Water Droplet Photography – Lessons Learned

Photography 3 Responses »
Feb 022011

My One/Day Project has recently featured some water droplet photos. I hope that each one was more impressive than the last, because it was an ongoing process to discover how best to set up and light the drops.

Five Days of Water Drop Experimentation

Before I get into this, let me give some credit where it’s due. I saw the basic technique at a casual hands-on lighting class taught by Paul Van Allen at the Aquarium of the Pacific during Photographers Night. You can see his setup on Flickr. There are countless other sources for droplet stuff, such as this Strobist post. Search SmugMug or Flickr for ‘droplet’ or ‘water drop’ and you’ll see plenty more. Ok, moving on… Continue reading »

Posted by Jonathan at 12:29 pm Tagged with: , , , , , ,

iPhone 4 HDR Photography

iPhone, Photography, Technology No Responses »
Nov 052010

On 9/8/10, folks with an iPhone 4 could upgrade to iOS 4.1 and get HDR capability on the rear-facing camera. If you don’t know what High Dynamic Range photography is, do a quick search.

I’ve never been a fan of HDR – it looks over-saturated, washed out and generally fake. Most of the shots in Flickr’s HDR group back up that claim. That’s not to say it can’t be done well – I’ve liked plenty of HDR shots. The main difference is that I couldn’t immediately tell that they were HDR, because they weren’t screaming “that HDR look.”

I consider HDR more of a trendy novelty style rather than real photography. Regardless of my current views, I was eager to see how the iPhone 4 executed its HDR functionality.

Below is a collection of HDR shots that I’ve taken over the past two months and some comments. I included a wide variety of subjects and lighting conditions. Hover to see the non-HDR version (by default, the iPhone saves both versions). You can view the full size images here, should the mood strike you. Everything is straight out of the camera, no editing. Continue reading »

Posted by Jonathan at 9:05 am Tagged with: , ,

Adventures in Long Glass

Photography 1 Response »
Oct 172010

I recently went to San Diego and spent an entire day at the zoo (see photos). Since it was for my birthday, I was entitled to take as many photos as I wanted, and I decided it was worthy of a lens rental. I decided to go big – really big! I used LensProToGo to rent the massive Sigma 150-500mm, which is effectively about 225-750mm on my DX-format Nikon D80. It zooms in real nice!

Read on to see what I did with it..

Zebra legs at the San Diego Zoo

Continue reading »

Posted by Jonathan at 5:29 pm Tagged with: , , ,

Photographing Fishies

Photography, Southland No Responses »
Sep 222010

On 9/12/10 I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach to attend Photographer’s Night – what a great opportunity!

Obligatory aquarium silhouette photo

If you’ve ever been to an aquarium and tried to take photos, you may have noticed that it’s – well, hard. The reasons include curious children in the way, tripods are prohibited, no lighting equipment, too many people, family/friends don’t want to wait for you… and don’t forget you have to shoot through inches thick, often curved glass*. Oh, and the ambient light varies wildly from tank to tank.

*it’s not actually glass – it’s acrylic, but I’m going to keep calling it glass

Photographer’s night aims to remove as many of these roadblocks as possible – for 4 hours the aquarium was open ONLY to photographers, and we were allowed to bring just about any equipment they wanted! They capped the number of people so it wasn’t too busy. Other than respecting other photographers (ie. don’t linger at a popular exhibit) and not using flashes on light-sensitive animals, we pretty much had full reign of the place. Very cool! Continue reading »

Posted by Jonathan at 11:24 am Tagged with: , , ,

Scenes from Santa Monica

Photography, Southland 2 Responses »
Jul 242010

Today I participated in Scott Kelby’s 3rd Annual Photo Walk.

Rusty - Photo of the Day for 7/24/10

To learn about it from the source, check out www.worldwidephotowalk.com. Basically, people get together in groups on the same day, all across the world, and take photos as they walk around. If you’re unfamiliar with Scott Kelby, he has a whole digital photo empire, mostly related to Photoshop instruction. Because so many people read his blog and whatnot, his Photo Walk has become quite an event.

The walk I signed up for was in Santa Monica, so I could just walk to it. About 20-30 of us met at the camera obscura, walked the pier, back up to the Promenade, then to the farmer’s market and back to the camera obscura. The walk leaders gave some nice photo tips, but it was pretty loosely organized so we kind of all just wandered around.

Camera Obscura

Don’t know what a camera obscura is? Wikipedia tells all. Our walk leader described it as “being inside a pinhole camera.” Don’t know what a pinhole camera is? Again, Wikipedia. Continue reading »

Posted by Jonathan at 9:22 pm Tagged with: , ,

Day 1 with the iPhone 4

iPhone, Photography, Technology No Responses »
Jul 102010

I was happy to get an iPhone 4 in the mail yesterday. Today was my first day playing with it. Here are my first impressions, and lots of SOOC (straight out of camera) sample photos.

Cherry Tomatoes from the Santa Monica Farmer's Market

New Features

The new screen is flat-out amazing. Just stunning. The clarity and detail make all other screens seem like you’re viewing it through wax paper that’s pixelated. OK, so I may exaggerate, but it’s quite beautiful. Diminishing returns are part of the deal though, and I’ve already adjusted to the new screen after just one day. I wish it didn’t have such a negative effect on the older phones (making them look like crap), but such is the way of technological advances in the world of Apple. Continue reading »

Posted by Jonathan at 9:58 pm Tagged with: , ,
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