The view from above

So I had the burning desire to buy a drone.

It was all I could think, read and talk about.

Which one is the one for me?

What's the camera specs like?

Image quality?
How far do i want it to fly away from me?

I chose to buy a DJI Phantom 3 Advanced. Ive flown it 4 times and its great fun.

Boys and their toys.

Its not overly difficult to fly but I'm yet to take a look at all the settings available. Right now i know how to fly and to take photos and video. Next will be options like point of interest, follow me, planned route etc.

I plan to use it to explore a new world; the view from above.
To get shots that I've never been able to get before. To find out whats at the top of the church, tower, building etc.
A new challenge, a new angle.

What do i think so far?
Its a lot of phaf; every time it gets switched on it needs to be calibrated, updated, you name it. Putting the propellers on, taking them off.
But when it takes off and you can shoot up at what seems like a million miles an hour to this big kid, all that gets swept away by a big smile.

Drone photography will be a challenge to me though; I'm used to full frame Canon and the brilliant Fujifilm X-Trans sensors. The drone has nothing like that.
Noise!!!
The lens has a fixed focus, I'm yet to figure the sweet spot for focus and compared to my DSLR's and CSC's the image's are soft.
However i can shoot raw, import to Lightroom and edit away like any other photo and that is definitely a nice touch.

What makes Sutton Bridge

Taking Doug home

It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

How do you tell someone something so life changing?

I sat him down, made sure he was comfortable and came out with it;

"Doug, im not your real dad. And Laura, she's not your real mum"

"your parents were too young and had 6 other children to look after"
"they sold you to us"

"no" "no" "its not like that'

"Doug"

"your a dog"

"it happens all the time"

He barked a bit, chased his tail, wee'd in the garden and then he was happy agin.

Not so bad after all, i thought it was going to scar him for life.

We took Doug to meet his real parents; Willow and Bubba. Both of Jug breed.

I wonder if a dog knows after 6 months of being part that the dog thats just walked through the door is their son or the 2 dog's in front are their parents?

It was a great half hour spent, watching the 3 dog's run around the garden, chasing each other. it made for some great comical images.

and the chase was on

He'd only been there a few minutes and already they were giving him a grilling

Willow loves to cool off in the water

Lol, what does this look like?

Extreme close up

Face off

Another grilling from his dad

I grew up with dogs around me; German Shepherds, i'd previously never been a small dog person but having a small dog is great, you can take them anywhere and everywhere because they take up no room.

However don't go thinking that a small dog has no personality, Doug is a legend! He's randy, stubborn, intelligent, loyal, smelly; he's always passing wind, energetic, he's a real ladies man.
This actually sounds like someone i know!?

To the greatest dog ever..........Big Doug!

Now I've got to go hoover the car because he's malting and there's hair everywhere.

Kings Lynn Mart - A night at the fair, was you there?

My 2nd and final blog post on the Kings Lynn Mart is featuring shots of people at the fair and the fair itself.

I covered a very brief history and my aims for the night in my blog post yesterday, if you haven't seen my first post please take a look; http://www.benchapmanphotos.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/kings-lynn-mart-foucsing-on-being-out.html

I put the new Sigma 70-200 to use and got some candid shots of people working on or others enjoying there time at the fair.

Patiently waiting.

Family fun.

This ride had an observation platform above it. Very inviting to a photographer! Also very considerate, thanks for the strobe!

 

Focusing on small aspects of the bigger picture.

 

 

 

 

Then the fish eye lens came out to play

 

 A fellow photographer getting their shot.

 

There's some shots taken on the night that I now look at and think that I should of gone for a longer exposure and got a perfect circle in the background of the big ride. However that's not what I wanted to achieve on the night, so I need to be happy with the results that ive got and move on. I could always go back and get the shots if I really wanted too any way. The world is my photography oyster.

Im now thinking about a new subject/method of photography and I may just go and have a go now.

Thanks for looking.

Ben

Kings Lynn Mart - Focusing on being out of focus at the fair

The Mart is at Kings Lynn for 2 weeks. I haven't been since I was a young teenager. I have to say I did see some rides I wouldn't mind a ride on, in fact these rides there now seem a whole better than those 15 years ago.....15 years...woah!

The Mart has been taking place in Kings Lynn for over 500 years and started off as a trading fair however over the years the focus shifted onto rides and entertainment rather than business.

Rather than long exposure shots of rides spinning round making light trails I decided to capture different aspects of the fair and night.

I was also wanting to put my new 70-200 f2.8 Sigma to use. So far im loving the results, that's not to say that the fisheye isn't still up there with the fave's though.

I spent a lot of the night walking around the Tuesday Market Place looking for reflections in the windows of buildings surrounding the fairground.

And then rather capturing light trails via long exposures I was interested in the lights themselves.

 



 

 

 

Same subject again but I was interested in the colours and shapes so unfocused my lens at f2.8

Boom!

 

 

This was a polished metal plaque on a wall also defocused at f2.8.

 

Lastly tonight I loved the colours reflected in this shot.

 

Ill follow this post within the next day or so with other shots taken at the mart. These will have more of a street photography feel and will feature some rides.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Ben