Archive for December, 2009
December 9, 2009 – Fly
Posted by Dave in Animals, Macro, Picture of the Day on December 9, 2009
Fly
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1111
I know, I know, a lot of you think pictures like this one are kind of disgusting. And let’s be honest, they kind of are. But they’re still really cool. And, you have to admit, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted one.
This was taken with the 18-55 mm kit lens that came with my Canon, reverse-mounted using one of these guys: http://bit.ly/hCi4n . It’s truly ridiculous how close-in you can get that way, and all you need is a cheesy little 13 dollar attachment. Unfortunately, since you’re attaching the lens to your camera backwards, you obviously don’t get the benefit of any of the electronic controls, which means the focus is totally manual (although focusing at that distance consists of simply rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet) and your aperture will be wide open. However, I don’t think shrinking the aperture would help you at all anyway, since there’s such a pitifully small amount of light reaching your sensor anyway.
As you can tell, the depth of field when taking pictures like this is quite literally microscopic. In normal landscape photography, you can take a photo with everything from 15 feet in front of you out to infinity all in focus. Here? The only thing in focus is a very narrow band between the fly’s back and the front of his head. We’re talking maybe a millimeter here. It’s weird. Another odd thing about doing this kind of stuff is how close you have to get to your subject. This fly was literally less than an inch from the front (well, the back) of my lens. As you can imagine, this introduces a whole host of new issues. Such as: flies tend to be a bit skittish. So it can be hard to get close enough to even get a picture. And, I don’t know about you, but I’m not good at standing perfectly still. I tend to rock back and forth a bit. When I’m taking a picture of a mountain, an inch or two in either direction doesn’t really make a difference. But when your depth of field is a millimeter, it’s a bit different. And, even on top of that, it’s worth pointing out that flies are FAST. They move a LOT. So while normally the biggest concern is using a fast enough shutter speed to avoid camera shake, with these shots you need to get much, much faster than that, so that you don’t get motion blur. (1/400th of a second is a great place to start.) So to say getting this picture was a bit frustrating a bit of an understatement. Let’s just say, it’s a good think I was shooting digital, because I had a couple hundred frames of complete garbage. (Not an exaggeration.)
One thing I like about these shots, and this one in particular, is that they’re very illustrative of what happens when you move away from the focal point. The eye is fantastic, because you can see what it looks like in focus, and you can very clearly see how it degrades from that into the general out of focus mushy stuff. Fun times, all around.
Before I let you go today, I’d like to point something out real quick. If you see that bit.ly link above ( http://bit.ly/hCi4n ), that’s a link to Amazon, to the actual reverse-mount attachment I use. If you use that link to go to Amazon, then buy ANYTHING on the site, it’s linked up to my referral account, so I get 4% of your purchase paid to me. So I would urge you, if you’re going to do any Amazon shopping this holiday season, to please go to Amazon via that link, help me out a bit. If you buy enough stuff, I’ll send you a free calendar!! What could be better than that?! Oh, a lot of stuff, you’re right. But it’s still pretty awesome!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, reverse-mounted 18-55 mm kit lens. 1/400s, ISO 800.
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December 8, 2009 – Rose
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on December 8, 2009
Rose
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1175
Hey everyone! It’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted one of these shots from my little rose field trip across the street, so here you go.
Wow, not really thinking of much worth writing today. See you all tomorrow?
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300 mm macro lens. 1/800s, f/6.3, ISO 400. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 6%
December 7, 2009 – Gold Creek Pond and Chikamin Peak
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on December 7, 2009
Gold Creek Pond and Chikamin Peak
Monday, December 7, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=615
Wow, that was close, I almost missed Monday. Got it in just after business hours closed on the west coast. That’s fine, that just means that this picture will be the “latest post” for a shorter time, which is probably good, because it’s not my favorite. They can’t all be winners, of course, but it still stings when one loses.
This is Chikamin Peak and Gold Creek Pond, seen from the Gold Creek Pond picnic area near Snoqualmie Pass. I’ve talked about it before so I’m not going to go into any more than that now. This is a good illustration of why sometimes you hear people say that the best light for pictures tends to be either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. The mid-day light tends to just flatten out the colors, which results in a more ho-hum picture. Still great for some purposes (like documenting a hike you go on, for instance), but you’re much more likely to get the really dramatic “keepers” closer to the fringes of the day. The light then tends to be a lot warmer, and the angle of the light leads to nice shadows and such, which do a great job of emphasizing details and adding depth. Also, there can be a lot of haze during the day. Nothing will kill color better than a little bit of haze. It doesn’t even have to be a LOT of haze. There’s haze here, but you wouldn’t even know it. It drains the color from stuff in the distance, and gives it a flat bluish hue. The haze goes away late in the afternoon (for whatever reason) so the details in the distance can look a lot more interesting.
That’s fine, whatever, it’s a pretty spot, worth visiting if you’re in the area, etc, etc, etc. Okay, go watch the football game now, I’m done with you! 
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, 18-55 mm kit lens. 1/250s, f/6.3, ISO 100. Focal length: 31mm.
Popularity: 3%
December 4, 2009 – Howe Sound, BC
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Picture of the Day on December 4, 2009
Howe Sound, British Columbia
Friday, December 4, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=385
Ciao a tutti! Questo è scritto in italiano, tradotto in quanto tali da inglese da Google. Perché l’italiano? Perché questa è una foto del Canada! In realtà, ho poco tempo andando a riscrivere il tutto, ma ho voluto il testo utilizzato quando ho incollato su Facebook di essere italiani. Solo perché.
Right, now that that’s out of my system. This is a view of Howe Sound in British Columbia (that’s in Canada), from along Highway 99, the Sea to Sky Highway. (The road that takes you from Vancouver to Whistler.) I’ve always liked this shot. I like the repetition of the theme. (Three similar looking landmasses, each with its own little cloud. Each is subtly different from the other in shape and in color, etc.)
Highway 99 is one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever done, especially the segment between Vancouver and Squamish. It’s a super windy road that hugs the steep, rugged hillside, with huge panoramic views across the water to snowcapped peaks (well, that one depends on the time of year). The road is a lot less scary than it used to be, since they spent the last 6 or 7 years blasting away rock to make it a nicer drive for the Olympics, but it’s still gorgeous. If you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, I’m not going to say you should make the trek all the way out here just for this drive (amazingly enough, it seems like most people just aren’t really in to that stuff like I am) but if you DO live here, you absolutely should. Even if you have no interest in hanging out up there, just take a day and drive up and back. You won’t regret it. Well, except for that three hour stretch along I-5. They don’t build interstates to be pretty, folks.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/160s, f/13.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 70mm.
(Original text: Hello everyone! This is written in Italian, translated as such from English by Google. Why Italian? Because this is a picture of Canada! Actually, I’m shortly going to rewrite the whole thing, but I wanted the text used when I pasted it on Facebook to be Italian. Just because. )
Popularity: 2%
December 3, 2009 – Autumn in Seattle
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on December 3, 2009
Autumn in Seattle
Thursday, December 3, 2009
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=319
Bleah, it’s Thursday again. Another week blown by. It’s not really fall anymore, but I’m still going to pepper you with fall pictures from time to time. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I generally try to mix up the themes, and not put, for example, too many pictures of flowers too near to each other. I kind of effed that up the last few days with a string of mountain shots, but I’m sure you’ll get over it. Actually, yesterday I had intended to post a big ole’ closeup of a flower, but then when I was paging through the shots I had conveniently available, I saw that one and decided to go with it before I realized what I was doing. Oh well.
Today’s image is kind of interesting, because I didn’t even really remember I had it. Pictures are kind of like children, in that I pretty much remember all of mine, for the most part anyway. But not this one. I pulled up Rate Dave’s Pictures to look for what I wanted to post today, and there it was. Most of the shots in there aren’t worth posting, so I won’t ever use them. Especially the older ones. But I saw this one, and, yeah, I decided to go with it. Also, it gives you all a break from the mountains. So, cool, there we go.
This also marks another interesting trend: this makes three days in a row of pictures from point and shoot cameras. I keep saying it (over and over and over), but it can’t be said enough: just because you don’t have a big fancy camera does NOT in any way mean you can’t get fantastic pictures. Not that I’m trying to say this is a fantastic picture or anything (it’s not bad, it’s got nice colors and stuff, but it’s clearly not **fantastic** or anything), but the point still stands. It’s true that there are some shots you can get with an SLR and some fancy lenses that you probably can’t get without, but if you understand the strengths and limitations of the camera you’ve got with you, there’s no reason you can’t come up with something wonderful. So don’t let lack of equipment be an excuse. Get out there, experiment, and figure out what you need to do in order to get the kind of pictures you want to take. At the end of the day, you’re taking pictures for yourself, so don’t worry if your idea of the perfect picture doesn’t match up with what somebody else says. If you take two pictures and like one better, then that one’s a better picture, period. Then your job is to figure out why, and go do it again.
I’m sorry, I’m still laughing at that second paragraph. Comedic genius I tell you. That’ll last me for the rest of the day, for sure.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S500 (Point and shoot). 1/400s, f/4.9, ISO unknown.
Popularity: 5%
December 2, 2009 – American Basin
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Flowers, Mountains, Picture of the Day on December 2, 2009
American Basin, southwestern Colorado
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=183
Hey again everyone. Today’s shot is from southwestern Colorado, the San Juan mountains specifically. This is a little spot called American Basin. It’s accessible via a rough and tumble 4×4 road, maybe 30 miles or so in. (Although that could be way off, this was taken 5 or 6 years ago, so the details are fuzzy.) The San Juans are awesome for a lot of reasons. Most notably is that, while most of the Rockies have been beaten down and smoothed out by the elements over the years, the San Juans are still all rocky and awesome. Also, they are probably the wildest mountains, meaning that whereas most of the rest of the Rockies are pretty accessible, there are still spots in the San Juans that are a real pain in the butt to get to. And, there are 4×4 roads EVERYWHERE, that go to REALLY pretty places. When I was there, I just had a regular Subaru sedan. It’s all wheel drive, and I got to a lot of places that, had I been rational, I wouldn’t have gone to. But really you need a true off-road rig to get to the places you really want to be. (In fact, a bunch of folks down there have jacked up Jeeps for rent for around 100 bucks a day – I want to go back and do that one of these days.)
Today’s picture is an example of using depth of field to focus the viewer’s eye on the true subject of the picture. On the surface, lacking depth of field seems like a bad thing. I mean, why wouldn’t you want *everything* in focus, right? But, in a lot of cases, like this one, the thing you really want to highlight would then just get lost in the details of everything else going on. So, in this picture, your eye still sees and takes in all of the mountainy stuff going on in the background (which sets the context), but our eyes are naturally repelled by the fuzziness, and are instead drawn to the area of sharpness in the corner. Another use of a shorter depth of field is as a method of adding contrast. If your foreground and your background are the same color and contain the same kind of pattern or similar detail, it can be hard for your eye to distinguish them. But if you change up a couple of the aspects (color, sharpness, pattern, brightness, etc), it can make them really stand out. Which then provides depth. Which is hot.
I’m afraid to go back and read all this stuff I just wrote. I wrote it in about 6 different sittings, with a couple bathroom breaks (yeah, a couple!) and various other distractions thrown in. It may not sound good. But that’s fine. I’ll have another shot tomorrow.
Notes: Canon PowerShot S230 (Point and shoot). 1/400s, f/7.1, ISO unknown.
Popularity: 6%
December 1, 2009 – Silver King at Crystal Mountain Ski Resort
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on December 1, 2009
Silver King, Crystal Mountain Ski Resort
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=881
You’re looking at Silver King, which is located in the south backcountry of Crystal Mountain Ski Resort in Washington state. I took this from the Forest Queen lift, although I didn’t really want to admit that. Before I go any further, I’ve got to say it: it bugs the heck out of me that the very tops of those trees are cut off. It really really really annoys me. Sigh.
This turned out to be one of those rarest of days in Washington: a blue-sky powder day. (Shut up, Utah. We know.) Powder? Oh, we’ve got plenty of that. The storms never really end. But that’s the problem. It’s always snowing, so the sun never comes out. Oh well, that’s the cross we bear. I suppose I’ll find some way to deal with it.
I have run out of things to say today. Before I wrote this sentence, I was staring at the screen for a full 3 minutes trying to think of something, but I kept just thinking about what I wanted to eat for lunch today. Maybe it’s lunch time.
Notes: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS (Point and shoot). 1/320s, f/9.0, ISO 80.
Popularity: 27%