| 1/200 | f8 | ISO 200 | 32mm | RAW |
The weather was pretty gloomy today. I took this around lunchtime from the patio on the 15th floor of our office building.
I apologize, but I have been busy the last week or so. I have been overworked and haven't been getting enough sleep.
| 1/4 | f8 | ISO 200 | 55mm | RAW |
I feel like I really learned something from today's photo. Once again, I found myself baking (some cinnamon rolls this time) and took some photos as the batch was cooling. Unlike most of my other photos, however, this was shot from a tripod instead of hand-holding and praying for the best.
I tried two different lenses &mdash first I went with my 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS lens, and then I tried my 70-200mm f2.8L lens. After looking through the shots, I really liked the perspective and angle of view of the first lens.
Going into the shot, I thought I would like the photos better from the other lens. Why? Because it is optically sharper. But in reality the smaller, cheaper lens was easier to work with and I got a better angle of view on the rolls.
The tripod let me pick a nice, slow ISO that would give a good, clean image that's free from digital noise (graininess). If you will notice, the shutter speed was 1/4 of a second. Without the tripod, this would have been an impossible shot to make. But even with the tripod there was a problem. This particular shutter speed is smack dab in the middle of a short range of shutter speeds that is susceptible to blurring because of the force of the internal mechanisms of the camera shaking the camera during the shot.
This shake affected the 70-200mm, but not the 18-55mm. I think the difference is the image stabilization. Without it, the 70-200mm had problems. But with it, the 18-55mm performed like a champ.
What would I do differently? I think I would have tried to move the rolls somewhere else, or at least do something to avoid the tile backsplash of the stovetop. The tiles have a floral arrangment printd on it, which can be a little bit of a distraction. Now that I have finished the post, I also think the image is a little tilted. I should have made sure it was level (either when I snapped the photo or with Photoshop Elements in post-processing.
And one other thing &mdash I wish I had made two batches of rolls instead of just one!
| 1/30 | f4 | ISO 800 | 32mm | RAW |
I am so proud of my daughter. Leigh Ann had decided that her beautiful long hair was getting too long and she wanted to get it trimmed to shoulder length. But then my wife asked why stop there? She was only a couple of inches shy of the minimum length required for donations to Locks of Love.
So she agreed. She even went above and beyond and cut off nearly a full foot of hair so she could have the haircut you see in the photo.
I took this using the available light from the same window I use for many of my black and white portraits. Thanks to the image-stabilized lens I used, there wasn't any camera shake in the shot despite the slow 1/30th of a second shutter speed. I also removed a painting from above the couch so there wouldn't be any distractions — just a nice blank wall. This let the viewer's concentration be solely upon Leigh Ann and her hair.
About the only thing I wish I had done differently is to lower my angle of view just a little more to completely get rid of the couch. And it would have also been nice to get Leigh Ann to part her lips a little on her smile. When she shows just a little bit of teeth, her smile really shines.
And as you can tell, she just loves her new hairstyle. Not only that, but she is ecstatic that the hair she cut off is not going to waste!
| 1/125 | f8 | ISO 200 | 24mm | RAW |
As a homeowner, I have come to realize there are all kinds of things that need attention and/or repairs around your house. Undoubtedly, one of the worst phrases you can hear is, "you've got a water leak."
And that's exactly what I was told yesterday.
Luckily, the leak was fairly simple and just a couple of feet from the city's water meter, so it wasn't too hard to find nor dig up. There was a sleeve put over the PVC pipe where it transitioned from 1-inch to 3/4-inch. The pipe had cracked coming out of the sleeve.
I had never worked with PVC before, but it wasn't too hard. Since I did all the work myself, it cost me only about $15. Much better than the $200 quote I had been given by a plumber!
This was a pretty straightforward shot. The sky was overcast, so there weren't any harsh shadows across the pipes. The f8 aperture setting helped insure everything was in focus, from the bottom to the top. I do wish I could have gotten the leak in the photo too, but it was too small to see from this distance. The standing water around the pipes and in the meter box, however, helps you know how bad the leak wss.
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