Being Me (Dorky)

Saturday's trip couldn't be all serious! One of us had to do something stupid. Apparently, I was nominated for that task!

Macro

Yesterday, while at Gee Brook State Forest, Steve pointed out a burdock that would be a good candidate for a macro shot... I'm not sure if this actually qualifies, but my Sigma 70-300mm lens seems to think it's capable of macro. I was going to create a Flickr set for my macro shots, but I need to be a paying subscriber to create more than three sets. I'll probably remedy that in the near future, but for now, a tag link will have to do.

These are a few of the macro shots I have taken so far.




Enjoy.

Gee Brook State Forest

Yesterday's trip to Gee Brook State Forest was fun. I had a good time with Steve. If we didn't get any good pictures, the trip was still worth it. We left my house around 8:45 to head up there. We had sandwiches and snacks packed to guarantee that we would be able to get plenty of interesting pictures.

There was one shot I had already composed in my mind. It was a dilapidated bridge that I wanted to shoot from a ledge a little ways down the river. Unfortunately, it didn't come out as I had expected. You can see my attempt at it here. When I composed the shot, in my mind, the trees were still bare and there was some snow on the ground. So, I'm going to go back this winter and see if I can get the shot I had hoped for.

This is the bridge I was hoping to shoot.


I have found streams and falls to be among the easiest things for me to shoot. Here are a few of the falls I was able to capture. I was hoping to take some longer exposures, but there was too much light and I don't have a neutral density filter. That is high on my list of things to purchase as is a wide angle lense.


Yesterday was a good day. I didn't get as many good shots as I was hoping to, but I'm satisfied with a handful of them. I managed to get 213 shots during the trip. I'm not sure how many Steve got, but I think it was about the same. Sadly, I came home and took another 445 pictures. A good lot of them are birds that I took from the kitchen window and another bunch of them are of my daughter and one of her friends.

Have a look at the rest of the set on Flickr.

Finally, Some RAW

I decided to take a minute and read through an article Joel Cornuz wrote on his blog. He described how he used UFRaw to convert his images. So, I had a go and I have to say, I'm rather impressed. The images aren't perfect, but they look better than I thought they would.

I took these pictures of the sky this morning before I left for work. Normally, I'm not outside at just past 7am to do anything, but I'm excited about my camera and new hobby, so, I'm a little more motivated to get out of bed in the morning.


This morning was a perfect morning for shooting photos and the perfect birds presented themselves to me as I was driving to work. I grabbed my camera, rolled the window down on my truck and rested my camera across my left arm. I took a couple dozen pictures and left for work. I was flying pretty high with excitement about having these shots.... that is, until I plugged my card reader into my computer. Every single one of the shots turned out dark. I had the exposure compensation turned down a stop for some pictures I took just a few minutes early (I deleted 'em all). If this doesn't teach me to look at the histogram and preview while I'm shooting, I'm much more dense than I originally thought I was.

With a little work in UFRaw, I was able to get the levels back up to where they should be, but the pictures are noisy. The crops and resizes don't look so bad, but I fear they won't turn out good if I print them. Here they are.


Tomorrow, I'm going to Gee Brook State Forest with a friend from Church. There is a river and a stream that run through it with some nice falls. They're small, but nice. There is also an older bridge over the river. I have a few shots that I have been planning even before I got my camera. Hopefully I'll come back tomorrow with that shot to blog about.

Some Flowers

I came home tonight with the intention of using the macro capabilities of my Sigma lens on frogs by the pond. Turns out, the frogs weren't hanging around down there. Instead, I wandered around the yard looking for defenseless subjects. This is what I came up with. Thankfully, the people we bought the house from were motivated enough to plant flowers. Otherwise, I would have had nothing to shoot tonight.

I think these guys might be telling me I need to get some weed & feed for the yard. Look at all those dandelions!

Daffodils

Grape Hyacinths

Hyacinths

More Daffodils

Tulip

I intended to work with the RAW files and start learning, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't get the pictures to come out even close to what my camera is producing.

As always, comments on my photos are welcome. Yes, that means to tell me you don't like them, but tell me why too.

Update: Turns out the blue ones are Grape Hyacinths. I guess it's good that I spam family and coworkers with my blog updates! I wouldn't have known what they were. I've added labels next to the flowers.

The Dorky Photographer

I decided a little over a year ago that I'd like to get into photography. I talked about getting a Digital SLR with my wife for a family Christmas gift, but it didn't end up happening. I put it off in my mind for a while, but it came back again. So, this year, I bought myself a camera with our tax refund. Here's what I'm starting out with:

• Canon Rebel XTi
• Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens
• Sigma 70-300mm APO DG Macro lens

I'll be using this blog to document my progress as I learn how to use my camera to take better photos. I'm sure it won't be long before my wife and kids get annoyed with me hovering over their shoulders taking pictures of everything they do.

I will also use this blog to document using Linux and Open Source tools. I will share some of the things I learn as I use these tools that are generously offered up by the community of open source developers.

Here are a few shots I have taken in the last few days with it.

I went to Tinker Falls near Labrador Hollow last night, on my way home from work. I took a ton of pictures, but only a few turned out nice. I'll be making another trip there in the near future when the sun is out a little more. When I was about to take one of the last few shots, I saw in the corner of my eye the little 'L' on the LCD display that indicates the picture quality. I fully intended from the very beginning, even before I had my camera in hand, to shoot in Raw+JPEG mode. I don't like the idea of losing all the information from the image sensor when shooting just JPEGs, even though the camera creates better JPEGs from the RAW images than I can right now. It would be nice to be able to go back to some of these photos in the future and do some more post processing work. Oh well.



I took these in my yard this morning before work.

I took this with the 'Nifty Fifty' lens the day I received my camera. It's my mom's Suzuki Savage.



I'm always open to critique on the photos I post.