Benz World Blog » E-330

New Year

Jason Benz — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 13:01:33 +0000

Happy New Year 2021. This time last year Australia was on fire and its leadership was absent. The world watched the country burn as over 1 billion animals died. After the main event of 2020 this island continent would be viewed as one of the global success stories. Hopefully, next year will achieve such a revolution for all. Best wishes to everyone, especially those in the UK who are currently suffering from their absence of leadership.

The original firework image has been accepted by Adobe Stock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Sheep Clone

Jason Benz — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 09:25:42 +0000

This sheep was photographed in Rutland. The idea for the image was inspired by a suggestion my mum made. The aim with Photoshop is usually that the viewer is unaware the image has been altered. As this image is trying to convey the message of cloning, for once the manipulation was made obvious. It is the best selling image I have ever made from the UK. In addition, it was the 4th bestseller worldwide giving it an automatic place on my home page. That was until today when it was overtaken by this image which my brother inspired.

I currently in Kalgoorlie to photograph the mines and get some repairs done while planning a route to Darwin.

This image has been accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Petra Treasury

Jason Benz — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 09:09:32 +0000

This is the Treasury in Petra, Jordan. It was made famous by Indiana Jones when Harrison Ford and Sean Connery “discovered it” while looking for the Holy Grail. It has of course been known to everyone in Jordan for thousands of years.

Dedicated to Rowan who loved this place.

Petra Monastery

Jason Benz — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:01:52 +0000

This is the Petra Monastery in Jordan. It is know as the rose city due to the colour of the rock. In 2008 it needed to be processed using HDR to get accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography. It is available for download here. This time I used standard tone adjustments in Camera RAW and a little split-toning to match the texture to this jungle temple. The RAW file developer in Photoshop has improved so much since this shot was taken it has made using HDR to extract detail redundant.

Purple Rain

Jason Benz — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 01:13:25 +0000

RIP Prince, Thank you for the music.

Single Balloon

Jason Benz — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 11:36:20 +0000

This photograph was taken before sunrise in Luxor, Egypt using my old Olympus E-330. To process this image I used Photoshop masks to independently adjust the exposure of the sky and balloon.

Today I fitted my steam punk solar controller to our van and wired it up to the solar panel and batteries. I will find out if it works when the sun comes up tomorrow.

Wadi Rum

Jason Benz — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 11:36:30 +0000

This red desert landscape is Wadi Rum in Jordan. It was taken 7 years ago with my old Olympus E-330. Developed with Camera RAW, no Photoshop.

If it looks familiar, it has appeared in many films as the surface of Mars.

Karen is in Sydney this week to see Don Giovanni at the Opera House.

Reprocessing Petra

Jason Benz — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 13:17:30 +0000

I took this shot in 2007 with an Olympus E-330. At that time the Adobe Camera RAW and Lightroom software were still in the early stages of development and we would not see highlight and shadow recovery tools for another 5 years.

Back then the best way to get detail across a high dynamic range image was to take several different exposures, and blend them using HDR software, which I did using Photomatix. I then altered the colour in Photoshop to produce this Stock Photo.

As an experiment I developed this image with a single exposure using a later version of Adobe Camera RAW. The advances in software since 2007 have made the recovery of detail across a high dynamic range far easier.

New Valley

Jason Benz — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 20:16:20 +0000

This shot was taken with my old Olympus E-330. It is Qesm Al Wahat Al Khargah in the New Valley Governorate Egypt. At least that is the address Google gave after I spent half the morning searching for it. This is one of the drawbacks of digging out a 7 year old photo from a balloon flight over Luxor.

We are in the UK now and looking forward to a weekend in Nottingham. The flights have been booked to Australia now and we fly out on the 9th April.

New Year

Jason Benz — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:01:11 +0000

Happy Hootenanny 2013. Karen chose the colour scheme for this post. We both watched the awesome Sydney fireworks from the UK this afternoon then enjoyed a quite pint in the local pub. Wishing everyone a great year ahead!