Dan Perovich's Cyberfront Property

1/10 @ f/3.5, ISO 200, 21mm (EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS) After the gym swung over to the fair grounds that I photographed several days ago.  Luckily, this time they were open.  The rides were all lit up and there was a small crowd in attendance.  In fact, the size of the crowd was just about perfect for me to move throughout the grounds taking pictures without having to wait time and time again for people to walk by.  I spent 20 to 30 minutes walking the grounds taking pictures both with and without flash.  I only took my kit lens with me into the fair due to its wider focal length.

In today’s picture I was trying to capture the motion of the ride.  To do this, I slowed down the shutter speed.  Usually, I would not try to go below 1/40 second when hand holding the camera.  I have read that 1/60 second is the lowest you should go for a sharp photograph.  But with Canon Image Stabilization, you can gain two stops..  Hence, my 1/40 rule.  Tonight though, if I wanted to capture the motion blur of the ride, I needed to go even slower than 1/40.  Luckily, when I got home and reviewed this image, the sharpness was acceptable.

Below are a couple more photos from tonight.  Click on them to be taken to a larger version.

1/2 @ f/16, ISO 200, 18-55mm (EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS)Today’s picture was an experiment with a new technique I read about a while back.  The technique is called zoom blur.  To achieve the effect, you slow down your shutter speed and take a picture while zooming the lens at the same time.  I tried the experiment with both of my lens as well as with and without a tripod.  I found that using a tripod gave better results than without.  When I tried to do the zooming without the tripod, I wound up introducing side to side and up and down camera shake into the pictures which took away from the zooming affect.

This was only my first attempt at this technique and I have not read up about it in a few weeks.  I will probably do a bit of research on the web to see if there are any general guidelines to follow to make these types of pictures better.  For starters, I think the subject has to be dominant in the composition and probably fill up most of the frame when the lens is zoomed in, both of which I did not do in the picture above.

Can you figure out what movie this picture reminded me of based on the title?

1/10 @ f/4, ISO 400, 70mm (EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM)  I took a nice hike around the white trail in Red Rock Wilderness Overlook Regional Park today.  I have been meaning to stop by this park ever since I moved to Leesburg over a year ago.  The historic buildings right along the side of the road always caught my interest when driving by, but I had never stopped by before today.

Upon arriving I saw a small group of people in the old stable house.  It turned out to be a photographer taking pictures of a girl standing in the window of the old stone stable house.  He had a strobe on a light stand and was sitting in a folding chair about 20 yards from the window.  The others in the group were just standing around watching him take pictures of the Marti Gras-esque clothed girl in the window.  It was disappointing to find out later after my hike that this group had left their trash laying in the park instead of taking it with them to throw away.

After observing from afar for a few moments, I put on my photo backpack and started down the trail.  I found several subjects to take pictures of during my hike.  Some pictures did not come out well due to camera shake.  The day was overcast and the lighting in the woods was pretty low for 3pm.  I wish I had packed my tripod or had a monopod to help stabilize the camera during the “long” exposures.

The shot which I picked for today’s photograph was taken down by the Potomac River several feet off of the white trail in the park.  The trail in the photo is not the white trail though.  This trail is an unmarked one right along the water’s edge.  To camera right and about 50 feet up a cliff is the white trail.  I was able to capture a handful of good imagines from the top of the cliff too.  Unfortunately, they will all need more post processing than the picture I chose to share today.  Once they are processed, I plan to share them in my Runner Up set on Flickr.  Stay tuned…

1/80, 1/320, 1/25 @ F/13, ISO 200/250, 21mm (EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS)  My fiance and I invited my mom into town this weekend to help scout out some possible venues for our wedding coming up in September 2010.  We decided to stop at 3 different vineyards today to see what they had to offer.  We did not have any appointments set up, but we figured that we could at least tour the grounds to see if what the ceremony and reception area would be like at the locations.

Our second stop on our three-legged tour was at a winery called Hillsborough Vineyards in Hillsboro, VA.  Since I grew up in Hillsborough, NJ, we figured Hillsborough Vineyards might be fitting.  Unfortunately, the area where the reception would be was not very flattering.  The other areas of the property were quite beautiful and definitely picturesque.  I made sure to take a few pictures before leaving.

Today’s picture is actually a composite.  A HDR photograph to be more exact.  In order to get the sky and the lawn chairs exposed properly, I needed to combine at least two different exposure.  This photograph is a composite of three images.  I used Photomatix to do the HDR processing.  Eventually I would like to try to do the processing by hand in Photoshop using several layers and layer masks, but for now, Photomatix will do.

4 @ f/4.0, ISO 400, 70mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)  Upon arriving at the gym parking lot today after work, I spotted some amusement park rides on the horizon in the direction of where the Big Apple Circus sets up when they are in town.  I decided I would make a stop over in the area on my way home from the gym.  The problem was, I was already running late on getting into the gym.  I knew it was going to be dark when I was finally able to stop by to check it out.  I figured the rides would either be lit up because they were being tested or open for business, or that they would be dark and I would have to rely on some flash or long exposures.

From the picture abouve you can tell that the rides were indeed dark tonight.  I began the shoot with using the 430EXII strobe on the camera and seeing what kind of results I got.  The photos were lack luster though.  The rides where being lit decently well by the zooming feature on the 430EXII at full power.  However, the big drawbacks were a pitch black sky and all sorts of reflections coming back into the lens.

I decided to try shooting the moon for a bit to see if I got better results.  I have included one of the moon pictures I took below.  If you click on it, it will take you to a larger version on Flickr.  For the moon shot, I did not use a flash and simply relied on a long exposure.  Even using the tripod and my remote control, there was still camera shake as you can see if you look closely at the moon.  Could it be that the highway, about a 1/4 mile away, was creating tremors in the ground?

Since I had the camera on the tripod already and it was set up for long exposures, I decided to turn it back onto the carnival rides.  The toughest part in capturing the image was getting the focus right.  The auto focus just would not work.  I wonder if I had packed my powerful LED flashlight and shined it onto the rides while the camera focused if it would have worked?  I will have to remember to try that next time.  After several failed attempts to get a sharp focus, I decided to decrease the aperture.  Doing this gave me more play in my focus by making the depth of field deeper.  The resulting image still is not in as good of focus as I would have liked, but I will take it.

I am hoping to return to this lot once the carnival is open for business.  It should lead to some nice shots.  I already have a few in mind!

6 @ f/4, ISO 400, 97mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)  ”Moon Clipping”

1/60 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 81mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)  It was an exhausting day at work and taking my Photo365 picture was not as high on my priority list  as was playing with the “girls”, eating dinner, and throwing my feet up to relax.  But luckily, the “girls” were tuckered out, probably from their monthly Heart Guard and Frontline medicine, and snuggled together on the couch.  They barely moved when I got up and pulled the camera out to take their photos.

During the first few shots, the flash was acting up on me.  It was not firing every time I tripped the shutter.  This was the first time in a while that I was shooting with the 430EXII flash on the camera, so that eliminated the PocketWizards from being the culprit.  A quick swap of the batteries fixed the issue.  I am really surprised that the batteries in the flash lasted as long as they did. 

I took this style of photo from a few different perspectives.  I tried laying on the floor and shooting up, shooting at doggy eye level, and tried standing on a stool for a downward looking perspective.  In the end, the doggy eye level shot told the best story.  I chose the grayscale version because I felt it set the mood more appropriately than the color picture.  The vignetting on the image seemed like a nice added touch as it gives the composition a more dream-like feeling.

1/1250 @ f/4, ISO 200, 169mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)Today’s picture was the result of perfect timing.  I had just finished my workout at LA Fitness and was walking out the doors into the parking lot when I noticed the sky.  There were puffy storm clouds floating all around with large breaks of blue sky in several areas.  A slight hint of pink and orange was outlining each of the clouds.  Over to the west, I noticed the sun was just about to hit the horizon, so I sped up my walk to get to my car where my camera was stored.

This picture was my third shot after getting the camera out and pointing it skyward.  I wish I could remember what I chose for the camera to meter on, but I do not.  I know I switched techniques a couple of times mid-shoot, but that is all I remember.  The EXIF data on the photo shows that I compensated the exposure by -2/3 EV.  If I had to guess, I would say I metered on the sky for this shot.

You might notice a slightly different formatting starting today for the posting.  I have decided to turn the text wrapping off.  The post text will now start immediately after the picture and caption instead of on its upper right edge.  The main reason I decided to make this change was for the RSS feed.  When text wrapping was turned on in the post, the formatting was not obeyed by the feed reader, at least it was not obeyed by Google Reader.  As a result, there was no spacing between the caption text and the start of the blog post.  The new formatting should get rid of this issue.

1/1000 @f/4, ISO 800, 200mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)  My feathery friends next door put on quite the show today.  There was non-stop action going on at the bird feeder.  Some neighbors across the way were looking at me funny.  These were different neighbors than I wrote about last time this happened.  I guess it might look a little odd for me to be pointing a 70-200mm lens (these look huge for someone not into photography) in the direction of houses down the row.  But hopefully they figured out that I was actually taking pictures of the feeding frenzy and not somebody’s windows.

Even at 1/1000 of a second and using a tripod, the birds’ wings still have motion blur.  I had no idea birds flapped their wings that quickly.  I was already shooting wide open with my lens and at 800 ISO on my XSi, so I could not speed up the shutter any more without taking the ISO even higher or getting a darker exposure.  Typically I do not like to shoot at any ISO above 400 on the XSi, but I had no choice today.  The f/2.8L version of the 70-200 lens I have probably would have gotten me to a better ISO.  I am not at all impressed with the noise level at 800 ISO on the XSi.

So the question is, which should be a higher priority on my wish list: 5D MarkII, 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, or 24-70mm f/2.8L?