Tweak Tweak

I repeat: I console myself with the thought that summer will eventually be here! The weather, compared to yesterday, was worse. It started to snow again, and it was chilly and windy. And having an hour to kill before I head off to bed, I once again started to look through the photographs that I have taken and try to reprocess them again using Apple Aperture and the Nik Software bundle.

And what better way to reminisce about the summer than to look through the photos I took in Northern Spain! A lot of those pictures were actually keepers, though I mostly only posted the HDR photographs on this blog. I love HDR photography, and I cannot wait to travel and take HDR landscapes like this guy, who is a big inspiration to me. The Pentax K-5 is a splendid camera for HDR photography! I configured the RAW/Fx button to toggle between single and bracketing mode, it couldn't be easier! I am sure my Canon EOS 5D Mark II would have made wonderful HDR photographs as well. But unfortunately I opted to sell it before I became better at HDR processing. Let's hope the D800 I am PLANNING to buy will yield just as beautiful, if not better, results. Although I can already imagine my poor old MacBook Pro hyperventilating while trying to process those (surely) huge RAW files.

Back to the subject at hand! Since I don't own a studio I seldom attempt to take pictures of food, as it needs good controlled lighting to make the subject more appealing. I was able to take this "ok" photograph of "gambas al ajillo" (shrimp with garlic) while having dinner at a seafood restaurant in Cambrils. I actually trashed it, but after increasing the exposure to 2 full stops (the Pentax K-5 really does have the tendency to underexpose by a stop or two) and adjusting the contrast, highlights and shadows using Color Efex Pro I was actually able to come up with a decent shot. If the food photograph makes you hungry then it must be a good one right?

Another nice summer memory, this time taken at the Botanical Garden in Oslo with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the EF 24-70 F2.8L USM lens. I don't know if it's the glass, the full-frame sensor, or the camera itself which gives this really discerning difference between the pictures taken with this camera and those of the Pentax K-5. Sure the Pentax is still a very good camera, but all the pictures I took with the Canon have this silky, almost three-dimensional look to them. I guess there has to be some sort of benefit when you use a camera as expensive as this! These are the photographic qualities I miss. And although I have taken many wonderful photographs with the Pentax K-5, I yearn to go back to full-frame because I miss this kind of look in my photographs.