Week 37, Day 265, January 14, 2010, The Seal

I walked under the tower at the Cornell Law School today, and the lighting was just right on the Cornell Seal.  The rocks were drying, but still had moister on the edges.  The sun was setting, and cast a yellow glow through the arch.

This was my favorite photo of the day.

Lessons Learned:

• I took a variety of photos today.  Some were almost what I wanted, but just lacked a little.  Today's lesson is that I will keep these photos for ideas for future photo opportunities, and try and remember the mistakes that I made this time.
• Sometimes photography is not the right thing.  On the way home tonight there was an accident in front of our bus.  A truck was on fire, and the fire trucks were not there yet.  Several people on the bus mentioned that I should take a photo.  We were stuck in traffic so I got off the bus with my camera and approached the scene.  I could see some of the police heading toward the ambulance, and decided this was an inappropriate time for me to take a photo.  I turned and left the scene without using my camera.

Photo details: Exposure time 1/25 sec, Aperture f/7.1, ISO 200, Focal Length 17 mm, Lens Canon EF 17-40mm, hand held.

Week 37, Day 264, January 13, 2010, Are the Stars Out Tonight?

I have a new toy.  It's a 2x extend for my 70-200mm lens.  My understanding is that it basically extends the lens to a 140-400mm lens. 

I received the 2x extender as a Christmas gift, and I have wanted to take some photographs of the stars.  I realize that there are much better ways of doing this, but I just wanted to see how well it would work.  Unfortunately we have had very few clear nights since Christmas. 

Tonight I was attempting to take photos in the clear patches of the sky, but the clouds began to move, and in a short time it was cloudy.  I took this photo for all you astronomy buffs that have had to fight the clouds.

Happy Star Gazing.

Lessons Learned:

• My tripod works fairly well when the lens is horizontal and runs parallel with the ground, but when I attempt to take a photograph of Pleiades (7 sisters) star cluster, my lens would not stay still.  Gravity was pulling the camera downward.  I'll need to find another way to attempt this.

Photo details: Exposure time 4 sec, Aperture f/5.6 (2x extenders lowest f-stop), ISO 800, Focal Length 140 mm, Lens Canon 70-200mm f2.8L USM, tripod.

Week 37, Day 263, January 12, 2010, Box Out

I like this photo for the depth of field.  The shooter is in focus, but you can still see some activity in the background. (Including a nice box out by my son.)

I'm liking the new camera.  3200 ISO is the way to go.

Lessons Learned:

• I should have used the Servo focus tonight.  I didn't, and there were more shots that were blurry.  I'll return to it in the next game.

Photo details: Exposure time 1/250 sec, Aperture f/2.8, ISO 3200, Focal Length 70 mm, Lens Canon 70-200mm f2.8L USM, hand held.

Week 37, Day 262, January 11, 2010, Descent

This is the 5th photo in my cellar series.  These are the old steps leading to the basement. 

Believe it or not we had to put in a new 250 gallon fuel tank for our furnace.  These is the passage way that we had to take our tank down.  It just barely fit.

Lessons Learned:

• My new camera has a live view setting.  This allows me to view the photo with the LCD panel on the back of the camera.  This was very handy for the tripod shot in which it wasn't easy to view through the view finder.  Most of the time I still prefer the view finder.

Photo details: Exposure time 30 sec, Aperture f/22.0, ISO 100, Focal Length 17 mm, Lens Canon EF 17-40mm, tripod.

Week 37, Day 261, January 10, 2010, Old Orchard

I walked through the berry bushes into the old orchard through a couple of feet of snow.  The trees were beautiful.  On one of the old apple trees a single apple was stuck between a couple of branches.  It stood out because everything else was black and white.

Lessons Learned:

• I didn't want to use a circular polarizer filter because it reduces the beauty of the snow.  At the same time the filter would have enhanced the color of the apple.  So, instead I manipulated the lighting levels on the apple with an image manipulation program.  
• Following animal tracks are not always the easiest way to get out of the berry bushes.  Rabbits have the advantage of being able to run under the bushes.  I should have payed more attention to the Brer Rabbit stories.

Photo details: Exposure time 1/80 sec, Aperture f/8.0, ISO 100, Focal Length 33 mm, Lens Canon EF 17-40mm, handheld, light level manipulation with Photoshop.

Week 37, Day 260, January 9, 2010, Snow, Icy Trees, and Fog

It was an incredible morning.  The trees near our house had ice on them from two days ago.  Yesterday snow accumulated on the ice.  This morning the sun was playing hide and seek behind the clouds.

In this image there was a haze over the trees in the distance with ice on the trees.  The trees closer to me had a little ice on top, but less ice below.

Lessons Learned:

• Similar to light, elevation can have a big effect on photography.  Just a little ways down the hill from my house none of the tree had ice.  I guess the lesson is to be alert to all possibilities, and look for patterns.  Since I knew there was ice above a certain elevation, I could also take photographs on other hills in the area with similar elevations.

Photo details: Exposure time 1/800 sec, Aperture f/5.0, ISO 100, Focal Length 130 mm, Lens Canon 70-200mm f2.8L USM, hand held.

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This Monochrome concept came from Aileni at The Monochrome Weekly

Week 37, Day 259, January 8, 2010, Exertion

After several years of using my Canon Digital Rebel XT, it is time for a new camera.  I received it in the mail today.  I purchased a Canon Rebel T1i.  Now I have to get used to all the new buttons, and new features.

After about 5 minutes of reading the owners manual, I took it with me to tonight's basketball game.  I immediatly noticed some great improvements.  So instead of lessons learned, I'll just mention the new features that I like:

New Features (Lessons Learned):

• ISO 3200.  Wow, I can get faster shutter speeds, and I'm amazed that the noise level isn't that much more.
• Much faster focusing.  With my old camera many of the photos were blurry because of the slowness of the focus, and then the slowness of the shutter speed.  I found that I could zoom in closer to the action because the camera would respond more quickly.
  
• I like the larger LCD display.  It's much easier to QC the photos on the larger LCD display.
  

As I said, I've only read the manual for about 5 minutes.  I have a lot of features to learn about.  I look forward to the challenge.

Photo details: Exposure time 1/250 sec, Aperture f/2.8, ISO 3200, Focal Length 73 mm, Lens Canon 70-200mm f2.8L USM, hand held.