photography

All posts tagged photography

Show pix received!

Posted by Photonstopper on September 25, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , . 4 Comments
Favorite Sunflower
Favorite Sunflower

I received the completed order yesterday (Thursday) afternoon in three big boxes delivered by FedEx. It was only Monday night when I uploaded the eight photographs I settled on for printing! The order was mostly 8 X 10 color prints but included matting, and framing with glass cover. Amazing speed, the work is beautiful, and it cost about a third of what the local framing shop was going to charge! I have nothing against the local franchise frame shop –they were the first place I went when planning my show– but the much lower cost of my online supplier made the show possible in its "larger" end form. I've a only few little tasks yet to complete:

  1. Select "old" work to display with the new
  2. Figure out pricing – same for show and online sales
  3. Make a tag for each picture — title, price/NFS, etc.
  4. Make a small sign with maybe a little bio

Preparing for the show had the side benefit of finally getting me to print and frame some of my work. I'm hoping I'll do that a little more often going forward, even without a deadline pushing me along. The photo of my "favorite sunflower" is resting on our mantle until it is packed for transport to the show. It's every bit as beautiful as the online version, maybe even better… stunning, actually!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Show pix ordered

Posted by Photonstopper on September 22, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 8 Comments
Hinckley Boats
Hinckley Boats

I stayed up a bit late last night tweaking and uploading my eight final photo choices to the online printing and framing company (they did a very good job on the test image I'd sent). Even at their very modest rates for work done, it's expensive when you multiply by eight. The finished and framed pieces should arrive in plenty of time for the October 1 hanging. Tonight or tomorrow I'll choose some of my framed work from my first show, done long ago, to hang with the new stuff. This process has been interesting to me if to nobody else!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite sunflower

Posted by Photonstopper on September 19, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 Comment
Favorite Sunflower
Favorite Sunflower

We did a little shopping in the morning. Did a little yard work around midday. Took a little trip to Hubbard Valley Park (Medina County Park System) this afternoon. The walk on the park's trails, through woods and meadows and around a lake, were beautiful. I found, however, that enjoying and photographing a beautiful sight at home was every bit as rewarding as what I had seen in the wild. I finally got around to photographing my favorite of the summer's "volunteer" sunflowers. That beauty grew at the end of our sidewalk and brings a smile to my face daily when I see it there. Backlit by the late-day sun, it was all the more memorable this afternoon.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Mixed bag heading into weekend

Posted by Photonstopper on September 18, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . 3 Comments

DOWNSIDE: I spent the week dealing with eye irritation. The doctor says it's likely a little infection that eye drops will clear up. Still, I prefer contact lenses to eye glasses — the spectacles get in the way at the camera viewfinder and telescope eyepiece and don't correct well for computer monitor distances. Oh, and doc says I need to ditch my contacts — germs may have taken refuge deep inside the silicone matrix ready to attack again!

UPSIDE: I sold the Canon PowerShot A650 IS camera! It really is a fine little camera, as demonstrated in this blog. Excellent optics and exposure system. I wasn't crazy about the viewfinder, however, or LCD composing of shots, or its macro function. It'll be a great camera for its buyer and I'll stick with my bulkier Fuji FinePix when not using the DSLRs.

WEEKEND: No plans as yet. I hope to complete selection of photographs for my little October showing. I guess I need to actually work on that if it's to get done. Better quit writing and start editing!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Lovely night, beautiful morning

Posted by Photonstopper on September 2, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments
Morning Mists
Morning Mists

Today is my day to go to work late. Last night was a lovely clear night. I had the time and energy. I had this morning to rest up. So I went to the Observatory last night and wound up staying til almost midnight! Typical of me, I didn't get to bed until close to 2 AM and then pretty much woke at 5:00. Nap? Nope! I went to Hinckley Lake –it was a beautiful morning– ran an errand, and did my laundry. I'll probably crash later (at work, of course) but it was totally worth it. I saw the brilliant waxing gibbous Moon in great detail last night and Earthbound glories this morning. You have to enjoy times like these when you can for you never know whether they'll come again.

September Moon
September Moon

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Upgrading the Dell out of it

Posted by Photonstopper on August 27, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 5 Comments
Dell OptiPlex GX620
Dell OptiPlex GX620

I upgraded my PC last night. The Dell OptiPlex GX620 now sports 3 gigabytes (GB) of memory and a second hard drive that has {gasp!} 325* GB of storage space. The C: (boot) drive remains in place with its 80 GB. I could almost hear my PC sigh with relief as it adjusted to the roominess.

Disk space was running short. Just before the upgrade there was only 21 percent free space on that single hard drive. That's getting to the point where crowding is felt.

Fortunately all seems to have gone well. I'm not certain the internal frame was intended for two hard drives but I was able to mount, securely enough, the new Western Digital HDD into the system. There were available SATA data and power hookups. The drive was not, however, visible to Windows XP when I started the system. I reopened the case, checked all connections, and then it occurred to me that there might be something the matter in BIOS. It turns out I actually had to enable the second drive in BIOS. Once that was done, everybody was happy. I toddled off to bed leaving the system formatting the new disk, something that took probably a couple of hours.

The whole thing was necessitated by digital photography. The new DSLR adds about 16 megabytes (MB) per RAW image I shoot, and I'm trying to switch to shooting only RAW. Even with reliable online backup from Mozy, I worry about loss of my burgeoning image collection. Though I haven't looked at them in years, I don't worry about the drawer of photographic negatives I generated in my time as a professional photographer. I'll also be moving files around on the PC in preparation for a "clean" install of Windows 7 this fall. Having your data on a physically separate hard drive is a good thing when you're planning on wiping out everything else!

Hmmm…. I wonder how many terabytes of data those negatives represent!

* I'm not a big fan of hyper-sized hard drives as I believe they are at greater risk for problems. The new drive was actually the lowest-capacity desktop model I could find on the shelf at Best Buy! Terabyte and half-terabyte models were the most common.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Fiery beauty

Posted by Photonstopper on August 24, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment
Fireworks_0204
Fireworks_0204

Our little town's annual festival ends with fireworks. Last year we had grandstand seats from our own balcony. This year the fireworks were moved to a new site and when the display began I had to move too! I briskly carried my tripod-mounted camera up the hill about a quarter-mile until I spied a parking area with a clear view of the air bursts. I greeted the people standing there, plunked down my tripod, and started shooting with the EOS 50D. I got many pleasing shots of the aerial display but this — oooh! ahhh! — is among my favorites. Looks a bit like subatomic particle collisions. Nice end to my weekend even if I didn't go to the festival and get cotton candy as I'd hoped. For those who may be wondering:  200mm lens, ISO 100, 3 sec., f/11.

Fireworks-0201
Fireworks-0201

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Plum Creek Park

Posted by Photonstopper on August 23, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments
Feather_0147
Feather_0147

It was a mostly-cloudy and cool day, only about 70F degrees. After a quiet Sunday morning at home, we decided to explore a park we'd not visited before — Plum Creek Park in the Medina County Park District. The park is located at the edge of the sprawling suburban city of Brunswick and immediately adjacent to residential areas. Exploring the earthen paths through the park's woodlands, however, you'd never know you were so close to "civilization." The woods were lovely, dark, and deep, as the poet wrote. We didn't see much in the way of woodland fauna. We did see deeply green mosses, interesting fungi, tree bark of various textures, and enjoyed an invigorating stroll over the rolling woodland floor. She carried her newish Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot camera and I my new Canon EOS 50D SLR for its first outing in the real world.

With the canopy of trees overhead and thick clouds above that, it was dark along the path. I shot a good number of photos and had some good results. Many shots, however, just didn't make it. Between the difficult conditions and learning the new camera, quite a few shots were exposed poorly or were not in good focus. There's much yet to learn, but I know it's me and not the camera! Except….

That darned 17-40mm wide-angle zoom lens continues to disappoint. I won't give up on it til I can try it stopped down to a decent aperture but I'm unimpressed –disappointed, really– with what I'm seeing. I had hoped the new camera body might provide better results than the little Digital Rebel XT did with this glass. Nope. {sigh}

UPDATE: It is beginning to appear the "software" problems I was having were not so much the fault of Photoshop CS4 as they were Photoshop's issues with my video/chipset drivers. I was able to open and edit a couple of photos after updating the drivers (Dell-modified Intel drivers). It's not all cleared up as PS crashed whilst I was saving an edited image. At least it appears we're headed in the right direction. Then there's learning to work effectively with RAW files….

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Camera good; software not.

Posted by Photonstopper on August 23, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . 4 Comments
My New Friend
My New Friend

I've been pouring more resources into my photography lately, encouraged by some of the results I've been getting. I even have a small show coming up in October! After much (agonizing) thought and consideration I was able to purchase a new camera body to try and expand my grasp. The new "baby" is a big, fat Canon EOS 50D. It feels great in my hand and the shutter has such a smooth feel and sound it will be a pleasure to use. There is much to learn about features but I seem to be picking it up quick.

I made a few test shots around the house this afternoon including the one below… a bright red, ripe bell pepper hanging from a plant set out by She Who Must Be Obeyed. The afternoon was dreary and the pepper was shaded somewhat by the balcony railing and the plant's own leafs. Still, this 50mm macro view is darned nice for a handheld test. Tonight I ran the ISO all the way up to 3,200 and shot an image of the clock and plain, cream-colored wall on which it hangs. Image noise was easy to see but much better than my little Digital Rebel XT might manage… if it could reach 3,200. The picture of the clock was good and sharp under high magnification. I'm sure the camera could do quite well under dim lighting conditions especially where darkness will hide some of the "grain." I'm sure this camera and I will have a very good time together.

The only problem so far has been not the camera but my new, upgraded version of Adobe Photoshop. I got it installed but it has a tendency to crash… often! It's CS4 and has many features I was looking forward to using. I guess I'll be on the phone next week with Adobe support to see if I can fix it. Blah!

By the way, one of the peppers from Her plant was incorporated into a lovely, spicy Indonesian noodle dish this evening. Quite scrumptious.

Pepper_0108 - Test
Pepper_0108 – Test

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

On the way to work…

Posted by Photonstopper on August 15, 2009
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment
David Fortier River Park
David Fortier River Park

Going back to work, especially on a Saturday, following a few days off can be less than appealing. Somehow I was ready early today and it occurred to me that a stop in a beautiful place along the way might make the transition easier. Though I rarely visit there, David Fortier River Park in Olmsted Falls is one of my favorite places. The Rocky River runs through a broad channel of rock in Olmsted Falls, smoothed by ages of flowing water. In the shadowed depths of the valley a secondary channel, much narrower, joins the river within the park. Trees and moss grow thick there and most of the time the waters run tame and quiet. To be surrounded by natural sculpture, soft light, beauty everywhere, well that's not a bad thing when you're on your way to work.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend