Benz World Blog » Grantham

Scottish Longhorn

Jason Benz — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 19:38:08 +0000

This is a Scottish Longhorn Highland Cow, although it looks like a creature from Star Wars. As it came towards me I had to tell remind myself this is only a herbivore despite looking more dangerous than all carnivores I have photographed. This shot was taken last winter near Grantham in the UK.

We are over the worst of the jet lag from travelling back from Australia and plan to walk to a pub in Granchester tomorrow.

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

Fake Beef

Jason Benz — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 07:59:01 +0000

This is one of the many horses in the fields around Gonerby in the UK. Before I took the base image I had planned to give the whole horse a frisian cow texture in order to illustrate the current beef/horsemeat scandal. Despite the mild spell this weekend all the horses had blankets on. By only changing the blanket it made the final result believable and the compositing easier.

This image has had difficulty getting accepted for Stock Photography at first, however BigStock were the first to accept it and it is available for download here.

Freezing Fog

Jason Benz — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 04:08:00 +0000

This was the result of the freezing fog we had on Wednesday. There is still snow on the ground here in the UK and more is forecast today. To increase the sparkle a Fractalius layers was added to this image using “luminosity” and “soft light” blend modes. Some Split toning was added in Camera RAW.

First Snow

Jason Benz — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:30:30 +0000

This is Karen exploring Gonerby in the UK as we witnessed the first serious layer of snow arriving today.

Winters Day

Jason Benz — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:46:35 +0000

Seasons Greetings. I think a festive post is long overdue. The weather in the UK has been full of mist and frost recently but we have yet to get the photogenic layer of thick snow. This is the village of Wyville which was the location of today’s walk.

200th Photoblog

Jason Benz — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 02:27:56 +0000

This is the 200th post since the blog took on its wordpress format. The last 100 posts have been dominated by 69 images from a year spent in Australia. Out of all 200 the second most popular country is England with 55. Egypt comes in third with 31. Cuba and Wales share forth with 8 each. Jordan and Jamaica have 6 each. This shot was taken at the Gonerby Firework Display we went to on Saturday.

Daihatsu Charade

Jason Benz — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:02:17 +0000

We have packed up our belongings and left our jobs. We only need to sell our cars before making the big move to Australia at the end of the month. I do not have any advertising on this site normally so this will be the only exception. This is my faithful little runabout. DAIHATSU CHARADE 1.0, 5 door Hatchback, 2006 Manual 5 speed in metallic silver. 43,108 miles. Most economical petrol-engined four-seater in the UK. Upto 69mpg. Top of the range SL model. Alloy wheels, ABS with electronic brake-force distribution, speed-sensitive electric power steering, air-conditioning, driver and passenger airbags, central locking and electrically adjustable door mirrors, engine immobiliser, upgraded stereo with USB and SD card slot. Full Daihatsu service history, CO2 114g/km so only £30/year to tax. Cheap to run, fuel, insure and tax. Saves you more money than any other car. Throw away your bus pass, get a Charade. Only £2495. Karen is also selling her Fiat Grande Punto 1.4 Dynamic Sport for £3995. If you are interested in either car give us a call on 0770 6970 675.

Belton Folly

Jason Benz — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:41:48 +0000

This is the Belton Folly near Grantham in the UK. I wanted to get a bit more colour and detail in the sky. This is a situation where a graduated filter would help. Graduated filters are bits of glass you fit in front of the lens to help the camera get a good exposure. When shooting landscapes the sky is almost always far brighter than the land. Although our eyes are very good at seeing the detail in the sky and land at the same time a cameras sensor will often overexpose the sky or underexpose the land. A grad filter is clear at the bottom and slowly gets darker towards the top of the picture. Unfortunately Cokin who make the filters seem to have gone bankrupt but I hear they have recently been bought out. Anyway I could not find any camera shops with any Grad ND filter kits to fit my new lens. Fortunately there was enough detail in the sky for Photoshop to apply a filter after taking the shot. Although Photoshop does give you far more control in applying filters in post processing I still think there is a place for old school filters. Using HDR is another way of solving this problem but the results often look less natural.

Yellow Rose

Jason Benz — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 02:40:44 +0000

This Yellow Rose was taken at the end of the Garden in Grantham, UK. I used sRGB colour space instead of my normal Adobe RGB. Colour space determines the actual colour a specific RGB value corresponds to. Adobe RGB has a wider range of colour but this does mean each colour is further apart. For 8bit files you can visibly see a change when you shift a value by just 1. This is not great if you want smooth gradients but it does give richer Cyans and Greens. The narrower sRGB colour range is the standard for web output as it approximates the colour range of most cheap computer displays, but for how long. The last display I bought boasted 100% Adobe RGB which means it will not be long before most can show these extra colours. For now I’m going to switch to sRGB to test the use of this colour space.

N.B. After testing Firefox reproduces colours far more faithfully than I.E.