How I Took that Shot – Trevor O’Connell

Posted on 22/10/2016 by admin

ECCG member, Trevor O'Connell came first in Grade A in our recent 'Beautiful Blur' competition with the beautiful image above. This is how he did it:

This was an opportunistic shot,

I took the boys out for a walk in Rostellan woods one day and I brought my camera with my 150-600 mm lens along in the hope I might get a shot of a red squirrel (there are quite a few jumping around the treetops there).

As we were navigating through a particularly narrow and muddy part of the woods we found ourselves enveloped by this long purple heather (I think), so I dropped back from the boys and set my focal length to 200mm and f/5.6 focused on Matthew and took the shot knowing that most of the flowers would be out of focus due to the long focal length and large aperture.

In post, (using Adobe Lightroom) I sucked some saturation out of the greens (I hate saturated greens) and brightened up and sharpened the centre.

It could probably do with being cropped in tighter to draw more attention to the boys as there is a lot of wasted space around the edge which is quite distracting.

Camera: Canon Eos 6d
Lens: Sigma 150-600c
Focal Length: 200
ISO: 100
Shutter Speed: 1/50sec

Well done Trevor!

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

See also:
How I took that Shot - Noelle Lowney
How I took that Shot - Jim Curtin
Competition Gallery
Competition Results and 2016 League Table

If you are interested in photography and would like to know more about East Cork Camera Group, click the 'Contact Us' link above.

ECCG ‘Beautiful Blur’ Competition – 18/10/2016

Posted on 20/10/2016 by admin

Our last internal competition of the year, with the theme 'Beautiful Blur' was held on Tuesday 18/10/16 at The Midleton Park Hotel and was the last opportunity to bag some points towards the prestigious Photographer of the Year competition next month. With only a few points separating those at the top of the year's league table, the distribution of points from this competition could be crucial in deciding who would get the big prize.

With judging of the sixteen entries completed, the number crunching began and the places were awarded as follows:

In Grade A, Trevor O'Connell took top spot with a margin of just five points from Kevin Day with Finbarr O'Shea taking third.

Grade B saw Noelle Lowney take first comfortably while Joe Keniry pipped Zane Llewellyn by just four points to take second.

Jim Curtin won Grade C in style with the image above which was also the overall highest scoring image across all Grades at 385 points. Keith Johnson and Karina Leeson came in second and third in the Grade.

Overall, Jim Curtin was first with Trevor O'Connell and Kevin Day taking second and third respectively.

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

If you are interested in photography and would like to know more about East Cork Camera Group, click the 'Contact Us' link above.

How I Took That Shot – Trevor O’Connell

Posted on 02/10/2014 by admin

Trevor O’Connell took his second first place of the year in Grade C in the recent Group ‘Emotion’ Competition with the image below. Here’s how he did it:

Trevor OConnell-1

This shot was a selfie!

Camera settings were -
Canon EOS 6d / 24 - 70mm lens @ 70mm
ISO 800
f/11
1/250 sec

For the shot, I was looking up at the sun and squinting. The camera was on a tripod with a shutter release cable attached.

In Photoshop, I cropped it a little and using layers I added the dark border, drained the colour except for the blue and sharpened the eye detail.

The tears were painted in using different layers with layer effects like drop shadow to and gradients to create the water drop effect. The reflection in the eyes is a seperate image of my daughter masked out so as most of it only appears in the pupil.

The rain streaks were applied using a rain brush i downloaded for free from the internet.

It was a bit of fun really and a nice way to pass an evening!!!!

- Trevor

How I took that Shot – Trevor O’Connell

Posted on 03/06/2014 by admin

Trevor O'Connell took first place in Grade C in the recent Group 'Silhouette' Competition with the image below. Here's how he did it:

Silhouette-22 "For this shot, I knew if the sky was good there would be a lot of birds flocking around this tree at sunset. It's always that way. When I heard the crows screeching I rushed out and took a few shots handheld."

"Later, I processed the image in Lightroom, I reduced the noise, sharpened the details and used the split toning function to bring out the pinks in the sky as there was a lot more blue in it to start with. A small crop was needed to cut out half a crow."

"Canon Eos 6d, 70 - 200 f4l @ 200m, iso 800, F4, AV."

Well done Trevor.

ECCG ‘Silhouette’ Competition – 20/5/14

Posted on 21/05/2014 by admin

photo: Finbarr O'Shea

Thirty one members attended the third internal competition of the year at the Midleton Park Hotel on Tuesday 20/5/14. The theme was 'Silhouette' which had members practically gasping for inspiration when it was first announced a couple of months back but as you can see in the slideshow below, interpretation was diverse among the twenty-three entries received.

Number crunching: Anthony OConnor and Denis Barry by Karen Fleming

Following two viewings of the projected images, scores were awarded, checked and entered into our new results program. 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each Grade and overall, were projected 'live' on-screen as the results were recorded which made for a fascinating spectacle as competitors in the top places changed and interchanged as the process developed. There were some tight battles in some grades and it was great to see some of our newest members feature in the top three of Grade C.

With the final results computed and checked, the winners and runners up were declared and it was no surprise to anyone to see Karen Fleming make it a hat-trick of wins for the year in Grade A. The results were as follows:

silhouette-results

: 1st Grade A – Karen Fleming

: 2nd Grade A – Mervyn Daly

: 3rd Grade A – Michael Hickey

: 1st Grade B – Kevin Barry

: 2nd Grade B – Finbarr O’Shea

: 3rd Grade B – Kevin Day

: 1st Grade C – Trevor O’Connell

: 2nd Grade C – Andrew Corkbeg

: 3rd Grade C – Jim O’Neill

Above photographs of the winners and runners up with Chairperson, Denis Barry, by Finbarr O'Shea and Mervyn Daly.

See all entries below. Mouse over the image to see and activate the slideshow control buttons and photographer's details. Well done to everyone who entered. Enjoy.