photography

All posts tagged photography

wonderful evening of astronomy and an afternoon of taking pictures of horses

Posted by imus on June 1, 2008
Posted in: Astronomy. Tagged: , .

I had a great time taking shots of the sky last night. Got everything setup pretty quickly although my polar alignment wasn’t the best I shot for 90 seconds most of the time. Next time I think I’ll try a precise polar alignment, haven’t tried that yet. I ended up taking photos of M81, M82, M57, M13, M22 and M8. Really only got good shots of M57 and M13 and possibly M8.

Getting ready to go with HeatherO to take some pictures of her 4 horses that she has stabled in Dacula GA. I’m hoping to get back soon enough to get to the pool and possibly get the front yard mowed.

stopped in at mellow mushroom then the eclipse

Posted by imus on February 20, 2008
Posted in: Astronomy. Tagged: , , .

Lunar Eclipse with SaturnI stopped in at the Mellow Mushroom for dinner and a few beers before heading home to view/photograph the lunar eclipse. Amanda was there along with Kat (Katheryn?). A fellow server (the dude) had called in and wasn’t going to make it, he had called earlier and another server told him he wasn’t on the schedule. Nicki called while I was finishing my beer and was at the house hoping to get her tax forms printed so she could get them sent out tomorrow. I finished my beer and becoming a little pissed off at the news about Obama. Seems his wife has NEVER been proud of America/Americans or politics except for the people wanting her husband to be president. Personally, I feel he may be the anti-Christ.

I got home and started Nicki finishing her tax stuff, and printing it out. Then I started setting up the camera for the lunar eclipse. It was somewhat cloudy, only wisps but right in line with the moon. It was still behind the trees to the east but was coming up fast. By 8:30 I was getting the mount aligned and trying to get the focus right. Something went haywire with the mount and it got off alignment somehow, right after I tried to have it seek to Saturn (it was just below the moon). Re-aligned and then started shooting the moon so to speak. 🙂

Lunar Eclipse coming out of TotalityBy the time totality occurred the clouds had came in quite heavily, and stayed that way for some time. Around 10:45 it started to clear up a bit and I got some more shots like the one above with Saturn in the lower left-hand part of the frame. The shot to the left is one just as totality was complete and the lower right edge is beginning to emerge from the Earth’s shadow. It was after 11pm by then so I started packing up and getting the stuff inside. I was tired and sore (all the bending and standing on my feet for the last 2-3 hours, I’m not as young as I used to be.

shoot with amanda

Posted by imus on January 28, 2007
Posted in: Photoshop-Lightroom. Tagged: , , .

I got up quite early considering I went to bed at 1:30am,  I tried to get back to sleep but with obsessing about if everything was ready for the shoot and if things would work out OK, I just couldn’t get back to sleep.  I got up and messed with testing some exposures of myself in order to have the main lighting right before Amanda and crew arrived.  I had moved my two lights to be the key (to the left of the camera and forward) and the fill (on camera right and behind), I then placed my brother’s two strobes that he graciously allowed me to use on the left and right of the model pointed toward the background.  I think I metered the key at f/8 and the fill at f/5.6 or 1:2 the background lights read f/16 to blow out the white background.

I was mostly ready by about noon and wanted to eat but was almost to nerved up to do so.  I poured myself a rum and Pepsi (OK, I live in Atlanta but HATE Coke), actually a Pepsi One, (you got to get the help where you can) in order to calm down a bit.  Amanda calls about 1ish and says they are running a bit late so it could be another 1.5 to 2 hours before they get there.  Considering we were shooting for 2:00pm and I still had things to do I was happy for the delay.  They arrived around 2:30ish and we basically jumped right in after the introductions.  I was worried that with everyone (her husband Kris and their s7yo Corbin) there including Brian there would be problems but no everything worked out great.

I felt I started out slow and could have felt a bit more in control but I was glad that after a bit Amanda had some ideas she asked about and things started to flow better.  I think I improved as far as directing her poses but I did leave more up to her than I expect I should have.  In reality I’m better at the technology of the art than the true art part.  Or maybe it is just that I’m more secure in the technology part.  I turned off the Auto Focus and just focused manually, not sure if that was good or bad but I feel that most of the photos were in focus, I exclusively focused on her eyes.  At times I was slow to focus and that might have made her feel like saying, “OK, take the picture please!!” so maybe next time I should try the AF for a bit and see how things work out.  Use the technology to your advantage.

Amanda was tickled about her makeup, especially her eyes and as you can see why here —> http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/47602253/
She looked fantastic if I haven’t already said that.

I learned a few things:
1). set the white balance to flash NOT auto!
2). I need to get better at suggesting poses, sometimes I don’t due to being modest( ie. how about a shot with your butt sticking out more?).
3). maybe use auto focus so model doesn’t have to wait so long for shot.
4). don’t try to bracket manually.

Things I want to do next with a shoot like this:
1). action shots, hair moving etc.  – note need to get a large free standing fan.
2). more implied nudity, way better than real nudity in my book.
3). Take more pictures.

astrophotography, hyades & orion

Posted by imus on January 25, 2007
Posted in: Astronomy. Tagged: , .

Talked to my parents for about an hour or so, maybe less but it felt really good to just chat with them.  With all the things happening with my daughter or should I say the things NOT happening with my daughter I’ve became more aware of my connection with my parents. 

After going out to Brickhouse for a salad and a beer I came home to take some pictures of the stars.  I experimented with some shutter speeds, 1 5 and 10 seconds and at different ISO and focal lengths.  I tried to use the stack program and didn’t feel I got anything better.  Maybe I need to look up more info since I’m not sure I’m even using the program correctly.

I got shots of mainly Hyades/Pleiads and Orion’s Nebula again.

some pictures of the heavens

Posted by imus on January 11, 2007
Posted in: Astronomy. Tagged: , .
Orion Nebula - M42 in Orion

I went out last night hoping to get a shot of the Comet McNaught or C/2006 P1 that is now about to fly around the sun.  It is only visible right after sunset in the west.  From where I was I think it was below the horizon, I’m almost sure I could see Altair and it was suppose to be around 15 degrees lower in the horizon and to the south about 15 degrees as well.  I do not think I even saw Venus which was only 10 degrees lower but another 10-15 degrees farther south.

I did get some shots of Orion and here is even a pic of the Orion Nebula I think.  Mine is on the left and one taken by the Australian Observatory on the right.  I just about got frostbite, well not really since it was only about 40 degrees F outside but my hands became numb after the hour and a half I spent outside.

I also tried to get the star cluster M41 in Canis Major shown below.  The bright star in the upper left of the left photo is Sirius.  The grouping of stars in the lower right of the photo is the M41 (Messier 41) open star cluster.  The lower right photo is a closer look at the cluster, which is in the bottom portion of the photograph.

Lower photos behind cut

latest shots of the moon and brickhouse time

Posted by imus on March 5, 2006
Posted in: Astronomy. Tagged: , , .

After running around and getting the tripod head, as well as a monopod, I got a few shots of Georgia Tech and then went on home and took another bunch of pics of the moon. These came out a lot better than yesterday, more in focus and I definitely exposed better.

Moon

Brian and I talking about telescopes and stuff, he set up the his telescope and we got to see Saturn, very small, but you could definitely could tell it was Saturn.

evening of tv and stargazing

Posted by imus on February 27, 2006
Posted in: Astronomy. Tagged: , , , .

Watched a bunch of Travel Channel stuff. Mostly Passport to Europe with Samantha Brown and Any Given Latitude. I also saw an episode of Stranded with Cash Peters where this guy, Cash Peters, is left in some country and has to except the hospitality of any people he can talk into it.

Big DipperI fixed the camera up with the wide angle lens and took a few pictures of the stars, one of the stars around Orion and the other of the Big Dipper. I was looking in my Night Sky Mag. and found out that the star, Mizar, in the handle of the dipper is a binary star (with Alcor) and my picture even showed it. In reality it is a multiple star since if you magnified it enough you could see that it is a binary as well. Even funnier is that astronomers have discovered that each of these stars are binary as well but you cannot distinguish this in any telescope.

What an exciting evening I had.

old camera, first 35mm

Posted by imus on December 13, 2002
Posted in: Photoshop-Lightroom. Tagged: , .

Thinking about my photographic history and my first camera given to me by my grandfather. I think it was an old Argus and I found a link to an Argus Collector’s Group on the web. I had given the camera to my younger brother after I got an Minolta SRT201. I wish I hadn’t done that now since he has “lost” the camera.