Posts Tagged Canon 18-55
September 13, 2011 – Snoqualmie Pass
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on September 13, 2011
Snoqualmie Pass
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Wow. I’ve been pretty terrible about updating this site lately. Only one post in all of August, and we’re halfway through September and I’m just getting around to making my first post. Sigh. And the bad news is, things probably aren’t going to change anytime soon. So, I hope you like this picture, is what I’m saying. Like, *really* like it. Hmm.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, 18-55mm kit lens. 1/1600s, f/7.1, ISO 100. Focal length: 55mm.
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May 9, 2011 – Maroon Bells and Maroon Lake
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Mountains, Picture of the Day on May 9, 2011
Maroon Bells and Maroon Lake
Monday, May 9, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=650
Hey everyone! This is the last post that you’ll see for a couple days, just so you know. So you’d better enjoy it. This is, of course, the Maroon Bells (and Maroon Lake), near Aspen, Colorado. You’ve all seen this before, so no reason to talk about it too much, right?
Okay then, have a great day!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, 18-55mm kit lens. 1/320s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length: 55mm.
Popularity: 23%
February 14, 2011 – St. Martin, seen from Pinel Island
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Tropical/Beaches on February 14, 2011
St. Martin, seen from Pinel Island
Monday, February 14, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=431
So I guess I should start off by saying “Happy Valentine’s Day”! So, umm, Happy Valentine’s Day!
Right, so, that’s done. Here’s a picture from the Caribbean. No, this wasn’t recent, I didn’t just get back from another secret trip to some exotic location or anything. This one was actually taken on my honeymoon oh-so-long-ago. The land across the water is St. Martin / St. Maarten (it’s half French and half Dutch, you know), and I was standing on Yellow Beach (on Pinel Island) when I took the picture. We were there on a cruise, and we took an island tour that included a snorkeling expedition to Pinel Island. That’s… really the most interesting part of the story.
I usually avoid having people in my pictures. Because people tend to be ugly. And even if they’re not ugly, I think it’s really cheeseball when you see some amazingly awesome landscape photo with some person wearing horribly outdated clothes right there in the mix. It totally distracts from the scene you’re trying to portray, if you ask me. I suppose to get around that you could just have all of the people be naked, but then you have a different kind of picture entirely. So, I apologize for the folks who may or may not be ugly in today’s picture (hey man, I’m not here to judge – that’s your job.) But it was sort of unavoidable given the circumstances. Have a great day!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, 18-55mm kit lens. 1/400s, f/8.0, ISO 100. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 13%
January 20, 2011 – Pine Needles
Posted by Dave in Macro, Picture of the Day on January 20, 2011
Pine Needles
Thursday, January 20, 2011
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1519
I’ve been sitting here for awhile now trying to figure out what to, you know, say about this picture, but nothing’s really coming to mind. It’s a shot of some pine needles, taken with a reverse-mounted kit lens. Uhhmm… Yup, that’s what it is.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, reverse-mounted 18-55mm kit lens. 1/250s, ISO 400.
Popularity: 13%
December 10, 2010 – Summit At Snoqualmie
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State, Winter/Snow on December 10, 2010
View from Summit West / Snoqualmie Summit
Friday, December 10, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=2222
Hey, you guys remember Monday? I mean, I know it was a long time ago and everything, but, do ya? That was the day that I posted a picture from my camera, because I didn’t have any other cameras with me at the moment. I said that I might post something that I got after I went back to the car to GET another camera, and that I would maybe post it later in the week. Well, it’s later in the week. And here’s a picture that I took after I went back to the car to get my other camera.
The sun was shining nicely on the back side of lots of the trees that were along the ridge, so it made for a nice scene. I didn’t get that nice illuminated ridge across the big valley that I wanted, but at least I got some decent stuff out of it all.
On an unrelated note, I noticed today that I’m getting frightfully close to having a total of 400 comments on this blog. (That only includes comments on this blog itself, not comments on my Facebook page, for what it’s worth. But it DOES include comments from me, which is probably 94% of them. Whatever.) So, I’m wondering if I should do anything special for whoever happens to post comment number 400. What do you guys think? Anybody care? Like, maybe a free print or something? It could be of any picture you see here. Well, it doesn’t even have to be that, it could be anything really, it doesn’t even have to be a picture I took!! Actually, yes, it does. Sorry.
Okay. Bye.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, 18-55mm IS kit lens. 1/250s, f/7.1, ISO 200. Focal length: 24mm.
Popularity: 15%
September 13, 2010 – Gnat
Posted by Dave in Animals, Macro, Picture of the Day on September 13, 2010
Gnat - Reverse-mounted lens
Monday, September 13, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1037
Welcome back from the weekend, everyone! This picture was taken almost exactly a year ago, immediately after I had originally gotten my reverse-mount lens adapter. (End of August, to be a little bit more specific.) I chose it today because it’s particularly illustrative of some of the cool parts and some of the not-as-cool parts about using a reverse-mount for macro shots.
First, the good parts. This was taken with a 13 dollar attachment and the 18-55mm kit lens. So, “very minimal financial investment” would be appropriate to say. This bug was freaking tiny. I mean, it’s a gnat. You know how big gnats are. They’re little dots. So to be able to see all of this detail is (I think) really cool. I could go on and on about that, but, that’s the basic idea.
Now, the bad parts. This list is longer than the “good parts” list, but that’s not intended to say that the negatives outweigh the positives, it’s just that I can speak more specifically to the drawbacks. The first is the extremely limited depth of field. One thing I really love about this picture is how well it illustrates that. I mean, you can SEE how narrow of a band you’re working with. That’s a gnat, for god’s sake, and only 2 of his six legs are even discernible. So, forget about using autofocus, you just need to pick a focus point, then move forward and back until your subject is crisp. Then, hopefully your shutter finger is fast enough to get the shot before you sway backwards or forwards by a fraction of a millimeter. (Did I mention that taking these shots is ridiculously aggravating??) This will sound familiar if you read this blog with any frequency, but: a big part of the limited depth of field is just due to macro photography in general. But it’s exacerbated by the fact that you’re using a reverse-mounted lens (as opposed to one that’s macro-specific.) This is because, since the electrical connections for your lens are now at the *front* of the lens, your camera can’t control the aperture, and thus you’re taking pictures with it set wide open. Because of this, using the kit lens (or other less-expensive lens with a usually-undesirable small maximum aperture size) is actually helpful. If you were using a lens that was stuck at f/2.8 or wider, it would be even worse.
My other favorite frustrating thing about using a reverse-mount is that you end up working with an extremely small amount of light. This picture was taken with very-late-afternoon light (probably an hour before sunset) shining directly on the subject. But yet, I still had to resort to using ISO 1600 and a 1/80s shutter speed to even get it to expose. (It was “hand-held”, but I had the camera wedged up against the tree. It was an image-stabilized lens, but your electrical connections aren’t connected, remember?) Full-on mid-day sunshine is better, but still, you’re stuck with higher ISOs and slower shutter speeds, unless you’re using a macro flash. So, I apologize for the ugly graininess, it was really unavoidable. I believe this issue is really unavoidable with extreme macro photography. It may not be quite as bad with a regular-mounted macro-specific lens, I’m not totally sure if different optical setups are able to help with this sort of thing or not, to be honest. But, it’s a true fact that macro photography is a different beast.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, Reverse-mounted 18-55mm kit lens. 1/80s, ISO 1600.
Popularity: 15%
September 8, 2010 – Spring Blooms
Posted by Dave in Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on September 8, 2010
Spring Blooms
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1518
Remember those days, back before I had a macro lens or even a set of extension tubes? Ha ha, yeah, those were the days, huh? Back when we were all (5 months) younger and (5 months) more foolish. Back then, in order to get macro shots, I either had to use a set of magnifying glasses on the front of my lens, or just focus as close as I could and call it good. Wow, how primitive! And then, and then, and then.. I got my hands on a reverse-mount adapter, which suddenly allowed me to get freakishly close! I could take pictures of flowers and bugs and little awesome tiny things! Unfortunately, since none of the lens’s electrical connections were attached to the camera, I lost the ability to do simple things like control my aperture. That meant that, in addition to the shallowness of field that comes along with macro under normal circumstances, I had to approach the problem wide-open! That meant that, instead of getting a picture of a bug, I’d get a picture of an extremely narrow sliver of a bug, surrounded by a big blurry splotch that was most likely the rest of it. Ah, nostalgia.
That’s when I took this picture. This spring. With my reverse-mount adapter. I was really excited about it at the time, but since then I’ve moved on to things like extension tubes, which are really not much more expensive (30 bucks instead of 15), but still give you the benefit of things you normally take for granted, like the aforementioned aperture. Combine those with a cheap macro ring flash, and then the magic starts happening! But, I didn’t realize any of that at the time. Oh well, it was still fun.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, 18-55mm kit lens with reverse-mount adapter. 1/1600s, ISO 200.
Popularity: 10%
July 29, 2010 – Mediocre Image Thursday
Posted by Dave in Colorado, Fall Color, Picture of the Day on July 29, 2010
Fall color along Gold Camp Road
Thursday, July 29, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=681
Hey everyone! I’m going to start a new weekly feature here at Dave’s Picture of the Day. Every Thursday, I’m going to post a picture that’s totally, absolutely, horrendously mediocre. This is of course different from every other day because on Thursdays I’ll actually be calling them out as such. Exciting! I’ve got a ton of images that are mostly okay, as in they’re mostly in focus and such, but they just… don’t quite do it for me. They just aren’t quite interesting enough, or whatever.
So, today we’re going to kick it all off with this one! This was taken along Gold Camp Road, which is a dirt road that takes you from Colorado Springs out to Cripple Creek. Or, the other way around, if that’s your thing. There’s of course also a highway route that’s longer but much faster, but that one is not included in today’s picture. Only one route at a time, that’s what I always say. Why does it get the dubious honor of being the first image selected for mediocre-image-Thursday? Meh, I dunno. It’s got some nice elements, the nice bright yellow tree, all the detail in it. But the tree is sort of awkwardly placed. And the background isn’t really that interesting. It’s not a total train-wreck though, it definitely reminds me of when I was there, which can be a useful thing, if you’re trying to help yourself remember when you were somewhere. But it doesn’t really do a good job of reminding *you* when I was there, because you weren’t there.
Stay tuned, next week’s Thursday special will be even more not awesome!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Canon 18-55mm kit lens. 1/125s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length: 21mm.
Popularity: 13%
June 8, 2010 – Ingalls Creek
Posted by Dave in Fall Color, Picture of the Day, Washington State on June 8, 2010
Ingalls Creek in Autumn
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=691
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a fall colors pic (has it? I actually don’t know, I haven’t been paying attention), so I figure a random Tuesday in June is the perfect time for one. Besides, with the crappy spring we’ve had up here in Seattle, it feels like fall anyway. I mean, seriously, I’m sick of temps in the 50s, I’m ready for some effing sun. Goddamn.
You’re looking at Ingalls Creek, which is up Highway 97 in Washington State, a little ways north of Blewett Pass. (Basically, on the eastern slope of the central Cascades.) The road (Ingalls Creek Road, appropriately enough) is blocked right at the trailhead for the Ingalls Creek Trail, although there’s a bridge and the road keeps going on the other side. (Although if you follow it up the hill for a bit, you soon run into a landslide that blocked the roadway, that’s probably why it’s blocked. Not sure where the road ends up, but it’s sad that they decided to just go ahead and block it off rather than maintain it, in my opinion anyway.) Why am I telling you all of this? Because I’m trying to get across that this picture was taken on the other side of the bridge, just a couple minutes from the trailhead. That’s all.
Ingalls Creek seems to be a pretty decent trail for checking out fall colors. Most of the surrounding forest is evergreens, but right along the creek there’s a bunch of nice bright yellows. I’ve honestly never gone further than an hour or so up the trail (various reasons, whatever), but the part I’ve seen just nicely meanders along the water. No big views or anything, but some nice wildflowers and fall colors (not at the same time though.) So, go check it out. Or, alternatively, don’t.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Canon 18-55mm kit lens. 1/100s, f/5.6, ISO 400. Focal length: 27mm.
Popularity: 10%
May 3, 2010 – Mt. St. Helens
Posted by Dave in Mountains, Picture of the Day, Washington State on May 3, 2010
Mt. St. Helens
Monday, May 3, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=493
Hey everyone! Looking back at last week’s entries, it was apparently “orange” week. That wasn’t intentional at all, but it really does look like I planned it out. Weird. I haven’t yet decided what this week’s theme won’t be, so we’ll find out as it develops I suppose.
There’s a couple big events coming up here in the next couple of weeks. The first one is of course the one year anniversary of the first post on this blog. (Which is somewhat interesting, because at the time, “this blog” didn’t exist per se, it was sort of an afterthought after my cousin Deanne pointed out that I should make a fan page on Facebook. I didn’t know what I should put on it, so I grabbed a random picture that I normally wouldn’t post online, and wrote some stuff about it. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I actually sat down and got my hands on some blog software and started hosting it myself. I’m not sure why I’m going into all this detail here, I’m totally stealing my own thunder for my 1 year anniversary post. Garr, I’m such an a-hole.
Back to what I was saying though: there are TWO big things to commemorate this month. That one, and also the 30 year anniversary of the explosion of Mt. St. Helens. And, it just so happens that both of them fall on the same day! Wow! One of them will be remembered as a momentous event that had a permanent and lasting effect on the topology of the planet, and the other one was an effing volcanic explosion. I’m not quite sure how my blog will live up to that kind of hype, I’m still working it out. But you’ll see, it’ll be huge.
I haven’t been back to Mt. St. Helens in awhile, and I want to make it back this year. I almost certainly won’t make it back in time to post any newer pics here before the actual event (although maybe I should use that as an excuse to encourage a field trip), but I’ll try to post at least a couple Mt. St. Helens pics here this month from several years ago when I was last there. Starting with today. As you can see, in the 30 years since the event (well, 26 years at the time this pic was taken), the area hasn’t yet begun to resemble the way it looked on May 17, 1980. It’s actually not quite as desolate as this picture makes it look, there are a fair number of scrubby bushes and stuff growing around, but by and large it’s still a huge area of remarkable devastation. Definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area.
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, Canon 18-55mm kit lens. 1/500s, f/5.6, ISO 100. Focal length: 55mm.
Popularity: 7%
April 23, 2010 – Dandelion
Posted by Dave in - Best of Dave's POTD -, Flowers, Macro, Picture of the Day on April 23, 2010
Dandelion
Friday, April 23, 2010
http://www.davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=1534
Oh, sure, today’s post is all significant because it’s the last one this week and everything. But just wait till Monday’s post. That’ll be big doin’s. Awwwww man, Monday’s a big deal. And yes, I’m being intentionally vague. Right, anyway…
In the last couple weeks, I looked outside and noticed that things had started blooming. Springtime once again. So, I decided to pick up where I had left off last summer with my macro toys. To give a quick refresher, I started out with a standard telephoto “macro” lens (quotation marks because it’s only 1:2 magnification, not even 1:1 like a “true” macro lens). Then I started doing stuff like buying little “macro kits” (little magnifying lenses that you attach to the front of your regular lens), and I ended up buying a reverse-mount adaptor near the end of the summer. I’ve talked about it many times before, but it’s a little metal ring that you screw on to the front of your lens like a filter, and it allows you to connect your lens backwards to the camera body. This gets you ridiculous macro, all for the exorbitant price of 12 dollars. (Although you lose nice things like autofocus and aperture control, since the electrical bits of your lens are no longer attached. – you can mitigate that a little bit by not using your fast glass – I’ve been using my kit lens – but it takes what is already a frightfully small depth of field and shrinks it further.)
Oh, before I move on, I should explain something. Magnification ratio. That’s a fairly important concept when it comes to macro. The magnification ratio is the ratio between how big something is in real life vs how big the projection of it is against your camera sensor (or <retch> film). So, an object that is 35mm across, when using a 1:1 magnification lens, will be projected life-size on your sensor, and if you’re using a 35mm camera or a full-frame sensor digital, it will take up the whole frame. (And then, when you print the picture or view it on your computer, it’ll be effing HUGE.) With most digital cameras (mine included), the sensor is actually smaller than the full 35mm, so in the case of the 35mm object, at 1:1 magnification it would be *larger* than the frame. So, a 1:2 magnification ratio means that the projection on your sensor will be half-life-size. Most standard telephoto zoom lenses have a 1:2 or 1:4 magnification ratio, for your reference. True “macro” lenses usually achive 1:1, and Canon makes this one crazy 65mm macro-specific lens that STARTS at 1:1, and goes all the way up to 5:1. 5 to 1. Think about that. The thing you’re taking a picture of will be FIVE TIMES BIGGER than life size on your itty-bitty sensor. That means that a fly’s eyeball will take up your entire sensor. Now imagine that you’re looking at a picture of a fly’s eyeball blown up to poster-size. Yeah, crazy, right?? That’s where I want to get someday. But that lens costs 1000 bucks, so someday is not today.
ANYWAY… all that talk about magnification ratio, and I actually have no clue what kind of ratio I have on this picture. I’m going to guess somewhere between 1:2 and 1:1. But using the reverse mount, I’m pretty sure I can fairly easily get past that magic 1:1 mark. When you’re using the reverse mount, the usual rule of “larger focal length means more zoomed in” is no longer true. If you’re using an 18-55 lens (like I was), the 18 end is the super close in end (which is actually too close in to really be usable) and the 55 end is more of a normal ridiculous macro. This shot was right out at the 55 and, and you can tell it’s still pretty neat. You’re looking at a dandelion, if that wasn’t obvious.
Why all this talk about macro stuff? Because I bought more macro stuff. Some of it should be getting here today! The rest, hopefully tomorrow, maybe Monday. What’d I get? Well, two things..
First, I got a set of macro extension tubes. Amazon link. You use them by attaching them between your lens and your camera. This moves the optical elements of your lens further away from the sensor, which essentially zooms you in. (Although it also makes it so you can focus closer in, at the expense of being able to focus to infinity.) Basically, it gets you wicked close. How close? Not sure. I’ll let you know after I play around with it. Although, I do know that it has a much more dramatic effect on shorter lenses. As in, if you attach your super-long telephoto lens with them, it won’t change that dramatically, but if you hook up your little tiny 50mm prime, you’ll rock your world so hard they’ll feel it in Australia. Or so I’ve heard. We’ll see. There’s no optics in the rings, they’re just hollow rings. But they DO pass through the electrical connections, so you can USE YOUR APERTURE! WOOOOO! We’ll see how this goes.
The other thing I got is a macro ring flash. Amazon link. This is basically a ring flash that you mount on the front of your lens. It, you know, shines light on stuff. In this case, stuff that’s right in front of your lens. One of the side effects of taking pictures of little tiny things is that you’re dealing with dramatically smaller quantities of light than, say, typical landscape photography. So you have to deal with things like high ISO and low shutter speed. Hopefully, this flash will help out. I started out with a cheapie-cheap one, so I can play around with it and see how well it works. the “real” ones cost much more, like 500 or 800 dollars. So I’m not there yet. Someday, someday. Not today.
So, hopefully next week (maybe even Monday?? Nah, already got a picture picked out for Monday) you’ll get to see some initial results! I can’t wait! Have a great weekend!
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel T1i, reverse-mounted 18-55mm kit lens. 1/500s, ISO 800. Aperture unknown. Focal length was somewhere around 55mm, but reverse-mounted.
Popularity: 13%
April 19, 2010 – Upper Silver Lake
Posted by Dave in Picture of the Day, Washington State on April 19, 2010
Upper Silver Lake, Buckhorn Wilderness
Monday, April 19, 2010
http://davefry.net/rate/index.php?viewimage=562
So, reflections are kind of fun. If you’ve got a piece of still water handy nearby, you can usually make just about any picture a little bit more interesting by reflecting something in it. Now, it doesn’t always make things more interesting an interesting way, if that makes any sense, but it never hurts to try. Long-time readers of the Picture of the Day may realize that I’ve posted shots in the past of just about this same spot, where I feel like I made better use of the reflection. But this one is still kind of nice I think.
This was taken at Upper Silver Lake, in the Buckhorn Wilderness. That’s on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State if you don’t have a map handy. There’s a national park on the peninsula, Olympic National Park, that encompasses a lot of the mountains and a decent-sized chunk of the coastline, but this wasn’t inside the boundary. There’s a couple ways in to the lake, one of which follows the Mt. Townsend trail almost all the way up. That’s the way we got there. The other trail is I think a little bit easier (in that there’s less up, then down, then up), but I wasn’t in charge of picking the trail, so what do I know. This was taken a little while after sunrise, when the surrounding peaks were nicely lit up, but the sun hadn’t made its way down to the lake yet.
Anybody have any requests for the rest of the week?
Notes: Canon EOS Rebel XT, 18-55mm kit lens. 1/125s, f/4.0, ISO 400. Focal length: 28mm.
Popularity: 13%