Fading out of existence

A rose among many others in Hermann Park in the museum district of downtown Houston. Houston's winter is no different from Toronto -- one cannot complain about the weather but leaves fall, roses wane, and another year is about to close. Aperture set at f/8 under a blue sky.

Changing camera settings

I will have to stick a note in between the LCD screen and the LCD cover. During the day, I stopped the lens down to f/22 for a couple of shots. I forgot to reset it right after use so at night time, a few important pictures turned out grainy and dark because instinctively I compensated for the lack of light with a higher ISO setting with flash. Initially, I thought it was the room I was in because of its strange architecture, bouncing the light in different directions but no, it was my camera settings! I have to make it a point to reset my settings as soon as I finished taking those special shots.

Houston, we have a problem

This is the sky over the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The JSC is home to the training facility as well as NASA's control center of the space shuttle missions ...

I waited for over an hour for a tour of the astronauts training facility and the rocket parts of Saturn V. By the time I got on the tram it was already 5pm. Perfect timing I thought for a shot of the western sky. I was hoping to see a rocket in front of a fiery sky but by the time we got around to visit Saturn V it was already close to 6pm.

These shots were taken handheld aboard the tram while it was moving. I focused on the brighter part of the sky (but not at the sun) to capture the yellow and also to counter the motion of the tram.

I think a nicer framing would be to take a larger landscape shot to show the yellow horizon below the blue of the sky.

High contrast

I am in Houston today, but here was a shot of the dome of the Capitol building in Austin, TX. The building has 4 or 5 floors.

I like the symmetry of the photo but the high contrast makes it for a really hard shot to take. Should one use spot or matrix metering? Spot metering would probably lead to a very dark ceiling in the lower levels so I left it to figure an average exposure based on matrix metering.

I had my tripod with me so I should have taken the same shot three times and apply HDR technique on the three shots.



As you can see in the following shot, the inside is quite bright. It was just that the dome is a lot brighter.

Underground

On our way to Austin, TX we stopped by the Inner Space Cavern. This cavern was discovered by accident by the Texas Highway Department back in 1963. They were drilling for 6-inch core samples to determine whether the ground would support a highway overpass. Lo and behold, when their drilling bit suddenly dropped 26 feet, they knew they had found something else.

Texas has many caves. This is the first I have visited (and first cave ever). I would recommend anyone to take a tour. The tour was great. I only wished they had given us more time to take pictures and absorb the wonder of natural earth development of the underground world. I also wished they allowed for tripods -- all the photos I took were on a monopod or handheld with a flash. Flash is ok if you had time to set it up properly. The underground world is not very flat and not small.

Bounced light vs diffused light

For a few weeks, I started playing with the diffuser dome (shown on the left) on my SB-800 speedlight. My thinking was to diffuse and soften the light of the light so my subjects do not turn into a bright reflective object. I got a little carried away with the idea so much so I started using it almost every single time I shoot with flash. Bad idea.

In a room with a ceiling, bounce light is much better. You should really use the diffuser dome only if bounce light is not possible, e.g. extremely high ceilings or coloured ceilings (to which you can compensate with a filter gel).

So here I am in Frisco, TX in my younger brother's house. They have a dog, Winnie. She is a lot of fun, as my niece is having a ball with Winnie over the last few days.

I took a few shots of Winnie with and without the diffuser dome. With the diffuser dome, I would sometimes try to bounce the already softened light off the wall. The results are not impressive, but predictable. Very dark. Very different results with and without the dome.

In the second picture of Winnie this post, I pointed the flash with the diffuser demo directly at her. The light is soft but the photo would look much better without the shadow behind the dog.

The third photo was in a room with relatively high ceiling. The windows face west so the morning sun does not help much to brighten the room so a flash was required. Mind you that Winnie can never be kept still so you take whatever shot you can while in action.

The last shot was taken in a family room. The ceiling is of normal height.

For the third and fourth photos, I directed the undiffused flash straight up the ceiling. The bounced light adds to the ambient light. The result is a softer light casted and the photo is still sharp. I took many other pictures of the family and the house with the bounce light. Much better results there too.

Happy Holidays, from Frisco, TX.

From Frisco, TX

My first day in Frisco, TX, and I was greeted with a full moon. I could not resist. If I do not take it tonight, it will be a long while before I get another chance back in Toronto. It was worth the pain of carrying a heavy tripod along with my Tokina 80-400mm lens around, even if it's 2000 km from home.

This is thus far the sharpest picture of the moon I have taken. This shot was taken at 400mm with auto-aperture mode at f/5.6, center-focused and spot metered. The moon was so bright the shutter speed was auto adjusted to 1/500 sec. I could have taken the shot hand-held.

Why you should ...

I lug my camera around almost everywhere I go. It sounds nutty but you really do not know when that opportunity comes around knocking on your door. Today was the last day before the university closes for the holidays break. Guess what, there was a report of a woodpecker in the woods on campus. I happened to have brought my camera in for a potluck we had at the office, so out it went with me to hunt down the woodpecker. The hunt was brisk and quick -- you can hear the little fellow pecking at some tree. I followed the beacon and found the woodpecker on the edge of the woods. Perfect. I was 15m from it however. A few shots told me I had to get closer. Without raising any alarm, I stepped into the ditch, took a few more shots, then climbed the bank of snow onto the forest floor. Then I was a mere 4 metres from it, totally oblivious to my presence. Excellent. A few more snapshots.

I had my walk-around 18-200mm lens. I sure wished I had my 80-400mm lens with me, but lugging that around is hard on your body.

Carry your camera around wherever you go. It was all worth it.

Old Tree

I had to take a picture of this old tree. It is very tall as you can see from this photo, at least 50m tall I would say. Apparently, either part of this tree or the tree itself has been marked to be cut down so I decided to keep it the history book with this front shot of it. I would have liked to see this old green giant alone without the house in the background.

I will like to reshoot this photo 30 minutes before dusk on a clear day. I think the black bark and branches will stand out starkedly from the orange tinge of the sky.

Composition

I visited Erindale Park before heading in to work yesterday. The west side of the short road into the park is lined with pine trees and as it was after a snow storm, the branches were covered in snow. I hit the brakes and took a couple of snapshots. I had a bit of a hesitation when taking the pictures though, not feeling quite right how to compose the picture. Against the advice of an article I have read (not to take pictures of things that do not look interesting), I took the shots anyway and cropped the picture at home. These photos look a bit flat. If anything, these photos show how much snow we got over the weekend. :)

Portrait

I have been rather busy over the last couple of weeks. I did not get much of a chance to take my camera out of its bag but this weekend, my time freed up. It might have been a nice hike outside today with the snow storm in full force but I am not sure what I could capture out there then. Instead I thought I would try my 50mm f/1.8 lens on my baby niece. She was sitting on the dining table in our family dining room. The shades of our sliding doors were pulled open, so I took the opportunity to shoot without flash at f/1.8. I tried to focus on her eyes before taking the shot but it feels a little soft. I should have taken the same shots with my 18-200mm lens for a comparison. Another time.


For these shots, I placed my camera on a tripod because I am sure my hand shake will introduce a lot of blur in the image.

Cavalcade of Lights (cont'd)

I did not shoot this photo. I just saw it on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/makoto2007/2081825689/in/photostream/)

The long exposure came out quite nice when there is no wind.

Cavalcade of Lights Toronto

Downtown Toronto is a good place to take pictures at night, there are a lot of buildings with very good light like the one in the first picture, just besides the city hall.

The city hall has been decorated with lights as well and it is beautiful.

Last night I decided to see the fireworks (last minute decision because of the weather) and it was worth it, it was a nice show. I thought taking pictures of fireworks was easy, but it was complicated. This picture is not bad, but I am not very happy with this picture. I was using AP (aperture priority), I think I should had used SP (speed priority) instead.

First portrait

I do not have a human subject yet, except for my baby niece but she moves around too much. I know there are some techniques to take pictures of babies, but I have a bobble head of Cal Ripken that Karen T. gave me years ago. I thought he would be an excellent subject as he remains motionless throughout my shooting.

I took a half-body shot of the booble head and then cropped the image to show only the head which is where most of the attention is drawn to in a portrait photo.

I think I have found an ok way dealing with the built-in flash and the SB-800 I have. Shooting with the SB-800 speedlight mounted on the hotshoe is not the best way to shoot portrait. The light would always come from one angle and I would not be able to accentuate certain facial features if I wanted to without additional speedlights. Shooting without flash is fine as long as there is some sunlight. In fair ambient light, the photo can look a bit flat.

Here I have taken four shots of roughly the same pose -- I did not put my camera on a tripod so the poses are not exactly the same.

The first shot is without flash. In my room, I have two energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs, given off light the equivalent of one 60 watts incandescent light bulb. I think the Cal's face looks very flat. Not much features can be discerned. The photo is soft as well even with my f/1.8 lens because his head keeps on bobbing back and forth -- once it starts, it takes a long time to stabilize -- and I did not want to wait.

The second shot was with the SB-800 speedlight mounted on the hot shoe. The speedlight has a diffuser dome on and its power output reduced to 1/128 so as not to wash out the subject -- the camera was merely 40cm away from the bobble head. The result was not too bad. There is dark shadow behind his nose but apart from that, I like the lifting of facial features. His face looks a bit flat still though.

In the third photo, I took the speedlight off the camera and placed it about 30cm to the front right of the bobble head (i.e. front left of the camera). This shot is a little darker than the second shot because of the angle of light but I light that sparkle in his eyes. In portrait photography, the eyes have to be sharp but if there is that sparkle in it, it really draws your attention to the eyes even more -- compare these eyes vs those in the second shot.

A quick note about the off-camera flash: as I do not have a sync cable for my speedlight, for the third setup, I had to turn on the built-in flash but blocked it with my hand. The speedlight was set up as a remote flash and was triggered by the small amount of (UV) light that escapes from my hand, thus, I was able to remotely control the speedlight this way.

In the fourth shot, the exact same arrangement was made with the speedlight to the front right of the subject. However, instead of blocking the built-in flash, I placed a tissue paper in front of it to diffuse the light -- even when set at 1/128, the built-in flash would overpower the SB-800 at the distance and setting I had programmed the SB-800 for.

I do not know what you think but I prefer the fourth portrait over the others. There is that sparkle in the eyes and the shadows are not too dark so we get good facial definitions. Maybe I could have used a thinner issue paper to let me light from the built-in flash through but this shot is not too bad.

I want to try a fifth shot with some backlight but I need another speedlight for that. I think I will borrow my older brother's SB-600. It will work nicely as a remote flash. Yet another shot would be with an umbrella to cast a really nice soft light all over the bobble head. Well, I do not have these tools yet.

DOF in macro

DOF is crazy in my macro setup at f/1.8! This is normal handwriting. Size is equivalent to 24pt or so.


This is the adjustment screw on my watch. The diameter is about 3mm or 4mm. I used f/5.6 and turned on the speedlight set at 1/32 for this shot.



This small mosquito is only 1.5-2mm long. Its body measures only 1/4th of my horizontal field of view so I cropped the image just so it fills the frame. The mosquito broke its left wing and was crawling on my bed. That gave me a good opportunity to do another macro shot. Even at f/5.6, the DOF is pretty short as you can see.

Macro tests, redone

I had to redo the test, scientifically, so we can see the amount of light reduction as we place more and more gears in between the camera body and the lens. So this time, except for changing the gears and minimum distance to the subject, I kept everything constant and took the pictures in the same order that I did the first time around.



These results make more sense. Adding either the 2x converter or the extension tube would reduce the amount of light by the equivalent of 2 f-stops. The two together would take it down by about 4 f-stops.

The big pictures are at http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~advu/test-macro-2

Macro tests

This morning, I decided to see how micro I can get with the gears I have bought over the last couple of months. Well, I took out my Vivitar 70-210mm from the 70's with a 2x Magnicon converter. The Vivitar lens has 'macro' capability but it looks like the definition of macro changes over time. At best, this lens can do maybe 1:4 life size reproduction. I can do the same with my Nikkor 18-200mm lens. Not bad but not really macro.

Since I bought the Nikkor 50mm with an extension tube, I decided to play with the combination of the 2x converter, the extension tube, and the 50mm lens.

I took pictures of the LCD panel of my notebook. The purpose of the test is just to see how big I can get a subject onto the CCD sensor.

Here are the results:



The pictures were taken at the closest distance possible without going out of focus. I screwed up the test by subconsciously changing the shutter speed between the first, second, and third shot because of the drop in light level. The first was shot at 1/160 sec. The second at 1/100 sec. The last three shots were taken at 1/40 sec.

Anyways, from an image size point of view, the 2x converter does what it does -- magnifies the image by 2. The extension tube does what it does -- allows you to get much closer to the subject.

Notice how adding the 55mm extension tube behind the 50mm lens (i.e. between the 50mm lens and the camera body) gets me so close to the subject but at the same time cuts out so much light. You lose about 2 f-stops by adding either a 55mm extension tube or a 2x converter on.

Notice also how the order you add the 2x converter and the extension tube makes a huge difference. With the 2x converter in first, followed by the extension tube, then the lens, you can obtain a 2:1 reproduction ratio -- that is better than life size! Excellent. You lose about 4 f-stops though. Ouch. Oddly, if the 2x converter is placed between the extension tube and the lens, the image is much brighter. Now, I gotta think about the physics to explain this, or maybe I made some other subconscious change during the test.

For bigger pictures, visit http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~advu/test-macro

I am now tempted to buy an extension tube with electronic contacts for my Nikkor 18-200mm lens. This is a G lens that has no aperture control ring so you would need a tube that can relay the aperture control signals from the camera to the lens.

Experimenting with darkness

Inspired by one of the Kathleen’s assignments for her camera club, I decided to play with my camera in a complete dark room this morning. Using a small flash light, a laser point, a tripod and a guitar as my subject. The time exposure for the first picture is 1.3s, f5.6 focal length 96 ISO 200. The room is dark and the only light source is my flash light.

For the second picture the exposure time is 30s, f7.1, ISO 200. The flash light is not pointing to the guitar, but it is on, so the room has some light and I am using the laser to create that thunder light effect.

The data for the last two pictures is 30s, f7.1, ISO 200 and I am just using the laser point.

Macro photography

I waited for nearly four weeks for this Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D to arrive. I purchased it over eBay for $91USD. With shipping, it came out to $116USD. Custom duties costed me $18CAD -- what a rip-off.

Anyhow, here is a first attempt at macro photography. I had a hard time taking these two photographs because I kept on hitting parts of the plant and that caused the flower to move incessantly. When you work at this macro level at f/1.8, a millimeter or two can make a huge difference so I closed the aperture down by a few f-stops, to f/4 or f/8 I believe. I forgot to jot down the settings and because I used simple extension tubes, there is no electronic contact between the lens and the camera body. Yes, I used an extension tube because the 50mm is so so for macro. I did however remember having used my speedlight set on manual mode with its power output reduced to 1/64. The speedlight was mounted on the hot shoe with the diffuser dome on to soften and spread more light everywhere.

With the aperture set at f/4 or f/8 and using a speedlight on low power, I was able to light up my subject and leave the noise in the background in the dark.

My extension tube is made up of three sections (9mm, 16mm, 30mm). This first shot was taken with a 55mm extension. The second shot was taken with a 25mm extension. These two photos are not spectacular shots, artistically speaking, but notice how much detail you can see of the stigma and anthers at this level. Sweet, I think.

ADDENDUM

Here I am adding an addendum to the original post. At home, I cut up a kiwi and before eating it I thought I'd frame it up macro-style. The depth-of-field is really really small, maybe 8mm deep?? This shot of the kiwi was set at f/22, the smallest aperture on the 50mm.

Under my kitchen fluorescent lights, I could not see anything through the viewfinder. Total blackness so again taking this shot was just as difficult as taking the two shots above without a tripod.

To compensate for the pinhole aperture, the speedlight output power had to be increased from 1/64 to 1/4.

The kiwi is in my tummy now.

Happy Holidays!

I shot this Christmas tree ornament at a brand new Irish pub in Toronto Monday night. I do not recall the name of the pub but I will post it here when I do. Anyways, Happy Holidays!

Shooting Planes

Last Friday I was close to the second location, Dixie and Derry rd. I was not planning to take pictures of planes, but because I was in the area I decided to give it a try. I got this picture. I was waiting for a big guy to arrive, but no luck. I think we should go there one afternoon and take pictures of different airplanes, specially small ones.

Santa Claus Parade - Mississauga

The Santa Claus Parade in Streetsville, Mississauga was very small compared to the Toronto parade. I did not think there would be anything spectacular to shoot but I felt compeled to document the event in some small way. Again however, one mistake I made was not showing up early enough to pick a nice spot for shooting. I briskly walked down the street to find some open space while the parade was unfolding.

Here was the best shot I had of the big Santa and Mrs. Claus. It's too bad the light pole was behind the float when they passed by. I should have noticed the pole and move further down the street before shooting it.

Just before I came down to see the parade, I had brunch with Carey at the Muddy Moose restaurant and he talked about the 'image' vs. the 'subject'. You got to consider the whole picture, including the background. You do have to choose a proper background to frame the subject in.

Shooting planes

Just so you know what you can take at Pearson, this is the size of an Air Canada plane (probably DC-10) shot from the first location I mentioned in the 747 Landing blog post, just at the intersection of Britannia Rd and Convair Dr. Setting was at 240mm, f/5.6, 1/320 sec.

I think the second location would give must better results.

747 landing

I wish I was there to take a picture of this 747 landing ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQUo5Si_WA&feature=related

A better bounce card

I like tuning in YouTube to watch some videos from time to time. Here is one I ran across a couple of months ago. After watching it a couple of times, I decided to go to Micheals' and grab the foam sheet Peter Gregg mentions in his video instruction and made myself 'a better bounce card'.

A sense of purpose

Cesar said shooting the birds, landscape, sunrise and sunset down on lakeshore does get boring. I agree. It goes with anything you do. It could be biking, hiking, skiing, etc. If there is not much variety, the concept gets stale. If I snowboard down the hills of Blue Mountain a quazillion times, the same adrenaline surge I get will wear itself down over time, so you need to challenge yourself and push yourself to achieve a higher level of passion for the sport.

In photography, I think we need to define our goals and interests, whether photography is your job or your hobby. It is a hobby for me, and I have defined a purpose for myself. I have bought a number of lenses for specific reasons and I will try to master the skills to capture the perfect shot in those specific shooting situations to convey a certain expression of a subject, be it for: portrait, candid, macro, wildlife, landscape, architecture. I am trying to define and create my own art, not just a photo, and yes, it sounds like there is a lot of them but that keeps me entertained.

Cesar's goal is to build a portfolio of all the conservation areas he has visited and will visit in the future.

RAW format

It is said that the serious photographer shoots RAW only. That makes sense. The amount of dynamic range we lose from a JPEG format is huge -- compare 8 bits per pixel in JPEG vs 12 or 14 bits per pixels in RAW format. I assume the serious photographer has a lot of time on his/her hand to tweak the RAW data to produce the right JPEG.

I am not writing about the RAW vs JPEG format because I do not have much experience with RAW and there are enough articles out there with all kinds of tests to show that there is really no difference for the untrained eye. Being that it contains more data, RAW should produce images with higher contrast and better defined colour ranges -- imagine shooting the sunset. I would however draw from reading those articles that it would depend on your post-processing software how the final photo would turn out. If you have a crappy software that does not know how to make the best out of the RAW data, smoothening out curves for example, you would get crappy results. If your camera has better built-in image processing than your software, then I'd like to shoot with in in-camera JPEG format. You cannot imagine that being the case though, right? Any professional software should have more capabilities than your camera image processing firmware; would the Gimp fit in this category?

What I am interested in is, your real world experience. Do you shoot in RAW only format, or RAW+JPEG, or only JPEG? Do you shoot RAW for archiving purposes, given that it does contain a lot of data?

This morning I went to lakeshore (Mississauga). I was trying to catch something good (taking pictures is like going fishing, you are always trying to catch something big). I didn't have any luck in the morning :(

In the afternoon I went back to try a good picture of the sunset, but it was not that spectacular, so I didn’t get anything good, so I try my luck with this guys and I got these pictures handheld at 200mm, ISO 200, 1/100, f6.3

In the first picture the sea eagle was moving really fast and I was just following it with my camera. The second picture was easier because this guy was sleeping, however was windy and it was moving.

Shooting the Santa Claus parade

I just came back from the Santa Claus parade. I tell you, if you want a good shot of a marching band or those clowns and the big guy, you need to arrive at least an hour early or bring a ladder.

Other than being up a crane, one of the best place to shoot the parade is at the corner of University Ave. and Queen St. where the parade turns east. At the corner, you have a front view of the parade as well as a side view of it as it turns the corner. This is assuming you arrive early enough to find the sweet spot. I arrived too late.





From the corner I did not get any shot I liked as there were too many taller heads in front of me. So eventually, I had to move to another location. Light was poorer at the new location but I did manage some ok shots although none good of the big guy -- he was facing the other side of University Ave. when his float passed by.