Valentine's Day, in light.

Any day is a good day to put an idea on paper, as it were. Today, the flashlight was my victim. Here is the result:



For those looking for an idea for Valentine's Day: it's more creative than a store bought card and your date/girlfriend/wife will love it because you created it. All you need is a little camera skill, a tripod and some patience. A dark room also helps (turn off the lights at night).

365/181 Objects That Tell Something About You/4

Maybe I should have just combined all these in a "food" photo of sorts. Well anyway, I also love ice cream. More specifically, and yes I know, boring, Vanilla Bean.

Lens and Camera Settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/8.0, 1/250sec and ISO 200. Flash OCF @ 1/2 power, shot through umbrella camera right.

365/180 Objects That Tell Something About You/3

I also love coffee. It practically defines who and what I am.

Lens and camera settings:
50mm ƒ/2.0 @ ƒ/4.0, 1/250sec and ISO 100. Flash OCF @ 1/4th power through umbrella camera right.

Playing with light: Low Key

Last night I stumbled across an article about low key photography, which completely reminded me that this in combination with B&W can create some of the most dramatic photos. Of course I wish I had remembered this at the beginning of B&W week, but now I have a reason to whip out the flash again!

Lens and camera settings:
14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II @ f/11, 1/250sec and ISO 100. Flash OCF at 1/4 power.

365/134 Hometown/6

It was an overall sunny day, except for this rogue thunderstorm that made everything overly humid. I went for a ride, but irony dictates that the better shots are taken close to home, so guess what. 50 feet from the front door I saw this. Sure, it would have been better if this was an open field, but it works!

Lens and camera settings:
14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II @ 14mm, f/2.8, 1/800sec and ISO 100.

365/86 Night Time/7

The last day, yes? Totally uncreative, I just didn't have the willpower to go outside and do this. It's been a long week (unrelated to photography) and I ran out of allergy meds, which seems to have a wonderful effect on my mood. Next week will be better though, with "Green with Envy" being the theme, it should be fun, one way or another.


Lens and camera settings:
14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II @ 29mm, f/3.0, 1/50sec and ISO 800.

365/85 Night Time/6

Today is nothing special, just a snap of my dash as I'm leaving work. What is special, is that this shot was completely hand held, and that I just proved that Olympus kept their promise with their Image Stabilization technology. Seriously, anyone still taking blurry shots with their E-3 with IS turned on, should consider not drinking coffee (or other "alertness enhancing stimulants") before they shoot, because you really have to *shake* the camera before things turn shakey. Oh yeah, don't use a tripod with IS on. IS is designed to compensate for minute movements, and when there's no movement at all, it gets confused and starts wandering off on its own, which ironically results in a blurry image.


Lens and camera settings:
14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II @ 35mm, f3.1, 1/15sec and ISO 1000.





I have decided never to go over ISO 1000 after this shot, because ISO 1000 generates perfectly printable shots (almost) uncorrected, and 1/15sec with IS on is still hand-holdable. Sure, it's no Nikon D700 (I say this a lot), but it works fine. I did run some noise ninja on this photo due to there being a lot of black in the photo and while I didn't see much noise, I'm sure someone else would.

365/84 Night TIme/5

It's candle light time! Today I decided it's time for a low light exposure with just the light of a candle as light source. I can tell you, last time I did this with my OM-10 film camera, and with 400 speed film, it didn't look anywhere near this good. Even at 100% crop, the tiny little bit of noise was forcefully shoved out the building by noise ninja and left a crisp sharp image behind.


Lens and camera settings:
50mm f/2.0 @ f/8.0 (for more DOF, small DOF didn't look good in this light), 2.5 seconds and ISO 400.

365/83 Night Time/4

Tonight was a good night for photography. Any CC is always welcome, don't be afraid to slap me with bad CC when needed ;-)

Lens and camera settings:

14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II @ 14mm, f/22, 40 seconds and ISO 400 (I really like this ISO for night photos with that particular f/stop. Not much noise, even at 100% resolution).

Day 3, retake

I decided I can't get away with swaying from the theme, so I took one from the front window. It's not great, but it's a night photo and it even has some motion from traffic in it.

Lens and camera settings:

14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II @ 14mm, f/11, 30 seconds and ISO 400.

365/82 Night Time/3

Macro day today. It was taken at night, so I felt like stepping outside the box and using word interpretation to bend the rules to my will. Yeah, so I'm a little uninspired today. Here it is anyway:

Lens and camera settings:

50mm f/2.0 @ f/11, 1/250sec and ISO 100. Flash through light tent @ -1EV compensation.

365/81 Night Time/2

I think I need more practice with night shots, but it's not bad for my first try at long exposure. I really just need a better location, because it's kind of boring down my street, as you can see.

Lens and camera settings:

14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 II @ 14mm, f/22, 20 seconds and ISO 1000.

365/80 Night Time/1

I wanted a "natural light" dark photo, so no flash was used. Instead I used a desk lamp and turned off all other lights. I say it's a success! It's amazing what the camera can still capture with almost zero light! And since I shot at ISO 100, there is no noise at all!

Lens and camera settings:

14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 @ 40mm, f/8.0, 2.5 seconds and ISO 100.