Moving into December and Christmas Stuff....

At most of the Mormon Temples in Utah they will put up a nativity scene, very simple and plain. The one at my local temple has the statues facing the temple instead of away like many. When I dropped by one morning I thought the clouds would make a nice background. It was quite tough to make the scene look good, the lighting was MUCH brighter than the sky. Needed some serious HDR magic to make it look like I wanted it to.

In a park my hometown there is a large tree that has been heavily lit the last few years. It makes for some interesting photos and is really cool to visit.

This is more like it looks to the naked eye. The mountains were difficult to capture on camera and required a LONG exposure and HDR to blend it.

Panoramas? YES!

Anyone who appreciates cameras in small packages (Like ME!) but with high image quality has tough choices to make. There is a compromise to be made between portability and IQ that recent cell phone camera advances cannot obviate. Now, cameras are getting smaller, and some mirrorless cameras are very very capable and small. Until you put a quality zoom lens in front of it. Then you are stuck with a body that is too small to work well ergonomically with the lens. That (besides money) is why I have stuck with a DSLR. Problem is DSLR's are not really compact, especially with a big lens stuck on the front. Enter good old fashioned non-zooming Prime Lenses. Now before you recoil in horror, let me list some good things.

1) Primes tend to have better Image Quality (i.e. sharpness, resistance to flare, contrast)

2) Primes are smaller than most zooms. Especially zoom lenses that can approach Prime quality.

3) Primes can have a faster/larger aperture, and will typically deliver critically sharp images at wider apertures than zooms.

4) Primes are usually lighter than zooms.

5) You get more exercise "Zooming with your feet"

6) You miss more shots/You have to work harder to get the shot you want.

Did I shock you? Yes #6 is a good thing! Unless you are shooting a paid event where you have to get the shot. Then I use a zoom. But I would rather use a prime.

Some people argue that you miss shots because you cannot go wide enough. I call BS. Both of these shots were taken with a 35mm Lens on an APS-C (or cropped) sensor Pentax K-5. This equates to a slightly longer than "Normal" lens yet I think these look pretty good and I didn't feel particularly limited. Plus the resolution is amazing, I could print these pretty big with no problems at all. Try that with a ultra wide angle zoom that you cropped to the same aspect ratio!

Christmas Eve and Day in Utah!

To start with, let me wish all of my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Some Dude With a Camera... that would be me. I often am.... sparse with my words and I am maybe not the most engaging guy in the world, but I do appreciate those of you who take the time to drop by my blog. I am often amazed at the places that come up on my gadget that tracks who has been here. You come from all over the world and I am gratified to have such a large audience for my photography. Wherever you come from, you are welcome here, welcome to look around and comment, or run away if my photography doesn't meet your taste. Whatever religion or culture you are part of, I respect that, here where I live we just celebrated Christmas, and are approaching the New Year. Whatever tradition you follow, and whatever holidays you celebrate, I hope they are and have been enjoyable for you!!!!

This is a picture of my home in the Christmas Eve snow it was decorated with, I decided to make a postcard of holiday wishes rather than shovel the snow off the walks. The white balance was very tricky with this, the snow reflects all the light, and with the mixed lighting of different streetlights and the neighbors Christmas lights I had to compromise a bit. I think I may have kept too much magenta, but pulling it down when processing the RAW file in ACR gave me a bit too much green. This was taken on a Tripod, of course, with my Sigma 17-70, I like how the aperture blades gave me a nice star effect with stopping down a bit.

Christmas morning I went to try for a shot that I have been wanting to get for awhile. Although I have been wanting to get it with maybe a little more heavy snow that is sticking on the trees and completely covering the cars I still like what I got. This view is one of my favorites of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. I simply can't get enough of it. Temples are special places in the Mormon Church and having one so close to me is awesome and exciting pretty much all the time.

This was taken at 150mm with my Pentax 55-300 lens. Infinity focus at that focal length is not one of the lenses stronger points but it does OK for a consumer zoom. Next time I plan to zoom in more and put the camera in portrait orientation and shoot a panorama. That will allow me to print it larger and have it be sharper. That lens is REALLY strong in the 200-300mm range as you get out to infinity focus. At the shorter Focal Lengths it does better at medium distances.

For you tecchies, this is a mild HDR just for the added contrast I can get from that process. I can get it pretty close from one shot, but I like the punch that HDR gives me.

Just a few minutes later I shot this house that is just down the street. They do the most amazing light displays for Christmas. I just never seemed to have the time and motivation at the same moment to go and photograph the home. Again, processing this in HDR with three bracketed shots helped to make up for the light and give me more drama and saturation without looking gaudy. Really need to give these folks a copy.

Close to the home I grew up in is a park, it has changed a lot over the years, but I love that the city has kept it up. The last three years they have done a really good job of putting up lights on several trees, and on a small bridge over a creek. This year they added a few trees and rebuilt the bridge to be a covered bridge. They did a good job of lighting it too. These required a bit of work to get the WB correct again. Snow with colored lights is just HARD to figure out!

I won't comment on all the photos, you can tell me which ones you think are better. I like them all!

Thanks for dropping by, and have a happy holiday season!