CalevPhoto

The Mighty Mite

I remember as a (slightly abnormal) kid collecting firecracker packs having a pack called ‘Mighty Mite’.  At the time, it never really occurred to me what a ‘mite’ was – I just collected the pack.

It isn’t difficult to find mites whenever taking macro shots.  They are everywhere and you really just have to turn over a leaf that is decaying on the ground to find one.  Photographing one, though.  Well that’s a different story.

Complicating getting a good photo of one of these little buggers are two things.

1) They are extremely small.  The shot above was taken at 5x – and even then I cropped it.

2) They move rather quickly and do not sit still

About a week ago, though, after not finding much anything else to photograph that day, I decided to take my chances.

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Playing with some new toys

Although we do not celebrate Christmas, that doesn’t mean I did not get any toys… With my birthday earlier in the month and with some spare photography money I received a few things this season and yesterday I finally had the chance to get out and play with them – well sort of.  I had two real estate shoots to take care of and one of them was at a property with quite a bit of land and a horse barn.

The image above is a seven image exposure blend using my TS-E 24 II and my new Singh-Ray Color Combo.  I really like how the Color Combo brought out the blue in the sky.  As those of you who live here know, blue skies are quite rare here.  Had I not used the filter the sky would have been whitish and I would have had to do some post processing to get the sky bluer – though it would not have looked as natural as it does here.

Above is another image with the Color Combo.  While the previous image was not shifted very much, this one had a bit more shift.  As you can see the vignetting with the TS-E 24 II is minimal.  I generally use the TS-E 24 II for exterior shots and the TS-E 17 for interiors.

The above image used by TS-E 17.  The TS-E 17 does not accept filters  – though a polarizer would have had a negative effect indoors anyways.  In this shot I replaced the windows in Photoshop.  I did it rather quickly and am not crazy about the result but these images will be viewed small.  I also used one of my new toys – Viveza by Nik Software.

This weekend I purchased the Complete Collection by Nik Software using a discount on Ron’s blog.  I have been having fun playing with all of the tools in the package (except for SilverEfex – right now I do not do too much in black and white), but for real estate so far Viveza is the only one I need.  I found that by adding a bit of warmth to the shot and removing some of the green the shot looks a lot better.

The above is another similar shot in these conditions.  In this case the window removal came out a bit better.  I honestly just used the quick select tool in Photoshop.  In some cases it works well while in the previous shot I should have been a bit more careful.

Next week I have my final toy coming – well sort of.  We ordered a G11 for an upcoming vacation where I will not be able to take my 5D2.  Of course, it is probably foolish to think that I will have a chance to use it, as Eitan has been wanting that camera and will quickly take it from me.

Why aren’t you bugging me?

OK, OK, so it’s been awhile since I have posted a decent old fashioned bug shot.  The reality is between being extremely busy and having rather lousy weather here I haven’t taken too many bug shots lately.  I hope to change this soon.  Last night we had a ton of midges get into the house during a party – as if they were wondering where the heck I was.

This shot was taken a few months ago by the ponds outside my office.  I spent some time photographing one stink bug and when I found another on a different leaf – I figured – why not?

They stayed together for about thirty seconds – but this was long enough to get a decent shot.  They didn’t seem too offended by one another – but soon went their separate ways.

Stink bugs are one of my favorite insects to photograph as they are so colorful.

My first stolen photos

Well, it was bound to happen at some point or another.  Someone has stolen several of my photos.  In this case they were real estate photos and ironically are not some of my better photos.

Some time ago my wife, who is a real estate agent, had a listing that I took photos of.  The shoot was quite difficult and I wound up having to reshoot the property.  In retrospect, it was an important property for me because it was what eventually prompted me to move from pure HDR to exposure blending.

The shot above was one of the photos stolen and certainly has its flaws – the worst of which are probably the incorrect verticals.

Unfortunately, after quite a bit of work by both myself and my wife, my wife realized that this wasn’t going to work out so she cancelled the listing.  The seller then relisted the property several months later with a different agent.

Of course, the new agent helped herself to my photos, and I have of course insisted that these photos be removed.  If they are not removed soon, I intend to send her the bill for my services and pursue this in court if they are not removed.

What bothers me even more though was the response from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS).  When I contacted them asking what I needed to do to get the photos removed, a rude woman responded that they will not take any requests from photographers.  The listing agent must submit a complaint.  Luckily the previous listing agent in this case was my wife so she filed the formal complaint using the form she mentioned.

So far NWMLS has not bothered to reply to the complaint, which has me even more angered.  I am half tempted to file a lawsuit against them for copyright infringement.  This is simply not correct.  If a photographer sends them a certified letter demanding his images be removed from their site, they must do this.  NWMLS must understand that real estate agents do not own the copyright for these photographs – the photographers do.

A Status Update

Wow! Things have been amazingly busy.  Between a very hectic schedule at work and a lot of things at home – including gutting the entire interior of our house, I think I am finally back to the stage where I can begin to write blogs again.

Photography-wise, much has happened in the last several months.  I purchased the Canon TS-E 17 and the Canon TS-E 24 II lenses for a number of purposes and they are now two of my favorite lenses.  I will discuss them more in a future blog.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased Lightroom – along with Photoshop CS4.  I am still getting used to Lightroom and have barely used CS4 yet – though I hope to ramp up on them soon.  I do rather like Lightroom – particularly the keywording feature – though I must admit I’m still getting used to non-destructive editing.  I think the thing that annoys me most about it so far is I cannot (or at least I haven’t figured it out yet) overwrite the original JPEG.

I typically use the RAW file as my negative and the JPEG as my currently edited version.  If I change an image significantly – I’ll generally save it as a new file.

I have also learned quite a bit about time management lately.  In the past, I heavily participated in photography forums – most particularly a photography alias at my work.  I have come to realize though that these forums are not that incredibly useful.  In particular I began to notice the following.

1) I was writing more about photography equipment than on actual photography.  This may sound rude, but I have noticed that those who write the most about photography generally don’t take the best pictures.  The reason is the exhausting amount of time it takes to create a decent review and research things.

2) In most forums, the truly professional photographers are few and far between.  If you really want strong criticism of your photos and techniques, you’ll generally need to go directly to the photographers – not to the forums.

Therefore I have ceased participation in most of these venues.  I do still occasionally post in a few places – but only when I have a very particular question and I know there are members there that are very familiar with that subject area.

This has allowed me more time lately, which I hope to channel into consistently writing blogs.

Time for some planes

I apologize that it has been so long since my last post. We are in the midst of a huge remodel here that has taken a great deal of my time.  I have also been busy photographing homes for Nelya as her business has really taken off.  Of course I have been photographing and I have a backlog of interesting shots to talk about.

Last weekend we took the kids to see the Blue Angels in their annual show in Seattle.  This was the first time I finally had a lens that could catch them decently in the Canon 100-400.  The lens worked fine and for the most part I felt the focal length was adequate on the full frame 5D Mark II.  The autofocus was quite slow, but I was still able to get some decent shots.

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Friends don’t let friends take horrible fireworks pictures

Awhile ago I posted about how to take fireworks pictures.  Every year I see the same thing.  Shortly before the 4th of July I see tons of requests on how to take fireworks pictures, followed by a slew of truly awful fireworks shots after the event.  Let it stop!

Here’s the truth about fireworks shots.  In order to get that truly amazing fireworks shot you need to be familiar both with where the fireworks will be shot off that year as well as the optimal spot in the city to take a shot.  Typically this ‘optimal place’ will not be empty and you will need to set up way ahead of time in order to get the spot.

While you are setup in this spot, you will need to deal with photographers and spectators setting up right in front of you and if you need to use the bathroom you can consider your spot gone.  If you have kids, you’ll either need to not take them or they will get restless waiting hours before the fireworks.

The other thing to consider here in the Seattle area is that all of our fireworks shows suck.  The fireworks companies here simply do not utilize the more creative shells that many companies on the East coast utilize.  The one show I know of not shot by a local company here – the Seattle show shot by Pyro Spectacular – also sucks.  This puzzled me for some time, as Pyro Spectacular has a good reputation in the fireworks industry.  After some digging I found that the city of Seattle is not a fireworks friendly city and is such a pain to deal with in terms of budget and restrictions that the end result sucks.

Part of being a truly professional photographer is knowing when not to click the shutter.  Fireworks are pretty, but the chances that you will get a great shot haphazardly are close to infinitesimal.  If you are going out with the intention to photograph the fireworks show, my recommendation is to not go out at all.

Several years ago I got sick of fighting the crowds and found my fireworks shots no better than the millions of other horrible fireworks shots that plague the ‘Net after the 4th.  Therefore, I decided to go a different route and I now purchase some small fireworks items and shoot them off in our backyard with the kids.

Our kids now absolutely love the 4th of July and count the days before we shoot the fireworks.  As we have a small backyard I don’t buy anything big – mainly sparklers (the wood kind), some small fountains, bees, and pagodas (a yearly tradition – each child gets his/her own pagoda).  I do not shoot any festival ball and we stopped shooting firecrackers after some of our guests complained about the noise.

This year I hope to take some pictures of the event, as last year we used small sparklers that expired quickly and I spent all of my time distributing them.  My shots may not be masterpieces, but they will be far more memorable and valuable to me than the junk I would have taken at the fireworks shows here.

Therefore, please do your part this year and save energy by not forcing servers around the Internet to transfer your garbage among the millions of garbage fireworks shots that come after the 4th.

Aphids in the wild

During the summer, pretty much whenever I want to find aphids I can find them.  They are always on our rose bushes and I use no insecticides to get rid of them.  When I find a ladybug in the yard, I move it to the rose bushes to trim the aphids a bit – though I haven’t found a ladybug yet this year.  It is tempting to buy them in the store but I have read that these are not native ladybugs and will therefore just fly away and provide little benefit to the garden.

Still, it was a welcome sight to find some aphids in the wild this weekend while shooting near some ponds that are next to the building where I work.

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Flies as pollinators

All of us are very familiar with the service that bees perform for us in our yards.  Many of us are also familiar that there are a great number of other things that also pollinate flowers – such as some species of bats.  In the past I have read that some flies also pollinate flowers, but it certainly was strange actually seeing one do it.

I found a number of these flies on a bank of yellow flowers next to a small stream.  I must admit that even after attempting to look it up, I have no idea what type of fly it is.  At first I thought it was a face fly, but according to what I read face flies are quite a bit bigger than this one.

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Attack of the baby spiders!

While photographing a house in Seattle a few weeks ago, my kids found a ton of baby spiders that had just hatched on the stairs leading up to the house.  Of course I could not resist getting some photos!  Here is the group of spiders to give you an idea how many there were.

A little bit of research at bugguide.net revealed that these are baby orb weaver spiders.  Everywhere around the stairs they were spinning webs.  They were crawling on the ground and a few of them even tried to create a nest on my camera!  Of course, I couldn’t resist getting a closer look at them.

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