Thursday, October 26, 2006

Coventry: The Whittle Arch at Night

I braved the cold and the darkness tonight and went alone to the city centre in the hopes of capturing a picture of the Whittle Arch, one of Coventry's most famous structure, at night. I've seen before how the area lights up beautifully and I have been planning this for ages.

This morning we've had storms and heavy rain, and by evening the day became extraordinarily clear. Anyway, here are the results:










I've discovered something new from the experiment, which was how to create the "starburst effect" seen in the above series as the star-like emanations from the light sources. One way is to use a starburst filter, but I found that using very small apertures (e.g. F22) could create the effects seen above.

Quite a few people gave me puzzled stares, a teenage couple even approached me and asked for me to take their picture in front of the structure. Mental note: next time bring a friend for night photos, as the experience could be scary!

It was also an opportunity to test my new tripod: a SLIK Pro 330DX:

Overall, I'm moderately happy with the tripod. Features:
  1. Relatively cheap
  2. Comes with a 3-way pan-and-tilt head
  3. The handles are covered with foam for handling comfort, especially during winter (you know, the metal gets cold)
  4. The legs could be spread quite wide apart for really low heights, e.g. for macro photography.
  5. Weighs 1.5kg
It feels relatively solid, and it weighs relatively light and overall, for the price I'm quite happy with it. However, if I had more for the tripod budget I probably would have bought a Manfrotto 190Pro. However, the Manfrotto 190 costs £100, and comes WITHOUT a tripod head.

A good tripod head costs around £200.

Yup, photography is an extremely expensive hobby!

PS
Across the continent back home in Malaysia my brother is actually getting married at the moment, so Congrats(!!) and god bless Muzaffar & Nani. Above all I wish you two happiness and a blissful marriage.

Unfortunately my parents have yet to send me pictures so I'm not sure how the ceremony went but I'll post pictures as soon as they become available.

6 comments:

pycnogenol said...

Selamat Pengantin Baru Muzaffar and Nani.

You must post pics. of the wedding. I know of one Nani. Can it be the same girl?

Mama Sarah said...

pycno, mynn busy oncall so he's asking me to answer on his behalf. So far baru terima 3 kpg gambar. one of them dah di published on my blog. so, do we have another mutual acquaintance now?

Anonymous said...

selamat membuat call.... samalah kita... call... call... call... sepatutnya masih bercuti tetapi telah menerima pangggilan telefon kena standby tomorrow and pada malamnya kerja. maka dipendekkanlah cuti....


3 keping gambar di blog tu cantik... like i have told tou before, your potraits shots with the kids are great

mynn said...

pycno
sorry for this late reply:) but as puan mama sarah was explaining, i am oncall - tak habis lagi ni. tired etc2.

:) it'd be a crazy coincidence if the nani you know is the same as the one Afar is marrying. Unfortunately we didnt get many pictures of their wedding. how i wish i could be there to be one of the photographers!

ikelah
sama lah kita oncall right after raya. It's so confusing to me ikelah, being oncall - so busy too - right after around 2 weeks of holiday. feel like pulling my hair!

i still feel that it's so difficult to get portraits right. ps ikelah - saya baru beli circular polarizer. a Hoya Pro-1. 77mm filter diameter with a 58mm to 77mm step up ring ... just incase "terbeli" the 24-105mm USM IS L lens. hehehehe.

Anonymous said...

aisemen..tu la pasal sapa suh tak ajak org join skali! kan dah kena kacau hehehe

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