31-OCT-2010
Day 304 - Standing Tall
(1035/365)
My son has stolen my youngest daughter's stilts and has been walking all over the house lately. I got the idea to try to photograph him this evening while setting up the flash on a stand. It came out as a bit more low key than I'd intended, though it gives me a good idea for an outdoor shot of this at some point, with the 40D and my Tamron UWA.
Strobist Info:
580EX2 Camera Left, 1/16 Power, fired into homebrew diffuser. Triggered with Cybersyncs.
30-OCT-2010
Day 303 - Fan Base
(1034/365)
I went to the MBDA Finals today in Portsmouth, NH. This is the "Big Event" for the High School Marching Bands in the area. I went to see my oldest perform (her third season has come to an end) as well as to get some more shots to alleviate my "Redeye dilemna" from last week's shoot.
I took about 600 photos today, I am going through the first pass. I normally shed about 20-40% on the first pass. Evening shots never look the same on the computer as on the preview screen on the camera. Even though we had a lot more light, I was still working at the absolute range of my lens (shooing a lot of 1/100 or 1/80 on my 100mm tonight).
While walking back from a few shots of the band after they had performed, I saw this scene on the other side of the field. It was fine in color, but I like Black and White.
29-OCT-2010
Day 302 - Long week
(1033/365)
This has been one long week. My son & I were watching "Fanboys" it was on TV (HBO or Max) this evening. Have to go fix a broken cermamic doll now for my daughter.
28-OCT-2010
Day 301 - Face Time
(1032/365)
I wanted to give Fox a little camera time here, he had just finished up a little snack and was just standing in the kitchen looking lost (he does that a lot lately). Photographing a 13 year old Shiba is much easier than a 5 month old kitten.
Clear Skies, got the Dob out in the garage, heading out to make use of the sky before the moon pops into play.
27-OCT-2010
Day 300 - KC has it made
(1031/365)
KC was sitting on the chair this evening with her paws laid out like this while I was eating. I told the family to not disturb her so I could take a photo. My oldest started playing her flute about the time I got the camera ready and I had to do something to get KC's attention back. I believe I screeched, thus the perked ears and WTF look she is giving me here.
I copied the settings from yesterday's photo and applied them to this one, so they should have a similar feel to each other.
26-OCT-2010
Day 299 - KC Revisited
(1030/365)
This is a good example of what the LX5 is not very good at. It's not suitable for active subjects and kittens are active subjects. I initially attempted to shoot her with the LX5 this evening, she was lying down in my office, behind my chair. By the time I'd secured the LX5, she was mobile.
I threw the 580EX2 on top of the 40D and went on a kitty hunt. Found her upstairs just sitting in the middle of the hall. I have no idea what she is looking at in this photo as there is no one there.
I played with some of the LR3 presets. I'm starting to like LR3 now. I am still on my trial 30 days, I do have every intention of purchasing it though before the 30 days are up.
25-OCT-2010
Day 298 - One of those days
(1029/365)
Ever have one of those days?
Another Strobist shot, this time I went for the actual LX5's RAW (RW2) file and processed it. While I liked the High Dynamic BW from the camera, I wanted to muck with some of the new LR3 settings. Turns out I've been using LR3 since I got the LX5 and I've pretty much shot the LX5 Straight Out Of the Camera since.
Strobist:
Canon 580EX2 1/16 Power Camera Right. Triggered by Cybersyncs. LX5 Manual Mode, exposure set via Sekonic L-358.
24-OCT-2010
Day 297 - Rare Smile
(1028/365)
A rare smile from Kala this evening on her Macbook. Technically, this one belongs to the State of Maine, 7th & 8th graders get Macbooks in Maine, a great program.
A little bit of a Strobist thing, I had te 580EX2 camera right, 1/32 Power, triggered with Cybersyncs. KC finished the session by attacking the light stand.
23-OCT-2010
Day 296 - Marching Band Competition
(1027/365)
Catching up from last night's Marching Band Competition. Pairing down the 481 shots I took. The bad news, I had the flash on [camera] for the band members as they were marching off the field, every single shot (I try to capture each member) has red-eye. I think it would be much easier to reshoot next weekend at the finals. Oh to have the 70-200 f/2.8 IS. . .
22-OCT-2010
Day 295 - New Scope
(1026/365)
My new Zhumell 10" Dob arrived today. My 12-year-old & I put it together and took it outside for a quick spin. Got to see some very nice detail in the moon and Jupiter. The full moon really put a damper on some serious (or just plain not-serious) deep sky viewing, but we had fun anyway.
21-OCT-2010
Day 294 - Nothing Fancy
(1025/365)
So FedEx didn't deliver a couple of packages that were supposed to arrive today (they pretty much screw up 80% of stuff they ship me). All week they were reporting a delivery today, at 1PM it was still showing today, though the package was no where near me. By 2PM they'd switched it to tomorrow.
I find myself with a bit of free time that I'd not anticipated. Still shooting the LX5, went back to a Strobist shot for today. I intended to put the flash in my sweatshirt and aim it up, but when doing a few test shots for exposure, I realized it would work better if I held it out slightly. Due to the angle of the lighting, my pupils have no detail. I have enough triggers and strobes to setup a secondary with a white card for some catch light, but I'm not going to do that now. This entire shot is handheld, I'm holding the LX5 & the Canon Flash.
Still digging the LX5.
Strobist Info:
Canon 580EX-2 1/64 Power below camera, firing up, triggered with Cybersyncs.
20-OCT-2010
Day 293 - Advance
(1024/365)
The South Berwick Fire Department put on a demonstration this evening for our Pack Meeting. Who doesn't want to see flames shooting 50' into the air?
It started with this specially rigged propane tank (with propane supplied via a P. Gagnon & Son's tank truck about 150' to camera right) complete with the Fire Trucks rolling in, the crew getting out and advancing on the fire. They set up a wall of water spray and actually pushed the flames back so they could turn a valve to stop the flow of propane.
In the words of just about every boy present "IT .... WAS ..... AWESOME!!!"
