I need a new tripod

Friday night, I was so excited to go shoot that big beautiful moon. It was rising fairly early (4:45 PM) and we had crystal-clear skies. I set up my tripod, had a cable release, and was all ready to go.

Tip from the field, folks...skip the $20 Walmart tripods. Each time I asked the camera to focus, the lens motion moved the camera. Each time the shutter tripped, the motion moved the camera. Just a tiny bit, but enough to lose that razor-sharp moon edge I was hoping for. The legs are sturdy, and the mount fits tightly to the camera body, but the mount doesn't fit snugly to the tripod itself. Will be tripod shopping soon!

Shutter: 1/100, f/6.3, ISO 100, 270mm RAW, tripod mount (for what it was worth...)

Having a lightbulb moment

 

Shutter: 1/125, f/5.6, ISO 200, 198mm Av (aperture priority). Tripod mount, RAW. No processing in RAW, added a black & white adjustment layer in Photoshop.

Fierce

Yet another fearsome snow creature stalking the park.

Modest exposure and sharpening done in PS RAW

Shutter: 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 200, 300 mm

Who's on the menu?

More photos from last weekend's snow sculpting competition. I made some minor adjustments to both with the clarity slider in PS RAW.

Shutter speed: 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 200, focal length 30mm RAW

All EXIF info the same on shot number 2, but I zoomed in to 90mm to capture the dragon having a little human lunch!

Snug as a toad on a turtle?

This snow sculpting team poses for a picture after finishing their work entitled "Mr. Toad's Not-so-Wild Ride". In order to stay warm as they worked through the night, they had to wear many layers of clothing.

Shutter: 1/160, f/5, ISO 200, 65mm hand-held. Adjusted exposure in PS RAW editor. Increased clarity slightly.

Warning: f-stop experiment ahead

Poking around the house for warning labels, the most interesting one I could find was on this bottle of Peppermint Schnapps our neighbor gave us for Christmas. I just bought a prime, 50mm lens with f/1.8 and decided to try a couple of available light shots (at 4:30 on a gray winter afternoon). The best light I could find was on the floor near my living room window (hush, Ron...this was a legit experiment).

The minimum focal length for this lens is 1.5 feet, so I had to roll the bottle away from me far enough to get the small (maybe 5-pt.) type in focus. At an aperture of 1.8, the depth of field is so shallow that only a very small area of the label is in focus (image #1). If I drank much of this in one sitting, that would probably be my view (ha ha). In the second image, I shut down the aperture to 3.5, and the depth of field increased to a point where more of the label is visible. I tried to crop both images to a similar size, but as both shots are hand-held, I'm sure the original distance from the bottle changed somewhat.

Shot in Av (aperture priority), so the camera selected a matching shutter speed.

Image #1: Shutter speed 1/200, f/1.8, 50mm, ISO 800

Image #2 (below) Shutter 1/50, f3.5, 50mm ISO 800

Subtle differences, but visible if viewed full-size.

Avoid the 6-bull pileup on the inbound I-90

Over the weekend, our town hosted its 24th annual snow-sculpting competition. Contestants finished just in time to have their work judged before the spitting rain began pitting their work.

Is there anything more masculine than a bull? How about a buffalo bull? How about a whole pile of buffalo bulls?? Come to think of it, I'll bet Buffalo Bill was considered pretty manly in his day, as well.

Shutter: 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 200, 39mm RAW, handheld. Tweaked the exposure in PS RAW editor, desaturated to convert to B&W (which it mostly was, anyway, due to gray-white sky and snow). Bumped the clarity slider to bring out the grain from the carving tools.