Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

No need to go far

While it’s great to go somewhere to shoot sometimes you get get the best photos in your own back yard.

My, what pretty eyes you have

My kit

I finally took a photo of all my camera equipment. I’m linking to it instead of just embedding because I tagged the hell out of it over on Flickr.

Other than the fact that I usually only carry the monopod or the tripod at one time I have the rest of it with me 99% of the time.

Flickr, Flashes, and Geotagging

My Flickr feed broke 2000 views this morning. It had taken longer than I had thought (I was getting 50 views a day for a bit there) but I’m still happy it happened. I know others are in the 100s of thousands but I’m still thrilled to get 2000.

I’ve been looking to get a camera flash that will work fully with my Canon. Right now I’m using an old Promatic flash but I want something more automatic; something that can tell how my camera is set and only fire as strongly as needed. The problem is E-TTL flashes (Canon’s standard) are very pricey. Even used they’re going for too much on eBay. I’m still looking though.

Today I finally figured out how to record tracklogs with my BlackBerry and GPS puck. This means I can finally start geotagging my photos again.

The addiction grows

When I got my S5 I picked up a small camera bag that had enough room for the camera, flash, and a couple of SD cards. Then I picked up a 58mm adapter and a lens hood. With those attached the bag started to get tight. When I decided to always carry an emergency set of batteries it got really tight. Then my brother gave me a polarizer which was the last thing I could possibly fit in the bag without bursting a seam.

Well, I was innocently browsing eBay the other day (cough) when I stumbled across a set of 2x and 3x filters for cheap. There is no way they would fit in my bag so I had to pick up a new one tonight. It’s about 50% bigger with enough room for my current kit plus a little left over for a few more filters. I got this one because, first, it’s big enough for what I need without being so big that I feel the need to fill it and second, it was only $15.

One of these days I’ll need to borrow a camera and get a shot of my complete kit. Hopefully I do this before I outgrow the new bag.

On the way to 2000

My Flickr page is getting about 50 hits a day. At this rate I’ll have 2000 views in a couple of days. They like me! They really like me!

Hello my name is Fyre

And I’m a photography addict. I’m getting to the point that I feel antsy if I don’t shoot almost every day. The problem is I’m running out of things to shoot. I dislike shooting people and I’ve photographed every flower, bird, and animal in the area.

Polarizer

Thanks to my brother I now have a polarizing filter. I haven’t had a chance to play with it but I plan to very soon

I am an idiot

My girlfriend and I were driving along this evening when we saw a vulture feeding on the side of the road. I have never seen one in real life and wanted to take some pictures of it so I pulled over as soon as I could safely, threw the car in park, and reached for my camera. I always take my camera with me because you never know if you’ll see something you want to shoot. I pulled out my camera and went to put a fresh memory card in when, hmm, isn’t the camera a little light? Yea, I had my camera, a couple of memory cards, even my tripod but forgot all my batteries sitting nice and charged in the charger. I wanted to offer myself to the vulture as a meal because I am obviously too stupid to live.

Lesson learned: Always, ALWAYS triple check that you have in fact brought your batteries. Just so this never can happen again I’m going to keep a set of plain old alkaline batteries (which hold a charge much longer than rechargeables) in my camera bag

In which I suck

Dani and I went to the Flower Show for her birthday. I thought I’d be able to get some great pictures of all the pretty flowers and displays. Silly human.

I took over 200 shots. Out of those I have about 50 that don’t look like pure shit and even those are either blown out or grainy as hell. I simply don’t have the skill to shoot steadily in anything less than great light without either a tripod (no room with the crowds) or by dialing the ISO up to where the shots are more grain than subject. I’d like to blame the camera for having a noisy sensor at high ISO but I know most of the blame lays on my lack of skill.

My Camera

I have had a fascination with photography for years. I’ve never been any good at it but I still love it. I started shooting with a little P.O.S. pocket camera, then graduated to a hand-me-down Pentax k1000 from my brother. Eventually I found digital cameras and loved the freedom from film. Today I shoot using a Canon Powershot S5 IS. It’s rather nice for a “point-and-shoot”, having a hotshoe and a 12x optical zoom, and I don’t feel like I need a DSLR, at least not for a while. That being said I do want to upgrade my kit a bit.

What I have:

  • 58mm adapter
  • Lens hood
  • Adjustable flash
  • Cheap tripod
  • 2X 2 G.B. SD cards
  • Lenspen
  • 2 sets of batteries

What I want:

  • Polarizing and neutral grad filters – I hate post processing (I’m allergic to Photoshop) so those two filters would help me get the shots I want in the first place.
  • New flash – The flash I have is quite old and is ever so slightly laggy, even with new batteries.
  • A better tripod – The one I have is about what you’d expect for a $35 tripod. That is, it holds the camera and is steadier than shooting by hand, but just. I’d like one that is truly steady
  • A bigger bag – While I already lament the fact that my camera is too big to just throw into my backpack and go I need more room in my camera bag. As it is the camera, hood, flash, and such barely fit
  • Bigger faster SD cards – What digital photographer doesn’t
  • More batteries – Ditto
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