Tag Archives: photography

Hobbies, Photography

SooC52 – Footwear

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Ok, this isn’t the shot I really wanted. I had these boots in mind, but I had a very different setting for them planned. Unfortunately, this particular week was amazingly hectic and I never got to the camera in time to setup the outside shot I wanted. I’ll admit, I phoned this one in, but I will make up for it in the coming weeks! These are some hand-me-down workboots from my stepdad that have lasted me several years! They’ve kept my feet warm and safe through a lot of wood cutting, snow shoveling, and they’ve logged a lot of miles up and down various rally stages. They’ll log a few more miles next month as I head back to the 100 Acre Wood Rally in Salem, MO.

PicPerDay_01-16-14_sm

Here are the EXIF data:

Camera Nikon D90
Exposure 0.7
Aperture f/4.8
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO Speed 800
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash No Flash
Lens 18.0-70.0 mm f/3.5-4.5

Here are the other Project SooC52 photographers.

Hobbies, Photography

SooC52 – Utensils

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I tried to think of what new ways I could look at a fork. I was left pretty uninspired until I saw the cup of plastic utensils still left out from our New Year’s Eve party. There was a candle burning on the other side of the cup and seeing the light flickering through the clear plastic gave me an idea. I positioned the cups of forks, spoons, and knives directly under the main overhead light on our main workspace in our kitchen and placed a speedflash with an amber filter behind and to the right. This is what came out.

PicPerDay_01-06-14

Here are the EXIF data:

Camera Nikon D7000
Exposure 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture f/5.0
Focal Length 165 mm
Focal Length 164.7 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Exposure Program Manual
Focal Length (35mm format) 247 mm
Focus Mode Manual
Lens 70-200mm f/2.8
Flash Mode Fired, TTL Mode
Flash Sync Speed 1/320 s (auto FP)
Flash Shutter Speed 1/60 s
Flash Control Built-in Commander Mode
Commander Internal TTLComp Builtin -3.0

Here are the other photogs participating in this year’s project.

Hobbies, Photography

Project SooC52

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SooC = Straight out of Camera. This is a once-per-week project that follows a different theme each week. All images here are unaltered and exactly as captured in camera. No post-processing is performed. Every week, I will post a photo and discuss my thoughts on its composition and the way I planned the lighting and exposure. Be warned that some weeks, photos will be composed and taken completely unencumbered by the thought process.

Here are the other photogs participating in this year’s project.

Astronomy, Photography, Science

Comet PanSTARRS Is Tricky But Worth The Effort

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There’s a comet in our skies this week! With Comet PanSTARRS being so close to the Sun and therefore so low to the horizon, seeing this first major comet of the year is tricky! The comet is viewable about a half hour to an hour after sunset, but don’t expect it to leap out at you. You’ll have to look hard for it. With the clear skies last night, I tried to see if I could spot the comet without aid, and it was tough. I couldn’t see it at all at first, not until the skies darkened considerably. I had to wait until a little before 8pm as Orion was starting to become visible before I could find the comet. Even then, I had to look very closely at the sky maps published at Sky & Telescope’s website to make sure I was looking in the right spot. Binoculars really helped. My 200-500mm zoom lens helped more! I finally did get an image of Comet PanSTARRS along side the Moon.

The image I captured was with my Nikon D7000 (a 1.5x crop sensor) with a focal length of 200mm (300mm 35mm equivalent) at f/5.6, a shutter speed of 2 seconds, and at ISO 800. I did some noise reduction in Photoshop, but didn’t do anything else to the image. I like how the night side of the Moon is visible when it’s just an ultra thin crescent like this.

Astronomy, Hobbies, Photography, Science

The Joys of Country Living

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People often ask me, “Doug, why do you live so far out in the country? Wouldn’t it be easier if you lived closer to campus?” Well, sure my commute would be a bit shorter, but then I’d never see night skies like this from my driveway.

Our Milky Way Galaxy extending up above my barn. This was taken on Friday, August 17th around 10pm-ish.

During late summer and early fall, if you look to the south in the evening, around 9-10ish, you’ll see the constellation Sagittarius, or more likely a subset of it the asterism of The Teapot. When you’re looking at The Teapot, you’re also looking toward the central core of our galaxy and the disc of our galaxy will extend almost straight upward from it. If you live in the city, this magnificent view will be denied to you by the copious amounts of light pollution from street lights and security lights. In order to get the view I get to see every clear night, you have to drive away from the reach of all those city lights. Getting to see the night sky like this is well worth the extra commute time for me!

This photo is a combination of 28 images each taken at a focal length of 18mm with an aperture f/5.6 and a shutter speed of 6 seconds at ISO 3200. I simply sat the camera on a tripod, locked down the shutter button, and walked away for a while. The images were combined using Deep Sky Stacker, a piece of freeware that automatically rotates and aligned a stack of individual images. It doesn’t take a fancy camera, just patience and good skies.