Kathy

One of my favorite places to kill a little time and occasionally pick up new stuff for my Block Play blog is Seattle's Math 'n' Stuff.

While looking through recent posts with a staff member, she asked what kind of camera this was, so after a brief discussion, I scampered out to my car and brought it in.

Of course I had to demonstrate it for her.

I rather like the results.

Hand held, fluorescent lighting, full-auto, cropped & tweaked in Picasa.

Outdoor blocks

For my Block Play Blog I enjoy photographing my constructions outside.

One of the challenges is balancing subject light with background light.

The image above has a white umbrella positioned to reduce and defuse the sunlight on the structure, so that it could be properly exposed without having the cedar branches in the background drop out to black.

Here, as for most of my block structures, I have used Shift-N to rectify vertical distortion.

Self Portrait

Sharing

My older girl & my mom.

Night Nights

This image is a response to an inquiry on Olympus Talk Forum about night exposures with the SP-570UZ.

My first reaction was "no problem, I have some." But a more careful reading determined that the request was for long exposures at low ISO on a tripod, and my shots were at high ISO, to allow slower shutter speeds and handholding (with image stabilization).

That sounded like a weird but interesting exercise - deliberately handicapping oneself like that can be a good learning experience, so I decided to accept the informal challenge.

I haven't turned up my old tripod yet, so I stuck a clamp and pocket tripod in pockets and took the camera on my evening walk.

It seemed like the streetlights made the streets too bright, so I turned down a dark alley and set the camera up with the pocket tripod on a recycling bin.

The above is probably the best of several shots at 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 100.

And just for fun, I bumped the "fill light" in Picasa up to maximum, then clicked the "I'm feeeling lucky" button for Picasa's best guess at optimum contrast and color balance.

The intriguing results are below.

Silly but fun.

Heron versus fish

We watched a heron catch & eat a fish.

He either jumped or fell the rock. We aren't sure.

But he got the fish.

[The original video is a nasty-big file (~58 mb). Blogger scrunched it into something more manageable & less clear. It is still fun.]

The heron had a lot of trouble with the fish but eventually managed to swallow it.

I had wandered off by then, so missed photographing the mid-throat bulge.

Llandover Woods

Sand Point

After getting my new camera yesterday, I took it with me today to Magnuson Park, at Sand Point, to met a friend for a walk.

The images here are maybe a little better in execution thatn yesterday's, and have been cropped. A few have had contrast tweaked.


These should be a deeper red, but I suspect that the infrared sensitivity of the camera's image sensor isn't adding white to the mix, making the flowers pink.


These ducks were way out there. This shot was handheld at the equivalent of a 520mm telephoto on a 35mm camera. Image stabilization is great. (Image is cropped significantly.)











For me, photography is more about the process than the product, but I do enjoy the resulting images as well.

New camera - 5/21/08

The first picture with the new camera had to be of Webster, of course.

None of these images demonstrate what the camera is capable of when used carefully. I was just finding my way around the controls. They also are uncropped and untweaked - just the way the came out of the camera.

And my second subject was Archie.

Then I wandered outside for a few flower shots & such.


Most folks have seen stitched panoramas before. What makes this camera interesting is that you only press the shutter once, then shift the camera until a dot aligns with a target, at which point the camera automatically makes another exposure. Repeat that again, and you have a three piece panorama which is automatically stitched in the camera. This example demonstrates some drawbacks, especially in exposure control, which I will be attempting to ameliorate.

The next two images below were taken on my evening walk, a little over a half hour after sunset. It was much darker out than it looks.


Quite a camera. Quite a day.

weeds?

This is the first post to show pictures actually taken the same day. Still with the D450Z, but the SP570UZ is getting closer.

Some of the previous images have been weeds. Probably more that I don't know yet. The same surely applies to todays.

Seems like I should know, so I have got some books coming. Online public library book requests are great.

There's also the county weed folks. Jo brought home a pamphlet & brochure from a local plant sale.

But I didn't go down at 5:30 am just for the weeds (and wildflowers?), but also for the beach.

foograf are us

For the last few weeks, I've been considering getting a new camera to do something more along the lines of "real photography" than the basic blogshots I had been doing with my 1999 1.3 Mp Olympus D450Z.

As part of that exercise, I have been trying to do things I might do with the new camera, using the old camera, to get a better perspective on feature & function priorities - and to make sure I really would go out and take pictures, not just sit on the couch thinking about it.

All the posts in this blog so far are from that exercise. At this point, it is mostly just images, but I may wander back through and add some remarks.

The new camera, an Olympus SP-570UZ, will be here in a few days.

Then we will see what directions this blog goes.

Greenwood - 5/12/08

orchard - 5/6/08

Carkeek Park