Photo365-20100207 – The Dark Side of the Road, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1.6 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 1600, 24mm (EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM)
I am exhausted from my weekend at the slopes. This is the view outside of my hotel, back in New Jersey, right before I hit the hay for the night. Good night!
Photo365-20100127 – Photo Pit Shop, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
20.0 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)
On my way back home from New Jersey this week, I took a short pit stop in order to take today’s picture. The Maryland welcome center on I95 is the last rest stop on my now weekly commute. I set up on the hill overlooking I95 with my tripod and 50mm lens. My goal was to capture the streaking lights of passing by cars using a long exposure. This twenty second exposure really brought out the little amount of light that was left in the sky.
Photo365-20091219 – Winter Wonderland, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
0.6 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 800, 18 mm (EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS)
This was the view tonight out our front door in Leesburg, VA. We got hit with the “Storm of the Century” today. By my last measurement, we had about sixteen inches on the ground. Believe it or not, this is the view of our street after the plows came by twice earlier in the day. It is going to be a lot of fun digging out of this tomorrow!
I used my tripod to take this “long” exposure. I wanted to avoid using an ISO higher than 800 so that I did not have a lot of noise in the picture. All the white snow caused havoc on the 7D’s white balance sensor. I would not say that the 7D auto white balanced turned all the snow gray like many professionals say a DSLR will. Instead, it turned the picture yellowish. This was quickly fixed in Lightroom using the eyedropper white balance tool. I used the mail boxes on the middle left of the frame as my gray point for the tool.
Easy and flexible white balance adjustments are just two more of the many reasons to always shoot in the RAW format on your DSLR. Sure, there is an extra step of converting the RAW format to a JPG to be shared, but it gives you so much more flexibility in post-processing. Many photos that I have shot would have been trash if I had shot them exclusively in JPG format.
Photo365-20091218 – Ginger-yum House, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
25.0 sec @ f/14, ISO 400, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)
Today my fiancee and her nephew made a ginger break house together. Upon coming home and seeing it on the dining room table, I knew it was going to be my subject for today. It was practically in the perfect place too, right in front of the tree. In order to get the star bursting effect on the tree lights, I knew I would need a small aperture and a long shutter speed.
I set the camera up on the tripod and placed an Apollo softbox at camera right. I then set up the white disc reflector on camera left to open up the shadows on the left side of the house. I took a few shots to determine the best flash power settings to light the ginger bread house. I quickly determined that I needed to modify the light from the flash with a CTO (color temperature orange) gel to more closely match the ambient light from the tree. After getting the ginger bread house lit to the way I wanted it to look, I started to slow down my shutter speed little by little until the exposure of the tree was spot on.
In hind sight, I should have corrected the white balance during post processing. It seems that there is an abundance of yellow in the final picture. My guess is that the 7D auto white balance chose a flash setting instead of a tungsten setting. I should have manually set the white balance to match the color of my gelled flash to avoiding having to make an adjustment during post.
13.0 sec @ f/16, ISO 800, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)
Yup, you betcha’. Here is another Christmas tree photograph. ‘Tis the season, right? This time, I set up the camera on a tripod as close to the floor as I could get it while still mounted on my tripod. I used my “fast” 50mm lens in attempt to get the picture as sharp as possible at f/16. I have not actually confirmed my hypothesis, but I think the 50mm f/1.8 should be sharper at f/16 than the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS is at f/16.
Using the 50mm lens had its draw backs though. From the perspective that I was going after, looking up at the tree from a young child’s point of view, the 50mm lens was not able to get the entire base of the tree. When I moved the camera and tripod back further from the subject, I lost the tall tree effect that I wanted to capture.
Just like a few days ago, I used a wide aperture to make the lights on the tree burst with the star shaped flares. In post-processing, I lightening up the tree topper a bit and brought the green back into the tree by decreasing the saturation and luminance of the yellow colors.
A self-proclaimed tech-geek, I enjoy anything powered by batteries or electricity. I'm not happy until I understand the full potential of any new gadget I get my hands on....
