Solitude

I shot this at Peace Valley Park the day after a snowstorm (one of the 'early' ones this year).  For such a simple shot, there's a bunch going on there.  I like, I hope you do too. I was wrestling with monochrome for this, but I really like to color in the leaf. 

Canon EF 24-105mm L f4 IS USM lens
100mm Focal Length
Exposure 1/160 sec @ f5.6
ISO 200
Curves adjusted for contrast
1/3 right crop

Wooden Horses

There's a small playground at Peace Valley Park. Adjacent to the playground is this water fountain. I though these horses looked particularly interesting with the wide angle effect.

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.4-3.5 USM lens
10mm Focal Length
Exposure 1/60 sec @ f5.6
ISO 200
Curves adjusted

Fall Reflections

I'm in a funk these days.  I've seen many others in the blogosphere commenting about this as well.

I haven't felt well this last week, mostly self-induced.  My family and I spent last Friday evening and all day Saturday removing our Kitchen floor in preparation for installing a new one.  I insisted on doing this project rather than paying someone to do the work.  Installing the new floor is easy, removal of the old is the really hard part.  It was quite a lot of work and it kicked my butt, so much so that I had a brief visit to the ER last evening :-o  I'll be fine, I need to take it easy. 

As I was 'relaxing' after the floor removal, the words to my favorite Little Feat song, "Old Folks Boogie", came to mind.  I like the live version of the song from Waiting for Columbus, which came out when I was in college.  Back then, I used to laugh at these lyrics; I'm not 25 anymore and they've become reality.  

"So you know, that you're over the hill
When your mind makes a promise that your body can't fill"

Enough of my self-pity,  we're here to see some weekend reflections!  This was shot at Delaware Valley College (link on the sidebar) from a small basin on the side of the road back in November.  It was shot the same day as this.  Something with some COLOR, not this white nonsense (we're currently having our 3rd major snowstorm of this Winter, highly unusual for this part of the world)

Canon EF 24-105mm L f4 IS USM lens
32mm Focal Length
Exposure 1/30 sec @ f5.6
ISO 200
White balance adjusted

I have a visitor

So I'm at work last Thursday afternoon, sitting at my desk and out of the corner of my eye, I see a lady bug crawling all over the place.  Now mind you, it's February and we have two feet of snow on the ground and I can't imagine where a lady bug could have come from.  It was constantly on the move, so getting a shot was tough. I finally had to resort to using the flash.  I was about to have an afternoon snack, so I shared my banana with it and it seemed to enjoy it a lot. 

Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro lens
Exposure 1/60 sec @ f4.0
ISO 400
Curves adjusted for contrast

Granite Reflections

I recently installed new light fixtures in our kitchen.  This is a reflection of the globe from the fixture above the kitchen sink.  You can also see the  reflection of the window blinds and the faucet.  The countertop is made of polished granite, which has a texture and modifies the reflection. 

This is my submission for Weekend Reflections #22.

Canon EF 24-105mm L f4 IS USM lens
105mm Focal Length
Exposure 1/40 sec @ f4.0
ISO 800
Curves adjusted for contrast

























I took many shot of these fixtures and threw most of them away. If you want the nitty gritty details, read on. 

This exposure was very tricky to get correct and I experimented over two sessions to get something I was happy with.  I was determined to get this shot and I will explain my logic.

Initially, I autofocused on the brightest part of the light, locked the exposure, and recomposed the shot.  I got decent results, but I was not pleased.  I found that underexposing by 2/3 stop gave reasonable result. 

The second session, I shot four identical shots with the four possible metering modes: Evaluative, Partial, Spot, and Center-Weighted Average.  Evaluative was blown out, Partial and Spot were underexposed, and Center-Weighted was overexposed, but not as badly as Evaluative.  I then used Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) with the bracket at +- 2/3 stops and took three more shots.  It would have been just as easy to take a bunch of shots and manually adjust the exposure compensation, rather than using fancy-pants AEB.  In summary, using Center-Weighted Average with 2/3 stop underexposure gave these results.

I'm still thinking about other 'tricks' to improve this.  I'm sure you have ideas, fire away!

Not something you see every day ...

I shot this Valentine's Day at Peace Valley Park (how romantic).  I thought this sign was very unusual to say the least.  I guess people who no longer want their cats have been letting them go wild at the park.  I can't imagine they could survive very long, especially in the winter.

Canon EF 24-105mm L f4 IS USM lens
47mm Focal Length
Exposure 1/320 sec @ f11
ISO 100
Curves adjusted for contrast

Circular Polarizer

After posting a complex shot that involved the sun and fog and the sun was a bit overpowering, a friend recommended that I get a Circular Polarizing filter.  I research them a bunch before buying one.  I've used it a bunch and it's saved my butt several times.  When I mention them to fellow photographers, either they love them or have never heard of them.  A CP filter has two elements, one is fixed and the other can rotate.  You look through the viewfinder and rotate the outer ring until you get the desired effect. 

Some CP's take down the light a stop or two, depending on the manufacturer.  Some CP's come with their own lens cover.  I think using a different lens cap is a deal breaker for me.  The last thing I want is another thing to keep track of. 

Here are two identical shots, one taken with the CP in 'normal' mode and one taken in maximum blocking mode.  A much simpler way to think about this is, I took the first shot without sunglasses and the second shot, I had my Ray-Ban's on.  Check out the footprints.  In the first shot, they're lost. 

No CP

CP

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.4-3.5 USM lens
10mm Focal Length
Exposure 1/320 sec @ f11
ISO 200
Curves adjusted

But wait, there's more!  Here are two more shots same deal, shot with the 24-105.

No CP

 

CP

Canon EF 24-105mm L f4 IS USM lens

24mm Focal Length
Exposure 1/60 sec @ f5.6
ISO 200
Curves adjusted for contrast