Tag Archives: aperture priority

Just for fun, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green-Part II

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

You know what they say about the green ones? Well, without getting into that in this blog post, I’ll leave it at that and share the photo of some deliciously green M&Ms… (yummy)! Oh….and camera settings, too.

111912 Green MMs

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | 1/25 | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | Flashmate F-198 LED Light | RAW

I was excited to try out my new LED light in a photo tonight, so I gave some M&Ms a go since the WordPress Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge was green. I should have bought the holiday M&Ms because then it would have been simple to sort out the green ones. Instead, I bought a large Costco-sized bag and then spent 20 minutes sorting out the green ones.

I piled the M&Ms on a black cloth and set my new LED light, pointing it to the ceiling so I didn’t have too much of a glare on the candy itself. I shot in RAW so I could make some adjustments afterward. After taking two dozen shots from different angles, using different exposures, apertures and light intensities, I settled on the last shot I shared above.

I look forward to shooting many more photos with my new LED light. One I am really looking forward to is one of my six-year-old daughter in my wife’s wedding dress. I’m hoping to get that this weekend. Any pointers on how to make that a shot to remember?

~signed, Carltonaut

Black & White, HDR, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Moments after learning about this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge, I was in my car heading to a meeting in downtown Salt Lake City. As usual, I had my camera bag in the back seat, so once my meeting concluded, I took a short walk around Temple Square, shooting things that were green.

My initial idea was to get a great shot of a traffic light sporting some green, but I saw so many other cool shots of green, that I ended up with more than just traffic lights.

111812 WPC-Green

During my quick excursion, I had my 55-200mm lens hooked up so I could get close enough to objects without standing in the middle of the road. I put my camera on AV (aperture priority) so I could have better say in the depth of field.

For a couple of the shots, I tried bracketing a series of three photos so I could merge them together using Photomatix and capture a better dynamic range. Of the four photos above, can you guess which two are HDR? The traffic light, along with the white snow melting in patches to reveal the green grass below.

For the traffic light photo, I converted the three bracketed photos to a single HDR photo, converted it to Black and White using photo shop, then imported the photo in color and used that to make the green light green. I felt that offered more contrast to help the green light pop out a little better.

Green lent itself to so many options, and I still have another idea up my sleeve, which I will probably photograph later today and share tomorrow. Stay tuned for that one.

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Near and Far

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The concept Near and Far in photography easily lends itself to using a low depth of field in order to distinguish between the near and the far. So when I set out to meet the Daily Post at WordPress.com’s Weekly Photo Challenge head on, I slapped on my Canon 50mm 1:1.8 II lens, set the camera to aperture priority (AV), and headed outside just before the sun peaked out from behind the Rocky Mountains.

091012 Red Hydrant

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | 1/100 | f/1.8 | ISO 200 (adjusted levels and cropped to 5×7)

Near to the camera is the bright red fire hydrant. Far from the camera is the house that this little hydrant has sworn to protect. If the house caught on fire, these two objects would become fast friends, and the fire fighters would be the glue that would hook them together.

I also chose the red fire hydrant because it’s rivalry week here in Utah and I wanted to express my true color - Crimson. If you follow college football in Utah, you’ll understand the reference. Go UTES! :-)

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun

Happy Colorful Easter Eggs

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

We had a blast with the kids at my parents annual Easter Egg Hunt. After the kids raced through the backyard to grab the plastic eggs filled with prizes, we geared everyone up for real egg dying. Here’s the result of six kids, four dozen eggs, and a dozen cups of colored dye.

040812 Colorful Eggs

Canon 60D | 18-135mm lens | 1/3200 | f/5.6 | ISO 100

Happy Easter to everyone. Hope it’s great.

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun

Springtime Blossoms

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I manage the Facebook page for Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah. When I was returning from a lunch appointment, I saw dozens of trees on the campus that had these springtime blossoms. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots. Then posted it to the Facebook page asking people what their favorite springtime activity is.

Funny that people would say skiing. Well, yesterday it snowed heavy enough during the morning commute to make it take twice as long, so skiing in April in Utah isn’t uncommon.

Regardless, here’s a shot from those beautiful springtime blossoms, contrasted with the reflection of the blue sky in the patient tower.

040712 Blossoms at IMC

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | 1/5000 | f/3.2 | ISO 100

I’ve enjoyed tying my photography hobby in to my work life. Though I have to be pretty careful to make sure I don’t violate any HIPPA laws and wind up in prison!

~signed, Carltonaut

Alphabet Photo Challenge, Black & White

CTE Weekly Photo Challenge – M is for Music

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Life is CrAZy! If it wasn’t for the two photo challenges I am following, I wonder if I would have very many photos shared on a more regular basis. Let’s hear it for photo challenges!!

As I thought about shooting a photo for M, I thought about a few options. Mustard on a hotdog was one option, but I didn’t have any hotdog buns to get a better setup. So I thought music could be a good use of M, and what better instrument to use than our upright piano.

033112 CTE - Music BW

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | 1/20 | f/3.5 | ISO 800

One of my favorite things in life is sitting in the living room listening to my wife play the piano. Whether she is playing ragtime or religious, I find it relaxing and I fall in love with my wife all over again.

Back to the photograph – Initially I tried using my Canon Speedlite 430 EXII flash, but it was too bright and washed out the lines between the piano keys. So I turned off the flash and took a few more shots. After I set up the shot the way I wanted it, I switched over to RAW and grabbed another shot.

I opened the RAW file in Photoshop and adjusted the white balance from As Shot to Auto, then opened the image. I converted it to grayscale, increased the contrast to 50 and lowered the brightness to -30 to get the final result.

To wrap up… in the words of Julie Andrews, “These are a few of my favorite things.”

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun

Pinewood Derby’s finishing touch

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

My son’s pinewood derby is tonight, and this morning, before heading off to work, I added the finishing touch.

032812 Pinewood Derby

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | 1/40 | f/3.5 | ISO 800

I didn’t want to reveal my son’s car to any of the other competitors before the race begins (that’s part of the fun), so I used a narrow depth of field to blur the car out, which is sitting on the scale, weighing exactly 5 ounces. I’ll have some fun taking photos tonight at the race, and who knows… maybe it will warrant another blog post of pinewood derby cars.

Other racers… Bring. It. On.

~signed, Carltonaut

People, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Through

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Last night I was watching a March Madness game (Florida v. Louisville) and tried snapping a few photos of my TV, looking through my 3D glasses. But it didn’t look like I was hoping it would. So this morning, as I continued looking for a way to meet this week’s challenge head on, I thought of this.

Through the Lens

Canon 60D | 50 mm lens | 1/8 | f/5.0 | ISO 100

My son was eating lunch and doing some artwork when I started trying to get this shot just right. Luckily I was able to get it before he finished, though I did have to move him to the other end of the table so the large windows behind him didn’t keep washing the photo out.

There was another challenge, though, from switching sides – the large windows were glaring off the lens in the photo. I had my other son hold a black piece of fabric (which has become one of my newest and bestest tools for photography) just behind the camera. And Viola! No glare. Crisp image through the lens, and a large aperture in my 50 mm lens allowed my son to be slightly out of focus in the background, driving the eye to what is in focus – the image (though upside down) in the lens.

Yet another great reason I enjoy these weekly photo challenge – it pushes me to try new things and see what creative photo I can capture through a variety of means.

~signed, Carltonaut

Alphabet Photo Challenge

CTE Weekly Photo Challenge – L is for Lucky Lego and Lights

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Do I get triple points for this week’s photo challenge post? Here’s the final outcome, and then the story behind how I got to the final product.

Lucky Lego and Lights

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | 1/8 | f/1.8 | ISO 100 | Speedlite 430EXII flash

My first interest was to see how the bokeh lighting effect changed the further it got from the focused point of the framed photo. After attaching a circle sheet of paper with a shamrock stamped out of it to the end of my 50mm lens, I grabbed my fabric green screen and laid it out on the floor with a strand of white Christmas strung across it. But the strand of Christmas lights were too close together and ended up being a whole cluster of four-leaf clovers.

I decided to use the lights as more of a background and draped one end of the green fabric up onto our ottoman with the lights in front of it. But… what to photograph!

Sure enough, my boy’s Legos were strewn across the floor, and when I stepped on one of them on my way out of the room, I was inspired. I found a green Lego guy, placed it on the gray base and set up the shot.

I quickly found I needed to light the subject, or it was too dark. I used my Canon Speedlite 430EXII and angled it at 60 degrees. It took me a few more shots to make sure my green guy was in complete focus, but when all was said and done, that was my final shot.

Happy “Belated” St. Patrick’s Day

~signed, Carltonaut

Alphabet Photo Challenge

CTE Weekly Photo Challenge – K is for Knife

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I originally wanted to try some neat camera effects with my son (or daughter) kicking a soccer ball. The word Kick was going to represent K for this week’s CTE photo challenge. But time got the better of me, and I settled on photographing a knife.

CTE Photo Challenge - K is for Knife

Canon 60D | 50mm lens | 1/100 | f/1.8 | ISO 400

I didn’t want to do just I knife. I feel like I am using my 50mm lens on too many photos since starting my blog. I was planning to cut some tomatoes for hamburgers tonight and thought I would pause long enough to take a photo of a sliced tomato and the biggest knife we had.

I tried making the focal point the tip of the knife, but I didn’t like the look it yielded. I tried focusing on the tomato at various angles, but again… not the look I was going for. I ended up liking the photo shared in this post because the tomato and center of the knife are in focus, with everything else blurred.

And by the way, the hamburgers were great!

~signed, Carltonaut