Night Light

So I finally got out and took the light painting pictures I wanted to do two weekends ago. After work today I headed up to the Valley of Fire and fumbled around a bit in the dark. This is my first try at this type of picture and I like the results. I will definitely be taking more of these pictures in the future.

I used a light from four different locations (next to the camera, to the right of the buildings and inside both buildings). Running around in the dark made this a bit on the difficult side but I got it done. (I was moving in the dark because the shutter was open and any light would register.)

The biggest thing this shoot told me is that I really need to get some flashes and a remote triggering system.

D60, ISO 200, 50mm, f1.4, 66.7 seconds

Overall I think I like this first image the best. I really like the dark, brooding character and the uneven blue wash.

D60, ISO 200, 50mm, f1.4, 68.3 seconds

The lighting on the front wall is the best in this picture. The blue from the front and green from the side really brought out the texture. The green on the ground in front of the building is a bit hot and that detracts from the picture. With a little bit of effort I may be able to tone that down in Photoshop.

I also like the small wedge of white light in the foreground. (This was a light leak between my gel and the flashlight.)

D60, ISO 200, 50mm, f1.4, 84.7 seconds

This last image has a nice green fill, not nearly as intense as the second image. The red in the doorway is a little hot this time but I do like the blue edging on the stones inside the door.

Don't tread on me!

D70, 27mm, f3.8, 1/60, flash at -3 ev

Poor little ant can't seem to find a hiding spot. (Yeah, yeah, a bit late.)

Sun-Set

I wanted to try out the print services at Adorama Camera. I took the two sunset pictures from last week and put them on a 20x30 canvas. I adjusted it to 240 dpi so that the pictures fit without having to resize them.

Wednesday night I uploaded the image and placed the order. The web site indicated that it would take 2-5 days to process + shipping time. Even though I really wanted to see the print I decided not to rush the order. I figured it would show up sometime this week. Well the next day I got an email stating that it had already shipped and it showed up on Saturday. Three days to process the print and ship it across the country. Not bad.

So today I opened it up (it was well packaged) and took a look. The quality is outstanding. I will definitely be using them again.

I have the print at my desk if anybody would like to see the quality of their work.

New Weekly Challenge

Guilty Pleasures!!

Cubes

Small World Variation

drip

Giant doggy

Small World

Strange Plant

I know, I didn't do the assignment, I will still try to get it in. Will be a little late though.

Hottie on The Strip

In PS I saturated the colors a bit and dropped a Reduce Noise filter on it.

Photography gets wet

I found a deal on ebay that was too good to pass up. I got an Ikelite underwater housing for my D70 at a great price. Even better is that it came with a D70 body! One more body closer to my dream setup... I'm up to two D70s and a D60. Next one gets converted to IR. ;^)

Now I just need a port for the front. They are matched to the lens and don't normally come with the housings. Oh, then I need to get to Belize and do some diving. The sacrifices you have to make for the art! hehe

Light Painting Failure

So I knew what I wanted to do for the assignment. Instead of drawing an image I wanted to "paint" colors onto a scene. With that in mind I headed out to Nelson, NV in search of some old cars or mine equipment.

Unfortunately I didn't get out there eary enough in the day to scout out my locations. I wound up by the Colorado river close to sunset. By the time I finished up at that location nobody was around in the locations I wanted to shoot in. Not wanting to face a double barrel of buckshoot I headed home.

So enjoy the setting Sun in Nelson Nevada...

Just before sunset on the Colorado (D60, ISO 100, 50mm, f4, 5 image HDR, 1/500 - 1/80)

(D60, ISO 100, 50mm, f4, 5 image HDR, 1/160 - 1/25)

(D60, ISO 100, 50mm, f4, 5 image HDR, 1/60 - 1/10)


From the top of a boulder (D70, ISO data missing, 27mm, f6.3, 3 image HDR, 1/640 - 1/40)

Saturday's light painting venture was shot. OK, there are some neat stone cabins up at Red Rock. Sunday I headed up to Red Rock Canyon and guess what... I messed up again. It turns out the cabins I was thinking of are actually out at Valley of Fire. Oh well, more sunset pictures for your enjoyment...

(D60, ISO 100, 50mm, f4, 6 image HDR, 1/160 - 1/15)

The same view about 15 minutes later during the "blue hour." (D60, ISO 100, 50mm, f4, 7 image HDR, 1/30 - 1/2)

I love the look of those last two pictures. Other than minor adjustments while building the HDR image I did not change the colors of them. It is a dramatic example of how much of a difference 15 minutes can make. I was using a 1:1.4 50mm prime lens stoped down to f4 and it was pretty dark out by the time I took the second (blue) set. I just picked up the lens last week from Goodwill and I'm definitely happy with it.

Finally, as the Sun was setting a newlywed couple showed up for some wedding photos. I grabbed the D70 off of its perch and snapped a few shots. I didn't get the focus dialed in and the other photographers were in the way but here's my favorite shots:

(D70, 35mm, f4.1, 1/10)

(D70, 50mm, f4.5, 1/20)

(D70, 40mm, f4.5, 1/13)

Sorry for the long post, hope you enjoyed it. ;^)

New Weekly Challenge

"Birds eye View" and/or "Ants eye View"

Dacing Light

I didn't paint these myself but had fun trying different shutter speed capturing the random movement & types of my music visualizer as I'm listening to music, it was very interesting to see the end result, as you can see I went out of control :)

Nikon D90
Shutter Speed Range 1.5 ~ 10 Sec

Bulb

Footsteps

The Challenge of New Puppies

The double flash of red-eye makes it very difficult to get a good picture of fast moving targets. These are my new family members, Boz and Tawny.

On a trampoline at night

Light painting on a trampoline

Fire People

My uncle and I had fun with this project. He was very kind not to light my hair on fire :)

This is my uncle trying to frame the giant moon. I like how the clouds in the sky looked so creepy. You can also see Mars in the shot.

Fire Trails

Used a candle for the light painting. Took the pictures outside with the giant moon as the light source.

Rabbit with dropping

Butterfly and Bat

The experimentation continues...

light painting sketches

just trying out a couple of ideas...

Area 51

This was my first try back during the meteor showers in August.

New Weekly Challenge

Our New Weekly Challenge is

"LIGHT PAINTING"

There are a lot of good examples of this on the web, or you can just take a look at Brian's post on January 22

Heavenly Water

It seems I may have mis-interpret the word Bokeh :-p

I used a longer shutter speed to capture the movement of water, I thought the blurriness from the water made a good contrast with the still rock formation in the background.

Guava RockStar

Bokeh Spidey

Bokeh Desk

A little rotation, crop, and saturation.

Empty Road