Day 233 - Relearning the Alphabet: The Letter "H"

"H" for Horizon

I am yet to catch up with my blog posts.  I took about a couple thousand pictures while I was away, and I'm now faced with the insurmountable task of sorting through and discarding or processing the keepers.

The following shots were taken with my point and shoot camera on the way to San Francisco.

I wasn't able to manipulate the ISO or the white balance in the first shot and didn't have much luck in post processing either.  I have no clue which city this was.

An enlightened fellow traveller let me know that it was Denver we were flying over, and since he was a pilot enroute to SF to start his shift, I will have to assume he knew his cities.  These shots of Denver were taken while holding the camera up against the window to cut out the reflections, and therefore a bit of camera shake crept into them. 

Day 191 - By the Old Port again

I was scoping out the Old Port area to see if I could find any interesting spots for tomorrow's photo shoot.  I know that most of the club members won't show up as they'll be away on a team outing.  But there will be a few who will.  And we're having good weather after a very, very long time and I thought that we should definitely make the most of it.

It was extremely windy and my fingers were frozen.  I didn't have a very thick coat, and neither did I have a hat or a scarf.  However, I still spent a good 45 mins. outside and got a few shots I liked.  the only problem I had was that I wasn't carrying my 18 - 55 mm lens and therefore missed a few more I thought could be interesting.  These shots were handheld and were taken using a C-PL around 3:00 pm; the sun was already pretty low in the sky by then.

They Port Authorities have already moved these piers into storage, I think.  I am certain I saw them out in the canal during the summer.  

55 mm, f/9.0, 1/6s, ISO 100, Manual Mode

I was fascinated by those black.. umm.. thingies.  So, I used my lens as binoculars, but I still can't tell what they are.  However, I got beautifully saturated colours because of the C-PL and I liked the windswept white reed-like flowers in the foreground. 

131 mm, f/10, 1/20s, ISO 100, Manual Mode

55 mm, f/18, 1/100s, ISO 100, Manual Mode

Incidentally, I love these blue tiles and I had been wanting to do this shot for a long time now, but the light or the time I checked it out earlier were never right.  Today it just seemed perfect!  The dappled light really makes the blue pop!  

55 mm, f/4.0, 1/30s, ISO 100, Manual Mode

This image was taken through a glass window.  The C-PL wasn't good enough to cut out all the reflections, so I put the lens right up against the glass and took the shot.

55 mm, f/4.0, 1/13, ISO 400, Manual Mode

I was really pleased with this one as this was handheld on a really slow-shutter and I only added a little bit of sharpening in post.  The colours and exposure are as they were in the original.  I'm pretty proud of this one. 

55 mm, f/4/0, 1/2s, ISO 800, Manual Mode

Day 137 - Painting with light

Yes!  I did just that!  I painted the rock in the foreground with a flashlight on a long exposure on the third and fourth shots.

I went out close to 10:00 pm when I saw a nice round moon from my kitchen window.  But Lady Luck rarely smiles upon me at these times.  By the time I got to my chosen spot on the island, the moon decided to play peekaboo.  I barely had time to set up my equipment and I saw the reflection of the moonlight vanishing from the river's surface.  I waited around for a little bit longer, but I was out of luck, tired and hungry since I hadn't even had the chance to make dinner.

The first shot actually shows the last traces of the reflected moonlight just beside the rock in the foreground.  (These shots are best viewed large - just click on them to enlarge).

I processed the white balance a little bit differently for each of the shots below and I'd really love to know which one you liked most.  

In the shots below, the moon went behind the clouds and stayed there for the entire duration of 20 minutes that I waited.  These shots have the rock painted over with the flashlight.

Day 74 - Night lights across the river

I didn't get very good shots this evening.  I didn't have my tripod and I'd just gone out to get a breath of fresh air after dinner.  I had to crank up the ISO very high since I had to hand hold the shot, but of course there's still a lot of camera shake besides a lot of noise in the picture.  Doing some night lights is on my agenda, but not quite sure when exactly that's going to happen.

And I also happened to notice the bugs on treetops when I was snapping the moon.