A Tree I've Had My Eye On

First off, no, there is no photo of the month for April. I kind of forgot about it, and I usually post that when I have nothing else to post or am short on time. That didn't happen during March I guess.

There's a tree that I've been able to see from the school parking lot, and I've noticed it almost every day for a long time; since before I got my DSLR. It stands alone in a field, with not much of a backdrop behind it. On cloudy or foggy days especially it looks really cool.

Today, I finally got around to walking out and shooting it.





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55 mm
Handheld


I realized when choosing out of my various angles and exposures which photo I would edit that the one that appealed to me most was the one I think captured the point of this tree. Yeah, I had some photos that were much better focused, shot at a more landscape-y focal length, framed more fully, etc. But in the end, I went with the somewhat badly focused, wide framed, more telephoto shot because it showed how alone the tree was, which is really the defining characteristic of this tree. That's a good thing to bear in mind when composing shots in the future, I think.

In post, I actually lowered the contrast (something I rarely do for non-portrait photos), desaturated slightly, and cooled down the color cast in an attempt to make the setting look more desolate, which I think accentuated the mood this photo has.

Orton Crocuses, Take 2

After yesterday's train wreck of a photo, I did a little research on the theory behind the Orton Effect. That, combined with a little practice and a new method of applying the effect digitally gave me much more satisfactory results.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 37 mmHandheld


Still not perfect, but I have a much firmer grasp on how it works now. Furthermore, I learned how to do it film-style, which I think can be closely reproduced digitally. More on that tomorrow.

Orton Effect Crocuses

I was gone most of the day, but the lighting was pretty good for flower photography when I got back. I snapped a few crocuses again (I know, original). In an attempt to make the pictures stand out a little more, I applied the Orton Effect... and was reminded of how either rusty I am, or how I was never very good at it in the first place. I may have just gotten lucky with this photo. Either way, I pretty much ruined this photo.






click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 37 mm
Handheld


It looks fake, and too contrasty, and frankly, like a prime example of this. So. I put this up here to show you that sometimes my photography sucks pretty bad. I'll try again though. When applied correctly, the Orton Effect is really pretty beautiful.

More Portraits

Last night, I went and shot Prom photos for a group of my friends. I used my dad's 50mm and his speedlight with a diffuser for fill flash.

It's amazing how much better portraits turn out when you have a good focal length and some fill flash. I kept thinking back on these. Not that they were bad, I just didn't have the equipment to make them as good. Especially as I was paid for this job, etc. I felt that it was extremely important to deliver great results.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50 mm
Tripod


I'm happy with how they turned out. The backdrop could have been better, but it was the only area around the house I could find that had suitable lighting. But the colors, skin tones, and faces turned out great.

I guess this means if I'm planning on doing any kind of paid portrait work in the future, I need to pick up my own speed light and diffuser.

Natural Side Lighting

I was reading tips on how to take better still-life photos a while back, and one site said that, especially if you're planning on converting to monochrome, contrasty side lighting is usually desirable. Today, I noticed that a piece of furniture in our house was getting hit with some powerful side lighting from the sun shining through our windows.

So I busted out the camera and tripod and tried it out. I must say I'm pleased with the results.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/11
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 49 mm
Tripod


The sun provided much stronger light (and therefore even more contrast) than the desk lamp I use for artificially lighting smaller subjects ever could. The texture on the chair really stood out with the side lighting (which, now that I think about it, is something I learned in my digital photography class: side lighting enhances texture).

The only thing I'm not super happy with is the composition. Too much going on in the bottom right, not enough in the top left. But oh, well. You can't win them all.

Anyway, on an unrelated note, at about 5:00 today I'm heading out to shoot Prom photos for a few of my friends and their dates. I read up all about how, and my dad showed me what I need to know about using his speedlight, so I should be set to get some very good results. I'll almost definitely post about that tomorrow.

A Photo Walk

Yesterday after school, I headed down to a little park near the school. I went on a fairly successful photo walk, which was fun. I had two keepers from the shoot, but I think I like this one better.





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/11
Shutter Speed: 1/13
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Tripod


Once again, my dad's macro lens saves the day. I'm continually astounded at how close I can get with it.

Anyway, the exposure on this was a little wonky. The sky was washed out, but it was so gray that it looks, well, gray. The edge of the acorn is closer to blending in with the sky than I want, but I got it as separated as I could by increasing contrast and toying with exposure and stuff. The bottom-right hand corner was too sharp, so it looked terrible when the acorn was at a nice level of contrast, so I just used a layer mask and the blur tool to take the edge off. It's not an important area to the picture anyway.

Insect Macros

I've enjoyed looking at some of the insect macros I've seen, but never really been super interested in doing my own.

Yesterday, I went outside around 6:00 to do some past-due flower macros, now that our purple and white crocuses have started poking up. I couldn't help but notice that there were bees swarming all over them. Since I was already armed with my dad's macro lens and my monopod, I quickly switched into TV, then set for burst shooting and servo AF based off the middle AF point (the sharpest). About 150 pictures later, I had a couple of keepers. This one is my favorite.





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Monopod


I like it because the bee is in an interesting position, the composition on the flower isn't compromised, and the main interest points are acceptably sharp. I apologize for the boring center composition of the subject, but I was using the sharpest AF point on camera, which is the center, and I couldn't find a crop that I liked very much, so I just left it as-is.

So, long story short, I covet my dad's macro lens like, five million.

More Motionless Photos

I'm really enjoying still life. Though my kit lens isn't prime, I have a hard time seeing a huge improvement in sharpness and optical quality. Also, I like to use my kit lens because it can focus MUCH closer than my Dad's 50mm and 85mm primes can. Until I find a way around this, I'll probably be using my kit lens for Motionless photos more often.





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/9
Shutter Speed: 0.8 seconds
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55 mm
Tripod


I like the texture of this shot, and I also like the simple background provided by shooting on white paper.

When I get enough photos in my Motionless series, I may do a mosaic. I think it would look good because the photos would be relatively uniform.

Facial Expressions

I went to a newspaper conference about a month ago, where I attended several workshops. One was on photojournalism, and one of the tips I picked up was the use of facial expressions in photography. Our clinician placed "faces" alongside principles like lines, the rule of thirds, texture, etc. This highlighted to me how important he though they were.

He also gave us a few examples of photos with great facial expressions. They absolutely can make an otherwise boring photo very interesting to look at and engaging. A photo with a good expression will hold your attention much longer, and draw your eye much more effectively.





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55 mm
Handheld


I've learned that there are few times better for getting a great face in your photo than during a high-action activity like Ultimate Frisbee.

This is from the same shoot as yesterday's photo, so I hadn't quite figured out that I need faster shutter speeds for these. But there will definitely be more games for me to shoot in the near future.

Sports Photography

Most of the members of the large choir at my school are on tour in California right now, so those of us who are left went outside and played Ultimate Frisbee during that class today. Halfway through, I decided I wanted to try and get some pictures. It was really sunny outside, so I was able to get fast shutter speeds even though my lens is pretty slow (f/3.5-5.6).







click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55 mm
Handheld


Though I wasn't afraid of getting in close to do these, I think I would have been much better off with a telephoto lens. 55 mm really just doesn't cut it for sports in most cases.

Also, I had issues with focus. I was on servo AF and burst mode, but it still seems like a crap shoot as to whether or not the AF will be fast enough to get the shot. I guess that is just more confirmation for the case that you need to take a large volume of photos when shooting sports.

About 50 pictures in, I decided I wanted faster shutter speeds to completely freeze the action, so I bumped up my ISO to 200. I was a little frustrated that I had to be shooting at 200 ISO on a day with no clouds and a bright sun, but that's just because I have a slow lens. Now I know why they can charge $3000 for about 3 stops worth of aperture.


Anyway, I got a few pictures I was pretty happy with, so I'll probably be sharing them for a few days.

Still Life with a 50 mm Prime

My dad owns an f/1.4 50mm EF lens, and recently told me that prime lenses get clearer and sharper photos than zooms. I wanted to shoot some still life photos, so I decided this would be a good time to try a prime—I already had lots of control over lighting, subject, etc. so I figured I wouldn't be needing to zoom to make adjustments in framing and stuff.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50 mm
Tripod


Well, he was right. Though I'm very happy with my kit 18-55, and I think it gets really good results, the 50mm is sharper. Noticeably so.

After lots of experimentation with different apertures and compositions, I decided I like this one best. The DoF isn't paper thin, but the entire lock is not in focus. Also, the centered composition made this photo a good candidate for my Motionless series, and after applying the effect in Photoshop, I liked how it fit. The only thing was that since I had white background, I had to dial down the vignette opacity quite a bit to avoid it looking too harsh.

Less is More

The weekend photograph challenge at DPS right now is titled Less is More. I decided to participate.


Anyway, here's my submission:





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Tripod


I took this as simply as possible. Just a white background (paper), a very simple subject, a small depth of field, black and white with no tint, no crop, no vignette, and centered composition. And I'm now completely convinced that Less really is More. I prefer taking and looking at simpler photos in general. Perhaps that's why I like macro so much; it tends to exclude noisy or busy details and really focus in on just one thing.

Guitar Construction Update

Let me start by saying, I'm not particularly pleased with this shot. I don't think it's very good. It's not bad, it's just not great.

Anyway, an exciting day in the construction of my guitar. I've moved on to assembling the box, which means I'll be done soon, and finally able to play it. This is just a photo of the fretboard (which I finally finished inlaying, and sanded flush). It's boring in black and white, but it was even more boring in color.





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/9
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 55 mm
Monopod


The dust-looking stuff is probably mahogany sawdust. The worktable was pretty covered in it.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be more inspired to take an interesting photo tomorrow.

More Bird Photography

I like bird photography, but without a fast telephoto lens, there's not much opportunity for it. So most of the bird photography I've done is restricted to more urban birds; primarily seagulls and pigeons.

As I've said before, even with just a little bread, seagulls become very easy subjects to photograph at 55 mm.





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55 mm
Handheld


I found that if you spend enough time with burst mode and servo AF, you'll get the seagulls in a good pose in at least one photo. I didn't even have to crop this one. I'm very happy with how this one turned out.

Crocus Redux

I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing wrong here yet. But I'll fix it when I figure it out.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Tripod


The color looks kind of sickly to me. I think I shot at a rather uncreative angle. On the other hand, the focus is good, and the glass in the macro lens I used is excellent. I need to keep experimenting, but I need to do it on a day when I don't have 100% direct sunlight beating down on me and the flower.

On the bright side, some purple ones started coming up today. I have a feeling they'll be more cooperative subjects.

Spring Macros

Finally, spring is arriving. We have a few crocuses poking out of the ground now, so I figured I'd start up the old nature macro habit again. As I've said before, the kit lens does a reasonably good job with macros... though not so well that I don't want to get a macro lens. :)




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55 mm
Tripod


I'm pretty unsatisfied with this shot, actually. I used the screw on the bottom of my tripod column to mount the pan head. This gets me in a really good position to do macro work, though at the cost of a little ease-of-use. Oh, well. Worth it. That's not really the problem. The problem was the intense, direct sunlight. I really should have brought something out to diffuse that. An 8.5x11 sheet of printer paper would have done the job with a subject this small. Also, it's a bit overexposed. The white-balance is off in this shot, because I had left it on Tungsten and forgotten to change it. I corrected it afterward shooting this one, but that messed up my focus, something I didn't realize until I had packed up. Which brings me to another point: I should have shot in RAW. Oh, and I should have used Mirror Lockup. And been more careful with the manual focus.

Anyway, I'm being pretty hard on myself here, because I know I can just head out later and try again for a much better result. In fact, I think I'll do just that. But not right now. Some other time.

Creative Portraiture

"Creative" may be a euphemism for how this portrait turned out, but in a way I kind of like it.

click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 18 mm
Handheld


That's my friend Miguel, eating a gyro near Canal Street. I think the focal area was too small, so I should have stopped down a bit just so that the crisp area that our eyes are naturally drawn too isn't so tiny. Especially since it was bright sunlight, I had no excuse to open the aperture up that wide... oh, well. It's an interesting effect, and one I'll probably experiment with more in the future.

My Desire for a Macro Lens Personified

Oh, boy. I borrowed my dad's 100mm macro lens yesterday, and it reminded my why I love macro so much. With a combination of live view, careful and fine-tuned manual focusing, the amazing macro lens, careful lighting, my tripod, and shooting in RAW, I was able to get this shot:





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5
Shutter Speed: 6 seconds
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Tripod


The lens is beautifully sharp. When zoomed in to 100% magnification on the full-res image, I could not detect any blur at all. RAW, as usual, gave me optimal control over my tones in B&W. I kind of wish I had been more creative with the lighting, but oh, well. At least I got some nice depth.

This makes me even more excited to get my own macro lens. The one I'm looking at is the f/2.8 50 mm made by Canon, and I'll probably pick up an extension tube with it to get closer focusing distances.

New York Style Tilt-Shift

While I was in New York, I wanted to do some duplicates of the tilt-shift work I had already done. So this time, the photos I took for this purpose were taken specifically for the purpose of tilt-shifting them later in Photoshop. That meant getting subjects that would be interesting in miniature, and avoiding having horizon in my shot. Here's one:





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 32 mm
Handheld


I'm a little disappointed in the focus—my AF was shooting through a glass window. But the effect turned out okay, and with a saturation bump, the object look more like toys, perpetuating the illusion.

The Statue of Liberty

No album from a trip to New York City would be complete without stereotypical photos of the Statue of Liberty. While I refrained from posing friends in front of it, I did indulge in a little bit of predictability with this photo.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 41 mm
Handheld


Although this shot has probably been done thousands of times, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. The angle was forced, but it suits a statue like this perfectly. The day was mostly overcast, which made for really good lighting, but I did want to bring out the bit of blue in the sky and the color of the statue, so I boosted the saturation a bit. Other than that, I just did my standard brightness/contrast adjustments and sharpened a smidgen.

Cooperative Subjects

I have rarely had success photographing birds of any type. The vast majority of them are far to skittish to get a good photo of with a 55 mm focal length. But at the same place as this photo was taken, there was a massive flock of seagulls that were all too eager to pose for me once somebody broke out a few pieces of bread.




click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 55 mm
Handheld


Through photos like these (and there are a few more good ones of seagulls from this shoot that I might eventually post), I've learned that I am a huge fan of action shots that freeze motion. This one isn't quite perfect—1/800 of a second left a tiny bit of blur around the tips of the wings. But I look forwards to doing more stop-action shots.

Portraits in Central Park

With all the time I spent with my choir homies on tour, it became apparent that there are a few of them who are very willing to model for me when I want to practice pictures. Not just right then, either. My friend Jessica graciously told me that I could just call her whenever I needed someone to be in some portraits. I think I will be making use of that.

But now that I have a DSLR, portraits are a lot of fun. I never had very much success with them before, and I think that's mainly due to the small focal lengths involved with my old PowerShot. These portraits are some of the best I've ever taken. It seems that great location + willing model + cooperative lighting + a little time and patience = great portraits.





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 55 mm
Handheld


I'm sure I still have a lot to learn. Even with this shot, I can see a few things I don't like. Her bangs are a little bit low over her right eye. There's a small strand of hair in the lower-left that is moving. And Jessica's eyes aren't in as good of focus as they should be. This is due to the fact that my AF was set to just pick an area of the photo to focus on, and it tends to pick things more in the foreground. Her eyes may be in the foreground compared to the purposely blurred rock in the back, but not compared to her right shoulder.

In the future, for shots like this that are on a more angled plane, I might stop down my aperture a little bit to ensure that I get the whole face in crisp focus. I will also set my autofocus to a specific point and focus on the eyes before shooting.

But, success!

Back from NYC, with Photos!

I took just under 400 photos in NYC. Most of them are more documentary in nature, but a few had some real photographic value.

Here's one I took in Brooklyn, while we were on our way to sing at a retirement home. There were numerous swans in this little bay area, and an enormous number of seagulls. The seagulls became very friendly with us once some bread appeared, so even though my maximum focal length with the lens I have is 55 mm, I got some very good shots of them using servo AF and burst mode. The best picture from that day though, is of a swan.





click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 55 mm
Handheld


Not a whole lot else to say about this shot. But for the next while, the great majority of the photos I post here will be from New York.

Trip to New York

I'm headed out of town on a choir tour, starting tomorrow morning at 4:45. I'll be back Tuesday morning at about 1:00, so Tuesday I should have a post again.

While in New York, I get to sing in Carnegie Hall as a featured choir, and hopefully take a LOT of pictures everywhere.

So no posts for about a week, but I should have a ton of great material when I get back.

Improvised Softbox

A while ago, I read a post on how to improvise a soft box from four pieces of paper and three paper clips or binder clips. Soon after, a friend needed me to take a picture of a strawberry so he could print a poster of it as a gift to his friend (she loves strawberries, and hates when they're out of season). I figured I would test it out.






click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 0.3 seconds
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55 mm
Tripod


I'm really pretty happy with how it turned out. Very high-key, and the colors are saturated without my needing to tweak much. The only improvement I wish I could make is the focus. The AF did a good job, but I took this before I discovered Mirror Lockup or Live View zoom MF, which does a slightly better job. But I got the DoF just right in my eyes.

Edit: At the suggestion of a commenter, here's the link to the tutorial on how to build it. You can use artificial lighting, but I just set it next to a window on a cloudy day, as I didn't have any portable lighting with me.

March 2010 Calendar

I tried to do a shaped-bokeh technique so that the light filtering through the tree would look like shamrocks. It didn't really work. Kind of. But I still like this picture okay. It's only in 1600x1200 because I realized that's the same aspect ratio as almost any other monitor, so it should work for almost anyone.





1600x1200



For some reason, the picture doesn't seem to be working. I'll give it some time, but if it doesn't fix by the end of the day, I'll see what I can do.

Anyway, these images are rights-free so feel free to share them with whomever you want.