Pea Soup

When I headed out for work at o-dark-thirty on Thursday, the fog was as thick as ... well, you know.

Since I'm lugging the camera around everywhere for this little project (you wouldn't know it from the dearth of pics lately, I know), I decided to swing by the Twin Falls temple to see what it looked like.

Here's what it looked like:

1/13s (handheld, no less), f4.0, ISO:1600 (see my note from yesterday about defaults!)

Expanding the corral

It's been a few days (more than a week) since I last contributed to this photo project I embarked on. Lucky I didn't try the 365 thing, right? Life has been far too hectic. (I know, I know... everybody's busy... Cry me a river... (or I should cry you one))

Anyway, I have had a few people ask me about more formal portrait work and I don't really have the equipment for that right now, but I though maybe a second flash would allow me to try some new things. I picked up a second SB-600, Nikon's affordable, but very versatile speedlight. I was messing around with it last night. Here's a shot of Cameron, mugging for ya'll. Key flash is behind the camera, bounced off white ceiling, fill flash on entertainment thingie, pointed right at the back of Cam's head. Smart alex expression optional. :)

1/60s, f5.0, 50mm, ISO: 1600

(ISO=1600 (completely unnecessary with the flashes) because I forgot to reset the camera after taking some picture of the temple in the fog that morning-- a reminder to ALWAYS reset all camera setting back to your default preferences whenever you pick the thing up.)

Customer service is not dead

I broke my lens in December. Sad, tragic truth is... I just dropped it. Ouch! Luckily, I'd purchased that outrageous extended warranty thing from Best Buy (phew... it paid off). So I called them. Unfortunately, they said I'd have to send the camera and the lens in for the repair. (sigh) I wasn't looking forward to that.... AND I had two photography jobs to do before I could send it off anyway.

Fast forward about 10 days. My friend and outstanding photographer Paula Weeks loaned me her nice lens to do my jobs (thank you, again, Paula), and I'm headed to Best Buy to send everything off to be repaired. I'm dreading being without the camera, so I'm mentally gearing up to ask them to let me keep the camera and just send in the lens. I go to the Geek counter (or whatever it's called) and I wait my turn. It's still a bit busy, post-Christmas exchange season and everything, so I'm trying to be patient.

Up there at the front of the line is Mr. Grumpy who's telling everybody, "Nope, we don't do that," and "Sorry, we just ran out of those," and giving everyone the stink eye. I'm thinking my prospects aren't too good. (double sigh)

So, finally, it's my turn. Suddenly, (tiny miracle #1) Mr. Grumpy gets a phone call. Mr. How-can-I-help-you-sir walks up.The clouds lift a bit. I tell my story (though not the part about keeping the camera, yet). He looks thoughtful. We inspect the lens together. He looks across the showroom towards "cameras." My heart does a little flip flop. He says, "Will you excuse me for a moment, sir?" I put on what is meant to be a pleasant look but which probably reeks of "please help me!" and say "uh.. sure."

Off he goes, back he comes, and (tiny miracle #2) he hands me a new lens and says, "There you go, sir. Thanks for coming in."

I 'bout started crying right there in the store. Luckily, I held it together until I got to the car.

NEWS FLASH:
Geek Squad saves photographer's day, not to mention his faith in humanity, in Twin Falls!
Details at ... well, details above.

got cabin fever?

Okay, so I know I said that I was only going to post new pictures for this project, but a friend asked for this one... Doesn't it make you long for summer?

July 1, 2009, 1/200s, f6.3 ISO:800, 300mm (450mm equivalent)

#6 version 2

Okay, here's another version of yesterday's picture ... warts and all. You can see what I cropped out yesterday. In this version I quite like the gradation in the background from lower left to upper right. There's a bit of distracting stuff here, too, though.

What do you think I should do to it next?

(same exposure information as yesterday)

Photo #6

I've dithered for a couple of days about whether to post this picture. I like the fact that the tree branches and the grass don't quite intersect, but I wasn't able to get the angle just right so that they didn't intersect at all (which is what I wanted). I also don't think there's quite enough contrast between the tones here. I monkeyed around with it in Photoshop for a while, but didn't get what I would say is a really good result (yet). It's like a study in contrasts, but it doesn't quite work, I think.

1/250s, f8, ISO 200, 18mm

Photo #5 (counting only 'new' ones)

I might just come up with clever titles for the various posts in this little project...

and then again I might not. This is pic #5 since Jan 1.

I was in an accreditation meeting all morning, then working through 99,000 edits on the document we've been crafting. Beyond that, I need to get a few things done on upcoming classes but I couldn't quite make the mental shift "just like that." Jette, the person I share an office with, often suggests an outdoors walk to clear the mind and refresh the spirit, so I grabbed the ole D90 and headed out. It was sunny, but quite chilly, so I didn't stay long. I did see this on my walk-about, though.

1/500s, f11, ISO 200 70.0mm

Should I edit out the lens flare?