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Long Island
27 May 2010, Thursday
25 May 26 27 28 29 30 31 May 01 & 02 June 2010 Tech Details
Today we went to Seaford to watch Robert's LaCrosse game.
We got into the area early, so we checked out the Tackapausha Preserve, which we hadn't seen since we were much littler kids. Everyone went here on school field trips — because it's fun!
Tackapausha Preserve, Seaford, Long Island, 3:48 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II at Auto ISO 200, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/400 at f/9.
I dialed-in +2/3 exposure compensation to keep the wall light.
Mushroom Room, Tackapausha Preserve, Seaford, Long Island, 3:55 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 400, Canon 28mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/40 at f/3.2.
Since this is under dreary fluorescent light that go yellow on digital, I reset my WB SHIFT from my default A5 (more amber) to A0 for more neutral results.
I played with a curves adjustment layer in Photoshop to pick up the highlights a bit. I lifted the 3/4 part of the curve to lighten highlights, and pushed the 1/4 part of the curve down a bit to increase the contrast. I also straitened my hand-holding a bit.
Dinosaurs! Tackapausha Preserve, Seaford, Long Island, 4:01 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 400, Canon 28mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/40 at f/3.2.
I shot at +1/3 exposure compensation to keep the light parts light. WB SHIFT was at my usual A5.
Terminal Moraine, Tackapausha Preserve, Seaford, Long Island, 4:01 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II, ISO 400, Canon 28mm f/1.8, shifted Professional exposure (P) mode gave me f/6.3 at 1/25.
As you can see, even f/6.3 at 28mm isn't enough to keep everything legible. Oh well.
Everyone on Long Island knows that Long Island is a terminal moraine, meaning it's just a pile of dirt and rocks dropped when the glaciers melted 13,000 years ago. This exhibit shows from where various piles of rocks on Long Island came.
I used +1/3 compensation to keep it light, and lightened it a bit more and made it less yellow using a Photoshop Levels Adjustment Layer. (AWB still had its WB SHIFT set to A5).
Turtles! Tackapausha Preserve, Seaford, Long Island, 4:03 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 400, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose f/1.8 at 1/25.
I cropped this from about half the original image.
Owl, Tackapausha Preserve, Seaford, Long Island, 4:06 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II, Auto ISO 3,200, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose f/1.8 at 1/20.
I cropped this from the middle of a SMALL NORMAL JPG. It is very dark under the red lights as to make things comfy for the owl.
Here's the full image from which this crop was taken:
Owl, complete image.
This is a great thing about the super-high resolution of the 5D Mark II and the fast 50mm f/1.8: even when you crop from 100% images at f/1.8 as I did above, you've still got great quality. The softest part of the image is hand jitter from the slow shutter speed: it's dark enough in there to let the owl think it's night time.
Butterflies and Moths! Tackapausha Preserve, Seaford, Long Island, 4:20 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II, Auto ISO 200, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose f/3.2 at 1/50.
I used a curves adjustment layer mask to dodge (lighten) the "Butterflies and Moths" lettering, as well as the top and right display sections. Otherwise, they were dark, and the only light parts of the image was the left and the very top right.
I cropped this slightly to put the top right at the top right. As always unless otherwise mentioned, I used Auto white balance and A5 (more amber) WB SHIFT.
Seaford High School, 4:39 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II, Auto ISO 200, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/250 at f/7.1.
We came out to check out Brett's son's Robert's LaCrosse game. I straightened this slightly in Photoshop's Lens Distortion Filter.
Seaford High School Track, 4:39 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II, ISO 50, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/200 at f/6.3.
How do I see these things? Simple: I carry only one or two fixed lenses so I see images just pop into my head, since my camera's frame is already in my imagination. I look at things in terms of how they will render in a flat image. I see things as shapes, not as three-dimensional objects. Photography is flat; one needs to look at things as they will render flat on film, not as the three-dimensional objects they are in real life.
This shot, as all of these, is as it came from the camera, with only some slight straightening.
Wall, Seaford High School, 6:13 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II, ISO 50, Canon 100mm f/2, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/200 at f/4.5.
It's all about evening light. This didn't look like this at any other time, and just about anything else in this light would look great too.
Orange, Seaford High School, 6:13 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II, ISO 50, Canon 100mm f/2, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/125 at f/3.5.
The Canon 100mm f/2 has no distortion, so lines stay straight with no need to twiddle, as I would often have to do if I had lugged a heavy zoom.
The funny moiré pattern on the screen is from the resampling in Photoshop to make the 22MP image fit your screen. In the original file, every wire in the screen is very clearly resolved:
Crop from above image at 100% (55 x 36" print).
The Stores, 7:34 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II, Auto ISO 200, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/40 at f/2.5.
Cakes, 7:42 PM.
Canon 5D Mark II, Auto ISO 200, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/125 at f/5.
This is a grab snap of a cute cake. It works here because it shows how our eyes are drawn to the lightest and most colorful part of the image, the Ice Cream Cone cake!
It helps that the only thing in focus is the brightest cake. The other cakes are softer, as well as darker. The fuzziness of the other cakes, and the greater sharpness of the various cakes isn't that obvious in this little image on your screen.
25 May 26 27 28 29 30 31 May 01 & 02 June 2010 Tech Details
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