Posts Tagged Quantaray 70-300
July 28, 2010 – Ixora Flowers
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on July 28, 2010
Ixora Flowers
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1480
So, I don’t actually really know that these are called Ixora flowers. I THINK they are, but I only feel that way because I did a bunch of googling to try to find an answer. I mean, sure, a google search for “ixora flowers” returns a bunch of results that look just like these. But the folks who posted all of those may have just made the same mistake that I did, and now we’re all in a giant echo chamber, assuming that if everyone else says that’s what they are, then that must be what they are. Of course, I didn’t just randomly guess “ixora”, and then hit up google to see if I was right. Ixora is kind of a strange word, honestly. I can’t remember how I stumbled on it, but it probably came up sometime when I was searching through a list of Jamaican flowers.
Oh, right, forgot to mention that little detail. This is another picture that came from Jamaica. These little guys were on the hotel grounds. Yeah, I totally worked hard to get the flowers that I did, I walked all the way down the sidewalk from my room. So, anyway, there they are.
At the time that I was in Jamaica, I didn’t yet have any of my totally crazy macro tools, so I ended up taking this with my Quantaray 70-300mm telephoto. It gets to 1:4 on its own. I guess I did have my reverse-mount adapter, but that would be way closer than I wanted to be. I also brought my “macro kit”, which is the set of little magnifying lenses that you screw on like a filter. I used that a few times on the trip too. But not for this one. I mean, seriously, why did you even bring them up??
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/500s, f/8.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 300mm.
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July 8, 2010 – Aspen Leaves
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Picture of the Day on July 8, 2010
Aspen Leaves
Thursday, July 8, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=674
Another late/short post today. Sorry about that! These are aspen leaves in the fall, in Colorado.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/320s, f/9.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 183mm.
Popularity: 10%
July 2, 2010 – Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day, Washington State on July 2, 2010
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Friday, July 2, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1470
Umm, is anybody actually there? I figure by waiting until late in the afternoon on the Friday before a holiday weekend, I’ve already lost my entire U.S. audience. Well, whatever, they don’t know what they’re missing. Me and the rest of you guys can do without them.
Here’s another picture from this year’s Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. I found myself playing around with the boundary between tulips of two different colors. Some shots came out pretty well, others, not so much. I found that, in general, I was happiest with those where the very last row of the tulips of the color in front were in focus. I definitely played around with other focus points, and some of them definitely worked out okay, but “in general” (with big air-quotes), this is what tended to work the best. (Other things I tried were: focusing somewhere near the middle of the color in the foreground, focusing at the extreme front, and focusing on the closer flowers in the color that was further away – similar to the idea of focusing on the back of the front color, but definitely different.)
For this picture in particular, I was using my really old Quantaray telephoto lens. To review, that’s the first lens I ever bought to go with a digital camera. It’s passable, but it’s definitely not the best lens I’ve ever seen. But this all comes back to the idea that it’s really hard to find a “really good” telephoto lens that isn’t tremendously huge and doesn’t weigh several pounds. Obviously, there are those huge Canon lenses, the white-ish ones, that are all metal, and are a foot and a half long and like 6 inches in diameter. Those things are fantastic. But a) they’re not anything that resembles cheap, and 2) they’re HUGE, so the idea of taking them hiking is laughable. And recently I saw a reasonably-sized Canon lens that got decent reviews, but it was I think close to 1000 dollars, which is well more than I want to pay for a lens in that range. So this one isn’t that great, but any of the reasonably-priced, reasonably-sized alternatives aren’t quite enough of an improvement to justify the price. With the caveat that, I actually DID replace it recently, with the Canon 55-250, which also got what I’d call “reasonably” (I’m loving that word today) good reviews, and was in the realm of decently affordable. After using it for awhile, it’s.. fine. It’s not blowing me away, but it’s got image stabilization which is nice, so I guess it’ll do for now.
In other news, some random, totally awesome guy with fantastic taste put little old me in the list of his 5 favorite blogs. Neat!
Have a great holiday everyone. Or, if you’re not American, have a great Friday and Saturday, and at least a passable Sunday!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/800s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 248mm.
Popularity: 14%
May 28, 2010 – Sunset Cruise in Negril
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Tropical/Beaches on May 28, 2010
Sunset Cruise, Negril, Jamaica
Friday, May 28, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1550
It seems like every other day I’m posting a sunset pic from my Jamaica trip. But I’ve got a lot of good ones, so I don’t know what else to do! This was taken from Negril Beach, which is at the very western end of the island. I.. umm.. don’t really know what else to say here.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/200s, f/8.0, ISO 200. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 28%
May 26, 2010 – Whitefish Mountain Resort
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Winter/Snow on May 26, 2010
Whitefish Mountain Resort
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1370
No, that’s not my kid.
I was fartin’ around on the mountain trying to get pictures of people skiing with the town in the background, when I saw her skiing by. I thought it was a really cute moment, so I went ahead and snapped it. This was taken at Whitefish Mountain Resort (formerly Big Mountain) if it wasn’t already obvious from, you know, the title of the post. And that means that the town in the background is Whitefish. I think the picture’s tilted. Damnit.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/1000s, f/6.3, ISO 200. Focal length: 70mm.
Popularity: 17%
May 18, 2010 – Daisies / One Year!
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on May 18, 2010
Daisies
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=572
Well folks, we made it! One whole year. Holy effing crap, that’s way longer than I expected I’d keep this thing going for. Granted, the vast majority of you weren’t around to see those days, but whatever, you’re here now! (Actually, that’s not even true, most of you – “you” being defined as the set of people who subscribe to my RSS feed or otherwise regularly read the blog – don’t actually read the blog. So you’re not actually here now. But that’s fine, I’m going to count you anyway.) So.. Now that we made it to a year… now what? Hmm, good question. Let’s do some homework: your job (each and every one of you) is to go talk to no fewer than two of your friends, and convince them to become followers of the blog as well. Or, alternatively, explain to them why following the blog would not be in their best interest. The important thing is to have the conversation. And take notes, I want proof! And, you should also click on the Facebook like button down below (well, it’s only there if you’re actually looking at http://picture-of-the-day.com, not if you’re looking at this post in, say, Google Reader, so if that’s the case, click through!!) A few of you did a good job following directions when I first put that thing in there, but then the enthusiasm significantly waned.
As for this picture.. You may recognize it as the image that’s used as my avatar when I post comments, as well as the image that’s used as the favicon for the site (the little picture that shows up on your open browser tabs or in your bookmarks list). Also, it’s used as my profile picture on my Facebook page. It’s not that it’s one of my super-favorite pictures or anything though. The truth is, when I first made my Facebook page a year ago when I was bored, it was one of the first few images I saw, so I just grabbed it and tossed it up there. I figured it actually looked decent enough there, so I just kind of stuck with it. But I never got around to actually posting it until today. (Saying “I just grabbed it” sounds wrong – I did actually take this picture, it’s not like I just grabbed it from some random site on the internet or anything – and by the way, none of you are doing that with my pictures, right??) Occasionally I think about freshening things up a bit, and picking a new image to use for those purposes. But… whatever, it’s fine, it’s good enough, and I’m lazy. So this picture it is.
Okay, see you all next year on my 2 year anniversary!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/400s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 300mm
Popularity: 21%
May 17, 2010 – Mt. St. Helens
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on May 17, 2010
Mt. St. Helens
Monday, May 17, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=488
Welcome back everyone, from the best weekend EVER! And by best, I mean “most recent”. My own weekend wasn’t any better than, say, any other weekend, but it’s certainly fresher in my mind. I expect that your experience was similar.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, tomorrow is the 30-year anniversary of the explosion of Mt. St. Helens, here in Washington state. Not too much was known about the peculiar dynamics of a volcanic explosion back then, and only a little bit more is known now. (And Louisiana’s governor Bobby Jindal would like to keep it that way.) But the last 30 years have provided a fantastic change to explore what happens afterward. I’ve covered all of this ground before (so did Mt. St. Helens – ha!), so blah blah whatever, go back and read one of those other entries if you’re interested.
Even the day after the explosion, the mountain started rebuilding itself. The rate at which it has been doing so of course varies over time, but just a few years ago the rate dramatically increased, leading some to suspect that it may go boom again. That of course didn’t happen, but it did spew a bunch of smoke and ash for awhile, so that was fun. Today’s picture is a view into the crater, at the new lava dome that’s been forming. Presumably this will eventually make the mountain resemble sometime like its former self, after it grows a bunch more. That’s sort of what these volcanoes do, as it turns out.
This picture came about via a nice big (and cheap!) telephoto lens, and a decent amount of post-processing to filter through the haze that was in the air that day. (And by “a decent amount of post-processing”, I mean I hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button in Picasa. I almost broke a sweat!) It’s pretty crazy to think that, even during the slower times, a couple dump-truck-loads worth of stuff is being added to the cone every single day. Or at least I think I remember reading that somewhere. God I hope nobody’s using this blog as a reference for their high school science homework. Just about every “fact” that I’ve mentioned is somewhere between loosely researched and poorly documented, and completely made up. So, on that note…
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/800s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 227mm.
Popularity: 20%
May 6, 2010 – Poppies
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day on May 6, 2010
Poppies
Thursday, May 6, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=368
I’m pretty sick today, so I don’t really feel up to writing a bunch. So, here’s a pretty simple shot of some poppies that I don’t have much to say about. It’s… some poppies. It’s also kind of old. I’ve been posting a lot of old pictures lately, not sure exactly why. Okay, g’nite!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. Shutter speed, aperture, ISO all unknown.
Popularity: 15%
April 16, 2010 – Skagit Valley Tulip Festival (again)
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Picture of the Day, Washington State on April 16, 2010
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
Friday, April 16, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1468
Normally I wouldn’t do it, but I decided this time around that it’s okay to post two pictures of basically the same thing (the tulip festival) in one week. I’m counting the number of times that I’ve almost changed my mind about doing this, and I’m already up to 3. But no, I’m going to stick to my guns. Because if I toss this one out, that means I have to go back to the pool to pick another one. Now I’m at 4.
I wanted to put another one here because I know a lot of people are thinking about heading up this weekend, and I want those people to be psyched. Personally, I’ll be skiing this weekend, so yesterday’s picture was for me. But this one is for you, dear tulip-loving reader. Although, I probably should have picked a picture containing different colored tulips than Monday’s picture (5). Oh well, too late now. Here’s hoping that you don’t have to fight too much traffic, and that the flowers are still blooming!
I have a whole set of pictures based on this same theme – that being showing two contrasting seas of color against each other. One thing I was trying to get, which I was only marginally successful at, was to have the focal point be right there at the dividing line. That wasn’t really a goal of this particular picture, but in general it was. (If you get it close but not right on, then it just looks wrong. But if put the focal point well away from the border, then it’s clear that you’re not trying to emphasize the actual dividing line, that instead you’re just trying to show how ridiculously endless the flowers are were. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself, and since this is a one-sided conversation, I win.)
Have fun up there! Hope the weather doesn’t suck! (I’ll admit, I have an ulterior motive on that one – I hate skiing in the rain.)
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/800s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 36%
March 12, 2010 – USA vs Switzerland
Posted by Dave in British Columbia, Picture of the Day on March 12, 2010
USA vs Switzerland, Vancouver 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1365
Ahhhh Friday. The day that might as well be called Saturday based on how much I usually accomplish. (What?? For all you know Saturday could be the most productive day of my week.) This is actually not the picture I was going to post today. In fact, I had a completely different picture picked out, and I had even started writing up the post (I snagged the first sentence and kept it for the current instantiation of today’s entry), but then I decided I was going to mention what I’m doing this weekend, I realized that it would be much more appropriate to go this route instead.
So.. what am I doing this weekend? Glad you asked. I’m going up to Vancouver! Not for the Olympics, no, those have already ended. For the Paralympics! We’re going up to watch some paralympic sled hockey! I watched a YouTube video of the sport (because I had no idea how it would work) and it.. is.. AWESOME. Now that the world’s eye has moved on to other things, hotels in Vancouver are totally reasonable, so it’s now time to go get some Olympic goodness without all the Olympic headaches. My wife didn’t get a chance to make it up there during the regular Olympics, but I did, and that’s where today’s picture comes from. I had some friends who stayed up in Vancouver in an RV park for several days, and they managed to score some SECOND ROW seats to the USA vs Switzerland hockey game. So me and another buddy skipped out on work and headed up for the day. I previously posted several of the pictures to Facebook, but I haven’t had a chance to “property” process and post them, so I had to scramble a bit to get the raw image for today. In fact, I had to actually grab the image straight from my Facebook album. Unfortunately, it’s a well-known fact that Facebook resizes and re-compresses the images that you upload (to save space), so the quality of the image you see can be significantly less than the quality of the image you uploaded. But whatever, it’ll have to do for today. (And perhaps by the time you’re reading this I’ve had a chance to upload a better version to replace it.)
It’s probably fairly obvious, but this was taken immediately after the US scored their first goal in their eventual 3-1 victory. The Swiss team were of course huge underdogs in the game, but they played with heart. They never really threatened to win, but they certainly didn’t just roll over and give up. So it was a great game, and it was great to see everyone play with national pride. It was a great experience, I’m glad I went.
(For those curious, here’s the picture I was originally going to use: http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1207 .. I still reserve the right to use it in its own post sometime soon, so only click that link if you don’t mind spoilers.)
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/500s, f/5.0, ISO 1600. Focal length: 227mm.
Popularity: 22%
February 19, 2010 – Purple Coneflower
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on February 19, 2010
Purple Coneflower
Friday, February 19, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1325
See? We’re back on schedule, just like I promised. This is a purple coneflower, I saw it when I was walking around my neighborhood late last summer. It was just before sunset, so the light was doing some really cool stuff, both giving a nice warm glow to the petals, as well as lighting up those little spiky things in the middle, making them seem like they were lit up from within. I thought it was a pretty cool effect. The difficulty comes in because of the short depth of field I was using. Depending on if you focused on the very tip of the spiky things, somewhere in the middle, or back on the petals themselves, you’d end up with wildly different shots, some of which just.. didn’t look right. In this one you can see that I went right in the middle, but I have examples of the others that I may post here someday so you can see the difference.
Back to the illumination for a minute… having that warm light come in from the side and a little bit behind can make for some really cool effects. The most dramatic use I’ve seen for it is with fall colors. If you can get the light just right, the colored leaves (or flowers, or whatever) really shine out with color, it can be really spectacular. On the other hand, if you just have the light shining directly on the subject (ie if the sun is behind you), they just look flat and kind of dirty. You can get a similar illumination effect by having the sun directly in front of you (as in, behind the subject), but that has other issues; you lose your shadows, and it can be so bright that it can wash out the colors you want, or you’ll lose your blue sky, stuff like that. Of course, like any supposed “rule” in photography, even if something in general is undesirable, there are absolutely cases where you can use it to great effect. So, whatever, ignore everything I just said. If you see something nice, take a shot from every angle you can think of, in front, from behind, off to the side, whatever. We’re all shooting digital, right? (Right???) so who cares if you waste a few frames? Take them home, and see what you like best. Here’s a dirty little secret: a lot of the time when I’m taking a picture, I don’t actually have the exact picture I’m going for in mind. I just see that there are a lot of interesting elements, and I know that they can fit together somehow to make a great picture, so I take a whole bunch, trying out different sets of parameters in each one, hoping that I’m able to find the magic mix. Sometimes things look a lot different once you look at them on the big screen, you’ll see some detail that you missed before, that can really pop and make the whole picture. I’m rambling. I’m going to stop now. Have a great weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300 mm lens. 1/200s, f/5.6, ISO 800. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 37%
February 2, 2010 – Dandelion
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on February 2, 2010
Dandelion
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1071
So yesterday I had basically the whole week planned out, I had two very specific images picked out that I was going to use as crappy pictures today and Thursday. And a couple decent choices for tomorrow and Friday. I thought they were totally foolproof, that they were such obvious choices that there was no way I’d forget. Yeah, I gotta learn to write this stuff down. I definitely don’t remember what I was going to choose, but this definitely wasn’t it. But it’s bad (I mean good) enough. It’ll do, is what I’m saying.
This is a dandelion. I like it because it’s got nice sharp detail, but other than that it’s not really that interesting of a picture. There’s not really a distinct subject (well, I mean, there’s the dandelion…), and it doesn’t really tell a story. It’s like “Hey, I’m a dandelion. So F you”, which isn’t really a very inspiring thing to say. But it’s nice and sharp. So it’s Tuesday.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Quantaray 70-300mm lens. 1/500s, f/5.6, ISO 200. Focal length: 300mm.
Popularity: 19%