Day out at the zoo!

It was my birthday back in June and I got treated to day at London Zoo, it was the best! I was literally like a big kid and it was the perfect opportunity to get my camera out. Here are a few of my faves from the day!

Love this colours in this one!

NEMO!!!!

Edited this one to have a light leak in it. Going to try it on a few other photos and then will do a 'How to' blog on it so make sure you keep checking back.

I shot most all day with my Lumix, kit lens 18-44mm for the indoor shots and 45-200mm to get in closer with the bigger beauties!

Awwww!

This is part one of my Day at the Zoo photos, check back next week for the next one!

Flowers and nature from further afield..

So here it is, last post on Cuba but by no means least! And hopefully spring will start to appear outside and we might get to see that big round thing shining in the sky. I hope so otherwise I will be all over #throwbackthursday with blogposts of sunnier places!

Have a few more of these flowers but that's for another blog post in a few weeks time! Pretty flower though huh?

I hope you've enjoyed looking at my Cuba photos as much as I enjoyed taking them and being out there! 

Don't forget that all my images are available to buy in a variety of formats. Please get in contact for details or check the price tab at the top of the page. :)

The Sunny F/16 Rule.... Explained!

I think the name for this method of photography is a bit misleading or sounds too restrictive. It's not a 'rule' as such, but more a guide to help you get the right exposure settings quickly when you perhaps don't have time to play around or use a light meter. 

The joy of this rule is that you don't just have to use it for sunny situations, it will also help you expose on a cloudy day. And, more importantly, if you get a correct exposure, there's less editing required after, trying to make up for lost detail.

So, the rule is, on a sunny day, with a front lit subject, set your aperture to F/16 and then set your shutter speed to the reciprocal of your ISO. 

F/16 ISO 100 Shutter Speed 1/100 second

or

F/16 ISO 200 Shutter Speed 1/200 second

F/16 ISO 400 Shutter Speed 1/400 second

(as you can see from the photo's below the exposure is the same despite the different settings because when you change the ISO, you adjust the shutter speed to compensate. Left is ISO 100, then ISO 200 and finally ISO 400)

If you need to shoot on a cloudy day or you want to adjust your depth of field, you can change the aperture but you have to change the shutter speed to compensate. For example;

On a cloudy day or a if a shallow depth of field is needed, if you changed your aperture to 

F/4 ISO 100, you would need to change your shutter speed to 1/1600 second and you can do this for settings anywhere inbetween. This is because, with this example, the aperture has changed by 4 full stops, so the shutter speed needs changing by 4 full stops as well. 

****Note at this point that some camera's are calibrated in third stops. So three clicks of the wheel on your camera will equate to one full stop.****

The image to the left is F/11 ISO 100 Shutter Speed 1/200. So, I have changed the aperture from F/16 by one full stop, therefore I need to change the shutter speed by one full stop from 1/100 to 1/200.

The image to the right is F/8 ISO 100 Shutter Speed 1/400. This time the settings have been changed by two full stops yet as you can see with both images, the exposure is the same.

Here is a guide for the settings in any weather condition which I hope you find useful:

Snow or Sand: F/22 

Sunny: F/16 

Slightly overcast: F/11 

Overcast: F/8 

Heavy overcast: F/5.6 

Open shade or sunset: F/4 

I hope this blog has helped you understand the rule a little better. Please feel free to comment below and let me know what you think or if you found it helpful. Now go and practise! It's an invaluable tool to have as a photographer as I have learnt in only a matter of weeks.

Goan nature

There are so many beautiful plants, colours and textures in Goa so that's whats up next in this post.
To the left is a tree trunk, I love how it's spindly and twigs wrapping around in each other. No prizes for guessing what the one on the right is!

The 'man monkey' scaling the tree effortlessly and our guide Martin, showing us all the spices they grow in India. 

Ewwww, I hate spiders! But this was massive and I couldn't not take a photo. I'm not joking, it was the size of a dinner plate! 

Flotsam is natural apparently, jetsom is manmade. Every day's a school day huh?!

Goa by day

A mixture of the local sites and locals. The first (below, left) is the view from where I was sunbathing. Idyllic, isn't it? And the second image (below right) is from the spice plantation we visited in Ponda. I love how green and lush it looks and the reflection on the water.

Locals and local sellers on the beach.

My trademark sun shot!

Old Goa and Panjim

For those of you who follow my Facebook page, you may have seen that I was in Goa for two weeks in January and boy, what a holiday it was! If you haven't been there before, I absolutely recommend you go there once in your life! The people are amazing, the food is amazing, the colours, the smells, everything, I can't speak of it highly enough.

Anyway, enough of my gushing! I have a few blogposts to share with you over the next few days of the various things I documented whilst over there. First up is Old Goa and Panjim. Just a quick history lesson. ;) Old Goa was the first territory that was colonised by the Portuguese in the 17th Century. Panjim is the state capital of Goa and many of the buildings still retain Portuguese charm with faded colour washed walls and Catholic churches. 

This is The St Francis of Assisi Church in Old Goa

  

And this is inside another church on the other side of the road; The Basilica of Bom Jesus. Inside this church, there is a tomb of St Francis Xavier, whose remains are said to have never fully decomposed! Nice.

These next photos were taken around Panjim.

Before I went away, a work colleague said if I went to Panjim, I had to go the Mandovi Hotel because it was like something from years gone by. It was very art deco, as you can tell by this photo!

I love the colours in this photo.

Another trip to the Cemetery!

I know this isn't the most Christmassy blogpost given the time of year... But, maybe it is? For some people Christmas is about churches and these were taken in the grounds of the church so that counts, doesn't it?!

This photo is the real reason I went back to the cemetery!