This is the first time I’ve used my flash with the wide angle lens. I quite like the cutout effect. I took a couple of stabs at the first shot: I was trying something a little more sophisticated, with a reduced saturation, and an extra layer to mix the cut out effect with the unadjusted background. Not really worth the effort to be honest. The black and white looks better:

1/100 sec at F8, ISO 100 at 10mm

1/100 sec at F4, ISO 100 at 10mm

Some snaps from my first trip to Kew Gardens. I printed one of orchid shots using Photobox as an experiment, basically to see what something blown up to A3 would look like. Out of about 7500 pictures that I’ve taken in the last 2 1/2 years, I think I’ve only printed out about 3. Short answer is that it looks pretty good, though the gloss finish is sticking to the glass in the frame that I bought…

Just a quick colour popping experiment with Ping, our Siamese, who has very striking blue eyes:

1/100sec at f3.2, ISO 320 at 50mm

I would have preferred to have taken the shot a little further from his face as the narrow depth of field is quite extreme – about 45cm, which is the minimum for my 50mm lens – with his nose out of focus. But I was trying to keep him amused and with his head pointing more or less at the light source. It’s also an indoor shot, so this was as narrow an aperture as I could manage. I could probably have afforded to push the ISO a bit higher for a black and white shot.

I’ve finished it off with a little bit of dodging and burning, and finally a reduction in levels just under the chin.