Evening Sunset At Oquirrh Lake

I am excited that I am starting to get sunsets while I am on my way home from work. I have been doing the go in and home in the dark routine for too long. I have been wanting to get more shots of and around this lake close to my home. This sunset wasn't quite as nice as I hoped for, but I was glad to see it for once. This was taken hand held, with my Pentax 28mm, @f5.6.

Warm-Up Shots

This was taken in the morning of Feb 13th, 28mm. this may also become a favorite of mine as well, it matches with the angle of sunrises for a large part of the year, and I can frame out a lot of distracting stuff.

This is a new Temple being built in my area, My long term plan is to take a picture worth printing that is as good as the professional ones that will be taken. Towards that aim I am taking opportunities to take pictures at different times of the day, seasons etc... to learn the best angles and lighting/lens combo. There will be more lights added/turned on as time goes by, this was the first or second night that they left any exterior lights on and I was excited to see how it looked. I didn't have my tripod so I had to up the ISO and hand hold, so the grain/noise is nothing to write home about but I think I like this angle, will need to adjust a little though I did have to clone part of a tree out.

A Rose is a Rose

I have been wanting to try some Macro (Or close up) photography, lacking a macro lens I just decided to get as close as I could and crop a little bit. I liked this one the best of the 25 or so shots I took, for some reason the red ones just didn't look all that good. sigh.....

Anyway this was taken with my k 135mm f2.5 at f4 and 2sec shutter (to allow me time to fire my flash by hand) with hand held/triggered flash. I have cropped a bit from the original. What do you think?

Thought it would be fun to do a Black and White conversion as well.

Provo Temple

I have begun playing with using more advanced processes with my camera. For one I have begun using RAW format and being more picky as to which I keep and deleting the rest. (RAW files are uncompressed and are larger x3-4)

The top photo is the JPEG produced by my Camera. The bottom is the file produced by taking the RAW data, converting to TIFF format, manipulating in Photoshop and then Saving as a JPEG to upload to the internet. To be fair I should have adjusted the JPEG as well, but I wanted to post them and see on my monitor at work which looks better.



Tell me if you think this is overly bright and/or just not as good.

Christmas Lights 2009

I find that I need to do a obligatory picture of the Christmas lights on the front of my house. I chose this night because of the drifted and unplowed snow from a Christmas Day snowstorm. Anybody want to shovel me out? This wa taken with my 28mm and PP included some major curves adjustment and color mixer work to fix the colors from the streetlights and my porch. Maybe next time I will turn off the porch light and let the Christmas Lights do it all. hmmmm...... good idea.

Dawn January 01, 2009

Had to work New Years Day, not all bad though, I decided to bring my camera along, and while not as spectacular as I wanted I got some interesting color.

The first shot is a Processed JPEG from the camera, the second was shot as RAW (Pentax PEF Flavor) and converted to 16bit TIFF than processed and saved as JPEG. Not trying to match either, just processing as best I can and to my own (Weird) taste. Probably went too far with the color on the first one, but still having fun.

Bread... Tasty Bread.....

We had a Christmas Party for our whole family on Christmas Eve, and my sister (The Fantastic Baker) made some bread. She left it on a wooden bread board to cool, and I was suddenly struck by the light on it over in a darker corner of the kitchen. So being the camera geek I am I whipped out my tripod mounted camera and started shooting. The best two shots are here, in reverse order. These were taken with my 50mm f1.4 at either f8 or f11, with natural light.

Nativity and Temple Shots

I have loved sitting by this fountain on warmer days, looking at the temple and drinking in the peace of temple square. I especially love temple square during the Christmas Season. It brings back memories of High School Choir times, singing in the visitors centers and assembly hall. Ah... I love this place.

I was very excited to see this nativity in the middle of the reflecting pool just east of the Temple. It just seemed like such a cool idea. It was hard to photograph due to it's lighter color and the amount of light it received. I think I handled it fairly well.

Backlit Windows on the Assembly Hall

Shooting through the trees created an interesting pattern of lights and darks. I really enjoyed taking these images.

Lights on Temple Square

I have a "Thing" for lights glowing under snow, and the interplay of light and shadow on the snow. It is something that I can stare at endlessly, take pictures of endlessly too.

OK, You wanted the finished tree......

Here ya go!!!

Snowy Sunrise

Lauriann woke me on the morning of Dec 15th to come witness a magnificent sunrise, I missed the best part of it, but I was able to get this lovely image.

Resized to crop off a bunch of crud on my sensor, need to buy some swabs I think.

Building a Christmas Tree

OK so they are in reverse order, sue blogger, they are the ones that put them in reverse order from the way I picked them!

I feel that photography can and should tell a story, well this is a story of getting ready for Christmas.

Again in reverse order. sigh...

The Ghost of Christmas Present

I was playing/practicing low light photography with a master and dumb slave flashes, I did OK, though I need to use a better bounce for my master, can you guess what I did wrong? Yep, I got up and walked away before the exposure was done. Turned out kinda cool though.

Different Post Processing What do you think?

I had realized (With the help of some friends on DPReview.com that my white balance was off (Left it on Tungsten instead of resetting.) I tried to clean this up and make it look more like it did at the start. Comments and Criticism are welcome.

By the Light of the Rising Sun

OK, I decided on impulse to grab my camera on the way out the door last week, I thought I had missed the sunrise because the color was fading as I left home. Well as I crossed near to this Temple I saw that the light was getting better again, so I pulled in and grabbed a few quick shots. I liked this one the most.



My Brother has started playing with some Post Processing technique called HDR (High Dynamic Range) it involves taking several images that are exposed differently to create an image that has detail in both the shadow and the highlight areas. Below are a sampling of the shots I sent. (There are 3 here and I think I sent him 5) and the last is his HDR. Which didn't come out so good. We are still learning, It is kind of a neat shot but "Posterized" a little much.

I think we ended up with not enough dynamic range to work with because I never got the foreground light enough. I dunno....

Over Exposed Sky

Pretty Good exposure of Sky and under exposed Foreground

Under Exposed Everything, except for the highlights of the sky.

The HDR Version

I $aved someCa$h!!!!!

How  you wonder? Well here is the saga:

 

Monday morning I get into my truck, turn the key, nothing happens......... I can get power to the radio, no startum, no clickies, and the key keeps turning, round and round. This tells me my ignition key cylinder is now dead. It has been widgy for awhile and I kinda knew this was coming, but still am NOT excited about it.

 

So, I call some locksmiths. I GAG at the prices $150 to $180 to replace the silly thing. You know, they do have to come to your house (That costs) because if it don't start..... (Yeah we had some giggles about what if's involving driving it somewhere to get it fixed.)

 

Then I get on the internet and search a few auto stores, they have the cylinder for $15-16. OK. Do a few searches, the procedure doesn't look too hard. I'm a doin' this puppy myself. Problem: I don't have the correct type of star head screw drivers to take the housing off. Sigh. I'm sure my Dad does, so we pack the kids up after homework, drive over, taking his ladder back. (I hate to have one thing out and go borrow another thing.) Get what I need. This morning, I take the old module off (With the battery disconnected thank you very much!!!) and spend 45 minutes getting the old cylinder out. Then I can't get the new one in, one part sticks out. So I drop off Laur at her Visiting Teaching Appt. and go to Auto Zone, together two clerks and I figure the thing out, get it back in and I come home. Stopping at the park so patient Emma can play and show me how good of a climber she is. Quite excellent by the way, she kinda scares me sometimes.

 

So  I have the thing back in, turn the key it works right, everything is hunky dory, right? Nope, as I put the old cylinder in the box to save for now, I notice a pin that is supposed to be in the silly thing. Sigh, take it apart install the pin, put it back together. Now I am done.

 

It took me about 2-3 hours of time and chasing, but I changed my own ignition key cylinder. How cool am I?

What do Photographers do when they can't go outside?

Correct! They take pictures of themselves.

I have been wanting to play with the flash from my old Canon Film Camera (Sunpak Auto30) and try to do some self portraiture. I have been fascinated, in the long distant past and recent past, with pictures with strong shadows and contrasts. I am less interested in making Flattering shots than with showing the character of the face and the inner melancholy we face. Or it could just be Seasonal Affective Disorder... whichever you want to choose.

Anyway, here are my starter shots and my processed attempts. All were taken with my 28mm Pentax lens set to f8, and the flash set to minimum for 200iso, covered with a kleenex to soften and hand held, for lack of a more sophisticated set up. I triggered the camera with the remote on bulb setting and released after triggering the flash.

Fooling around

Ran across a link on DPReview of a chap who over flashed himself: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1036&thread=29916692

As you will see if you read it I mentioned that I had the idea long ago of putting my flash in my mouth and firing it with the shutter open. Yes I made sure that my flash was NOT powerful enough to cause damage, no I am not that dumb, close..... but not quite.

Anyway here is what I got:

First Try
Second Try Two flashes

Third Try

Self Portrait

I am proud of my Halloween Lights this year, which really were an excuse to get the Christmas lights up early with a different bulb set. Now I just have to pick a warm sunny day, swap the bulbs and I am good to go!