Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. But, I did get another one of my pictures published. This time, it was from my trip to Scotland. I took a few shots while I was in Edinburgh and one of them is now up on "Schmap Scotland". You can check it here... It's one of the "Our Dynamic Earth" shots. Sorry there's no direct link, but Schmap is a bit odd and they only give me a "widget", which pretty much just advertises them.  But, here it is anyway if you prefer that route...  I think if you mouse over the little marker it'll pop up my picture, but I can't be sure.

Hey all,

Just figured I'd toss out a bit about my completely amateur photography efforts.... 

I generally post pretty much every picture that's not total garbage up on Flickr.  Apparently people search Flickr a fair bit and have managed to come across a few of my pictures.  I currently have a small handful of my photos posted on some reasonably prominent sites...

Some shots from Aruba are posted up on British Airways' web site and on WhatsOnWhen's site.

I also have a shot up on Pixel-Peeper as a comparison shot of the Canon 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6 lens (that thing gets a ton of hits).

I also have two other requests to publish a couple of other photos I took in Scotland.  I'll post the links up once they're final.

None of this has gotten me any money yet (and probably never will), but there's smthng satisfying about knowing that people appreciate at least some of my efforts.

Laters!

Warning: This is another one of me just spouting stuff off.  It's probably going to be long and wander all over the place.

I really am not sure where I want to start this post, so I'll just jump right in and see where it goes.

It's almost a guarantee that if I'm in DC and taking pictures (especially at night), someone will ask me if I'm a photographer.   My normal answer is "No, I just like taking pictures".  I don't know why people ask me this...  it might be the camera bag (which I don't often have), the camera (not that impressive, looks like just about 90% of other decent cameras, IMO), or maybe it's just that they see me taking pictures of stuff other than the usual tourist targets.  Anyway, the reason I'm going on about this is that I was thinking today about being (or not being) a photographer.  Note to wife: Don't worry, I'm not talking about a career change or anything.

When exactly does one consider oneself "a photographer", as opposed to just being a geek with a camera?  Haven't really come up with any kind of decent answer for that.  The reason I was thinking about it is because of my train ride this morning.  Occasionally, I'll get on the train and think about which side I want to sit on, in case there's a decent picture to be taken on one side as opposed to the other.  I think "Photographers" think about stuff like that all the time...  Geeks with cameras rarely do.  If I were a "photographer", I would have been thinking about that this morning and might have been able to get a picture of one of the most incredible sunrises I've ever seen in DC.  Hence, the title of my post... 

If I were awake enough to be thinking, there's a small chance I would have remembered to sit on the right side of the train.  The views on the left are fairly boring, especially in the morning.  The right side has a nice view when going over the Potomac.  Even if the windows are dirty (which is usually the case), you can generally get a decent shot if you use a wide aperture.  However, I was barely moving, let alone "awake", so I didn't think about any of that until I saw an absolutely incredible picture waiting to be taken that I missed.  Theoretically, being awake might have been a good thing this once.

Warning: Sudden topic change below!

Here's a few of the "technical difficulties" I was talking about in my previous post...

Starting tomorrow, I'll be in the woods with a bunch of other peeps driving over and through stuff, trying not to break my Jeep.  Unfortunately, my Jeep hasn't been behaving very well, so I've had a lot of work to do on it this week.  Hopefully, I've done enough to make sure I'm not stuck in the woods with a broken Jeep.  If not, I'll have spare parts and friends with me. ;)  So, I've been busy wrenching whenever possible.

Unfortunately, that has been interrupted repeatedly by work.  We're on our third messaging server failure this week (and it's only Thursday!).  The first one wasn't that bad, and was easily fixed by beating up our virus scanner.  The second one was critical (one step short of complete meltdown) and took a lot of time to fix.  Today's crash we're still investigating, but it looks like a simple memory leak that has gone undetected till now.  Anyway, troubleshooting and fixing all this stuff has sucked a fair amount of time as well.

Add Shmoocon to that and I've pretty much got no time left at all.  On top of all that, toss in a computer that doesn't want to recognize my USB reader and the chances of getting some pictures up are pretty much gone.

In spite of the universe conspiring against me this week, I have a full 2GB card and a half full 4GB card of images from my camera!  I'll see what I can do to get at least one up today...  Might be able to pull a few off during lunch.

See ya!

This is another picture that I have mixed feelings about.  Let me cover the good first, since that's pretty short...

The good...  It's a really cool building.  It's also got some fairly rich detail and color, although my photo doesn't show that.  The garden is also quite nice when it's "alive".  Right now, it's pretty much all dead other than the yellow things that are just starting bloom.  This is the Smithsonian Institution Building (commonly called Smithsonian Castle).  I forgot what's inside it, but I just like the building.
Before I get into the bad stuff, here's the pic:

Ok, let's get on with the bad parts.  I've already mentioned the dead looking trees, so I won't harp on that.  I was walking to work in the morning because I knew it was going to rain on the way home.  Normally I walk to the train in the evening if I have time, so I'm used to evening light conditions, not morning.  The lighting here is horrible.  Everything is faded and washed out.  The colors were incredibly weak and I've boosted them quite a bit just to get some kind of contrast out of this picture.

It's an "I was here" picture.  While the composition technically fits the "rule of three" (er... well, it did before I cropped it), it's a dead-on shot with no interesting angles or anything.  Could it possible be any more symmetrical?  BORING!

Now the sky... WHAT SKY?  I wasn't using the polarizing filter, which might have helped slightly.  Ah, who am I kidding?  A polarizer would have gotten a slightly bluer tone to the sky, but it still would have been drab and boring.  There was absolutely no texture in the sky... it was a dull and dreary day. 

Finally, there was a bit of barrel distortion caused by my lens.  I had to tweak that a bit with Photoshop by altering the perspective slightly.  No big deal, but it unfortunately put a few "jaggies" in on the right tower windows.  Hard to see on the picture here, but if you click on it to go to Flickr and then view the large size, they're definitely there.

In short, I like the building and the picture isn't terrible.  I'd never waste my time printing this though.  While there are quite a few negative bits to this picture, they all teach me something about what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong.  That's pretty much the point of this whole exercise, which is why I ended up posting this one. ;)

Now I'm off to go take some shots with my new Tamron lens.  Laters!

Posted by smthng | 0 Comments [Edit]

Friday, March 16, 2007 7:10 PM

Schweet!  It finally arrived at the local shop and I went to pick it up after work today.  What is it, you ask? Ok, maybe you don't ask, but I'm gonna spill anyways...  My Tamron AF70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro 1:2 lens! 

I originally started this entry to talk about my new lens, but I'm going to do that in a separate post a bit later.  I want to talk about lenses in general now.

For those not familiar with my new lens, let me first qualify that the name "Tamron" is generally associated with the word "cheap".   "Sigma" is generally not quite as cheap, but is also firmly planted in the realm of cheapness.  Tamron and Sigma make lenses for just about every model of consumer DSLR known to man.  Canon, however, makes lenses only for Canon cameras.  Nikon (Nikor) generally makes lenses only for Nikon cameras.  So, the general rule of thumb is that if you want a new lens, it's probably going to be from either your camera manufacturer, or Tamron or Sigma.  There are exceptions, but I'll leave that explanation to someone else.   Pretty simple so far.  So, if you're an amateur on a budget, you drool over some of the manufacturer lenses and save forever to spend what is usually an ungodly sum of money for a really slick lens, or you decide which Tamron or Sigma you can afford and you plunk down your duckets and get yer lens.  This does get a bit more confusing however, which you'd already start to realize if you've REALLY been following my blog. ;)

Because... not all manufacturers lenses are better than the so-called "cheap" brands.  Case in point... my Tamron vs the closest equivalent Canon lens.   The closest Canon lens I can find to compare with my Tamron is the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III.  I blogged about that earlier.  It's junk...  Three day old carp!  I can't believe Canon is putting their name on that.  You get the idea. 

The Canon and the Tamron cost about the same.  The Tamron has a macro mode, better internal mechanics (I'll talk about that in my next post about the lens itself), and a lens hood.  I'm not going to get started on how much Canon wants for a simple lens hood, but suffice to say, it ain't worth it when you're working with the bottom of the barrel lenses, IMO.  

Ack... I'm rambling.  What's my point? Not all manufacturers' lenses are great.  Not all "cheap brand" lenses are junk.  Do your research and make sure you use a shop that will let you try stuff out and take it back if it doesn't work or you don't like it!

Note: I'm not bashing Sigma or Tamron, if they weren't in the market, I wouldn't have my current lens.  By the way they do have some really NICE lenses too...  Like this monster.

Hey ho...  This is just a cool building near the White House.  I apparently have an affinity for red buildings, but most of them don't turn out so good when I take shots of them.  It's an exposure thing... I keep getting sucked into exposing for the background which normally underexposes the darker red building.

Anyway, this is one of the shots I took the other day with a circular polarizing filter.  Polarizing is smthng you can't do in Photoshop, so I generally try to make sure I've got a polarizer with me whenever I'm out shooting.  Polarizing does two distinct things that I know of... the first is easy to define... it gets rid of a lot of reflections.  This is why sunglasses are offered as polarized.  The other thing it does (which I don't fully understand) is to bring out details in clouds and shadow areas.  I don't know why or how it does this, but I'm glad it does.

I took another shot of this building without the polarizer and it looks like carp.  The sky is all washed out and the clouds are nothing more than pale streaks.  It's a pain to have to switch filters on a regular basis, but sometimes it's worth it.

BTW... I'll have another shot in a few days that I really like.  It's near the Washington Monument, but it's not of the monument.  It's another polarized shot with some really cool clouds.  But, the clouds look even better after a little Photoshop love.  I'm not quite done with my PhotoChopping, but it's looking pretty sweet so far.  I'll post it up when I'm done.  See ya!

...currently on my flash card.  ;)

I have been taking pictures, just slacking on the posting a bit.  I do have a fair amount of decent ones that I'll be posting up this week.  I just haven't had the time to get them processed and uploaded yet.  I took a bunch yesterday that I think are going to be reasonably decent.  I decided to use a polarizing filter to get a richer sky, so that will be interesting.  I haven't even looked at them yet, but with the time change I actually had a decent amount of light to work with.  I expect they'll be worth the effort.  See ya!

Ok, I'm kind of cheating again, but in a different way.  I've had about 4 days of really poor shooting and I haven't been posting often (I'm almost done with DST so I'll get some time back soon).  So... I'm doubling up this time.  Not really a bad thing, since these two were similar. 

First, a tree (probably a Japanese maple of some kind).  I was mostly playing with the depth of field (DOF) and focal lengths here.  I like the way it came out because this pretty clearly shows the DOF you can get on a high-contrast picture.  You can get a slightly narrower DOF by using a wider aperture, but that would have sped up the shutter speed and the snow would have been shown up as specs on the picture.  You takes what you gets and you lives with it sometimes.  The B&W conversion was done in Elements... it does a better job than the on-board engine.

The second is a vine (yes, I know it looks a lot like the tree).  This is a pretty poor picture.  But, it shows the falling snow the way I wanted it to.  You'll probably have to go to the larger sizes in Flickr to see it, but it's there.  The snow flakes are streaks, not specks.  The snow was falling much heavier in this shot compared to the last one, which is why you can see it.  I did this the easy way...  I just took a bunch of shots at different speeds and this one worked. Ain't digital great?  :)  It just so happens that this was taken at exactly the same aperture and speed as the previous shot.  Dumb luck.

BTW... I know it's out of focus just a hair.  That was camera shake caused by me.  I was getting a bad case of "wet camera fear".

I am managing to stick to my plan of taking a picture every day.  But... I've found a bad habit that I have to break.  I tend to take very high-contrast photos without realizing it.  Generally, the contrast is high enough that it's impossible to get a decent shot without taking multiple exposures or doing some major dodging and burning to get the detail back to a reasonable level.  The included pic is a prime example.

I did a LOT of things wrong here!  First, I was in a hurry and didn't get a good shot to start with.  Nothing technical there, I'm just really cramped for time until work backs off a bit.  I chose a subject that has a lot of contrast and a lot of detail.  Really heavy and dark shadows on the bottom of the globe, really bright highlights on the top and in the background.  This confused the snot out of camera and I made the mistake of trusting it.   Finally, I didn't take multiple exposures to compensate for what I clearly should have.  The instant I popped that picture up on my computer, I knew instantly that I'd messed up.  So here's a fairly poor picture for you to use to laugh at me. :P

By the way... this is AFTER doing a lot of work with levels and curves in Photoshop.

This is one of the moving sculptures near the Smithsonian Air & Space museum.  It's probably one of my favorites, but it takes a fair amount of wind for it to really get going.  BTW... it's polished steel or aluminum and it's not really blue.  I just liked the effect after I messed with the white balance settings. :)

Though I'd forgotten already? This is Sunday's picture.

A shot of the snow on the trees here after we got dumped on.  Cropped, leveled and converted to B&W in Photoshop.

Headed out to MNBP today to take some shots with the XTi.  Nice place, glad the weather was tolerable.  I'd been out there several times, but not to the area I picked today.  It was a lot more "woodsy" than most of the other portions of that park.

This is my first "Camera 365" post.  Click the pic to see different sizes and the metadata on Flickr if you like. I'll generally be doing the same with all the posts that fit this category.  If you like the pictures, I recommend clicking and checking out the larger sizes on Flickr.  If you'd prefer the larger sizes posted here instead, just leave me a comment or shoot me an email. 

Oh, I won't be tagging all my "Camera 365" shots with "Canon" or "Rebel XTi" or anything like that unless I specifically talk about something to do with the camera.  If the post is all about the photo, I won't mention (or tag) the camera.  I doubt I'll have many camera comments in the beginning... not much point in talking about it till I figure out how it works a bit more. ;) I will be using a "Camera365" tag though for those that want to follow along... that way you can subscribe to just that tag and skip all the rest of my nonsense. :)

BTW... I totally stole this whole idea from PhotoJojo.  I'd been thinking about it for a bit, but when I found the article, that kicked me into gear.  I'm sure there are plenty of others out there with Photoblogs who post daily (or more) and will probably end up being more regular and higher quality than me. :)

Hey again,

After spending a bit of time with my new camera, I've quickly figured out that I'm not going to figure it out unless I get out there and actually use the thing.  So, I'm going to try to take pictures every day for a year!

I'm sure I'll miss a few, but at least this way I'll have a regular "session" of sorts that'll eventually get me familiar with everything.  I may not get the pictures up on the day they're taken, but I'm going to endeavor to be REGULAR with taking pictures.  I actually expect that I'll take a dozen shots a day and one or two will be reasonable decent.  Those are the ones I'll slap online.  I'll house them on my Flickr page, but I'll post them here as a link.  Once I get some software issues solved on my end (hopefully today), I'll start posting. 

If I have something to say about why I took the shot or any technical points about it, I'll post them up here with the image.  However, all the EXIF tags will be on Flickr if you really want to see what camera settings/lens/exposure/etc I was using.

I hope someone out there gets a kick out it.

Okay, any serious photographers can stop reading right now... Due to my finances (and my family finance minister), I'm going to be talking about some "bottom of the barrel" lenses here. ;)

I picked up a new Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III lens yesterday.  I was actually looking for a Tamron AF70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro 1:2 lens, but the Canon was a bit cheaper and it was in stock at my local dealer.  I figured they would be about the same, with the exception that the Canon wasn't a macro lens.  I had the guys at the shop look up the specs on both lenses and the difference in focusing distance between the Tamron and Canon was only about a foot, so I figured I could live with the Canon.  Unfortunately, the Canon ain't all I thought it would be. :(

There's nothing wrong with the optics that I can tell.  The DOF is very nice, which is what I was looking for.  The magnification is also pretty sweet, especially with the 1.6x magnification factor I get from using the XTi/400D...  that basically makes the 75-300 act like a 120-480mm lens.  But... 

The mechanics on the Canon lens are REALLY bad!  The Zoom control is near the base of lens and the focal ring is near the front.  This is basically backwards from most lenses.  Not that big of deal, but still "odd".  That's just an nagging issue to me, not a deal breaker.  The major issue is the zoom control.  It's "notchy".  It basically feels like the mechanics in the lens are binding up.  This means that when zooming, the action is "jerky".  It's impossible to do a smooth zoom.  This is most telling when you're trying to get to an exact focal length.  With the Canon lens, I've found that I have to overzoom, then pull back to get the zoom where I wanted it.  It's a bit of a pain to deal with on a regular basis.  I did some Googling on this lens and found that I'm not the only one with this issue, so it's obviously a "design feature", not an error with the manufacturing.

I should also mention that this lens is quite bulky and heavy.  It probably weighs more than the XTi/400D does.

The final straw is the focusing mechanism.  It's an AF lens, with a switch to convert to manual focus.  Unfortunately, the AF is REALLY slow, has an incredibly hard time tracking stuff and doesn't allow you to manually correct it without throwing the switch (this appears to be the way that non-USM Canon lenses work - get a USM version if you want to override the AF).  The length of time it takes to autofocus when zoomed is ridiculous.  So...

The Canon lens is going back and I'm going to get the local shop to order the Tamron for me.  I'll post up a comparison when I get the chance.

Frozen FDR Memorial, originally uploaded by smthng.

The Rebel XTi is here and I've been playing with it for about a week. Unfortunately, the weather has been HORRIBLE and I've been working a fair bit, so I haven't had much chance to play with it. I got out with it the other night, but didn't have a lot of time to get used to the new critter. Here's one of the pics that I thought was reasonably decent, but I still have a LONG way to go! Technical details of the shot available on Flickr if you want to see exposure and lens details and such.

Hey all,

Figured I'd post up this since anyone reading this blog is most likely using some tech gadgets of some kind.  It's also winter pretty much everywhere in the US, so gloves might become a necessity for many.

I snagged a pair of gadget friendly gloves this weekend and they rock!  A fairly decent portion of my commute often involves waiting on a cold and windy platform for a train to show up.  It's been anywhere from 8 - 30 degrees here recently and that's plenty cold enough to chill my little fingers into uselessness.  What's the solution?  Gloves and pockets, of course.  Unfortunately, that makes handling any kind of gadgetry somewhat awkward.  What's the solution to that?  Gloves that can have exposed fingers!  These REI Thermo Glove/Mittens go one better...  fully covered fingers when you need the added protection, exposed fingertips when you don't! 

With these, I can keep my paws warm with a fully functioning mitten.  When I want to surf on my Blackjack, I can just flip the thumb tip back and have easy access to the control wheel and back button (which is about all I need when checking my feeds on Bloglines).  Need more access than that?  Flip the entire mitten tip back and it sticks to the back of the glove using a tiny velcro patch.  Excellent for texting or using other gadgets (like my EOS Rebel XTi, due to show up tomorrow). :)

These aren't cheap gloves, but they're the best "gadget friendly" mitts I've seen.

Schweet!  I'd been harassing my wife about this camera for a while now and noticed yesterday that Amazon.com had it on a special.  Well, after some intense whining on my part, I managed to convince the wife that this was "a good thing" and we plunked down the duckets for it (thanks, Baby!).  For anyone else in the same boat, you can check out Amazon's promotion to see a decent price plus a free Canon PIXMA photo printer.  If you do decide to hop on it, make sure you select a PIXMA that's from Amazon, not from one of the hosted stores.  The correct one should show a price of $99 or so.  Add that puppy, type in the code when checking out and the cost is zeroe'd out in your order.  Not badly... a good price for the camera (I got the lens to go with it) and a free photo printer!

While I'm on the subject, I have to note that Amazon is being a bit cruel to me...  I ordered the camera, the PIXMA and a memory card, all of which were in stock.  The memory card shipped in hours after placing the order.  The PIXMA is supposed to ship today.  The camera?  Still shows no shipping plans.  That's gonna be rough...  I get the "bits" before I get the camera to make use of them.  It's not a big deal to me, I just thought it was kind of amusing. 

BTW... I will be buying any other accessories from a local camera shop in the area, as the owner is a good guy and has always done me right.  Unfortunately, he couldn't touch this deal, even without the free printer. :(  I feel a bit bad about it, but I'll make up for it in accessories and processing over time, I'm sure.