The Author – Bart Busschots
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Jul
31
Some Thoughts on Composition
Filed Under Photography on July 31, 2010 | 8 Comments
Initially I’d started writing these thoughts up as bullet points to use as show-notes for this weekend’s Chit Chat Across the Pond segment on the NosillaCast, but as I worked on them I realised they were worth developing into a full blog post. The aim here is to share some of my thoughts on composing photos. A lot of people think that the difference between a snapshot and a professional looking photo is the camera, which is true to some extent, but a much more important factor is the composition. I believe that the single most important thing you can do to improve your photography is to work on your composition. Thankfully, a little effort goes a long way, so it’s time very well spent.
Jul
24
Review of Money3 by Jumsoft
Filed Under Computers & Tech on July 24, 2010 | 12 Comments
THe week before last I posted a description of the final stages of my quest for a new personal finance app, and explained how I came to choose Money3 from Jumsoft, what I didn’t do was actually review the product though, so I thought I’d do that now. On the one hand I’ve only been using this product for a week and a half, but on the other I’ve been using it a LOT during that week and a half. In that time I’ve entered all the transactions for 2010 on six accounts covering all my personal and business transactions so far this year. That’s a lot of time using the software, so I think I’ve got a good flavour of what it’s like to really use it.
Jul
18
Photo of the Week 126 – Female Common Blue Butterfly
Filed Under Photography on July 18, 2010 | 2 Comments
I have quite a few good butterfly shots in reserve for future Photo of the Week posts, but I want to keep things nice and varied, so I’m only going to be posting one every few weeks. Since it’s been over a month since I shared a butterfly shot, I figure it might be time to share another.
This is a shot that I had been chasing for over a year when I finally managed to captured it last month. The Common Blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus) is very small, and very camera shy, but also very beautiful. The male’s back is plain electric blue, which is pretty spectacular, but the female takes things to a whole new level, having a beautiful mix of browns, blues, and oranges on her back. The patterns at the tips of her wings are both intricate and beautiful. Many people consider this the most colourful Irish butterfly, though I disagree, I think that honour should go to the Peacock Butterfly. Regardless of whether or not it’s the most colourful butterfly, it’s certainly one of the most beautiful.
The best chance you’ll get to capture the back of these fine lady’s wings is in the evening time. As the wind falls and the sun gets low in the sky, you’ll sometimes find them sun-bathing on top of tall stalks of grass or wild flowers like thistles with their wings open. If you approach very slowly and very carefully with a long enough lens you have a chance of getting off a good shot. I took this one on a beautiful still and clear summer evening along the banks of the Royal Canal near Deey Bridge and the 13th lock with my 55-200mm zoom zoomed in all the way to 200mm.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7ev
- Processing: This shot was tweaked a little using Aperture’s Dodge & Burn plugin to selectively add brightness, contrast, and saturation to the butterly
Jul
15
My Quest for a New Personal Finance App – Part 2
Filed Under Computers & Tech on July 15, 2010 | 7 Comments
A few months ago I started my quest to replace Cha-Ching because of how bad my experience with their 2.0 beta was, and how poor their support response was (I got no response at all). I outlined the choices I’d been considering at that stage in part 1 of this article. Since that post there’s been a few developments, and as of this afternoon, I think my quest is at an end.
Jul
11
Photo of the Week 125 – Soccer on the Playing Fields
Filed Under Photography on July 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I’m not even the smallest bit of a football fan, but given that it’s World Cup final weekend, I figured this would be a good time to share one of my few football photos. As well as being beautiful, the grounds of St. Patrick’s College provide a great amenity for the people of Maynooth. Here we see some local lads enjoying a kick-around on one of the pitches on the so-called Playing Fields a fantastic summer afternoon. In the background you can see the spire of the Gunne Chapel (the college chapel).
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/1000 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7ev
- Processing: This shot was edit using both the Topaz Adjust and Topaz Detail Photoshop plugins.
Jul
6
Belgian Railway History Project – Update
Filed Under History & Geography on July 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I though today might be a good time to share another snapshot of my on-going project to Map all Belgium’s railways, past, present, and even to some extent future, with Google Earth. This snapshot is much more complete than the last one, though I still don’t consider it even close to finished.
Jul
4
Photo of the Week 124 – Grey Heron
Filed Under Photography on July 4, 2010 | 2 Comments
In my mind the most beautiful bird we have in Ireland is the Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea). Others may disagree, but I’ve always loved these big, elegant, but rather skittish birds. Because they’re so easily frightened even a 200mm zoom often isn’t enough to get a great shot, but sometimes you get lucky, and you run into one that’s a little braver than most, and you can get a good shot without the cannon-sized lenses the Scott Bournes of this world use.
In Leixlip there’s a massive viaduct that takes the Royal Canal, its towpath and the Dublin to Sligo railway line across the river Rye and its rather large valley. This heron was sitting on the wall separating the railway from the canal on the viaduct, and he didn’t fly away even when I got right to the edge of the canal on the towpath. I was still a good 5 meters away, but I don’t usually manage to get even nearly this close.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/800 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority