've ended up de-saturating the hell out of the rest of the shot here because that damn bird just seemed to melt into the mussels otherwise!

Seafood? by Phal44, on Flickr

14- Fishing step 1 - strike!

Fishing Is A Spectator Sport 1 by Phal44, on Flickr

15- Fishing step 2 - hope you got the fish?

Fishing Is A Spectator Sport 2 by Phal44, on Flickr

16- Fishing step 3 - Look smugly over at the Seagull with your fish

Fishing Is A Spectator Sport 3 by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 19 Oct 2014 at 19:54

Saw the wind was coming up so I checked the weather and made sure it was a bit better than yesterday before heading down to the beach. Plenty of kite surfers!

Rattled off more shots than I though I would since I managed to fill one 32GB card up but this stood out when I was checking through later.

Triumphant Fist Shaking by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 20 Oct 2014 at 08:30

Well until the last 24hrs, the picture below was my most viewed shot on Flickr. It wasn't because it was good or anything, it was just a sample shot I'd taken with my brand new 70d (at the time) and I'd posted it to the 70d thread on TalkPhotography

I uploaded the kite surfer shot above last night and actually bothered joining a few kite surf groups to post it into and now it has 755 views and 20 favourites lol

On a rope by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 20 Oct 2014 at 09:23

Kite surfy pic now up to 934 views and also my first Explore

*edit* A few hours later and 1261 views and 37 favourites

I guess having it on a list everyone sees helps it a little lol

alexthecheese · 20 Oct 2014 at 11:07

The surfy pic is superb.

Phal · 20 Oct 2014 at 11:30

Thanks

It definitely stood out from the rest on my initial check through.

1433 views and 41 faves so far and rising

Phal · 21 Oct 2014 at 20:13

Another from the same day which caught my eye again because of the shadow projected onto the water

It even has fingers hehe

Shadow Surfer by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 22 Oct 2014 at 20:05

I guess I've managed to get over my addiction of making everything warmer and orange with silhouettes by finding a new addiction... Blue stuff!

It works for me since for some reason I don't like the natural colouring of the photos at this time of day.

This one I've left untouched:

Take-Off by Phal44, on Flickr

But these I've given the same treatment as before with Black/White/Blue which seems to highlight the whitewater quite nicely along with boosting the blue crystalline look that we kind of imagine water should have.

I like this one purely for the splashyness... Which is good since it doesn't seem to have much else going for it lol.

Shadow Surfer 2 by Phal44, on Flickr

This one is better and I even warmed his face up a bit so that he didn't look too much like a dead smurf

Blue Cruise by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 22 Oct 2014 at 20:14

One more that I bothered to edit since it didn't require much

Busy Breeze by Phal44, on Flickr

Abraxaz1 · 22 Oct 2014 at 20:30

Really loving those windsurfing pictures, you caught the action of the scene really well.

Phal · 23 Oct 2014 at 22:27

Thanks

I took wayyyyy more shots than I thought I would on Sunday but I got quite a few keepers. It's tough to not end up with loads of shots that end up the same but then perhaps I tried too hard to make them look different lol

In keeping with the blue theme, I thought it worked for this one especially

Up We Go by Phal44, on Flickr

I started to want to do something different and a fairly high contrast B&W preset I had worked decently enough here

Uplift by Phal44, on Flickr

I played around with some of the default presets and this one was alright. I'm not 100% sure but I guess it's ok

Hoverboard by Phal44, on Flickr

A tried and tested one for me, some nice orange

I don't know why I like stuff like this but I do.

Flight by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 24 Oct 2014 at 21:27

Yet more from last Sunday!

This looks good just because it's quite splashy and there's two of them in shot

Ascend The Wave by Phal44, on Flickr

Your knees definitely seem to get a good workout when you're passing over these waves

Weee by Phal44, on Flickr

This guy kinda just booped the water to jump off and out of it

Boop by Phal44, on Flickr

More of a close up

Shallow Surf by Phal44, on Flickr

A very rare occasion when the kite is actually in shot without having to zoom all the way out :/

That's What A Kite Looks Like by Phal44, on Flickr

Some more PP fun

Darkrider by Phal44, on Flickr

And some more wave booping

Boing by Phal44, on Flickr

This guy was pretty good but I heard someone mention he'd won some competitions or something so I guess that would be expected!

Skid by Phal44, on Flickr

Sploosh by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 28 Oct 2014 at 00:03

Finally the last of my pics from last weekend! Few more shots of guys using the Wakeboard style boards. I guess these are easier in a straight line and since your feet are clipped in then you don't end up swimming after your board too often unlike the surfboard guys

Slippery Slope by Phal44, on Flickr

Launchpad by Phal44, on Flickr

Upward Sploosh by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 28 Oct 2014 at 00:05

Last shots all in B&W of the same guy who seemed to know what he was doing! Fun to watch and shoot

Surf by Phal44, on Flickr

Grippier by Phal44, on Flickr

No Brakes by Phal44, on Flickr

Cut by Phal44, on Flickr

Grippy by Phal44, on Flickr

Flippy by Phal44, on Flickr

In And Over by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 2 Nov 2014 at 17:59

A few shots from yesterday! A Catamaran out for a jolly yesterday. For some reason the processing seemed to bring out a weird dark halo around the top of the mast despite the fact there's nothing around there selected. I can only imagine it's something to do with the light itself and the other settings applied.

I tried to correct it a little but it's difficult to manually select areas like that and blend them in perfectly. As I'm typing this I suddenly thought of using the cloning tool since that blends stuff quite well but it's a bit late now >.<

Darty Dart Is Darting by Phal44, on Flickr

On my way back to my car and thought this made quite a nice view. I've got a bunch more shots from the harbour wall which has an angle facing these houses more but from here you can see the beach with all the little plants and the window reflections are still quite visible even though the sun is fading.

Beachfront Property by Phal44, on Flickr

rhyswt · 2 Nov 2014 at 20:52

Loving the last two Phal, excellent work.

Phal · 2 Nov 2014 at 22:05

rhyswt said:
Loving the last two Phal, excellent work.

Thanks

much appreciated

A few more from the same day (Yesterday)

It's not ideal when you're shooting into the sun or close to it but I quite like the whole silhouette look and the sails and the kite look alright with the sun through it. Might be a bit dark though :\

Sails by Phal44, on Flickr

Thought it was the Lifeboat at first but it turns out the Pilot boat for Shoreham Port has the same colours :/

Pilot Ahoy by Phal44, on Flickr

The sunset that I was out to get yesterday! I took a bunch of different ones but I guess this was my fave

Shoreham Beach by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 4 Nov 2014 at 20:07

Some shots from this summer in Canada which I still have a load of to process so I'm chipping away a little

Some giant dandelion thing I found in my parents garden. I ended up putting up on something quite high and shooting with the sky in the back which worked quite nicely. Was a pita to get the bits I wanted in focus because the damn thing kept moving around in the breeze!

Dandy Giant by Phal44, on Flickr

Whilst I was down by the river I spotted this bit where two layers of rock met and formed a point. It kinda needs to be viewed in a large size to see much in the distance so in that respect I'm not sure whether 10mm was the right focal length to make the most of this... But without 10mm then the rocks in front don't really show quite as well imo. The sky was alright but could have been better!

Waterside Point by Phal44, on Flickr

This is a bit of an experiment in processing for me. The Eagle knew I was there pretty much and left me a fairly wide berth. Here I've cropped in a bit but the bird still seemed a bit too distant to feature in the shot so I tried something new for me.

I selected the bird in Photoshop and enlarged it a little. Not by a massive amount so the low res stands out but enough to give it a bit of a boost.

The light wasn't great but I kinda like the shot anyway

Waterside Flight by Phal44, on Flickr

Phal · 9 Nov 2014 at 19:31

Another shot from Canada, fairly average in the grand scale of things. This shot was aided by my jetlag which meant I woke up quite early and decided to take a walk down by the river.

This guy/girl was a bit shy and moved away a few times so I too the opportunity to test out my 70d/200-400mm combo with an additional external 1.4x TC engaged.

Quality isn't bad considering

784mm with 1.6 crop factor. This shot is also cropped down to just a bit less than 1/4 of the original shot.

Dawn Heron by Phal44, on Flickr