More images from the StillWalks video “Forest Walk – Winter” which is from the forest at Fforest, carmarthenshire, South Wales.
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Seasonal Shift
I know I am skipping a season by posting these photos now, but they are from a completed StillWalk of the same forest in Fforest, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is a prompt to myself to produce a new video of the same place this Autumn.
Unlike the Fforest walk I am producing from recordings and photography on my iPhone (see this past week’s posts), “Forest Walk – Winter” is a StillWalks video properly produced albeit with my Edirol RO9 recorder rather than the Fostex FR-2LE and the RODE NTG3 Shotgun mic I normally use these days.
White Balance in Phone Photography
Continuing with the idea of producing a StillWalks video entirely from photos and sound recorded on my iPhone, one of the difficulties with doing this is the lack of control you have of white balance with the phone camera.
It is possible to get some degree of balance of light by trying different angles for a shot and avoiding, where possible, extreme differences of light. Other than that, you have to take pretty much what you get and do what you can in post processing. Zooming can help in some circumstances but I try not to use this much as it loses what crispness there is in a shot as the zoom is digital rather than optical.
You can buy all sorts of add-ons for phone cameras these days, such as zoom or macro lenses, tripods, etc., but my aim is to find out how, if at all practical it is to produce a StillWalks video with the basic iPhone and free apps.
Having said that, I am using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to make the adjustments necessary for video production. The images below are the same shot but with different adjustments made but I am not going to go into the details of this now – I am keeping that for another day (or blog).
Suffice it to say that there is more work involved in the post processing of images taken on my phone than there is for those taken on my camera, so what I have saved in not having to lug heavy kit around with me, I have lost in the time needed afterwards in preparing the images for use. Hopefully this may be less the case with the sound recording!
Phone Photography From Fforest
Fforest – for those of you unfamiliar with the Welsh language, the name of the place, Fforest, is only pronounced with an “F” sound rather than a “V” because there are two “F”s in the spelling. There seems more logic to this than spelling phone or photography with a “ph” but then that’s the English language for you!
I have picked out these two scenic views from the area I live because I intend them to take their places at the beginning and end of the StillWalks video I am working on using only my phone. The field recording that will be used was done on my phone as well.
I know that I cannot expect to achieve the same quality as with my DSLR cameras and lenses or the sound kit I normally use, but considering so much web content is viewed on mobile devices these days, I thought it would be worth testing this mobile kit in the context of StillWalks production and make a comparison. So I will be reporting back on this project with my conclusions.
The photos below are the HDR versions from my iPhone 4S. They have also had some adjustments made in Adobe Lightroom.
Shore Walk Flowers
More selected photos from the StillWalks production “Shore Walk”. Not the shore, perhaps, but some of the flowers I found along the way.
Buy selected images from this StillWalk at StillWalks Photography.
Honeysuckle
Anyone know the name of this plant?
Poppies
Shore Walk
Selected photos from the StillWalks video “Shore Walk” which takes place in SW Scotland. It is the sounds in this video that reflect the shore more than some of the images.
Buy selected images from this StillWalk at StillWalks Photography.
Wildlife Habitat
All images from this series of posts are available at StillWalks Photography.
The StillWalks video “Old Railway Track Walk” features many of the things you will find in a habitat like this – one that has been left to its own devices.
Over more than thirty years the trees have grown up, the brambles thickened, the wild flowers spread and I imagine the unseen wildlife is many times more abundant than that which we can see.
The photos below follow from yesterday’s post and are some of those taken for the StillWalks video.
Dragonflies and Damselflies
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Yesterday I went on a Dragonfly and Damselfly hunt organised by Swansea’s Countryside Connections Team at Three Crosses on the Gower. Unfortunately I missed the workshop in the morning and so I am not in a position to identify the particular make and model of those we saw. Perhaps others on the walk can do that for me as comments.
These creatures were incredibly difficult to photograph as they rarely stayed still for more than a split second, if that! This may be partly due to the fact that there were a number of people there as part of the group (proving the success of these events).
I did the best I could and got a range of shots at both of two sites which were new to me and which I will be visiting again for a walk and exploration for StillWalks. Today, however, I’ll concentrate on the Dragonflies.
Please click on the images to enlarge. These and others are available on the StillWalks Photography website.