Less Than A Month To Go

Haven’t been blogging much. Still taking digital photos and have continued to post to the Weekly Photo. But my focus has been on other things.

I’m leaving for a week in Wisconsin on Thursday. Wisconsin Homeconing Game in Madison this coming week-end. The Badgers are having a terrible year so I expect the results won’t be happy.

I’m teaching two classes the week after I get back. That will be a drive to Houston, Nov 2nd and 4th. And then the big trip starts the 15th. A lot of preparation to do. I’ve been gathering bits and pieces since January, it’s down to to 3 or 4 things left. Probably go shopping in Wisconsin.

The DPS assignments have also continued. I’m still learning a lot about the Alpha. This latest week is supposed to be a portrait shot. I used a statue. What was more important, however, was the day was overcast (much as I expect Antarctic will be). I adjust the exposure and got some reasonable photos that didn’t require much adjustment in the computer.

Polarizing Filter

Spent last week getting ready for a class in Houston. We’d set the date 8 weeks ago. Then spent a nervous Fri and Sat waiting to see the results of Ike. I didn’t get confirmation that the classes were postponed until Sunday morning.

With that off the front burner I could go looking for a filter in earnest. I didn’t think finding one would be that tough. Had to go to downtown Austin to find one that fit my lens (49mm).

I’d done a little reading on the web. I needed a Circular Polarizer because of the digital camera. They have two plates. The first cuts reflected light, that’s the polarizer. The second plate sort of makes it scattered (circular) again so the polarizing sensors inside the camera don’t reject the light. That’s sort of the layman’s version.

Meanwhile, I had to relearn to watch the viewfinder when rotating the filter. My first attempt didn’t show much change. I shot from one position and took another shot with the filter rotated 90 degress. It wasn’t until 20 shots later that I came to realize the best position was 45 degrees.

The second day’s photo shoot I adjusted for best reduction first. Then tested 90 degrees off of that. The results weren’t spectacular, but the behavior was much better and in line with what I expected.

Creative Commons

Got to reading about Creative Commons licensing over the week-end. Decided I would open my flickr photostream up rather than just use all rights reserved. Looked like the Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative configuration made the most sense.

I can still strike a deal with someone if they want it for commercial use, such as micro-stock.

Spare Battery

Spent the week looking for batteries and compact flash cards. I was surprised at how understocked the camera store was. I’m familiar with lean and just in time, but empty shelves means loss of sales.

Went to a store in downtown Austin and got a couple of memory cards. 2GB for me and a 1GB for Joanne. We don’t know if her camera takes a 1GB chip. I figure we can try it, and if it doesn’t work, I can use it in mine.

Neither store had a spare battery for the Alpha 100. They had some "replacements" but not a Sony model. Not sure that matters but I always prefer the original manufacturer. One store suggested a battery store, which would be on the way home.

The battery store had a lot of Sony batteries but not the model I wanted. The clerk said the FM50 or equivalent would work. Mine is an FM55H which should last longer. The whole issue is cold weather and the need for extra batteries. Why would I want one that has less capacity?

Checking the cameras User Guide, it specifically says the FM50 and FM30 will not work. So, I'm glad I didn't take the clerk's advice.

I checked the Internet. A lot of people selling batteries that are "claimed" to be to the original specs. I found a couple of sites that seem, from the descriptions, to be original Sony batteries. I ordered one, so will see if it works.

Back From Vacation

Got back Thursday afternoon from our trip to Stevens Point. It was the 40th High School Reunion for P.J. Jacobs HS. We don’t have relatives in the area, so a reunion is the only reason I get back to Point. Most of the trips to Wisconsin involve Madison and Milwaukee.

A downtown project has been painting murals around the Market Square area. Went down to take some photos. One mural commemorated opening day for the New (improved) Point Bakery on the Market Square, in 1947. That’s why I chose it as my Weekly Photo.

I recognized the two women, they usually ran the counter. And I can almost taste the doughnuts. We bought a lot of "Fat-Pills" in there as I was growing up.

Studio Work

Used the light tent for this week’s assignment. It really required setting up the camera to get the photo I wanted. Took me three sessions. Take a couple dozen shots and pull them up on the computer to see how they really turned out.

I’d already figured out you need to adjust the white balance for the lighting. But the exposure was still darker than I wanted. I turned off the D-R-O and boosted the exposure to +1.3EV. I even bracketed the shots +/- 0.7EV.

Surprised to find that +2.0EV seemed to give the most reliable picture quality.

I doubt if I’ll have to mess around quite so much for penguin pictures. I won’t be shooting indoors, or using artificial light. I’ll probably use a flash for on board the ship.

Weekly Photo Early This Week

I don't anticipate an internet connection when we get to Turkey Run State Park on Thursday. So, I've posted my pick for the week.

When I grew up in Stevens Point we had Point Beer (lager) and in the Spring, Point Boch. That's 40 years ago. Now we have a lot of alternate brewing styles, readily accepted by the market.

In some cases the label and the name sell the product, more than the taste. I haven't tried this batch yet, I want to take it along to Turkey Run. Since my buddies complain about my taste for regular Point, we will see if they are impressed with this style.

Got To Wisconsin

Don't know if I should consider it an opportunity to practice or a disadvantage. The weather between Austin and Milwaukee has been terrible. Heavy rain and high winds. Even had a chance to hear the Tornado Warning Sirens.

I could, I suppose, practice foul weather photography. I have opted for keeping the DSLR safe and dry. Plus I was more concerned about keeping the car on the road.

Arrived on Saturday, just in front of the storm that nailed the Milwaukee Zoo. The "planned" visit may be postponed on this trip.

Biggest problem is the quantity of rain. The storm sewers will catch up, eventually. But, you get some temporary flooding. I know where the low water crossings and low streets are in Round Rock. I'm not so sure here in Milwaukee.

On the plus side, we're going to go looking for rubber boots this afternoon. Mid-calf to knee high, all rubber, with a good tread. I'm betting that the farm stores here have more comfortable work boots for dairy farming, and at a better price, that more expensive hunting boots. I used to have some fishing boots with a steel shank, you could wear those for 12 hours comfortably no matter how much you hiked.

A Longer Road Trip

Getting the things together for a road trip. Driving up to Milwaukee from Round Rock. We’ll visit with Joanne’s friend for a few days and then drop down to Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. Then home. About two weeks total.

I’m taking the Alpha with me. Loaded the Sony software on my laptop. I should be able to unload photos. Should also have some candidates for the Weekly photo next week.

It looks like they’re going to have scattered thunderstorms. But we might work in a trip to the Milwaukess Zoo. Then I could try out some wildlife photos.

More Flowers

Had a good week. The weather is hot but very little rain. I’ve been walking late evenings rather than mid-afternoon, just to avoid the mid-day sun.

The Weekly Assignment was shooting from the hip, no viewfinder. I tried to take some photos of some oleanders peaking over a fence, but couldn’t get the shot I wanted (usually too much fence).

I used the view finder to take this week’s photo.

The DPS photo for the week was taken within the rules and can be found here.

I did learn a little from this assignment. I was pretty sure the auto-focus would work. It did, very few blurry photos. But, it didn’t always focus where I thought it should.

Odds & Ends

The weekly photo is up. It is one of the batch I took last Sunday. I liked the color contrasts. Particularly the drive belt.

I also posted the cat photo for the DPS contest.

Have been doing my daily walk early evening when it is a little cooler. I took the camera along to try a long shadow shot. But the sun was playing hide and seek, so I didn't get the shot I wanted. I've still got a week or so to get it.

And, I got a clean bill of health from my doctor. The growth they removed two weeks ago is nothing special. And my eyelid is healing well.

After Dark

Sometimes the second time is better. I went to UT on Sunday, slightly after sunset, and got a few pictures I liked. So, Monday night I went to downtown Round Rock after it had gotten dark (around 9:15 pm). Surprised how deserted the streets get.

They have white lights around the trees and some of the buildings. The assignment is night photography, so I suppose the lights made it easier.

Took my tripod. Used the night portrait mode (no flash) on the camera. Used the timer function and turn DR-O off.

It appears the night portrait mode uses ISO 800 as the setting. When I look at the 100% pixels I can see a little graininess, but I suspect it would show in a normal print.

Took about 30 shots. I got four or five shots that I like. Makes it hard to choose. I'll update this post with my choice Wednesday.

Update: My DPS choice is now up. I have also updated the weekly photo page.

Better Photos

I've posted the photo for the week. I've decided that rather than reduce the image size to 27% of the original, I'll upload the original to Flickr. Then post a medium link on the Weekly Photo page.

That should save me some bandwidth, not that it's an issue. Then if someone wants to see a larger version they can jump over to Flickr. That's the convention over at DPS.

I was taking pictures for the Converging Lines assignment. Next to the Mays Street bridge was a small patch of Indian Blankets. Not much wind so got a good isolated flower.

Sorting The Week-end's Photos

Decided to go with the down spout for the weekly assignment. Didn’t like the quilt blocks as much.

I did get some wildflower photos, however, while we were there. One of the Texas Yellow Stars had a bee visiting a number of flowers. I caught a good shot of it. That’s been posted as my photo of the week.

I started a thread for cold weather photography. Got some answers. It looks like the main issues are battery life and condensation. Both are solveable.

Zigzag Iris

The weekly photo is up.

It was taken at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I specifically slowed down the shutter speed to get a little blur in the water. It does give it some motion.

I posted the assignment to DPS as well. While at the center I found a flower pot recycling bin. Lots of colorful circles.

Haven’t had a lot of time to play with the camera. Taught an all day MindManager class on Friday, so most of the week was tied up in class prep.

Update: I may have read the wrong sign. The weekly photo is probably an Iris, as it is purple. A Spider Lily is white.

Disk Space

I can see it isn’t going to take long to fill my hard drive. 30 photos at 2 Mb each, and all of a sudden an experiment can be 60+ Mb of photos.

A lot of the experiment shots aren’t woth keeping. So, I’ve culled more than 50% of them. Hard to break a habit of saving everything. But I didn’t usually order duplicates of everything I shot on film. And I've got a lot of marginal prints.

Road Trip Report

Great weather for a drive to Marble Falls. Used the trip to explore a couple of new roads. There appears to be a North South road called Ronald Reagan Blvd that connects 29 to 1431. Mostly an entension of Parmer Lane.

Only found a few places with enough Bluebonnets to warrant stopping. A lot of the road had steep shoulders, and wouldn’t have been a good place to get out.

Coming home on 29, there were more Bluebonnets than on 1431 but nothing dense.

Got the pictures I wanted. Both with the Bluebonnets on the way out, and at the Middle School after we’d gotten home. Driving back into town I noticed a large number of small blue flowers. (I believe they’re called Dotted Blue-eyed Grass.) I’ll post two photos over at DPS next Wednesday.

My photo of the week for next week will be "The famous (but rare) Texas Spring(clip)-o-piller." Constructed from a ruler, spring-clips, and a Jack In The Box Christmas antenna ball. It even had ear-muffs.

Road Trip

Looks like it is going to clear up tomorrow. It has been off and on gloomy with heavy cloud cover. Drizzle the last few days to top it off.

I signed up to take Joanne to Marble Falls. It’s a smaller town about 40 miles from here, and along the lake.

The wildflowers are everywhere now. I should get a field or two. Next week’s assignment at DPS is "Spring."

Wildflowers are an obvious choice for the assignment, so I need a twist. I’m thinking of using a wine bottle holder I got for Christmas. It is coiled metal wire, so essentially it is a "Spring." If I put it in amongst a clutch of wildflowers, it’s a 2-fer!

Microstock

My wife brought home an interesting book from the library. Selling Photography by Roger Antrobus. It had been listed in the Edward R. Hamilton’s Bargain Books catalogue. I’d marked 4 or 5 titles and she checked to see if our library already had it.

In the book, Roger is making the case for "stock" photography as a way to sell and resell your photographs.

As I investigated the larger companies I realized that they usually want fairly large files (50MB). That would be shooting in RAW. And that would quickly use up my memory space while I’m in the Antarctic.

I posted a question on the Digital Photography School forum and was informaed there are also "microstock" web sites. These are smaller photo sizes, so worth investigating further.

I’m not sure my photos reach the quality needed, at least not yet. But, good penguin pictures might be better than actic landscapes. And, if I focus on the penguin, the depth of field won’t be that critical.

Spring in Texas

I was hoping to get some wild flowers by March 17th. We did but they were just the common yellow daisy like flowers. With the drought-like Jan & Feb, I was concerned that we might not get any Bluebonnets this year.

Finally spotted some on Easter Sunday. My wife and I drove down to the IBM campus, in Austin. She pointed out to me that they water their lawns. (She worked in those buildings more than 10 years.)

Sure enought, fields of them. Immature, but definitely sprouting. That where I took the picture for the week.

For me, Bluebonnets are the official start of Spring in Texas.