+5 Months!

Posted by Mike on

Wow!  It has been almost five months since my last post to this blog.  I wish I could say it was because I have been super busy but the truth is more along the lines of losing my voice.  I have been busy taking pictures, keeping out of trouble at work ;), and getting some things done around the house.  It has just been hard to motivate myself to return to this page as an outlet.  I will try to do better going forward…

I finally moved away from my trusty point & shoot camera and purchased a DSLR.  I spent a long time researching which camera to purchase, changed my mind more than once and settled on the Nikon D5100.  I jumped in with both feet!  I opted not to get the standard 18-55mm kit lens and purchased a Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.0 macro lens as well as the Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 lens.  I have been having a blast with all these new toys.

In late May I had a business trip to southern Georgia and added on a few days in Orlando to visit Disney World.  I had 4 days to explore with my new setup and had such a great time.  This was my first solo trip to WDW and although at times I missed having someone to share events with I loved being able to stop for pictures as soon as something caught my eye.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Meerkat along Pangani Forest trail in Animal Kingdom

Topiary display at Epcot’s entrance

Stormtrooper guards at the entrance to Hollywood Studios

A different view of the castle from the rose garden

I’ve also been trying to get out more around where I live to explore and learn more about the camera/lenses. This has been a little slower for me but I made good use of this over the weekend.  I was able to get up and out early both days.  On Saturday I walked of the Rayhill Memorial Trail in New Hartford, NY and came away with this early morning picture of the swamp.

Morning in the Swamp

On Sunday my plans were interrupted for 30 minutes when I had to stop into work but I ended up making the best of it by walking along the NY State Barge Canal between Oriskany and Whitesboro, NY.  I wish I had put on my longer lens because the amount of animals out that early was surprising.  I did manage to snag a few great pictures of the canal.

Morning on the Canal

The Old Fishin’ Hole

I won’t make any promises but the goal I set for myself is to be more active on this blog and share this great new hobby (obsession) of photography.

Monochrome

Posted by Mike on

I have discovered a new interest.  I beginning to appreciate the beauty of a monochrome (black & white) image.  When I started this photographic journey I only saw pictures as color.  Sometimes the more colorful the better the picture (or so the way the thoughts in my head formed).  I’m just starting to understand the power of a well created B&W image.  I know I have more to learn about this style of photography but I am excited learn and experiment.  Here are a few of my favorites so far…

Grass Poker

Posted by Mike on

I found inspiration!  I put my 365 project on hold earlier this week.  I felt I was not using it as it was intended to be used.  I’m still reading through my Christmas present book and finding it has been getting my mind in a better photographic mode.  Once I finish The book I know I’ll be able to restart my project with better focus.

In the interim I have found a Google+ photo theme that has my exploring with my camera with purpose and working at employing some of what I am learning in my book.  There is a grass poker hash tag curated by Jules Hunter and Martin OBER which has been a lot of fun.  I enjoy the pictures people have been posting to the theme and I find it fits a style of photography I like create.  I think it helps that there is great interaction from the curators and other players.

Here are a few of my early hands in the game…

Day 91

Posted by Mike on

Working from home today afforded me some extra time at the end of my day.  I didn’t have the drive home eating into my fading sunlight, although by the time I went outside the sporadic sun was behind a sky full of clouds.  I hadn’t planned any great adventure so I decided to go for another walk through the fields across the road from me.  There usually is something of interest to be found.

I realize it is only the top of goldenrod but today it was out shining the sun.  I have numerous pictures with the hazy sun in different positions in relation to my subject but I liked this one the best.  With the sun only providing weak ambient light I didn’t have to worry about hard shadows on the flower of the goldenrod and allowed me to still show the detail in the flower.

Better or Worse?

Posted by Mike on

A couple of days ago I posted a picture of some ice in the creek.  At the time I really liked the picture and used it as my 365 project picture for the day.  This picture was another of my attempts at HDR processing using the Photomatix software.  I basically let the software do its thing and added a few small tweaks in Elements when it was done.

After staring at this picture for a day or two I feel that I went too far with the processing and ruined the actual look of the ice.  I checked out a few online guides/tutorials to basic HDR processing and didn’t see where I might have gone wrong on that end other than a tendency for the HDR software to produce grey looking whites.  Which is basically what I felt happened to this picture.  I found where most HDR processing brings the finished picture into Photoshop or Elements to ‘correct’ the problem areas.  Some of those problems being the grey whites, the addition of noise, etc.

I couldn’t help trying to improve my original picture so I opened Elements, brought the first picture back in as well as the 0 EV exposure picture.  I added the 0 EV picture as another layer in the original HDR picture.  I set the blending to Hard Light and the Opacity to 75%.  I think this dramatically changed the picture and for me brought it back to what I saw in the creek the day I took the picture.  This picture is the non-cropped version.

I would appreciate any constructive criticism on how to better process the picture.  I realize a lot of the choices we make as we process are to achieve a picture that matches either our memory of the scene or a vision we had when we captured the picture.  Still, any tips for processing multiple exposures would be appreciated.  Thanks.

Day 90

Posted by Mike on

Even though it is a lesson I am sure I will forget again it was important for me to suffer through it.  On Wednesday I was playing with the camera in the creek down the road from my house.  The last pictures I took where a three exposure bracket but I never changed the settings prior to putting the camera away.

Move forward one day and I spot a flock of turkeys coming through a field on their way to cross the road (insert joke here).  I perform a quick u-turn in the road so I can grab a few pictures.  In the excitement to capture them I just turned on the camera, pointed it at the turkeys and clicked the shutter.  At the same time they made their dash and then short flight across the road.  That is when I realized the camera took three pictures, two of which where incorrectly exposed.  The turkeys were running so all three pictures had them in different stages across the field.  They were also too far away in the shadows of the woods to get any more pictures.  Lesson learned!

I was able to salvage one of the pictures.  The truly disappointing aspect of this lesson is I was unable to take any other pictures yesterday and when I spotted the turkeys I thought my day was saved.  Not a bad picture, but I would have loved to have clicked off a few more as the took flight and flew over the road.  Next time I should be better prepared.

Day 89

Posted by Mike on

Today was another nice day but a little lacking in sun.  The clouds would not give up any of the sky.  I was going to have to spend some time tonight working on real work stuff so I cut out of work about thirty minutes early.  In the long run work wins because I generally lose track of time when working from home.

My plan was to head back down to the creek for more ice and water pictures before heading to the gym.  I remembered to take my little ten inch bendable tripod with me because I was thinking with the overcast sky I was going to get shutter speeds below my ability to hold the camera steady.  I also thought that with the white ice/snow against the darker stream bed I might need to use multiple exposures to achieve what I wanted.

I have about ten to fifteen different views to process but the one I really liked was of a huge ice sheet against shallow water with visible rocks.  I had the advantage of being able to setup about 4 feet above the ice on a large boulder.  I am really happy with the picture I created.

I captured a three bracket set at -1/0/+1 EV which luckily for me my camera can do by itself.  I brought the three images into Photomatix and used the Enhancer – Painterly option.  I left the sliders as set by this options but brought the final image into PS Elements to tweak slightly.  I adjusted the levels a little and added a high pass filter layer for just the ice.  I used the soft light blending mode for the filter layer.

The resulting image is a little more ‘enhanced’ than I typically work toward but I think it works by highlighting the structure within the ice.  The painterly option for the enhancer mode in Photomatix helped bring the stones on the creek bed into view and I think they contrast with the ice nicely.

Time to go see if I can create anything else with the other pictures I captured today…

Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions or critiques.  Thanks.

Day 88

Posted by Mike on

Once again I end with a picture I did not start out with for my project picture.  There was a beautiful sunset again tonight and I was over in town just before it hit the horizon.  I intended to get another picture of the Rome Cable tower with the clouds and setting sun behind it.  I had captured a similar view early in my journey with photography and thought I could improve on it with my new knowledge.  I guess I have more knowledge to gain.

I just couldn’t get the pictures to look the way I wanted.  I was having a problem with noise due to the JPEG file format output by the camera.  I worked at it far longer than I probably should have but I was determined to get a better picture.  Eventually I turned to another picture to step away from my problem.

I had a picture I initially considered a throw away.  I snapped it while waiting for the sun to move into position.  I had no plans to process it but once I uploaded all the pictures to my computer there was a simplicity to it that I liked.  The picture was basically monochrome to start which made my processing choice fairly easy.

It was just a stack of truck tires behind a parked truck but I really liked the detail in each tire.  There was a lot of texture in all the elements of the picture and it was easy to make the whole scene ‘pop’.  I’m beginning to appreciate the possibilities of monochrome pictures.  I have been on a recent run of B&W processing but the images are turning out pretty good.