Christmas Card Finalist

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The previous post had the four runners up, but now I present the winner. The photograph we ultimately chose for our Christmas card won because it gave a very "...nothing was stirring, not even a mouse" kind of vibe. Happy Holidays!

Family Christmas Card shoot

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This year my wife found some example pictures on Pinterest that she liked involving a baby surrounded by a strand of Christmas lights and she wanted pictures of our kid like that. My first couple of test shots were fairly successful but the biggest problem was there was nothing behind the kid other than a blank wall. We decided to go ahead and decorate the Christmas tree to give the picture some depth. In all the shots, the tree is setup about 10 feet behind our subject which was a good distance for light bokeh. I'm about twelve feet in front of my son and the lights laying on a blanket. I am using my 85mm prime with the aperture at 1.8f. The ISO is 350 and the shutter speed varied between 1/50 to 1/80 of second. I didn't use a tripod because my vantage point was lower than my tripod could go and it was helpful to be able to auto-focus on the fly. Thankfully the light from the strand was bright enough for my camera to focus. We picked out 6 photos as our finalists for our family Christmas card and these 5 in this post are the runners up. I'll be posting the final image closer to Christmas.

Shadows and Lights

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While walking my dog one dark, foggy, early morning at my in-law's neighborhood, we walked past some trees that blocked the light of a street lamp. The fog really made the light rays stand out among the shadows. This photo moment snapped me out of my morning haze and I rushed back to the house to get my camera and tripod.

These pictures make me feel like Gandolf the White is about to rejoin the fellowship. "I come back to you now at the turn of the tide. . ."

This first picture is shot with a 35mm focal length, 6 sec Exposure time, aperture f1.8 and an ISO of 200.

This next picture is an HDR photography I made with 3 images I shot with the bracketing feature of my camera at 2 stops below and under the correctly metered photo. It combines exposures of 3 sec, 0.77 sec, and 13 sec. Compared to the picture above, the fog is less hazy and you see more detail of the leaves on the ground.

The next two are of another HDR photo I took but the difference is these have more of the long shadows of the trees cast on the ground. Exposure times are the same as above. The black and white version is my favorite.

Busy Month of October

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Lots of photography related events in the month of October!

First, I took an after hours digital photography class at Auburn University through their Continuing Education program. Not a bad way to spend $70. Basically it condensed everything I've taught myself through trial and error and reading on the internet over the past 2 years into 5 weekly, 2 hour sessions. Although I was pretty familiar with the concepts of aperture and exposure already, the class did fill in many gaps.

The instructor was knowledgeable but definitely wasn't a "teacher." His Powerpoint bullet points were a couple paragraphs long each, making it hard to follow since he wasn't really reading along. It was like reading on a crowded bus with someone talking in your ear about something else.

My last gripe of the class is that many just pulled their cameras out of the box recently and it was painfully clear that many of the technical aspects of the class were flying over their heads. I'm not complaining about the classmates, but rather that the instructor didn't tailor the class for those folks expecting a "basic digital photography" class (coincidentally that is the name of the class)

Overall, I give the class a "B-" It served my purposes and gave me tips on being a better photographer. I am taking points away for the way the class was structured and the "stream of consciousness" manner in which it was presented. The main purpose of the class was to make us better photographers with Manual mode, so that mission was accomplished.

Second news is I sold my 18-55mm kit lens and purchased a new lens for my camera. It is a Nikon Prime 85mm 1.8g. It is gradually becoming my favorite lens for many reasons:

1. Portrait shots are beautiful! The shallow depth of field on this lens is fantastic.

2. The size of the lens with the hood makes me feel like a confident man in a community shower. I'm very proud to let it hang out there for all to see. In my mind's eye, everyone else is keeping their backs to me to hide their kit lenses in embarrassment. But seriously, its a good looking lens and although its the 1.8g and not the professional 1.4, to the normal person's eye it looks impressive and it really has great DoF and is sharp in low light. Below are some photos that came out really well as far as composition is concerned. My favorite below is of the two children on the hill. The line of barriers creates a leading line into the scene. I admit I got lucky because I definitely wasn't concentrating on background composition at the time.

One subject that was discussed often during my photography class was my instructor's new found love of HDR photography. Some of the images he displayed of his own work were impressive but many lost a bit of the natural realistic feel and definitely felt very post production heavy. If you're new to HDR, it is basically taking the same photograph in a series of exposures and merging them together. You usually start off with one photo metered correctly and then you take 2 or 3 photos a couple of steps over and under exposed. When merging very bright and very dark exposures together, you gain the best parts of the highlights and shadows. Below are my first attempts at HDR photography. My personal taste is to keep the scene as natural as possible so you many not see much to oooh and ahhh about. 

For examples of what HDR can look like, check out this Flickr group for good examples.

Next Month I should have some shots of the National Peanut Festival in Dothan, AL. I'll be the Chinese guy with big camera and tripod. (I'm a self loathing stereotype)

My First Photobook Project

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I used Shutterfly's Photo Book web app and I'm very pleased with the result. Its very satisfying being able to lay out your own photos, whether it be random landscape or portrait, and arrange them like I'm editing a magazine. I love that 100% of all these photos came from my camera. And other than the pictures that I'm in, I took the shots with my own eye. I cannot wait to receive my hard bound edition!

Click here to view this photo book larger

You'll love Shutterfly's award-winning photo books. Try it today.

Fireworks at Disney World

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I had hoped to have experimented with fireworks already during the Fourth of July before going to Disney World but circumstances had me change my plans. Now I would have to learn under fire at the main event.

Exposure: 3 sec  Aperture: f/8  ISO: 100  Focal Length: 62mm 

From my balcony at the Bay Lake Towers at Disney's Contemporary Resort, I setup my tripod, zoomed in with my 55-200mm lens, carefully set the manual focus. I also had a remote for my camera and set the exposure time to be 3 seconds. I read some tips to have your aperture between f8-f16 so I experimented with that some. I tried to get both Cinderella's castle and Space Mountain in the shot. At this point I had no idea where the fireworks would actually be located. I just thought that this would provide a nice horizon and a well composed base for the fireworks above. (See picture on the right, click to enlarge). 

Exposure: 3 sec  Aperture: f/10  ISO: 100  Focal Length: 62mm

The reality of the situation is that the big fireworks would actually be shot off to the upper right side of Space Mountain (pictured left.) In a panic I re-adjusted everything. I tried zooming out some more but I was afraid the castle would be too small. I considered zooming just to the castle but the big impressive fireworks are over Space Mountain. Its really pick your poison when shooting from this angle because I believe they design the show to be watched from in front of the castle with the large fireworks directly behind. We're watching from the east side.

The problem I had at this angle was if I zoom out or use a wide angle lens, I would have a lot of dead air above the castle or Space Mountain. If I zoom in, I would have to pick one set of fireworks over the other. I would rather just pick one angle instead of alternating between the two and having to re-focus, etc. Here are my favorite two shots from the first night of shooting. (click on the photo to enlarge)

Exposure: 3 sec  Aperture: f/10  ISO: 100  Focal Length: 62mm

Exposure: 3 sec  Aperture: f/10  ISO: 100  Focal Length: 55mm

The second night of shooting from my balcony (we're going to skip over my "No tripod at Epcot's Illuminations" fiasco) I tried a wider angle and longer exposure. I thought about using 10 to 15 seconds for exposure but changed my mind. I thought that it was be just a jumble of crap in the photo. I settled on 6 and 8 second exposures. I also tried, for the first time, a neutral density filter the second night to maybe help with a longer exposure and still keep it relatively dark. The results were exactly as I feared with a wide angle, lots of dead space. Here are some of the better ones from that second night.

Exposure: 8 sec  Aperture: f/13  ISO: 100  Focal Length: 38mm

Exposure: 8 Sec  Aperture: f/13  ISO: 100  Focal Length: 38mm

Exposure: 8 Sec  Aperture: f/13  ISO: 100  Focal Length: 38mm

(And here's a shot of the disaster at Epcot with no tripod. Enlarge if you dare)

First Attempt Shooting Water

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In the quest to hone my skills, I took my camera out to the town square in LaGrange, GA to take pictures of the fountain. It was an afternoon of trial and error. If I learned to hunt like I learn to be a photographer, I'd have used many rounds of bullets today.

Things I've learned:

1. When it comes to exposure time, there's a huge difference between a 1/25 of a second to 1/250 of a second. Some mathematicians would say its, like, 10x the difference. The obvious lesson here is that the faster the shutter, the more your picture will look frozen in time. To achieve the smooth stream look, you've got to slow it down just a bit.

2. When your shutter is open longer and letting in more light, you have to reign in that light and funnel it through a smaller aperture (which in opposite camera world means a higher F-number.) Otherwise, your pictures will be as white as snow, which I learned through my first 5 or 20 pictures.

I achieved my goal of getting that smooth water stream look. What I need now is to really narrow down what exposure and F number works best to get more color in my shots. My shots still seamed a bit light and white washed. Perhaps I need a filter of some kind, but that almost feels like cheating. Below are some decent shots with both 'black and white' and 'technicolor'. At the very bottom is an example of fast shutter speed just to show the difference

   

 

 

Exposure: 1/25 sec Aperture: f/18 Focal Length: 35mm ISO Speed: 200

The two pictures below show the difference in shutter speed. Notice the faster shutter on the left seemed to capture a clearer, choppier stream than the picture on the right with the slower exposure time.

Left: Exposure: 1/100 sec Aperture: f/22 Focal Length: 35mm ISO Speed: 200

Right: Exposure: 1/10 sec Aperture: f/22 Focal Length: 35mm ISO Speed: 200

HD Baby

Pin It Now! The 60 days my son stayed in the NICU at ST. Vincent's hospital in Birmingham, AL gave me ample time to learn how to use the HD recorder function of my camera. The entire video was shot with my 35 prime lens. The thing about this camera is that it doesn't autofocus while it is recording. It all has to be manual unless you set it up before you hit record.


Shot with my Nikon D5000 in HD Video mode. 35mm prime lens

Venison Gyro

Pin It Now! My father-in-law had given me a deer hindquarter a few months back and I thought it would be fun to marinate it in olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, herbs and then roast it on my rotisserie. I used the meat to make gyros with a bit of homemade tzatziki sauce and naan bread. Good eats!

I read when taking pictures of food, its better to use natural light. I staged this on a chair close to the window and just far enough away from the wall to get a nice blur. It made a good back drop for the sandwich.

Exposure time: 1/80 sec Aperture: f 4.8 Focal Length 125 mm ISO Speed: 1600

Grilled Pizza!

Pin It Now! Food photography is fun. I think I staged this well, but the lighting is a bit off because the sun is going down. The pizza is as delicious as it looks.

Exposure time: 1/60 sec Aperture: f/8 Focal Length: 35mm ISO Speed: 400

Medical Mama Drama

Pin It Now! These photos were from when my son was born. The first being a shot of the doctors hard at work saving my wife and my son's lives. A very dramatic shot while they're in the middle of the operation. The second picture was taken soon after my boy arrived in the NICU. He was so little, the heart monitor was placed on his foot. You can see the light right shining through him. I included the sticker in the shot to give it a size comparison. His foot is no bigger than my thumb.

Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125) Aperture: f/5.6 Focal Length: 38 mm ISO Speed: 400 Flash Used: No

Exposure: 0.013 sec (1/80) Aperture: f/5.6 Focal Length: 200mm ISO Speed: 1600 Flash Used: No

Playing with the manual focus

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These pictures were taken back when I first got my Nikon and I got to practice staging a shot and working with the manual focus.

Exposure: 1 sec (1/1) Aperture: f/5.6 Focal Length: 38mm ISO Speed: 200 Flash Used: No

Exposure: 0.625 sec (1/2) Aperture: f/5.6 Focal Length: 38mm ISO Speed: 200 Flash Used: No

My Gracie

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This picture taught me to look for more than placing the subject in a good position, but also consider items in the background providing depth of field. As pretty as my dog is, what I love about the picture is the stuffed animal sitting by the T.V.

Exposure: 0.077 sec (1/13) Aperture: f/5.6 Focal Length: 55mm ISO Speed: 1600 Flash Used: No

Best of Christmas 2010

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My son was being the perfect model on his first Christmas. Not having the motor skills to run away helps. I'm using a fixed 35mm lens with a pretty high aperture. (f 1.8). The sparkling lights on the tree and the reflection off the ornament really blur well in the background.

Exposure: 0.013 sec (1/80) Aperture: f/1.8 Focal Length: 35mm ISO Speed: 2500 Exposure Flash Used: No

Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60) Aperture: f/1.8 Focal Length: 35mm ISO Speed: 1600 Flash Used: No