Four Years of Daily Photos

Mar 082012

Well I’ll be damned. I made it four years! FOUR YEARS of taking and posting a photo every single day. I declare Phase I complete.

Here's to Four Years - a panoramic crop of my final daily photo for Phase I

I started my One/Day Project on leap day (February 29th) in 2008, so I’m calling the period between leap days Phase I. Hopefully I’ll make it to Phase II. Check back in about four years for that. Better yet, follow along! Year 5 is already a week in.

Daily Diary

Although I’m pretty cautious on personal details, this project is basically a diary by nature. Looking back over a single year is fun, but going back all four years is really crazy. Four years is a long time. We got married, bought a condo and changed jobs. We visited 15 states and 4 countries. We explored 10 National Parks. I say “we” because my wife was with me through all of this. I’m grateful to have her support; I know I can be annoying by taking photos all the time.

Photo Setup – 2/29/12 Here’s to Four Years

Photo Setup, Photography, Southland No Responses »

Feb 292012

Before and After

Hover over the photo to see what it looked like straight from the camera.

My final daily photo for Year 4 at a Santa Monica beach

Technical Stuff

Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR at 18mm

Exposure settings: ISO 200, f/9, 1/40s

Cropped dimensions: 3387 x 2267 pixels

Other stuff: ND grad filter, -2/3 EV Continue reading »

Photo Setup – 1/22/12 Venice Dusk

Photo Setup, Photography, Southland No Responses »

Jan 232012

Before and After

Hover over the photo to see what it looked like straight from the camera.

Daily photo for 1/22/12 - Venice Pier at Dusk

Tech Info

Tripod, Nikon D80, 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 at 18mm, ND grad filter, f/22, ISO 100, 6 second exposure

Things That Made it Happen

Timing - Although I arrived before sunset, I waited for a while afterwards to get these colors. The sun set at 5:15; this shot was taken about 5:30. Continue reading »

New Toy Alert: Circular Polarizing Filter

Photography No Responses »

Oct 292011

Circular polarizing filters are great for saturating colors and preventing unwanted reflections. At least that’s what the internet says but it’s no substitute for discovering on my own, so I spent $150 on a 77mm Promaster filter down at Tuttle Cameras when they were having a big sale. Check out the dramatic difference in these unedited photos:

Minimum polarization...

Maximum polarization!

I mean, wow. Right?

I wanted to share a couple of first impressions. First, there’s a light loss of about 2 stops. That’s like shooting at 1/60 instead of 1/250 or f/5.6 instead of f/2.8. Or just setting your camera to -2 EV. In a more practical sense, it means you might need to use a tripod when you wouldn’t normally have to, like after sunrise or before sunset. Continue reading »

Panoramic African Vacation with Photosynth

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Sep 052011

My wife and I recently returned from an amazing 3-week trip to South Africa and Mozambique. Along the way, I used the Photosynth app on my iPhone to capture full 360° panoramas of all of the places we stayed and a few places we visited.

Now I share them with you.

Church Square in Pretoria, South Africa

Each of the links below will open in a new page on photosynth.net, where you can pan around and zoom in/out. Be sure to try it full-screen.

My wife makes many cameo appearances, as does my shadow and feet. Not all of the panoramas are complete due to space constraints and/or laziness. Please ignore any weird artifacts or ghosting effects – Photosynth is a quick-and-dirty tool. OK, let’s get started!

iPhone Panorama Apps – Pano vs Autostitch vs Photosynth

iPhone, Photography 3 Responses »

Jul 282011

As I’ve been using my iPhone for the One/Day Project, I’ve developed quite an interest in the various ways to enhance the iPhone’s camera. Unfortunately, the genre of iPhone photography seems to have already jumped the shark. In addition to some truly ridiculous physical add ons, there are literally thousands of apps available. Of course the vast majority are terrible. Just terrible.

One area that I consider legitimate is panoramas. Since your phone is now a camera as well as a computer, it’s cool that you can take and stitch multiple images into panoramas with the same device. Panoramas allow you to create higher resolution images than is possible with the camera alone. It’s great for capturing the big picture and being able to immediately share it.

Palisades Park - my daily photo for 4/23/09

My interest in panoramas has pointed me towards three apps – Pano, AutoStitch and Photosynth. All three have their pros and cons which I’ve briefly laid out below, along with some sample photos of the same scenes for comparison. Continue reading »

New Toy Alert: AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED

Gear, Photography No Responses »

Jul 102011

Yikes, what an official name. If you want to know what AF-S, VR and IF-ED means, head to Ken Rockwell’s page about it. I’m going to go ahead and call it the Nikon 70-300mm, because that’s what a normal person would call it.

70-300 w/lens hood on my D80

I bought the lens from Adorama – a factory-refurbished model at an additional discount, so it was a great deal. It came with only a 90-day warranty and no fancy packaging, but I’ll live. As you may have read in my previous post, I was planning on renting a fixed 300mm f/4 for an upcoming Africa trip, but it was simply too heavy. The 70-300mm is one stop slower (f/5.6 instead of f/4) and in general lower quality, but it has vibration reduction and it’s half the weight! And half the price!

Size Comparison

You can see from the photo above that it’s by far my biggest lens, although it’s only 6 ounces (170g) heavier than the 18-200mm. I plan on taking both of those zoom lenses to Africa and leaving the macro and f/1.4 lenses behind.

: A little close – you can’t zoom out with the 300mm f/4

Zooming is a big plus! In theory I like the idea of using a high-quality fixed lens and moving myself to ‘zoom’ in and out, but I won’t have that luxury on the safari since I’ll be in a Land Rover 99% of the time. Looking at other folks’ photos from Kruger outings, we’ll almost certainly see animals close to the road, and I don’t want to be stuck at 300mm if that happens.

Regarding the photo at right, however, God help us if we are ever that close to a hippo. But hopefully you see my point.

My Weekend with the Nikon 300mm f/4

Musings, Photography 3 Responses »

Jun 222011

I have a big trip planned, worthy of a big lens.

Sharing

Later this year I’ll be in Kruger National Park in South Africa, where there be many animals. Of course I’m struggling with what lenses to bring, and I want to share what I’ve learned so far, a bunch of photos, and why I won’t actually be taking this lens.

In the past I’ve rented a massive Sigma zoom and an ultra-wide Tokina lens and haven’t been particularly impressed, so I wanted to stick with Nikkor this time around. I wanted a long lens (obviously) but wanted the superior quality of a fixed focal length, rather than a zoom lens. I looked around – mostly at Nikon’s website – and settled on the 300mm f/4, which is the equivalent of 450mm on my Nikon D80′s DX sensor. Continue reading »

Photo Setup – 5/21/11 Pod

Photo Setup, Photography No Responses »

May 222011

This is my first blog post setup photo, meaning that I’m writing a bit more than I usually would on my previous setup photos. Questions? Leave a comment!

Before & After

Hover over the photo to see what it looked like straight from the camera with no editing.

See (and purchase!) the photo on the One/Day Project website.

The Setup

The key to the lighting in this photo is the off-camera softbox. I used an SB800 with a Lumiquest LTp. I fired it using my D80′s on-camera flash in commander mode, and I used large white foam board to reflect some of the light back – that’s what you see on the bottom of the peas. I set my on-camera flash to 1/128 power to fill in the shadows a little, but I’m not sure it had much of an effect. The SB800 was on 1/8 power. I used an aperture of f/11 and shot straight on to get all of the subject in focus. Continue reading »

3 Years of Daily Photos!

Musings, Photography No Responses »

Mar 012011

My One/Day Project is now 75% done, after 3 years and 1095 photos. It’ll be complete on leap day (February 29th) in 2012. Of course, I might just keep going after that…

Panoramic crop of my final photo in Year 3 - the Santa Monica Pier

Like last year, I wanted to do some reflection on the previous year as well as look forward to Year 4. Since no one has volunteered to interview me, here are some questions I asked myself:

What cameras did you use?

The following charts show the breakdown of camera models used in each year so far. Continue reading »

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