keyword pages: 1  2  3  >  
< 1 of 22 >
Jeremy > June 16, 2009; Day 45. Act Tower. Today was a busy work day and all the photography was confined to the evening. We explored the public area around the Act City Tower, which closes down in sections, some as early as 7pm and everything completely locked up by 9pm. Luckily we were able to get some shots of the Hamamatsu rail station in perfect storm-dusk light. This shot was taken just before the sky opened up and the rain chased us out before the police could. The remaining shots from Day 11 of my Japan trip start here. Raw: Color Temperature: 7500K; Tint: 0 Raw: Exposure: +0.35 Raw: Brightness: +51; Contrast: +49 Raw: Vibrance: +60 Raw: Saturation: +4 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Curves: Adjustment for Velvia effect PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > June 10, 2009; Day 39. Rainscape. This is a shot from my hotel room of the city of Hamamatsu. The heart of the city featuring the bus and train stations are on the other side of the building, but this view is not too bad. The handful of Day 5 shots I was able to take start here. PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > May 26, 2009; Day 24. Shooter’s Block. Tonight I tried to complete the assignment for my Thursday photography class. That assignment was to find a colorful subject and shoot it every hour, observing how the light changes through the day. Unfortunately, I only had between 6:30-9:30 this evening to do this, so it was more of a study of how the dusk sky changes rather than the more interesting study of the color of sunlight. This was a potential set-up for the assignment. I quickly realized that it wouldn’t work because you need some artificial light to compare against the waning natural light. As a subject, it’s OK, but there are no doubt better ways to show “old wheelbarrow in front of old shed.” I may explore it. Raw: Crop: 9.4MP Raw: Color Temperature: 7350K; Tint: +2 Raw: Recovery: 100 Raw: Fill Light: 20 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > May 25, 2009; Day 23. The Redwood. Early on our last morning in Vermont, I found a crisp and clean sky far from city lights. Immediately I thought it might be fun to capture this building under star trails. I had no idea whether Polaris would be present in this shot or not. Almost all of the lights in this house can be dimmed and all that are visible here are set quite low. A constant porch light just out of frame below the right side of this house is pointing down onto gravel; the reflection from that is illuminating the trees to the right. The shutter was open for nearly 52 minutes, the longest I have yet imposed upon the D700. On this camera I can disable long exposure noise reduction and have done so here. That’s why there is noise in the sky. If I could have stayed up all through the night I might have tried the same exposure again with noise reduction turned on and compared. Mostly I’d want to see how much detail is lost by the reduction, if any. Of course now that I know where Polaris is, I'd have re-positioned the tripod slightly. Next time. Vacation ended with a trip to the Cabot Creamery annex store in Stowe to get a month or two’s worth of Vermont cheddar, which could be the finest cheese on Earth. We also enjoyed watching a very experienced glass blower make a beautiful vase starting with a few wads of molten glass, an apprentice, and a 2100-degree crucible. Overall, it was a very enjoyable weekend and I’m almost sorry that it was over so quickly. Alas, real life beckons in just a few hours. Raw: Color Temperature: 3050K; Tint: +3 Raw: Recovery: 100 Raw: Blacks: 7 Raw: Contrast: +55 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > May 20, 2008; Day 18. Why I Don’t Use Weed Killer. If you’d have told me a few years ago that I’d be sneaking into the neighbor’s unmowed yards to gather dandelion seed pods, I’d tell you that you were crazy. But I’ve done it twice now. My pods were mowed down last weekend and haven’t returned, yet. I’m pod-happy because tonight I wanted to recreate one of Oliver’s superb macro shots. I was shocked when I noticed that Oliver’s shot was taken at f/11. There are a couple of differences that help him do this: he’s a little further away from the subject and his camera has a crop sensor. Otherwise, we both have 68mm of extension tubes mounted on our lenses. Oliver’s lens is 100mm which should be an effective 160mm on his crop sensor. My lens is the 90mm macro focused at 1:1. Now that I’ve done this I must say that I like both shots. Still, mine is at f/22 which some would say now suffers from diffraction. I also have serious vignetting but only in the extreme corners. This must be due to the extension tubes. I've shot plenty of 1:1 subjects and not noticed this before. Someday soon I will try this with the D70 see what happens. Raw: Color Temperature: 5700K; Tint: -3 Raw: Recovery: 4 Raw: Blacks: 8 Raw: Brightness: 0; Contrast: +51 Raw: Saturation: +10 PS: Healing Brush to remove much sensor dust (needs cleaning) PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > May 14, 2009; Day 12. The Painter. Tonight was the shutter speed lesson in my Thursday photography class. I knew that this would be the fun class. Tonight she told us we’d be painting with light. Thankfully, I had my tripod set up before she turned out the room lights. Also luckily, I made a very good guess as to where to point and what focal length to use. Cool! The woman who’s being painted around is good sport Brenda, another student who’s camera does not have a bulb setting. I probably could have cropped this into a better vertical, but I was lazy tonight. PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > May 12, 2009; Day 10. Repulsed. Tonight was my monthly book club meeting, held at the home of my friend Bill. After the meeting, he wanted everyone to see this toy. The base is a battery-powered magnet that creates an attraction/repulsion well into which this dumbbell magnet rests. The other end of the dumbbell has a little metal pin that presses up against the little plane of glass. This provides a nearly frictionless environment in which to spin. The motion is slowed most by the fact that the dumbbell is not evenly weighted. I put this object into many positions. I wanted to show the dumbbell as weightless and in motion. The dumbbell has a pair of little red strobe lights that magically turn on when you give it a spin and turn off as the motion slows. I'm not sure how effective this shot is but I like it. Thanks to my friend Glenn who suggested that I simplify the background. Earlier shots were a little busy! Kashaaf asked me if yesterday’s shot was handheld. Yes indeed. I don’t trust myself to get the horizontal motion right on the tripod, and more importantly, this road is 3 lanes wide, so you can’t predict where the vehicle will be in the composition. You could go wide to cover this, but why? Judy says that I should have cropped even more to get closer. It did help that the D700 can fire 5 frames per second just holding down on the shutter. That’s what I was doing with this shot. I think I got 10 shots of him in all; luckily this shot had the right mix of background and focus. It’s always easy to get one or the other, so you really have to be willing to fill a card with throwaways when you go panning. Kashaaf also asked me about my camera’s timer. Its durations are 2, 5, 10, and 20 seconds. I only use it when I forget my cable release or am too lazy to attach it, so it’s usually set at 2 seconds. Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: 0 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > May 8, 2009; Day 6. Ugly Flower. I haven’t yet mowed my lawn for the season, which means a lot of weeds are sprouting flowers, to the delight of the bumblebees. I thought I’d practice trying to catch one. But rather than chase the bees, I picked a flower and waited for a bee to come to it. The bees seem to select their flowers somewhat randomly. Naturally, the nearby bees were selecting the adjacent flowers. Someone once wrote that macro work is slow and tedious. I’m beginning to agree! The tripod at its lowest possible setting, just above the ground. While watching the bees, I noticed that they are rather rotund bugs that would need a lot of DOF to show fully in focus. Their girth also causes the flowers to sway under their weight each time they land. By the time the flower has stabilized, the bee is off to the next one. I computed that I’d need no fewer than 8 seconds of perfect stillness on the part of the bee to capture it clearly. (Ring flash to the rescue? I may try that.) I realized that a 1:1 shot of a bumblebee was not in the cards today. Thus, I just photographed the ugly flowers instead. I wish I had noticed the flower in the lower left of the main stem; it is the only attractive one in the bunch. I’d need extension tubes on the macro lens, though, to bring it closer and push the unfortunate dead flower adjacent to it out of the frame. I wonder if flowers are aware of their fallen, rotting brethren next door. I hope not. I could have just pruned it out too. This shot got a lot of post-processing. Click here to see the original JPEG from the camera with just sharpening applied. Feel free to tell me if you think that I’m going overboard with the processing. The lab "a" adjustment did most of the blue-to-purple conversion. I personally like the final result. Kashaaf asked me yesterday if I also tried the rain shot with the focus on the house, or somewhere in between. I didn't try in-between, but I did try a shot of my house with focus on the house. I didn't like it nearly as much. Raw: Color Temperature: 9100K; Tint: 0 Raw: Exposure: +0.25 Raw: Blacks: 19 Raw: Brightness: +18; Contrast: +50 Raw: Saturation: +8 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity PS: Curves adjustment to give the effect of developing E4 slide film in C41 chemicals PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > April 27, 2009; Day 360. Don’t Try This at Home. My friend Dale saw my fisheye appliance photo series and liked it enough to write and encourage me to go further with appliance photography. He said, “Create the kind of photos you’d want customers to see on your website if you were in an appliance business.” I may be paraphrasing, but he was deliberately vague with the requirements. For now I’m looking at it as an assignment in creativity rather than a commission. Ostensibly, though, if the creativity matches anything he’s looking for, we could be in business. This is an attempt at appliance humor. “Leave the appliance repair to us!” “If you think you can do it yourself, you're brainwashed!” This is me modeling as a clueless but resourceful homeowner thinking that he can fix anything himself. With a quick change of clothes (something more like a uniform) and a generic logo on the toolbox, I could easily be the "you get what you pay for" low-bid appliance repair guy. And folks, if the closest part of your body to an ultra-wide lens is your butt, well, you asked for it. Raw: Color Temperature: 7250K; Tint: 0 Raw: Fill Light: 10 Raw: Saturation: +10 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
June 16, 2009; Day 45.

Act Tower.

Today was a busy work day and all the photography was confined to the evening. We explored the public area around the Act City Tower, which closes down in sections, some as early as 7pm and everything completely locked up by 9pm. Luckily we were able to get some shots of the Hamamatsu rail station in perfect storm-dusk light. This shot was taken just before the sky opened up and the rain chased us out before the police could.

The remaining shots from Day 11 of my Japan trip start here.

Raw: Color Temperature: 7500K; Tint: 0
Raw: Exposure: 0.35
Raw: Brightness: 51; Contrast: 49
Raw: Vibrance: 60
Raw: Saturation: 4
PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset
PS: Curves: Adjustment for Velvia effect
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
Jeremy > June 16, 2009; Day 45. Act Tower. Today was a busy work day and all the photography was confined to the evening. We explored the public area around the Act City Tower, which closes down in sections, some as early as 7pm and everything completely locked up by 9pm. Luckily we were able to get some shots of the Hamamatsu rail station in perfect storm-dusk light. This shot was taken just before the sky opened up and the rain chased us out before the police could. The remaining shots from Day 11 of my Japan trip start here. Raw: Color Temperature: 7500K; Tint: 0 Raw: Exposure: +0.35 Raw: Brightness: +51; Contrast: +49 Raw: Vibrance: +60 Raw: Saturation: +4 PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset PS: Curves: Adjustment for Velvia effect PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
June 16, 2009; Day 45.

Act Tower.

Today was a busy work day and all the photography was confined to the evening. We explored the public area around the Act City Tower, which closes down in sections, some as early as 7pm and everything completely locked up by 9pm. Luckily we were able to get some shots of the Hamamatsu rail station in perfect storm-dusk light. This shot was taken just before the sky opened up and the rain chased us out before the police could.

The remaining shots from Day 11 of my Japan trip start here.

Raw: Color Temperature: 7500K; Tint: 0
Raw: Exposure: 0.35
Raw: Brightness: 51; Contrast: 49
Raw: Vibrance: 60
Raw: Saturation: 4
PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset
PS: Curves: Adjustment for Velvia effect
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
See photo in gallery
keyword pages: 1  2  3  >  
< 1 of 22 >

Comments

|

New comment:

Name: Email: Link:


To foil spammers, enter this code: copy this text in this box: Code unreadable?