Hoya Mist Diffuser Black in Italy / April 24, 2023 by Simon Painter

I’ve just returned from a few days in Tuscany visiting the beautiful towns of San Gimignano and Florence. I took my Fujifilm X-T5 with me. It was the first time I have taken this camera away with me and I really appreciated the more compact form factor than my Sony A7III that I have previously travelled with. I’d purchased a Hoya Mist Diffuser Black No 0.5 to fit on the 33mm f1.4 Fujifilm lens and was keen to see what, if anything, it would bring to my pictures.

Spoiler alert…..I really like it!!

This first image was taken in the early evening and it’s pretty much a straight out of camera jpeg with a very minor adjustment to the black point. A testament to the Fuji’s wonderful in camera recipes. Taken into the sun, I love the way the Mist Diffuser makes the sunlight bloom and glow. I tried to edit the RAW file but ended up just trying to get back to this look and somehow loosing the atmosphere that I love in this image.

Again in this next image the atmosphere of the glowing highlights from the Hoya filter and the warm tones of the Fuji jpeg captured the moment as I felt it in the moment. I just added some contrast for a little extra pop.

The next shot is early morning in San Gimignano.

I know this next shot is a bit blown out in the highlights but it just has a quality I really like.

These last two shots were processed using Mastin Labs Artisan B&W presets which added to the combo of the Fuji and Hoya Diffuser filter create a wonderful atmosphere.

I think if you’re after some character and find yourself looking for that something then this Diffuser filter is something worth having in your bag. It’s pretty subtle in lots of shots so I might go mad and try the No 1 version to see what that’s like. I’m obviously enjoying the whole analogue like experience I’m having with these sort of shots and the Hoya filter only seems to build on the “Fuji” thing and create an inspiring and enjoyable shooting experience which just makes me want to go out and take photographs.

Find out more about the Hoya Mist Diffuser Black no 0.5 here

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog. If you like this sort of thing and want to see more let me know in the comments.

Take care. Simon

Playing With The Traffic / March 22, 2023 by Simon Painter

I live near the A3 in Surrey UK. The other evening I went out to take some photos and found myself on a footbridge that goes over the A3. There was a lovely sunset offering a wonderful warm orange glow to proceedings. The light had faded to the point where the lights of the cars were quite apparent.

I set up my camera on the tripod which just managed to peak over the walls of this bridge. Initially I set up the camera to under expose the scene so that the sky and the car lights were all that the camera really picked up. As the light faded I had to adjust things.

Here’s what happened next…..

I started with a zoom

Then added in some rotation as well

Another rotation and zoom

A simple rotation

I added in some shake

Then just shake

Trying some extreme side to side

Toning the side to side down a bit

Yes! That's about right.

Obviously going a bit mad now.

Fireworks to end

I loved how these came out. I was using the Fujifilm X-T5 and most of these were straight out of camera jpegs. It’s great when things look so good when you’re out in the field, or on the bridge, as it inspires you to explore further. That’s one of the reasons I’ve become interested in the Fujifilm cameras. These were all shot with the Fujifilm 18-55 f2.8-f4 kit lens which did a fine job. I didn’t need my normal Hoya ND filter as it was dark enough to use shutter speeds of 2 to 4 seconds without one.

Let me know if you like this sort of blog about my shoots and what other stuff you’d like to see.

Take Care

Simon

By The Seaside / September 8, 2020 by Simon Painter

I managed to grab a few shots on a recent trip to Brighton. I was immediately drawn to the wind turbines off out to sea on the horizon. unfortunately, I only had my Tamron 28-75mm lens and Sony 16-35mm lens with me so I couldn’t get very close but I quite liked the shot I ended up with which actually shows the scale of the wind farm.

These wide landscapes really seem to lend themselves to the 16:9 aspect ratio. They were all shot handheld with shutter speeds of between 0.4 to 1 second. I used a Hoya PROND200 ND filter to darken things down enough so that I had time to move the camera.

All the images were then adjusted for colour and contrast in Capture One Pro. I have been using this for a while now and I really enjoy working with it and also the results it produces. I had previously worked with Lightroom for many years. I recommend you give it a try if you can.

Off Into the Night with The Hoya Starscape filter / November 1, 2019 by Simon Painter

I live in the South East of England which is a pretty densely populated area and you're never too far from a town. I wanted to try some night photography but given the amount of light pollution in this part of the world I wasn't too sure of the results I would get. Being a Hoya ambassador, I was fortunate enough to get my hands on their Starscape filter. The idea of this filter is that it filters out some of the frequencies of light that are produced by manmade sources in our towns and cities and hopefully gives you a better-looking image and enhanced contrast without having to resort to so much post processing.

I would have loved to try and photograph the Milky Way but at this time of year it is only above our horizon for a short time when the sky isn't at its darkest and it's very low in the sky. I will have to until next year now to try and get some shots of that.

I was still really excited to venture out into the dark and see what I could capture and see what difference the Light Pollution filter would make to the shots.

I would be using my trusty Sony A7RIII for these shots. As far as lenses go I haven't really got the ideal fast wide prime in my kit bag so I decided to use my Sony 16-35mm f4 for it's wonderful wide angle field of view even though I would have to compromise a little on the f4 side of things. I also wanted to see how my new Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 would perform. My widest prime is the Sony 55mm f1.8 so this would come along as well just to see the difference that the fast aperture would make although not necessarily being ideal for the sort of nightscape I had in mind.

I shot this first scene across a lake at f4 with a shutter speed of 15 seconds and an ISO of 2000. This view was looking towards London about 30 miles (50km) away. The glow of the city was visible to the naked eye.

I brought all of the RAW files into Captureone Pro 12 for my usual basic adjustments. With the white balance set to the 4752k you can see the huge difference in the two shots with and without the Hoya Starscape filter. The filter is obviously doing a great job at filtering out the orange hues of the manmade light polution. The filter does reduce the light passing through by about half a stop, so I adjusted the exposure in the unfiltered version and also tried to match the white balance to get a comparable shot.

3.Shot without Hoya Starsape filter and white balance adjusted

Looking at these last two together it seems to me that the Starscape filter does indeed reduce the light pollution glow on the skyline. My other observation is that adjusting the white balance has quite a different effect than the filter. The white balance is obviously more of a global shift and adversely affects the colour of the objects on the shoreline like the little wooden platform whereas the Starscape filter has reduced the orange light pollution but leaves colours of other things in the scene looking nice and warm and natural. There is more to this thing than just filtering light at all frequencies from X to Y.

Looking at the graph of the light transmission of the Hoya Starscape filter you can see it’s doing some pretty complex stuff which has been developed to target light pollution.

Light transmission graph for Hoya Starscape filter

With the unfiltered version I'm sure that the negative effects of the white balance change could be addressed through local adjustments in editing but my overriding impression is that when using the light pollution filter the image seems much closer to what I imagined straight out of camera with less effort.

The Next images were taken at f2.8 at 28mm

5.Shot with Hoya Starscape filter. Again, here the colour in the image with the Starscape filter was much better and also there is less of a glow at the bottom of the shot.

In this next shot I was reasonably high up to try and get a night landscape. There were a few clouds about but they were, fortunately, nice cool looking wispy ones!

6.Shot without Hoya Starscape filter. Here there is a yellow colour cast and glow from the lights on the ground.

7.Shot with Hoya Starscape filter. The colours are nice and natural and you can see the glow of civilisation but it isn’t affecting things too badly

Back over in Essex overlooking this small fishing lake. We stayed in this floating pod on the lake which made for a wonderful peaceful few days. These images were taken using the 16-35mm at 16mm f4 and exposure of 10secs.

10. Shot without Hoya Starscape filter and white balance adjusted.

I tried correcting this with white balance but as I found in the earlier images this sort of global adjustment does affect things you don’t want it to. The pod now looks a bit too yellowy and the shoreline looks a bit cold. The Hoya Starscape filter has again provided me with a file that is closer to what I was looking for without having to spend as much time editing.

Another example both without and with the Starscape filter and then a version without the filter and adjusted white balance.

13.Without Hoya Starscape filter with white balance adjusted. I think the Hoya image is again the best balance of colours.

These next series of images were shot with auto white balance.

Being a photographer who loves to experiment and move my camera around during my shots these next few shots are some of those moments when instead of standing and waiting while the long exposure finished, I got involved!

20.Zoom with Clouds with Hoya Starscape filter

21.Staggered Zoom with Hoya Starscape filter. I love the fact that the plane lying over created this crazy zig zag line as zoomed the lens.

Finally, here is a composite image using 2 images. The stars were taken at 16mm f/4 for 10secs at ISO 1600. I manually focussed on the stars for this one. The pod in the foreground was 16mm f/9 for 30secs at ISO640 and I focussed on the pod. Both shots were taken using the Hoya Starscape filter. I then combined them in photoshop using the star image as the main one and just painting in some detail from the foreground image.

I’ve really enjoyed this journey into night photography. I’ve got work to do on developing my skills in this area but the Hoya Starscape filter has been a great help in getting some nice looking images.

The fact that the filter takes out the light pollution colour cast gives you files that are much closer to what you see when you’re out in the field and are easier to work with in post to get the results you want.

Simon

Immersive Music and Light Performance / September 22, 2019 by Simon Painter

I photographed ambient musician Bob Holroyd as he performed at The Farnham Pottery with light show provided by Patrick Dunn.

The Packhouse Exhibition / August 13, 2019 by Simon Painter

I had a great weekend meeting people and chatting about my pictures at The Packhouse in Farnham. Thanks to everyone who came and had a look and also to the staff at The Packhouse for their help. It’s a great place for having a wander through loads of wonderful stuff for your home!

It was very windy on the Saturday and I was worried that all my prints would be blown away but fortunately I managed to keep them all intact. Sunday was better so I could put some stuff outside. It’s great hearing peoples thoughts on your work and their different ideas of what the pictures say.

I only had my phone with me but I used my home made filter adaptor and took a few motion stills whilst I was there.

I couldn’t hang my pictures directly in the summerhouse so I set them up on some garden trellis that I supported with light stands. I worked really well and also allowed me to add some lighting above to enhance the viewing experience.

Thanks again to all those that came along and I look forward to hearing from you in the future if you’re interested in any of the prints we discussed or indeed any other ones you’ve seen on my website or Instagram. As I was sitting there in the summerhouse I looked up and thought this made quite an interesting image to I’ll leave you with this.

Windy Day / August 8, 2019 by Simon Painter

It was a windy day this Tuesday which was great for shooting animated trees. I stand watching for a while trying to work out where and how best to represent each scene. There’s always a certain amount of experimentation in my shooting as although I have an idea of what I think an image will look like there are many variables that come into play as you actually take the shot. The exact position and direction of movement and also the envelope of the speed of movement really effect the outcome. Most of my work is hand driven. It might be on a tripod but it is moved by me so there are differences in every shot. I’ve always looked for ways of controlling the movement and will hopefully be able to look into more closely next year.

All my shots are single exposures and edited using Capture One Pro. Find out more about Capture One Pro here

Here’s a 30 second exposure using to Hoya ND filters stacked on top of each other (PROND200 and PROND16). This allowed for such a long shutter speed. You can find out more about these filters here

So when I added my camera movement as well I was able to get these wonderful painterly images.

Band Shoot on The Hottest Day of the Year / July 29, 2019 by Simon Painter

The other day I did a photoshoot for a Swing band called Simply Swing. The couple that run the band live on my road and I met them whilst walking the dog. It’s funny how these things happen.

Here’s their website https://www.simplyswing.co.uk/

The plan was to do the shoot in a neighbours garden who has an amazing play house which we were going to use as a backdrop. The timing was such that we had to do it in the middle of the day and as it turned out it was the most scorchio day we could have imagined. Not good for the guys in thier DJ’s and definitely not ideal for photography. Sometimes though you just have to get on with it as they are the cards that were dealt.

Fortunately they were a lovely bunch of people and it was a beautiful garden. So even though we all pretty much melted we had a lot of fun.

Here’s one of my favourite images which has a great relaxed vibe about it.

Welcome to the new website / July 9, 2019 by Simon Painter

I wanted to change my website to something simpler and cleaner looking. I hope you like it.

Simephotography

Creative photography with motion