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My most recent photos... |
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Most of my pictures are all now on Flickr. Click the logo to visit my photostream...
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...and everything else
Click here to see all my Flickr sets.
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Me and my stuff
I've always liked photography, and for years used a number of Canon and Minolta film cameras. I sold the lot in 2003 and bought a Nikon Coolpix 4500, but soon decided that a digital SLR was what I really needed.
Since 2004 I've been through various Canon cameras and lenses including two EOS 20Ds, an EOS 30D, an EOS 40D, an EF 400mm f/5.6L, and an EF 300mm f/2.8L IS before finding myself with the following which I use at the moment:
EOS 7D
EF 500mm f/4L IS
EF 1.4x II extender
Kenko 1.4x DG extender
Sigma 150mm f/2.8 APO DG
Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 OS HSM
Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4
Speedlite 550EX
Macrolite MR-14EX
...plus sundry other gubbins.
I tart everything up using Canon DPP, Adobe CS2, Photomatix and Helicon Focus.
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A-Z index
Click here for a list of links to all my photos by species/subject.
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Copyright, sales & contact
Website design, all photographs and content on this site are copyright Rich Andrews. Please don't copy, steal, pilfer or hotlink anything on this website. It's the height of rudeness.
If you have any enquiries about licensing, please .
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SUNDAY 29th JULY 2012
Temple Quay
Still tarting about with the short lens. This evening I thought I'd have a go at some dusk shots at Temple Quay, in particular Valentine's Bridge and the new apartment building - The Eye. There are some fine shots of The Eye on Flickr, mostly of an empty, newly-finished building, unmolested by clutter, unlike today with its advertising boards, open lighted windows and scaffold.
I bracketed three exposures with all my recent night shots (-1, 0, +1); some of these have some light blending or tone-mapping, but I was surprised at how little needed to be done on the properly-exposed shots. Just a little here and there where there were blown highlights. One or two are panoramas stitched with Hugin; the biggest shots of The Eye below are two vertical frames stitched together.
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WEDNESDAY 25th JULY 2012
Bristol
Had the urge to take a few shots around the fair city of Bristol over the last few days - it's so difficult to come up with something that hasn't already graced the pages of Flickr so many times before. Having said that, I haven't seen too many shots of Cabot Tower taken with a 500mm lens!
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THURSDAY 19th JULY 2012
The blue hour
A quick couple of stops on the way home tonight with my new lens. The Harbourside one is a blended panorama, and the Suspension Bridge a three-shot HDR. You can see 900px and 1200px versions on Flickr.
I've also had the Photomatix going on the bluebell set I took in May - they look much better now than they did before with my sloppy manual blending technique. All here.
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SATURDAY 7th & SUNDAY 8th JULY 2012
RIAT 2012
This year for the Air Tattoo I decided to forgo the early start and horrendous queues and pop in for the afternoons at one of the park and view sites. So I rolled up at Rhymes Farm after a leisurely lunch; I didn't realise that the display line is right over the field!
More on Flickr.
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SATURDAY 9th JUNE 2012
Stormy Petrels
The good thing with unseasonal weather is that you often end up getting the opportunity to see and photograph things you wouldn't normally be able to. Such was the occasion today, when unusually strong June gales delivered unprecedented numbers of Storm Petrels into the Severn Estuary. Normally even when the conditions are right we're lucky to see one or two of these enigmatic seabirds, but there must have been hundreds swept into the estuary over the last two days.
The Second Severn Crossing acts as a barrier half-way up the funnel-shaped estuary, and the petrels are loathe to pass over or under it. Hence the stretch of estuary between the bridge and Severn Beach this afternoon was peppered with up to thirty of them as they accumulated over the high tide. As they circulated downstream of the bridge, many passed along the seawall giving extraordinary views of what is usually a strictly oceanic bird.
Whenever I see any sort of petrel I'm always struck by how rapidly they're capable of moving, and as such they are really difficult to photograph. At least on this occasion I was on dry land and not on a moving boat! I initially started off with the 500mm and a 1.4x extender, but the resulting slower speeds, slower AF and difficulty even framing the birds caused me to just go with the bare lens, which improved things no end.
The direction of the wind unfortunately made the birds face away from the shore when feeding, so I ended up with a lot of 'headless going away' shots. Initially I was a bit disappointed with a lot of them, but then realised that some of them had captured that classic view of these ephemeral little buggers as they skip away over a wave and into the distance.
Lots more on Flickr - thanks for looking!
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