Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Lunch at the lake or, fill flash is our friend

It was very windy today at the lake so, I figured, why not take a photo of my lunch? Here is the process I used:

This first shot is of my lunch, but, it doesn't tell the story since there is no lake in evidence. It is however not too out of control as far as a lunch goes. It's a 10 inch sub with lots of lettuce and veggies, and a healthy apple along with my diet soda. At least there is no big ole bag of chips there instead of the apple.



This shot shows the lake, but the food is too dark because the settings are best for the lake, which was in full sun and the food was in partial shade.


When I set up for the car, the lake got blown out (turned white) since the shutter had to be open too long in order to capture the dark interior.


The best solution when there are dark areas and white areas might be to use fill flash. Fill flash fills in the dark areas when there are a lot of bright areas in the shot. Now there are no shadows across the bag or food and you can see the spillway from the lake behind. Fill flash is the tool pros use when taking photographs with the sun behind the subject. Set the flash for a few stops below the measured value and you get nice shadow free eyes and a clear background, and much better looking shots!

I didn't notice the shadow on theright side of the image when I took the shot. I did notice the glare on the apple from the on camera flash. I would have been able to fix the shot using my off camera flash, but that would have been a lot more work and risked draggin my camera bag through open food. Plus, I was hungry!
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Science Light and Magic, and Lunch at the Lake

The bottles are from me trying some stuff out from a photography text book, "Science, Light and Magic". The rest are from my lunch at the lake Series, taken today on another overcast day. The heron jumped up when I got too close and flew high up in a tree.





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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

SIlver Lake, Lunch, 40d, it's all good

Today was dreary when I went to lunch at the lake. The skys are dull gray in these pics. It may accent the colors more.




You want to go where tonight?? I don't think so!






Bokeh and selective focus in the following shots

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A couple from Bombay Hook

I had some time today to go to Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge. Here are a few shots I got to take. I watched the fox for about 10 minutes today. It was cool!


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Saturday, January 19, 2008

Lunch at the Lake, Nifty Fifty





There was a lady and her daughter feeding the gulls, so I asked if I could get behind her and take the photos of the gulls as they came in.
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Nifty Fifty at the Lake and beyond






These shots were taken at Wyoming Mill Pond, instead of by Silver Lake yesterday morning in the fog. The railroad tracks were on the way from the pond into work. I took the photos for a project on the photography forum I hang out at. Fridays are for using the inexpensive 50mm prime lens from the camera manufacturer. They are popular because they have great image quality and very affordable prices. I liked the shapes in black and white shots. For the railroad I liked seeing the glsitening on rail and spikes and the lettering on the inside of the rail.
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Thursday, January 17, 2008

Lunch at the lake January 16

Here are a couple of photos from the lake today. The last one of the ducks has a mallard, and what looks like a hybrid between a mallard and a wood duck, at least. Nobody in the office was quite sure what he is! The 40 D rocks!






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Sunday, January 13, 2008

More from Silver Lake Park




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What I see at O dark thirty

I got up early for me and was out the door before sunrise, heading to Bombay Hook. After there, I went to the park at Silver Lake.


This sunrise was awesome. I wish I was there 15 minutes earlier. I guess I should have gotten up at O dark 15!



I was sitting on the road watching a tree stump in the water, waiting for the marsh hawk to re-land on the stump, when I looked up the road and saw this guy crossing it, carefully.



I love the green here.




This Great Blue Heron was at Silver Lake Park. I was shooting pics of him for 15 minutes, till he flew into a tree and stopped fishing, plus my hands were cold!
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Friday, January 11, 2008

Enough with the Hawk



These photos make me glad I'm not a small mammal!
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Hawk II


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Lunch at the lake


I took this photo yesterday at the lake of an immature broad wing hawk. He's magnficent!
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Lunch at the lake





More Canon 40D goodness. I like the diagonal and the electric green on the mallards.
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