Photography – Page 11

Smiles

By Don on Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Abby rarely smiles for me when I have the camera out. She likes the picture takin’ and she likes to look at the pics on the bacl of the camera, but she doesn’t like to smile. Tonight we tricked her into smiling while she was in the bathtub.

I wanted to get some shots in the bath because I knew it would test the high ISO limits of the new camera. As ISO goes up, so does the sensors sensitiveness to light. The drawback is that the image gets more noisy with little multicolored blobs everywhere that rob the photo of sharpness and contrast. Camera makers are getting better all the time at combating noise. The top photo was taken at 1200 ISO and the one below at 2500 ISO. The camera picked the ISO for me. Shutter speed was 1/30 so there was some motion blur. The pics are noisy, but they look OK to me. I never wanted my D40 to go above 800, so this is an improvement for me.

Gina takes one on the chin after the bath. I used my SB-26 and 45 inche umbrella at camera right. I fired the flash on slave mode with the pop-up flash on the camera.

Abby Family Fun Photography

New Camera!

By Don on Sunday, September 21, 2008

If you can’t tell already, I got a new camera. And I’m pretty excited about it. The new baby is a Nikon D90, the latest DSLR put out by the company. When I bought my D40 last November, it was a hard decision not to go with the D80. But the D80 cost twice as much as the D40 and it was nearing the end of its life. I decided to get the D40 and see if I was going to take the hobby seriously. If so, I could upgrade when the D80 replacement hit the shelves.

Hiking Landscape Murray Falls Outdoor fun Photography Waterfall

Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season

By Don on Monday, September 15, 2008

Hurricane Ike dumped a bunch of water overnight Saturday so I set out about 9 a.m. to look for some rare September waterfall action. I planned to hit Murray and Senyard Falls off the Pig Trail north of Cass and then maybe check out the cascades below Lake Sequoyah on my way back home.

Arkansas Eagles Nest Falls Hiking Landscape Photography Tea Kettle Falls Waterfall

Saturday Ramble

By Don on Monday, September 8, 2008

Hurricane Gustav parked itself over Arkansas most of last week and dumped a whole bunch of rain, so I hoped enough water would be left running on Saturday to have the waterfalls at full glory. Perusing the Arkansas waterfall Bible written by Tim Ernst, I picked out Tea Kettle Falls to visit.

Tea Kettle is in the Madison County Wildlife Management Area south of Eureka Springs about a mile off a gravel road. It’s a pretty good hike, about a mile down Warm Fork Creek with no official trail. You just follow the creek through the woods. The picture above is a waterfall on a side creek visible from the main creek. The Warm Fork probably only runs during wet weather. Despite there being plenty of water in it, I didn’t see a single fish or other water creature. And the water was clear as gin. Creeks and rivers in the Ozarks normally have an emerald green tint from mineralization, but this water was as clear as any I’ve ever seen.

Abby Adventures in Strobistry Family Fun Kansas Photography the farm

The Farm

By Don on Monday, September 1, 2008

My parents live on 40 acres west of Parsons, Kan., that used to be part of a larger working farm. There are several sheds, silos and whatnot still on the property, including this old-time chicken coop. This is the kind of coop that Foghorn Leghorn guarded in the old cartoons. The outside has great peeling paint and deteriorating wood. The kind of stuff we amateur photographers like to take pichurs of. I set up a couple of flashes inside so the ceiling and back wall of the coop would be visible.

Family Fun fishing Kansas Photography the farm

Fish On!

By Don on Saturday, August 30, 2008

Labor Day weekend at my parents’ place in Kansas. They live out in the country with three farm ponds within walking distance. Dad and I hit the best of the three for a quick fishing trip. We landed four smallish bass in the span of about 10 minutes and got no other bites.

Photography

Little People; Big World

By Don on Thursday, August 21, 2008

Aunt Jodie special ordered a whole mess of Little People to integrate Abby’s Little People neighborhood. We have the Little People castle, the Little People farm and the Little People camping set, but they all came with white Little People. Because Abby is biracial, we’ve made a point to include dolls of all races in her toy collection, and Aunt Jodie has been especially helpful in that regard.

Abby and I were playing with the new additions and I got the idea they, along with the ones we already had, would make a good group shot. Strobist info: Vivitar 285HV in 43 inch silver umbrella at 1/16 camera right for main light and SB-26 at 1/64 camera left for fill.

You have to look hard for nonwhite dolls or special order them. That’s kind of sad, actually. Jodie also specially ordered a black family that matches a doll house (which came with a white family) Abby got for Christmas. The black mom, dad and baby wear the exact same clothes and have the same expressions on their faces as the white mom, dad and baby.

After the group shot, I assembled my poor-man’s macro setup to shoot some individual portraits. This is my favorite Little People from the jumbo pack Jodie got. I’m not sure what the deal is with the porn-star ‘stache. He looks like a little kid, but the ‘stache clearly indicates he’s an adult and probably up to no good. I’m not sure if the others aren’t going to run him out of the neighborhood. I have no idea why he’s carrying a present, either. Make up your own jokes. The ground is fertile in that regard. Strobist info: Same flash and umbrella camera right and the SB-26 with DIY gridspot camera left for the hair light.

Incidently, Little People these days are made of plastic. In my day, when I had the Little People houseboat, they had wooden bodies and plastic heads. Times change, I guess.

Abby Adventures in Strobistry Photography

Abby Sunday

By Don on Sunday, August 17, 2008

It’s Abby Sunday.

A few days ago Abby was sitting at the table after dinner and she put her chin on her hands in a very cute way. I knew it would make a good picture so I tried to recreate it this afternoon. I put a flash and umbrella on the table to camera right and another flash camera left and behind her with my DIY gridspot mounted to provide a hair light. She didn’t really want to go along with my directions and this was as close as I could get to her original pose.

Two Abby stories: First, the other day we were eating dinner and she started saying, “A-B-Y” over and over. We finally realized she was spelling her name. We told her it was A-B-B-Y and she started adding the extra B. She said she was practicing it at school.

Second, this one’s kinda gross. That’s why I like it. She’s been doing this thing while eating where she tilts her head all the way back and puts food in her mouth. It generally causes her to gag and we tell her to stop it. At lunch today she tilted her head back and popped a single macaroni and cheese noodle in. It immediately gagged her and I could tell she coughed it up the back way into her nose. Then she sneezed and the noodle shot out her nose followed by a wad of snot. It was funny.

Family Fun Photography star trails Vacation

Woodsy

By Don on Friday, August 8, 2008

We’re spending the weekend at Creek’s End Riverside Retreat in the middle of BFE. West of Parthenon, Ark., down a rough-as-a-cob road. Cabin is very nice, but we can’t figure out how to hook up the Wii to the Dish Network box. Amazingly, this place has high-speed Internet. Grabbed a shot of star trails over the cabin. Inside lights and Christmas lights strung around the outside were way too bright, and I don’t think I got the focus right. Exposure was 20 minutes at f/10.

Photography

Neighborhood Photo Walk

By Don on Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Abby wanted to go outside and tour the neighborhood after supper tonight, so I decided I would turn it into my own private neighborhood photo walk. I read on the Internets that you don’t have to go to Yosemite to take great photos. I decided to find some shots, that if not great, were at least interesting within a few hundred yards of my front door. I didn’t even shoot any Abby pics.

Hard to see in the pic, but the sign says the pool is closed “Due to draining the pool.” It would be nice to know why the pool was drained, at least. Was there a Caddy Shack-type incident involving a Baby Ruth? Who knows?