Category: Photography

Blossom Update

Today was supposed to have been the “peak” blossom day for the DC area. As you can see from this picture, that is not exactly true. I think we’re more like two days out, but this is really my first season watching this so I don’t really know how all of this unfolds.

Most trees look like this, but a very few are covered in white blossoms. I suspect they are of a different variety than the majority of the trees. I may drive by here on Wednesday, but most definately Thursday and take some more pictures.

It seems, also, that the trees here in Reston are several days behind. Looks like I might get a double blossom season!

EOS 5D Quirk

For the most part, I am overwhelmingly happy with my 5D. There is one issue, though, that is causing me confusion. I have been playing with long exposures and hoping to do more with star trails and such. Those exposures require sometimes hours of open shutters to really look good. I have tried one for 10 minutes and it looks pretty good, but the star trails aren’t long enough. So, a while back I tried one at 30 minutes and the camera locked up. I thought maybe that since I messed up some settings that I had done something wrong, so just now, I tried it again.

It didn’t work. In fact, it locked up my camera. When I close the shutter after 30 minutes, the red light [which stays on during exposures and data writes to the CF card] stays on for at least another half hour – basically until I pull the battery. I can’t even turn it off with the switch. The LCD flashes how many pictures are left on the CF card, but no other information other than the word “busy” on the screen.

This concerns me and I have no idea how to fix it. I’ve tried searching the ‘net for it, but nothing pops up. Then again, this camera is so new that I may just be the first person to experience this difficulty. I sent Canon an email and maybe they’ll send me a fix.

Has anyone else seen a similar problem to this on this or any other model of camera?

[UPDATE:] Silly me: I enabled a nifty feature. For long exposures, there’s an “auto noise reduction” setting… so, for my 30+ minute exposure, the camera said to itself: “hmmm… there might be too much noise in this shot. I’ll fix it.” and then proceded to expose an equal length “black frame” shot to be used a a “hot pixel” frame of reference for de-noising the original image – thereby causing a 30+ minute lock up in which I could not use my camera. And, of course, that means I lost my picture when I pulled the battery. Oops.

Lens Distortion No More?

I have just learned about a wonderful new tool in Photoshop CS2 that is a life saver – or, to be more accurate, a picture saver. I’ve noticed dark corners in almost all of my pictures with my “bad” lens and in a lot of my super-wide pictures as well. What I have learned is that vignetting, as this is called, is a normal thing even for the most expensive of zoom lenses. Fixed length “prime” lenses do not suffer these problems nearly as much. This can be avoided [mainly minimized] by utilizing an F-stop value that is in the center of the lens’ range instead of one of the maximum or minimum values. I, of course, like to go to extremes, so this vignetting shows up in my work.

So – how does one fix it? In Photoshop there is a nifty tool to correct lens distortion – including vignetting. So – the pitures I took of my friend’s daughter now look ten times better since I’m able to smooth the exposure to the edge of the frame. They no longer look like I’m taking a picture through a tube.

It doesn’t do away with lens distortion, but really allows me to deal with what I have. It doesn’t compensate for the slow focus problem, but it will make some of my darkened pictures look a bit better. Actually, a lot better. I was quite surprised how much difference a little de-vignetting makes.

New Lens?

After spending a weekend attempting to photograph an energetic three year old, I have decided that my over 10-year-old lens is not suitable for that job. It looks as if I will need to buy a new lens. The old one is so slow to focus that the child usually moves out of focus before the lens gets there. So – blurry pictures. I think kid photography is somewhat more dificult than sports photography.

So – I’ve been looking at zoom lenses in the 70-200mm range. My current lens is a Tamron 28-200mm, but I have other lenses to cover that “lower” range: an excellent quality Sigma 17-35mm wide angle lens, a “cheapie” Canon 35-80mm which came with my old Rebel and has better clarity than my Tamron 28-200mm.

In my searches, one lens stands out: the Canon 70-200mm F/4 “L” USM lens. This lens is one of Canon’s “L” series lenses. The “L” really means their top-end professional line [and that ususally means $$$]. I looked at the 70-200 F/2.8, but that one costs over a $1000 more than this one – which seems to be the entry point for the high-end professional lenses. I even looked at an equivalent 28-200mm “L” lens, but that one was over $2000, so it got scratched off the list [I’ve even read some reviews about it that give it a “mediocre” rating – not something I’d pay two grand for]. Some of these “L” lenses cost over $6000 [Ouch! I hope I don’t need that one any time soon!] but this one is actually affordable at less than $600. Sure: it’s simple and doesn’t have as many bells and whistles as the others [like image stabilization], but it’s a workhorse and the picture quality is astounding.

Looks like I have something else to save up for!

Camera Comes Today

So I missed a day in my postings – big deal! Okay, I guess I’m feeling the pressure from family to keep the posts coming more frequently. And, no – no pictures today.

Anyway, today, my new camera gets delivered. I’m totally hyped. I keep refreshing the UPS Package Tracking page…

I will try to post a review on the camera, but I can’t guarantee that it will be as detailed as some I’ve read.

My Aching Back

I can’t believe I was so excited about shoveling snow. Well, I had my fix for a while. I had to shovel perhaps for about an hour even in my short driveway. Part of that is because the plows came into our neighborhood and plowed the streets… which meant that the plow pushed a huge pile of sludge [not that light, powdery stuff which was in the rest of the driveway – but that heavy, wet, icy goop that is very, very heavy] at the end of our driveway. It was almost as if the plow driver was saving it just for me.

So, I trudged through the shovelling process and finally got it done. It could be that I just don’t know the techniques or my shovel is too small, but my back is killing me. I’m sore all over. At least I didn’t need a workout!

I have finally posted my film pictures for the snow day in the directory you can get to by clicking on the picture in this post. Most of the roads are clear, except for ice in spots [this morning it was very bad, but it’s getting better as the sun is out longer]. I should be back on the road tomorrow.

The Snow Keepeth Coming [And Camera News]

2012-01-08 23:29:25

Here it is: the first big snow of the year. Yes, I know it’s 3am, but I’m still awake and you can get some great pictures at night if you have the right camera – not to mention the fact that with all the snow outside, it looks almost bright even so late at night. I’ll have some better ones tomorrow when I develop my latest roll of film [hopefully my last]. It started snowing around 1pm and hasn’t stopped yet. I can see about a foot of snow on the ground in places and the streets are covered. They have cancelled church so I will be sleeping late – a good thing, since I’m up at 3am! The first few pictures are from my pocket digital and I will have some better quality shots from my film tomorrow.

I mentioned above that I will be developing my last roll of film. That’s not entirely accurate as I will still need film for specialty shots such as infrared and other things. But, I have just ordered my new professional digital camera. I’ve been saving up money from my bonuses at work and just received a portion of my inheritance from my grandmother [Thanks, Grandma! And, no, it’s not junk! – She knows what I mean… :-)] so we put in an order for a Canon EOS 5D. That’s 12.8 Megapixels of wonderous digital photography. No more film scanning, nor low-res picture taking on a camera without manual control.

Now, I just have to wait. And as Inigo Montoya says: “I hate waiting.”