Benz World Blog » World

New World

Jason Benz — Fri, 22 May 2020 13:23:57 +0000

The world is changing. We are living in the wake of the planet’s response to an infection. The impact has grown as it spread around the world, destroying life.

We are now in limbo, A great pause. We have seen a glimpse of a future and a taste of the cure. Now we should ask if the relentless appetite of consumerism is worth the cost.

Original image by NASA. A Photoshopped version of this image has been accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Close Encounter

Jason Benz — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 07:26:20 +0000

For the American presidential election, I created this composite of images pulled off the internet. Photoshop was used to blend them together.

Moon Rise

Jason Benz — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:19:35 +0000

I saw this moon rise walking home tonight. Although it was not a Super Moon I thought it would be a good chance to compare my new(2nd hand) 100-400mm lens to my old 28-300mm. Both moon shots are were taken with my 5D mark II and are 1:1 pixel crops so the 400mm shot is a little larger. Can you see any more detail?

300mm 5d Mark II

150mm crop sensor E-510

I finally submitted my Australian citizen application today. I just have the interview and test to do at some point and every box will be ticked.

Super Moon

Jason Benz — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 00:30:58 +0000

This weekend I photographed the supermoon from Australia with a Canon 5D Mark II and a 300mm lens

The last time I shot the moon was in the UK with my old Olympus E-510 and a 300mm equivalent lens.

In both cases I did not resize or re-sample the image. Instead I cropped out the sky until I was left with an 800 pixel wide image for the blog. The Canon has 21 mega pixels and the Olympus has 10 mega pixels so the result was a larger image this time. I was surprised just how much extra detail was captured when compared to the old shot.

Belton Globes

Jason Benz — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 02:47:48 +0000

These terrestrial and celestial globes where on display in Belton House. If anyone knows if this style of globe have some special name please leave a comment. Although photography was allowed in Belton House the light was very dim and flash was not allowed. In situations such as this a high ISO value is needed. ISO is the sensitivity of the film or sensor. The trade off is an increase in noise. My old camera had an ISO range from 100-800 but if I wanted to submit something for Stock Photography I could only use the low noise shots taken at ISO 100. This was taken with a Canon 5D mark II at ISO 3200 and had a remarkable lack on noise. I don’t know good enough for stock but its still very impressive.

Edible Asteroid

Jason Benz — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 01:39:06 +0000

This image shows what you can do by compositing images in photoshop. I started with a shot of me biting into a ball. This shot of the moon was added on a layer above and a mask was applied to reveal it where necessary. A quick google search for “star field” found the background. Another mask was applied and the composition was complete.

Big Moon

Jason Benz — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 09:13:41 +0000

The moon is the closest it has been to us for 20 years. 14% bigger and 30% brighter than normal apparently. Time to dust off the telephoto lens and try to capture as much detail as possible. Although this image does not have enough quality to be accepted for stock photography it can easily be added to any other photo. This image was taken at 150mm on a half size sensor so that is 300mm in old money. I did not resize/re-sample the image for this post. Instead I cropped out sky until I was left with 800×420 pixels. This avoids any loss of quality. As the original image had such a large area of black sky the cameras exposure could not be trusted as it will always overexpose the moon in an attempt to balance the image. Using manual mode I set the camera to f22 and 1/40sec to ensured the detail on the surface was captured.

Arboretum World

Jason Benz — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 07:47:31 +0000

This is the Arboretum in Nottingham, UK. To create a planet like this you need to capture a 360 degree panorama. For the best results use a wide angle lens and a tripod. To create the planet you will need a little help from Photoshop.

Future World

Jason Benz — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 03:17:02 +0000

It took 2 satellites 16 days to create the original image. Fortunately it is in the public domain so It is fine to use it. Rather than the traditional Blue Marble I wanted to age the earth and give it an apocalyptic look. I used adjustment layers with masks to alter different areas of the planet. I then reduced the opacity of each layer until they looked suitably polluted or deforested.

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

Salt Lake

Jason Benz — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 04:17:39 +0000

This planet was made from a panorama of a salt lake in the Bahariya Desert in Egypt. I set up the tripod on the shore line which is why the resultant globe is bisected in the way. There was a lot of banding between the 20 images when stitched together. I used Photoshop CS5′s new feature Content Aware Fill to remove the planet so I could smooth the sky to the horizon without contaminating it with blurred planet. This is an easy way to remove banding from sky but it does not work on the sand as you would lose texture. Read this to find out how to make your own planet.