Zandvoort

autosport

Today the weather was good, the sun was shining and the races were on at Zandvoort race track. Being naive, I just assumed I could turn up and take pictures. Well sort of. I was told by a nice young man that you have to be an accredited professional photographer to be allowed to “wander” amongst the “pros” (a couple I noticed were barely 16 years old.. must be quick learners). Fortunately there are a few good spots that are not only for accredited photographers but I imagine on a busy day they would be all taken. Anyway, below are some shots I managed in the sunshine. For those needing detail I used a Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS (mkI) with my 5d mkII. Towards the end of the day I added my 2x converter but to be honest from the vantage points available, I was too close.

Rotterdam

city, street photos

Had a nice day out on Sunday in Rotterdam. Along with some fellow members of Images Photo Club under the guidance of Michiel, we took advantage of the good weather to stroll around the city taking photos of everything and anything. At 14:00 we went to the Nederlands Fotomuseum where we had a guided tour of the Chema Madoz exhibition. It was magic. The photos below are a few that I took….. In no special order.

Bubble Trouble

abstract

Here is my attempt at shooting both bubbles (washing-up liquid in water) and oil drops (cooking oil in water). The setup was simple using my EF-100mm macro, a glass dish suspended between two chairs and some coloured paper on the floor lit by a desk lamp. The amount of dirt and lint that gets into the water is very annoying and required some spot healing to remove it.

Vogelplas

Wildlife

Last weekend before the snows I had the chance to try out my Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS mk1 with the 2x converter (mk2). I’ll leave you to guess which photos had the 2x converter. Pictures taken at the Vogelplas in Leidschendam. Don’t ask me what birds they are. I’ll leave that to the experts.

Cristina

portrait, studio

Spent some time last week for a photo shoot in our makeshift studio. I shot all photos using my second hand EF 70-200mm f2.8 L mk1 lens and had great fun doing so. I did have a little trouble with the 70mm sometimes being too close in the small amount of space available but all in all it is an excellent lens for such events. I think I prefer the close up shots of the model and this lens does the job with fast and accurate focusing due to its large aperture. Here are a couple of examples of our excellent model Cristina. Hope she has the time to pass by again for another session.

London scene

Uncategorized

Here are a few of the more unusual shots I took from a recent trip to London and its environs. I only used the EF 16-35mm on all shots I took that week. It makes you think differently when you have such a focal length range.

Smoke

still life, studio

Something I wanted to try for quite a while….. Smoke….

Well here are some of my efforts. I used an insence stick as my smoke source and my Metz flash at 1/16 power. I used my EF-100mm macro lens but in hind sight this was not the best choice as I didn’t give myself much room to step back and take a wider view with cropping afterwards. Trying to focus on a moving smoke column when you are close up with a macro is a nightmare. The flash was placed around 50cm from the smoke (at about 2 o’clock from the camara position) and used without a diffuser.

Grape

still life

Yesterday had a fun and informativfe evening at my photo club in The Hague (Images Photo Club). Of course I entered the Photographer of the Year competition with my first entry and got nowhere (nothing changes). Anyway the winner was a smasher so I don’t feel bad. Here’s my entry. The competition title was “Green”.

grapje = joke (NL)

Graffiti

street photos, urban,

As a club project with the title “graffiti”, I challenged myself to take some night shots of some near-by street art (sic). These are some of the results. I used exposures of around 10 to 15 seconds whilst my beautiful assistant (aka the wife) shone a 5 euro LED strip-lamp along parts of the wall. I also fired my flash in some shots to highlight the wall furthest from the camera.