Yet Another Car Show.....

 My love affair with cars is well documented, I like classic old cars with details that are there just for decoration. Classic cars. Our local Rotary Club, sponsored a charity car show at a local collectors ranch last weekend. This was a treat, I never that this local business owner also collected cars. For my donation I got to see the cars that were entered and two HUGE barns of cars that the host owned as well. Really fun time. A lot of cars were inside and thus harder to photograph, but really fun to look at. I went a little different direction than is my usual wont, I took my full bag but only ended up using the Sigma 17-70 (a lot) Pentax DFA 100mm (quite a bit) and my Sigma 10-20 just once, but not a keeper shot. I really think that a kit of the DA 15 and DA 21, coupled with the DFA 100 would be a perfect group for this type of shooting.

1941 Cadillac... unusually enough in Brown. I liked it, really liked it.

 Really liked the hood ornament. Just something cool about a naked angel in chrome......

Nicely done up '57 Chevy. Candy Apple Red works for that car.... really works.

I voted for this car as best of show. Just a beautiful car, second owner, insanely enough NOT RESTORED!!!! It is simply well maintained. Just awesome!

 This Ford was next door, not as sure about the hood ornament that is also functional. I think I prefer them non-functional and purely decorative. This is the kind of shot that the Pentax DFA 100mm was made for. Stopped down to f4.5 it has essentially no CA or PF, and really nice rendering of the out of focus areas.

 Ahhh...... Bliss in Olive Green. Just yummy! Chrysler Town and Country.

Another naked lady on a Cadillac, my Sigma 17-70 did pretty good with this especially considering the poor light over in the corner.

Pretty cool old Chrysler Airflow, never laid eyes on one before. Nice car, really nice.

Miscellaney and general stuff......

Time to post some stuff to get caught up and clear my "done" box. I have been having fun just shooting what I see in daily life, with whatever lens is available. So this is just a catch-all post really.

First come Sugar cookies. Shot with my DFA 100mm Macro with my K200d mounted on my tripod using ambient light. Some exposures were several seconds in length, but with a tripod... who cares?

The biggest struggle I have with my macro lens is the depth of field as I get closer. I worked with much smaller apertures than I am used to to get a deeper DOF. Notice the difference between the two shots? The first is at f5.6 the second at f11.

Outdoors I can handhold the 100mm quite easily even when stopped down. This however was at f4.5, I managed to get the parts of the plant in focus that I wanted to with that aperture though. I have a self title in my mind of "Nature Finds a Way", amazing how on a busy light rail platform something can grow and thrive... even a weed!

At the library downtown I went wider to 24mm, which still wasn't wide enough, so I turned it sideways and shot 8 frames that I stitched together. I can do better but I like the building and the shot nonetheless!

Inside, I could not help but take this shot. I am trying to get more bold at shooting in public, I like to melt into the background and not be noticed. That is hard when shooting people. Figured this guy was asleep so I could do it unnoticed.

Looking up in the atrium was the staircase I have been wanting to shoot for a long time. Slowly finding the angles. I think this has potential, just need to find the best time to go after it.

The people lounging under this tree interested me, especially seeing as this is in front of the City-County building downtown. Surprised they let them stay there for any length of time. Thought the grocery cart was a nice touch.

In spite of how this looks, these guys were just goofing around, The DFA 100 worked well for this, I could have been even further away and still got the shot and maybe not have been noticed. This may work well as a street shooter with the hood reversed so it is compact...er.

Hope you enjoyed a journey through to days of my week. Man, don't think I could do a 365 project, would get way way behind trying to get something semi decent every day.....

State Fair WINNER.... well in my category, but I got a Blue Ribbon!

Alrighty, so... I had a wonderful surprise last night, I went to the Utah State Fair last night to see how my photo did in the photo contest. Lo and behold, it won first place in the Advanced Amateur class, Architectural category. I was really chuffed and.... well.... made a lot of noise, did a few high fives with my buddy Dave who was there for moral support, just in case etc... 

Since then I have spread the good word in several places and received lots of compliments and a few questions as to how I did it. Well here goes.

I chose a cloudy morning in February, with clouds that were moving quickly. (It helps to have that as I learned a year ago when I did my first version of this shot.) I set up my camera with my Sigma 10-20 ultra-wideangle lens on an L-Bracket in portrait orientation. I set the tripod IN the pond and almost in the waterfalls, basically reaching as far as I dared without falling into the water. Had to be careful the side was covered in ice. I centered and lined up the camera as best I possibly could, locking the ballhead in place. I then determined how far I wanted to rotate the head to compose the final shot. I determined that 5 shots would give me the best coverage. So I then figured the amount of rotation for each shot from center and commenced to shoot 3 bracketed exposures at each position. Once that was complete I carefully got both me and the camera/tripod back onto solid ground and left.

Once I was back at the computer I blended each bracketed trio in Photomatix obtaining the following shots.

At that point it was time to stitch those 5 shots into a panorama, I used plain old Photoshop Elements 7 for that. Once that was done I began to work on exposure, which included a layer that was just sky which allowed me to adjust the foreground and background separately. To make that look good I had to cut the edge around the buildings and horizon by hand. This took 3-4 tries and several hours to make look right. I was then able to produce this: Which I almost wish I had entered in the Panorama category as well.... sigh.....

From the above shot, after merging the layers and some sharpening and brightness/contrast adjustments, I used my B&W conversion program, to give my final product that you see here. Simple right? Not even! This whole process took me hours over several weeks. With a quick set of revisions right before I sent it to get printed. Hope you enjoyed the small glimpse into what I do with photos.

Revisiting old haunts....

Ever since I delivered office supplies to this building as an undergrad peon working in the bookstore, I have loved this staircase, the perspective just works for me. Finally decided to shoot it. Not sure which I like better but the portrait orientation one is the stronger image I think. The leading in of the stairwell from the corner on the bottom left leads the eye into the frame better than the landscape shot. 

A Pleasant Day at Thanksgiving Point Gardens: CAR SHOW!!!

I had never had the opportunity to attend the Concours de Elegance at Thanksgiving point before, but my lovely wife took the opportunity to get me a ticket for my birthday. THANKS BABE!!!

 I had my new Pentax DA 100mm f2.8 WR Macro that had arrived the day before so I took that and my K 24mm f2.8 and K 50mm f1.4 (didn't use) and headed down on a warm summer morning. The light was bright and the sky fairly cloudless so the light was harsh on most of my shots, but it was still a lot of fun to work out a new lens and see some beautiful cars.

This was my first real shot with my DA 100, I love the color rendition.

   

This belongs to a 1930 Packard, it was one of my favorite cars there and another shot further down is my current wallpaper. I love the old fashioned radiator caps and this one had a doozy!

Really liked this shot!

This Pace Arrow was fun as well, K24mm @ f2.8

Another Packard, a little more sporty in style.

Just down the row, there was a 1958 Cadillac... in Green... which really worked for me. the cleaner lines of this vs. the 1959 fins is a tossup, I like them both.

There was no year posted for this Cadillac Seville, it was a beauty though.

I believe this was on a '40's Pontiac with the 100mm @ f4.5

100mm and f2.8 produced a nicely rendered image and blurred background for this shot. Really liking this new lens!

This was my all time favorite hood ornament. Just LOVED IT!

Never knew Ferrari made a blue car, couldn't get a decent shot of the rest of it with the light and the other cars around it, but at least I got the name plate!

Lusted after this car for years, never will be able to own it, seating position looks terrible, but the outside is SEXY!

A little more outlandish shot of an early '80's Porsche, good looking car though!

Beauty of an old Jaguar, loved this car... to look at... probably not a daily driver though.

There was a nice covered walkway around a garden that pleased me aesthetically.

K 24mm @ f8

Ford

A few handheld flowers, getting really close with the macro requires a tripod to hold the camera steady, at 1:1 the slightest shake makes for blur!

all in all a fun day with a new lens and an old friend of a lens, created some memories and got really sweaty. The kind of day I like!