CalevPhoto

Sometimes you just need to realize equipment will not help

As some of you may know, I have been eyeing a large telephoto for quite some time.  I have long agonized when I will finally purchase my large telephoto and which one will I buy.  Will I buy the more portable 500mm F4 or the longer but heavier 600mm F4?  Perhaps I will go all out and spring for the 800mm 5.6, or perhaps I will go the sports route and get the 400mm 2.8?  I have spent a great deal of time debating this and bugging others about it.

This weekend, though, I decided to do something a bit different.  Given a home I had to photograph in Monroe, I decided to take a trip to Ben Hierland’s Wildlife Park.  I took along my 100-400 and my 7D and used my monopod for stabilization.  I’ve had my 7D for a good month now, but this was the first time I had actually used it for wildlife.  The idea was that the crop factor should give me a good idea what magnification I truly needed and which lens would work the best for me.

I must say I was completely shocked at what the answer turned out to be.

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Continuing the HDR process

As many of you know, I have switched my real estate photography to HDR.  It has taken me a bit of time getting used to it but I do like it much better.  In particular, I am able to shoot houses quicker – which makes a difference now that Nelya is getting a lot of listings!

Recently she got another listing and I went out to photograph it.  There were two main goals I hoped to fix.

• Fix the reflections on the floor from the windows.
• Improve the view from the windows.

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Futility in drops…almost…

As many of you likely know, recently we had a decent amount of snow here. It rarely snows here around Seattle and when it does, it’s even rarer for it to stick. Normally the nice thing is we can take a short trip to the mountains and enjoy several feet of snow, then drive back home and not have to worry about plowing the driveway. Recently though, it not only snowed but the snow stuck.

I noticed the sun came out and I decided to see if I can get a good ‘melting drop’ picture. I previously took this shot during another snow melt.

I think this is a nice picture, but I wanted to see if I could top it. My goal was to get a drop in the process of falling. As I’m not much for suspense, here’s the shot that I wound up with.

This shot proved much tougher than I originally anticipated and I wound up taking 200 frames trying to get this shot. There are several problems when photographing drops.

1. They are very difficult to predict. I have no idea when the drop will truly fall.
2. When the drop falls, it falls very fast. This makes it tough to get the drop in the viewfinder.
3. You have to be absolutely still to make sure the fall is in focus. I actually succeeded in getting two other drops during the day, but the others were out of focus.

It seemed every time the drop fell I would be just a bit too slow. The trick is to get the shot the instant the drop is ready to fall. If you wait for the drop to actually fall you will always be too late. I have two regrets with this shot.

1. The lighting is a bit too harsh. This is because my flashes were aligned in parallel to the drop, which in retrospect I should not have done. I did this in order to fit the flash in between the branches so as to not hit any of the icicles with the flashes. In the drop above, I had the flashes side by side and the lighting effect is better. It also probably didn’t help that the more powerful flash (I always set them to 80%-20% to make the light less flat) was on top. Next time if I need to put my flashes this way I should switch the power ratio on them.
2. It would be nice to have a prettier reflection. The easy way to do this is to put a small flower behind the icicle and prop it up somehow. Of course, this is easier said than done and I did not have a small flower at the time.

Still, I am very proud of my shot and I plan to print it out and add it to the wall of my office soon.