December 2007

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Ainsley participated in the trampoline, bars, beam and floor exercises at the Winterfest .  The kids show the parents what they've learned over the past 6 months and receive a trophy for their accomplishments.  Ainsley hasn't started any regional competitions yet.

We received our first measurable snow on Wednesday the 5th.  Traffic was a mess as the snow started right before the morning rush hour and there wasn't any salt on the roads.  The snow stopped around 8:00pm, so I ventured out to take a few snapshots.  I wasn't in the mood for a 100 photo shoot.  Besides, it takes too long with a tripod anyway.

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The Canon 5D has a Kelvin color temperature setting and the automatic white balance starts at 3000.  The photo came out way too orange.  I took a picture of the same scene with a WhiBal white balance card in it and used Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to synchronize the white balance between the two photos.  The result was the 2350 Kelvin photo.  Although the white snow is white, the picture isn't warm.  I added just a hint of yellow by changing the color temperature setting in Lightroom to 2470 Kelvin and I think it looks better.  Both of these color settings were outside the range of the automatic white balance of the camera.  The moral of the story is know your camera and what it can / can't do.

The snow and ice are melting.

The creeks are now half full compared to bone dry in September.  This is the same creek, but the photos were taken on opposite sides of the tree (shown right).

These leaves looked pale.

One of the houses in our neighborhood. The camera was handheld as with the lens image stabilization turned on.  The shot is 1/15 sec, f/4, ISO 1600.

When is an outdoor security light too bright?  When it's mixed with fog.  Betsi and I took a trip down memory lane by visiting the old apartments and townhouses we uses to live in while we were dating.  This is a townhouse in Jeff's old neighborhood. This shot is hand held with the 35mm f/2 lens set at 1/2 sec, f/2, ISO 1600.  The fog was going to prevent any photo from being sharp, so a little hand shake from a long exposure wasn't going to make much difference.

Fun with fog.  These are at two different places selling Christmas trees.  The trees on the left are 9 to 10 feet high.

This is a local strip mall in the fog.  After I got home, I noticed there was lens flare.  The photo on the left has a bright green spot on the bush near the middle while the one on the left has flare near the parking lot lights.  I'm not sure if this is light going in the lens, bouncing out, reflecting on the UV haze filter, and bouncing back into the lens as a flare.  Extreme lighting conditions, like photographing a Space Shuttle launch, can cause this.  I'll have to experiment some more to prevent this from happening on future photos.  This is yet another example of why I wanted to use the new camera and lens months before a family vacation.

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This is at an intersection at the top of a small hill.  The fog made all of the lights glow.  The headlights of oncoming traffic made the center blue after the photo was color corrected.  Roll your mouse over the image to see about what I saw when I took the photo and the camera captured.  There is some red flare near the top middle in this photo too.

Our Community Center decorated for Christmas.

A foggy morning at the pond near our house.

Ryan and his Cub Scout den put on a puppet show at the pack meeting as an achievement toward their Showman activity pin.  They also brought in the flags, ran most of the meeting with the aid of a script, told some rated-G jokes, and performed a skit.  The puppet show was "The Night Before Goshen" and the puppets wanted to bring everything but the kitchen sink to the week long, overnight, cub scout camping that takes place each summer.  Goshen, Virginia is located half way between Harrisonburg and Roanoke in the Appalachian Mountains and close to the Virginia and West Virginia border.  I used ISO 800 to bring in more ambient light so that the background wouldn't be black.  I also bounced the flash off of the ceiling and extended the built in bounce card to throw some light forward.  See more photos.

This shot was hard to get because of the angle.  The tripod was low to the ground and one tripod leg was almost in the pond.  The white and red lights are cars on the road during the 25 second exposure.

Every year, our home owners association requests Santa to ride on top of a fire truck to visit all of the kids in the neighborhood.  This was my third year driving "the chase car."  I had my camera with me taking a few photos at each stop to put into the monthly almanac that is mailed to each resident.  Along the way, the sun starts to set and catches the clouds just right.  I took these through the car window.  I never know when a neat photo appears out of nowhere.

I took this out the car window just like the ones above.  For fun, I turned the photo into a black and white.  The black and white photo shows this picture isn't that great without color.  What's the subject?  The house on the left?  The street in the middle?  The clouds?  My eyes bounce around this photo searching for the subject every time I look at it.  Look for more comparisons like this in the future.

We attended the Master Chorale of Washington: Christmas Candlelight Concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.  This is our fourth or fifth time going, but this is the first time the kids joined us.  The kids liked it enough to see it again next year.  I used the 35mm f/2 lens without a flash for its small size and low light capabilities.  A flash would have helped get rid of the racoon eyes (shadows underneath the eyes) and punched up the color saturation a bit, but I was going for small and light weight.  See more photos.  After the performance, we drove 3 hours to Jeff's parent's house in Yorktown, Virginia.

We enjoyed an early Christmas at Jeff's parents's house.  It's difficult to get the entire family together, so it was nice that most of us were there.  See more photos.  On a sadder note, Jeff's grandmother had two minor strokes the night before and was not able to make it.  Although she's tired and not 100% just yet, it doesn't look like it had any affect.

While assembling the photo album, I realized the same photo has different colors in a web browser compared to Photoshop and Lightroom.  I added a section to the digital camera photography tips to explain more.

Jamestown, Virginia (map) was settled in 1607, 13 years before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.  Four replica ships from that era helped reinforce a miserable, 144 day transatlantic crossing.  Ryan, Ainsley and Betsi are at the bow of the smallest vessel, the 20 ton Godspeed on the left.  On the right, they are at the foot of the rope ladder on the forward mast of the largest vessel, the 120 ton Susan Constant.  Learn more.  We toured Colonial Williamsburg (map) in November, which is 6 miles further inland.

Ainsley is on the middle deck with the canons and home for most of the 52 men onboard.  The lower deck was for supplies.  The cook had his own cabin and fireplace on board.  Both photos were taken at ISO 1600, f/4, lens image stabilization turned on, without a flash or tripod.  I used to use a tripod with my Nikon D70s on ISO 400 without image stabilization for similar shots.  It's much faster to capture a shot like this without having to setup a tripod first.

The kids sit at the base of a monument to John Smith at the actual Jamestown location.  Archeological digs still occur today.  The reconstructed fort and ships are less than a mile away.  At right, the kids wear armor used by the settlers.  Normally, this is where I add a link to see more photos.  Unfortunately, I ran out of battery power the day before and didn't have a charger.  I managed to turn on the camera, take a shot, and turn off the camera to squeeze out a few shots that you see above.  I need to get a spare battery for the camera.

After a fun day in Jamestown, we drove most of the way home and stopped for Christmas Eve dinner at Betsi's Mom's and Step-Dad's with other family members.  From left to right: Nancy, Betsi, Ryan, Jeff, Tom, Page, Fred, Carmen, Rob, and Ainsley.

Camera settings: 24mm, 1/20s, f/5.6, ISO 1600, aperture priority, bounced flash off ceiling, extended bounce card, cropped off vignetting corners (darkened corners).  I used the Canon 580EX-II Speedlight and bounced the flash off of the ceiling.  I also extended the built in bounce card to aim some of the light forward so that shadows wouldn't appear underneath people's eyes.  I also used ISO 1600 to capture more ambient light than ISO 100.  It creates brighter backgrounds when using a flash.  I changed the camera setting to aperture priority at f/5.6 and the camera chose 1/20 of a second to get the longer exposure to brighten the room even more.  I didn't want the lens wide open at f/4 since it has dark corners (vignetting) at 24mm f/4.

Constellation Orion (left).  Upon zooming in, I noticed the Earth's rotation during this 25 second exposure caused the stars to streak (right).  The three stars that make up Orion's Belt are in the photo on the right.  I never was able to see this before with the Nikon D70s because of the noise (grain) in night shots.

The moon rule works.  Ignore what the camera says.  Put the camera on manual and set the shutter speed for 1/ISO.  In this case, I used ISO 100 and 1/100 second.  The rules says use f/11 for a full moon, f/8 for a half moon, and f/5.6 for 1/4 moon.  I used f/8.  This is a 100% crop at 105mm.  On a 12 megapixel image, the moon is a dot in the middle of the photo. Remember the camera shake rule which states the shutter speed should be 1/focal length.  If I used a 300mm lens, then I should use 1/300 second shutter speed.  So, if you want to hand hold the camera for a moon shot, then use ISO 320, 1/320 second.  You'll have to use a tripod if you want a lower ISO.

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