How I Took that Shot – Jim O’Neill

Posted on 14/03/2017 by admin

The fantastic action shot above got first place for Jim O'Neill in our recent competition, themed 'Motion'. This is how he made the shot:

This was taken at the first "motocross" I was at and the last, for now at least, to be held in Kilva, Cloyne.

I had only touched on "panning" shots before now and with the speed these bikes were taking the jumps, it was the perfect and mostly only way to capture the action.

I used a Nikon 70-300 lens on Nikon d5000 body at focal length of 70mm (105mm on crop sensor) f/14, ISO 200 and 1/60th Sec shutter speed.

In post processing I cropped the image to suit and straightened the horizon, reduced highlights for the sky. I also sharpened the image and increased the vibrancy slightly to give the bike and rider a bit more punch.

Brilliant shot Jim. Well done.

How I Took that Shot – Zane Llewellyn

Posted on 13/03/2017 by admin

Taking his second, First Place of the year, Zane Llewellyn won Grade A in our latest competition, themed 'Motion' with the compelling image above. This is how he made the shot:

I’d missed the previous weeks ECCG shoot to Pilmore beach, near Youghal and after seeing some great shots I headed down with my dog, Holly, for a recce. It was a grey, damp, foggy day with the tide way out, a far cry from the dramatic scene that my fellow ECCG members had experienced only days before.

While I may have been underwhelmed, Holly was very excited so we headed off down the beach while taking random grey photos. It wasn’t looking good for getting any decent photo, but it’s all practice I told myself.

Holly - My ever faithful model

Remembering that there was a motion theme for the next competition, I tried to get some panning shots of Holly running along the beach, but she would only run towards me or away from me, never across. W.C. Fields saying, “Never work with Children or Animals”, was ringing in my ears!

As we rounded the corner, I noticed a large gathering of birds down at the waterline, so keeping my camera in the settings I’d had for the previous failed shots, we walked slowly towards them. About 50 metres away from them and without warning, off they flew. Luckily they flew past me rather than away and I managed to get a few shots panning left to right at the same speed as the birds. They didn’t look much on the camera, but it was impressive to witness all the same.

It was only when I opened them on the computer that I saw one photo looked like it might be a keeper. I cropped it to a panoramic format to try and emphasise the sense of motion, while keeping the horizon and birds on the horizontal thirds. The sea and sky were very grey and dull because of the fog, so I added a gradient to reduce the exposure and add some contrast to the sky. I did the same with the foreground to hide the messy seaweed and bring the focus to the birds.

The camera settings were 1/40 sec @ f16, ISO 100.

Well done Zane. Just goes to show that even in the worst of conditions, a great shot is never far away.

How I Took that Shot – Sonja Eisenberg

Posted on 11/03/2017 by admin

Sonja Eisenberg has come first in Grade C in both competitions this year so far. The image above was her winning image in our most recent competition, themed 'Motion'. This is how she made the image:

This was shot whilst on a weekend away in London, using my Nikon D3000 and VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6. Waiting for my tube at Euston Square to come along I thought it was the perfect time to get some practice shots on a moving object. It took some time as there were a lot of moving people running for their trains too, and this was not something I had envisaged in my photo!

After a short wait I spotted someone engrossed in their phone and happy that it contrasted well with the red and white of the oncoming tube I adjusted my ISO to 200, moved in to approx 188mm (this photo was cropped in post processing, taking out the lighting above - which had helped light up the moving tube nicely). It was shot in JPEG ƒ/3.5, 1/15 in the poor light nonetheless.

The only post processing I did was to crop the picture and increase the colour to bring out the red in the tube, with a slight vignette in the Macbook Air photo processing system.

One of my favourite things about this shot is that the leading line brings you to the person on his phone, who I imagine has got a lovely gift for a friend in the bag that is swinging by his side and is on his way to deliver it.

Well done Sonja. Lovely shot.

ECCG ‘Motion’ Competition – 07/03/2017

Posted on 08/03/2017 by admin

With 28 entries, our recent internal competition, themed 'Motion', drew the biggest entry in a while with a wide interpretation of the theme. The image above by Zane Llewellyn won Grade A and also took the overall highest score of the night across all Grades.

The breakdown of the final results was as follows:

Grade A was a tightly contested affair all through the voting process but Zane Llewellyn won out by 9 points in the end from Gráinne Davies in second and Finbarr O'Shea in third.

Grade B saw Jim O'Neill once more in first place winning with 23 points to spare from Noelle Lowney in second and Eileen Upton in third.

Sonja Eisenberg came first for the second time on the trot in Grade C followed by Jim Curtin in second and Karina Leeson.

In the overall scores across all grades, Zane Llewellyn and Jim O'Neill had equal scores but the tie was split by the number of higher scores received giving Zane the edge and first place while Gráinne Davies took the third spot.

Well done to all concerned.

Click here to see a gallery of images from the competition. Enjoy!

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