Springtime blah's

The sounds of Spring

Drip, drip, drip...

If I ever buy another house up here it will have a steeper roof pitch, better ventilation in the roof and be sealed better especially in the valleys. There's really only one bad spot, over my front entrance. Can't do much about it now, but it's going to have to be addressed after the melt!

It wasn't exactly Niagara Falls, but I had to empty the red pail every 4 hours or so.  This went on for a couple of days and then suddenly stopped! I have no idea why, because there's still 6"of ice over the door. Sorry about the not-very-fancy picture, but it tells the story...

When you get an email that starts with,

"This is the final notice regarding your inclusion within the 2013 Edition of Who's Who Among Executives and Professionals."

Don't you wish it was true? That it's the last time they'll annoy you with this? That's the fifth "final notice" I've received this week. You have to wonder why they keep at it...

I'm in a flat spot

I'm really not inspired to shoot picture, especially outside. The crisp, white, invigorating blanket of snow is really very tiresome now. I always have the camera with me but I've been loath to take it out. Nothing really exciting to shoot.

It was a nice day and the clouds were moving pretty fast, so I thought I'd try a long exposure showing cloud movement. Even with the 10x ND filter on, the slowest shutter speed I could get was about 3 seconds.  

Nothing, right? So I decided to shoot a 5-shot time exposure sequence, each shot 3 seconds and about 1/2 second apart. The D800 will do that automatically.Then I combined the 5 exposures as layers in Photoshop and set the blend mode to "lighten".

See the difference in the clouds? Not much. You need an even longer exposure than that, especially when shooting with a wide angle lens.

Yeah, well, still not exciting. So I added a bit more drama by adding a motion blur (masked so it only affected the sky). A little Topaz Simplify, some judicious dodging and burning, then some painting with the mixer brush, a little crop and cleanup and voilà!

Now we're getting somewhere! That's more like the look I was trying for.

Today's weather isn't as nice. It's above freezing but it's windy, grey and damp, so I don't feel like going out to shoot. Instead, I decided to revisit Corel Painter 11 so I installed it on the laptop and opened up a random image to re-familiarize myself with it. I think it's been almost 5 years since I used it last.

Here's the image I opened. I shot this at Furnace Falls last summer, in what I was hoping was good dawn light. Not really. Without further ado, I give you:
 

Painted with Corel Painter 11. I'm going to spend a bit more time with that program. While the Photoshop plugins like Topaz Simplify are interesting, you get almost predictable results, more visibly computer generated. This has more "me" and less "Photoshop" in it.

 

I revisited another image from last fall the other day. I had been out shooting the milky way late at night (last week's "Thou Shalt Not" image was based on another frame shot the same night). Anyway, I zoomed the lens while the shutter was open. Then I composited in a shot of my car with interior lights (shot at the same time), and did a whole bunch of technical stuff in Photoshop to arrive at this one:

I'm going to go to the Subaru dealer and see if he's interested in buying a print of this.

Speaking of revisiting things...

I was inspired by a couple of pictures I saw in the Photoshop & Lightroom group on Facebook (free to join, search for it. Also they have a sister group called "Photography Help and Share". Both worth joining). The maker did a light tent shot of a calla lily that was outstanding, and I learned he used focus stacking. So I dragged out the bellows and the el-cheapo focus rail that I have, to give it a shot.

First I did a single exposure of an old ball point pen:

This is almost a full frame shot. Specs: 2 seconds, f/11, ISO 400, Nikkor 28-80 at 80mm , with the bellows extended almost all the way out. 

This is three shots focus stacked. Depth of field is so shallow that only the head of the screw is in focus in the first shot. Again, full magnification, but at f/5.6. You can see that the far right side is not in perfect focus. This is a lot of work and tough to do! I need more practice. I don't know how people do macro, stacked shots of moving things like insects. Bound to be more interesting than a screw, though!

Paraphrasing the words of the immortal Dr. Sheldon Cooper,

"Now fetch me something interesting to shoot!"

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Things with 3 Legs

Yeah. They're called "Tripods". I just bought a new one for 3 reasons.

• The Gitzo I have is really big and hard to carry around on my bike
• It's heavy. I think the legs themselves (not counting the ball head) weigh 5 or 6 lbs.
• I saw this one and really thought it was innovative.

So I wanted a tripod that was really light. This one weighs about 2 lbs without the head. It's made of carbon fiber which is very rigid and strong. The head is innovative too, and it weighs less than 2 lbs and can support almost 20 lbs. It needs to be small so I can pack it easily. This one folds down in a really innovative (using that word a lot!) way -- the legs fold up over the head so the overall length is only about 17".

It also needs to be tall enough so I don't have to bend my aching back over to look through the viewfinder. Do you think this one is tall enough?

As I mentioned a couple of blog posts ago, this tripod is made in England by a company called, "3 Legged Thing". And the name of this tripod is "Brian". Cute, eh? Here's a link to the manufacturer's site and here's where you can buy it (at B&H). They say the one with the blue ball head is backordered but the black one is in stock.

I'm really happy with it, although I've had it less than a week. The only issue I'm having is that I tend to grab the friction locks (there are so many of them!) and loosen them inadvertently, so I need to tighten them more. I like the ball head, it's smooth and easy to use. On a scale of 1-10, it's a 9. So far.

When it gets dark...

Don't put away your camera. Instead, take out your tripod and get creative. I like star shots, so here are a few:

I used a little flashlight to paint the tree with light. This is a 30 second exposure at f/4, ISO 800 and 15mm in case you were interested. To keep the stars crisp at that long an exposure you need to use a wide angle.

The moon is really bright. In this picture I tried not to let it affect my exposure so I stuck with the same settings as the last image. I was struck by the pattern of the clouds and never noticed the meteor trail at around 10 o'clock (I suppose it could be an airplane but meteor sounds better!).

Almost the same exposure: a little darker originally because it was 15 seconds at f/4, ISO 400. But I did some processing to bring out the Inn and the sky at the same time.

A couple more hummingbirds. This little fellow is in flight — actually hover mode at my feeder.

Male Ruby-throated hummingbird in flight



Male ruby-throated hummingbird at rest. This looks similar to a shot I did a week or so ago, but I like the sharpness and the composition better. Remember this guy is only about 2" (5cm) long.

And finally,

Attack Squirrel! This guy looks like he's coming after me. Quite the opposite, he's frightened. He should be: this is just after he emptied my squirrel-proof bird feeder.

More to come!

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Busy, busy!

I've been busy. I know, I just said that! "Busy doing what", you ask? Well, my First Aid business needed my attention, Revenue Canada is being a pain in the neck (I'm being generous. Lower down.). Motorcycle training season is starting. Back and forth to Toronto for business and family stuff. Planning workshops, and writing the manual for training courses.

I'm an American Idol fan. Joshua, Jessica and Philip. You read it here first. I'm also a Big Bang Theory fanatic, and Stephen Hawking is guest starring tonight! It's such a great show, and not just because I grew up with a "Sheldon Cooper".  So I've been watching that in the evenings.

Accolades and Neat Stuff
I've been asked to do a couple of seminars and workshops next season and accepted readily. I know precisely what I want to do, but I have to work on the material. I'm waiting on my first Freelance assignment for the Highlander Newspaper. I'm planning my first photo workshop up here in a month or so. My Michipicoten Light image has been put up on several websites (and Naturally Superior Adventures is using my video on their site with permission). I'm now about halfway through "Behind the Camera and in front of the Computer™" which is a manual directed at people teaching and taking basic photography courses.

See? I'm busy!

But I'm not as busy as Dr. Ron who takes over as President of the American Cosmetic Dentists Association this week. "It's a whole other full-time job," he told me. I wished him luck and asked if I need to find accommodations for the Secret Service when he comes up to visit next month! He still has time to print pictures and submit them to the Richmond Hill Camera Club competitions, where he took two First Place and one Second Place ribbons in 'Yoda' class this month. He's so talented! If you click the link above, you come to the RHCC home page where there's a display of winning images from the latest competition. Look for the cape buffalo shots and the wolf. By the way, his "Oxpecker on Cape Buffalo" image scored a perfect "30" in the competition, first I've seen.

There are some really outstanding images by RHCC members this month. I'm humbled.

Landscape pictures
A couple of weeks ago, I posted some pictures of an old truck that sits outside the Argyle Blacksmith Shop and antique store. I commented that there was a huge spiderweb in the window. I was back a few days ago and guess what? Another missed opportunity! It was gone.  But I did get this picture nearby.

Disused. There are lots of these run down farm buildings in rural Ontario, elsewhere too I'm sure. This one caught my eye because it was just at sunset and the light was a golden glow. Not in the sky, though: that was pure, bluebell, boring blue. So I merged two different HDR pictures (the ground done in Nik HDR Efex and the sky in Photomatix pro). I kept the warm colour temperature and painted in the setting sun using Viveza. The picture lacked that balancing structure, so I painted the two birds from scratch. This image needed a lot of post-processing but it will make a fine, large art print.

Speaking of missed opportunities: I came back from a walk yesterday and saw what I think was a Golden Eagle hunting in the sky over my property behind my house. I ran inside, grabbed the long lens... but alas he was gone. I did see this, though:

Moonclouds. No, this isn't a composite image. The rising, waxing gibbous almost full moon was playing peekaboo in the clouds. All I did was to add some contrast,  adjust the exposure and crop the image slightly in Lightroom 4.1. It might be out there again tonight: we'll see!

It was quite windy yesterday and the sky was populated by puffy clouds as you see. I've shot this stuff before, and shots in the middle of the day, or even late day, are boring in flat, bright sunlight. So I was looking for a way to change things up, and I happened to think about my 10-stop Neutral Density filter. I took it, with the wide-angle lens out for a walk. With tripod and cable release, of course!

The filter adds a dreamy look to water, even when there's nothing really going on.

The Red Umbrella Inn, shot from near my dock. This was a 15-second exposure and although there was nothing really happening, the water has a milky smooth texture and even the inn has a soft creaminess to it. Not what you would expect to see on a sunny afternoon.

Remember the picture of the boat upside down on the dock, that I mentioned is about to be published in PhotoED magazine?

Here's another shot of it yesterday. It didn't fare too well over the winter!

Still Waiting and More Weathered. What makes this shot for me is the light. Also the texture of the water, compared to the boat and the wood. As I said, the ND filter and long time exposure (15 seconds) adds a creamy smoothness and texture. All I did to this picture was to clean up a few spots (I need to clean my sensor again) and touch up some texture issues. I burned in the board at right, it was too bright and distracting.

Now this shot, and the next one, were taken blind. With the filter mounted on the lens, you can't see through the camera. I could have unscrewed the filter and recomposed and refocused, then put the filter back, but I'm essentially a lazy guy... so I left it in place, kept the camera focused almost to infinity, and pointed it where my instincts told me it should look.

Reach for the Sky. The clouds moved, of course, during the 15 second exposure. So did the evergreen trees but the bare tree did not. A surreal look at an otherwise ordinary day.

Perhaps I'll wander over to my favourite whitewater spot and see what's doing there! Catch you later!

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