Week 51 (December 17th - December 23rd) | Pictures 53 & 54

I got out of the house this past weekend (and spent my first night away from my toddler), to do some shooting with my friends Amy and Melanie. We went to Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond to see their Gardenfest of Lights. The display itself was nice. Although I have to say if we hadn't been taking pictures, it wouldn't have been nearly as fun. Lights, trees, COLD.

We were those annoying people with tripods, but it was a ton of fun being out with women who share the same hobby. (If my husband had been with me, he would have been bored 15 minutes into our 3 hour stay.)

I got a lot of awesome pictures with my tripod, like this one:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 28-75mm f/2.8 (@28mm)
Aperture: f/18
Shutter Speed: 15 seconds
ISO: 400
Flash: Flash: none
Exposure: manual

But my favorite one happened to be one that I shot handheld, before we broke out the tripods:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 28-75mm f/2.8 (@28mm)
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 3200
Flash: Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I really wish that had been a more thought out shot, or I had gone back to revisit it with the tripod, because I've been wanting to play with HDR all year, and thought that would make an excellent HDR image. I went ahead and used that one image to generate two files of differing exposure to do an HDR composite that was not planned ahead, and despite the noise, I think it's pretty cool. Not my normal style at all, but cool.

Week 50 (December 10th - December 16th) | Picture 52

Merry Christmas to me! I got a new lens. A true dream lens. I was back and forth between two lenses on complete opposite ends of the spectrum, but ultimately decided to go with the 70-200mm.

There is interesting debate I see a lot about whether or not hobbyists *need* lenses like this. And the unequivocal answer is no. But people don't *need* boats or motorcycles or season tickets to the NFL either. I'm not exactly sure why the assumption is that anyone with a lot of nice gear needs to be a pro photographer to justify their purchases . . . but that is a much more controversial topic than I care to explore here.

Anyway, it's a super clear night here, and I still have my old camera, so I thought it would be fun to go out and shoot the moon with a crop sensor, effectively turning my razor sharp 200mm lens into a 300mm lens. Pretty sweet!



Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: 70-200mm f/2.8 (@200mm)
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: none
Exposure: manual

And woohoo! I actually blogged 52 pictures this year!!! I didn't meet my once a week goal, but for the year I've had, I'm happy with just making it to 52. :)

Week 48 (November 26th - December 2nd) | Picture 51

I know this has turned into a barely once a month blog, but I'm not giving up on it. I will get to 52 pictures this year. I will, I will, I will. I dropped the ball way back in August and to say it's been a crazy 5 months around here is an understatement. Photography has taken a back seat to life, and I'm hoping to get to turned that around in the near future.

Anyway, there is a picture I took back in early November for my small OCF group that I never got a chance to blog.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 28-75mm f/2.8 (@75mm)
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/64th power
Exposure: manual

It's not even close to technically perfect, and I'll spare you the details of how I was pressing the shutter button AND dropping the blueberries myself. (Would have been much easier with help.) I would love to do more with liquid and splashes - so maybe if I get ambitious there will be something like that coming up.

Week 42 (October 15th - October 21st) | Picture 50

My poor neglected project 52 blog. I did so well there for so long. At this point if I get 52 pictures this year it will be a success. Oh well, I definitely took a lot more fun pictures this year than I would have without this blog.

I'm on a small private photography forum and I was asked to lead sort of a beginners OCF group. With the photography rut I've been in, I hope I do better at leading the group than I do with keeping up with this blog.

The first week's assignment was really easy. Just take your flash off your camera. Everything else was open to interpretation. My contribution for the assignment:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 28-75mm f/2.8 (@75mm)
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/128th power
Exposure: manual

Very simple and basic setup here.

The subject is the dirt from our Earth ceremony at our wedding in my favorite crystal vase (that needs some serious dusting).

Week 37 (September 10th - September 16th) | Picture 49

Darn it! So much for my 52 week blog. To those of you who are still around and reading, sorry about the abrupt absence. We had a very sudden death in our family and were out of town for a while. And if I'm being honest, I haven't picked my camera up much since then.

I'm going to try to get back into this. But I'm not feeling nearly as motivated as I should be . . .

Let's talk about Ryan Brenizer. I have a photography crush on him. Aside from the fact that he shoots Nikon AND takes some of the most beautiful wedding pictures I've ever seen, he also developed a method for achieving extraordinarily shallow DOF with a much wider field of view than you could ever get from a wide angle lens. Photography 101 (or cheat with a DOF calculator): longer focal lengths equal shallower DOF.

I happen to love wide angles for the perspective, but also love longer focal lengths for their beautiful compression - and Ryan Brenizer just happens to combine the 2 with the Brenizer Method that he talks about here.

Cool, huh?

Well I don't have any gorgeous couples to photograph, and God only knows my child won't cooperate, but I wanted to play.

We found this little nest on the ground after Hurricane Irene, and I wanted to get an up close shot of all the details, but also some background in the shot for more interesting composition, so I thought the Brenizer Method would be the perfect thing to try.

One shot.

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 400
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Combined shots (9 images total - then cropped down significantly):


There is also a calculator that tells you what lens you would need to take the resulting shot. My final image could have been produced with 60mm lens shot at f/2.2. Considering I have the 50mm f/1.4 - it means that I could have produced this shot with that lens fairly easily (with a bit less compression), but it was a cool experiment to play with anyway.

Definitely check out Ryan's website. He does 40+ image composites resulting in amazing combinations of focal length and aperture!

Week 33 (August 13th - August 19th) | No Picture

My 2011 photography blog is on a bit of a hiatus. I hope to return in a week or two.

Week 32 (August 6th - August 12th) | Picture 48

It's so fascinating to me how one small light changes EVERYthing about an image. My previous post today shows how using only ambient natural light and exposing for the flower made the white background really stand out.

So tonight I decided to take almost the exact same setup and blast the flower with light.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/32th power
Exposure: manual

Keeping my shutter speed at the maximum sync speed didn't allow any ambient light to expose the rest of the room and the result is a black background instead of white. (Both shots from today are composed against the exact same white background.)

Week 32 (August 6th - August 12th) | Picture 47

Wegmans had some beautiful sunflowers in their flower market and I thought they would be a nice addition to our kitchen and might give me something to take a picture of this week. I want to play with some different lighting possibilities, but I also want to share this non-flash picture - in case my grand OCF plans slip away from me this week.

Totally simple execution - shoot up at the flower, composing it against the white ceiling. Expose for the flower and shoot. Well, easier said than done. Our house gets almost no natural light, so exposing for the flower pushed my settings.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/30 (handheld!)
ISO: 1600
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

In hindsight, it would have been smarter to hike that ISO to at least 3200 because trying to handhold this lens at that shutter speed is waaayyyyy less than optimal - but I wasn't having a problem with focus or shake, so I didn't bother. (I was also sitting on the floor - so I was stabilized a bit.)

Completely unrelated to photography - I should buy flowers more often. They really perk up the place and improve my mood in our otherwise dreary kitchen!

Week 31 (July 30th - August 5th) | Picture 46

Another week has passed and I seriously question whether or not I will make my 52 week goal. I'm sure there are plenty of things to photograph. But once I get the toddler in bed, I am just lacking any drive to start a photography project. Part of this is because he is now going to bed later than ever. And part of it is because my job has been more stressful than normal over the last couple weeks. I hope I can keep it up through the end of the year, but I really have my doubts.

I saw a tutorial online for doing a floor-lit setup. Where you put your flash in the bottom of a cardboard box, lay a sheet of glass on top, and have the flash light your subject from the bottom. I played with it long enough tonight to realize that in this case I need at least 1 more and maybe even 2 more lights to properly light the object from above as well. Oh well. Fun experiment and a strong drink.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/64th power
Exposure: manual

Week 30 (July 23rd - July 29th) | Picture 45

I am officially in a photography rut. I don't think about taking pictures for days at a time, and when I do, it's just to try to capture my son doing something cute. (Which inevitably stops happening as soon as he sees the camera.)

I'm going to try to find something fun to photograph this upcoming week.

In the meantime, I have plenty of other projects to keep me busy. I have two parenting books to read, and lots of crocheting to do. And since it takes me forever to finish my crochet projects, I figure that if I start working on a blanket for my son now when it's 105 degrees outside, that it might be done in time for Winter. We shall see.

But I also have this skein of beautiful merino wool I bought a few months ago. I loved it and it was a slightly impulsive purchase. I want to make something for myself, but I don't know what. I have a million hats. I don't know that one skein is enough for a scarf (although for the right pattern, I'm not opposed to buying a few more skeins). I just can't figure out what to do with it . . .



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 1600 (because I am an idiot and forgot to lower it)
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/8th power
Exposure: manual

Week 29 (July 15th - July 22nd) | Picture 44

I'm having a hard time finding a photography groove in the last couple weeks - so I'm just going to post this week's image and settings. I need to get out of the funk . . .



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/11
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/64th power
Exposure: manual

Week 28 (July 9th - July 15th) | Picture 43

Oops! I missed a week. I'm actually surprised it took me over a half a year. The good news is that I didn't skip out on taking pictures, just posting them. Last weekend I had a chance to go to the Air and Space Museum. Really cool place and fun to take pictures. Interestingly, my favorite isn't of any of the aircraft.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 10-20mm f/4-5.6 (@ 10mm)
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 200
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Week 27 (July 2nd - July 8th) | Picture 42

I felt like going out tonight after one of our storms to try to get some raindrop pictures. Nothing special and kinda reminds me of this ice macro from back in January.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 200
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I hope the weather around here clears up - I want to try some night photography and the clouds and storms are annoying.

Week 27 (June 2nd - July 8th) | Picture 41

This picture pretty much speaks for itself. Cool stuff! I reserve the right to come back later this summer and post more of these - because I am really fascinated with storms!



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 10-20mm f/4-5.6 (@ 10mm)
Aperture: f/22.0
Shutter Speed: 30 seconds
ISO: 100
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Week 26 (June 24th - July 1st) | Picture 40

Did you know that Costco sells fireworks? Just what everyone needs - explosives in bulk quantity. I couldn't resist, and for $8 I bought some sparklers. 240 sparklers to be exact. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them all . . .

Taking a picture of a sparkler isn't anything too difficult or dramatic, which is good because I need to get back on track with taking my pictures earlier in the week. That gives me the rest of the week to come up with ideas for the following week, then a couple days to actually find the time to do it. This Friday night business has got me all messed up and rushed.

So here it is. Just a sparkler and a 50mm lens.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 50mm f/1.4
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 1600
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I probably should have saved this project for next week, but no harm in celebrating early! I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July!

Week 25 (June 18th - June 24th) | Picture 39

There is no way I could follow up last week with anything that I was so excited about, and if you look at the timestamp on this post you'll notice that I almost missed this week entirely. (It was a busy, tiring week.)

I started out pretty unhappy with my project tonight, but it was either this or nothing, so when I was in LR I decided to crop it to something I was happy with. And I'm kinda liking the result:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/64th power
Exposure: manual

The part of the image I didn't like was the glass at the bottom (so this is a pretty substantial crop). The wine was splattering and just looking messy.

No setup image this week, but the speedlight was sitting directly next to the wine glass pointed back at the white background. I could get away with such low flash power because the speedlight, subject, and background were all so close together. Pretty simple.

And now, I'm going to enjoy this sloppily poured glass of red wine and head to bed. :)

Week 24 (June 11th - June 17th) | Picture 38

I've been uninspired for several weeks now, so it was time for a good picture. The type of picture that makes all the money that I put into this expensive hobby worth every bit of it, and then some. There are weeks that I want to skip out. But when I took that stupid lens cap picture the first week of January, I knew this would be a challenge. I am so glad I am sticking with it.

And weeks like this, kick ass.

I think I've mentioned this before, I do a lot of searching around on Flickr for inspiration. If I duplicate someone else's idea, I will always give credit. I'm trying to learn techniques and test my own ability and understanding of concepts, and sometimes that involves trying to recreate something to see if I can do it. I always try to put my own twist on it, and sometimes that works out better than others.

Before I show you my inspiration image, I will tell you that it is not unique. The one I am going to link here is the one I found. But then I googled and found many many more that looks just like this. So, I'm not really sure who deserves credit, but this is the one that inspired me.

But I wanted to change it up. The raining sugar is from long camera exposure, and while I could do that - I'm really wanting to test my OCF capabilities. And as we all know, flash freezes motion. I couldn't light the strawberry from the front, it would hit my black background. I tried lighting from the side, and it was dull - there wasn't any real pop to the strawberry or the sugar. And then I decided to backlight it. Uh.may.zing!!!! The sugar lit up like crystals. The front of the strawberry was a little too dark, so I popped a white piece of foam core in front for a reflector and did a little happy dance.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!!



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/16th power
Exposure: manual

Everything about it makes me happy. (Or maybe it's just the sugar high I'm on from eating one too many berries and sugar.) Setup, per my usual, is very easy to accomplish with what you have at home. Spoon was secured to some file boxes. Sugar was caught by some tupperware (elevated on other pieces of tupperware). Background is black poster board taped to my desk door. Flash resting on the top of my desk aiming down at the strawberry. White foam core up front for a reflector. (Setup image here if you can't picture it.)

This can be the most therapeutic hobby in the world. This picture is what I needed this week. :)

Week 23 (June 4th - June 10th) | Pictures 36 & 37

I wanted to experiment a little bit this week with shutter speed and flash. When using flash, shutter speed does not affect exposure on the object being lit by the flash. (Did your brain just explode? Mine did when I really started learning about lighting.) Take everything you ever learned about your exposure triangle and throw it out the window. Aperture, ISO, and flash power control exposure provided by the flash. Shutter speed controls only one thing: ambient light - that is, the light falling on all objects not directly lit by the flash.

Super awesome Amy has a wonderful blog tutorial about this phenomenon and why "dragging the shutter" when using your speedlight is a wonderful way to have a properly lit subject and background (in the absence of strong ambient light). I promise if this concept is new to you, then her blog post is infinitely more valuable than this one.

Obviously the fundamental concepts will also apply when you are using your flash to light something other than your subject. And this questions arose several days ago on a forum where someone was trying to light their background and get more exposure on their subject with only one speedlight.

Neither of these pictures are mind-blowing OCF. In fact, I've done the same setup before with similar results on my margarita glass experiment. But I do think they are good examples of how the same flash principles apply regardless of their application.

Image 1:


Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/128th power
Exposure: manual

Image 2:


Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/25
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/128th power
Exposure: manual

You can see clearly that the part of the white background being lit by the flash is identical in both images - despite a shutter speed difference of over 3 stops of light. It is only the areas not affected by the flash (the subject and the further areas of the background) that change when you adjust shutter speed.

Can you tell I'm struggling with creative ideas? I need to find some new lighting projects (or get another light)!

Week 22 (May 28th - June 3rd) | Picture 35

Some weeks I have cool projects to try. Other weeks (like this one), I just take a picture of whatever I happen to have available. Today, I got a crazy craving for Georgetown Cupcakes. But I live in the burbs - way out in the burbs. Driving into DC and standing in line in the heat just wasn't going to happen. So I found a recipe they shared online and thought I'd give it a try.

Um. Awesome. Amazing. Dangerous. Unfortunately there are now 20 in my house that need to be consumed and my husband does not like sweets!?!?!?!

And since tomorrow is the end of the week and I have no fun photography projects to try, I figured I should document my baking success. (It doesn't happen very often for me.)



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 1400
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Week 21 (May 21st - May 27th) | Picture 34

This week was a challenge. My child is going through a fairly significant sleep regression, and we will be out of town for the second half of the week. To say that I haven't thought of anything to do here is an understatement.

I use Flickr for a lot of my inspiration. Usually, I use it for ideas and then try to recreate something a little different. This week, I didn't do much different (well, unless you consider creating a much worse version the different part).

Inspiration image here. Be sure to check out some of his other pictures while you are there - his work is quite impressive.

I thought the tilt was fun and I happened to have some food coloring and some really strong tape to hold down my glasses. (Warning: Do not attempt with your great-grandmother's fine crystal. I used my husband's cheap pilsner glasses.)



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 28 - 75mm f/2.8 (@55mm)
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/4th power
Exposure: manual

To start with, my composition is all wrong. My glasses are way too far apart so I had to use a panoramic crop to make it "work." It still doesn't work, but trust me this crop ratio is much better than the SOOC ratio. My light is wrong. It's uneven and the glasses are too lit, lacking shadows and depth. Even the glasses themselves are wrong. They were on a somewhat flimsy surface (a plastic lid to a storage container) so when they were tilted they weren't all level. I could go on and on about what I did wrong. But it's still a cool effect, and it's definitely all I'm going to be shooting and posting this week.

Week 20 (May 14th - May 20th) | Picture 33

What has gotten into me? Two posts in one day. This will make up if I miss a future week. :)

I wanted to play around some more with my OCF tonight, and this is what I came up with.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 50mm f/1.4
Aperture: f/16
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/4th power
Exposure: manual

I love the light and the effect. I don't love the pitcher. I think it would have been better with a very simple wine glass or pilsner - but I'm not redoing it tonight.

Setup was beyond cheap. Black poster board for the subject back drop. Then white poster board surrounding the back of the setup to wrap the light onto the subject. Sound confusing? Couldn't be more simple - see the setup here.

Week 20 (May 14th - May 20th) | Picture 32

My mom brought us some flowers from her garden and they are just beautiful. Not the most stunning picture I've ever taken, but they are so pretty.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 50mm f/1.4
Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/8th power
Exposure: manual

White shoot through umbrella about 4 feet directly left of flowers.

Week 19 (May 7th - May 13th) | Picture 31

Oh back-lighting, how I love you!

My super awesome friend Amy (who I very fortunately got to hang out with this past weekend) is the back-lighting queen. I, up until recently, had never really played with back-lighting but have been taking in all of Amy's photo tips on the subject. It has this wonderful ethereal quality that is so soft on your subject. My latest obsession is seeing the magical things it does when it lights up my toddlers little curls.

When you aren't taking pictures of people, it's a little harder to make it interesting, but I decided to take our weed covered yard and back-light a fairly boring subject.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 400
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Looking at my settings after the fact, I could have easily gone to ISO 200 and slowed my shutter to 1/500 - but when my face was pressed to the ground during tick season, I didn't think it through to that extent. I should have also removed the blade of grass competing with the dandelion. Maybe next time.

Week 18 (April 30th - May 6th) | Picture 30

I've got a new toy! Well, new-to-me. The toy itself is actually pretty old, somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 years old. My dad (who passed away in 1996) had a pretty serious photography hobby in the late 60s. I happened to mention to my mom that I was interested in shooting some film and I couldn't believe it when she told me that she still had my dad's camera. I thought for sure it was long gone - given away, sold, or lost.

I tried not to get my hopes up about the camera - for all I knew it was broken or there was a corroded battery inside.

The camera appeared to be in excellent condition, but was without a battery. It didn't even occur to me that I would have a battery compatibility problem - but 50 years ago, mercury batteries were excellent technology. That excellent technology was banned in the early 1980s because of the harmful side effects from exposure.

A little poking around and I found everything from a $5 to a $50 DIY solution for the battery problem. $5 being a short term fix and $50 being a permanent fix. But, before I dropped $50 on a camera that may not even work, I went for the cheap solution. My $5 battery and my roll of film arrived a couple days ago and the camera's meter powered up with the battery!

I am so excited to shoot my first roll of film. It will probably take me a while to do it . . . With manual focus and wanting to make every shot really count - I am going to be pretty selective about what I shoot. Digital has spoiled me - a lot. I can take 200 pictures, I can see the results immediately, and it costs me nothing to take 200 more if I need to. Film almost makes me nervous, because I don't want to waste any shots. Once I get through my 36 exposures, I'll share some here. (Depending on how the first roll comes out, I may invest more $ in refurbishing the camera internally - but I want to see how it does without any tweaking first . . . )

For now, I'll share a picture of this seemingly pristine Minolta SRT 101. My dad was so proud of this camera and enjoyed his hobby so much. It makes me very happy to keep a small piece of that alive.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 28 - 75mm f/2.8 (@75mm)
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/8th power
Exposure: manual

Nothing fancy about the picture - flash was on a shoot through umbrella like last week's image - except this week it was straight on the subject instead of off to the side.

Week 17 (April 23rd - April 29th) | Pictures 28 & 29

I decided to go back to some OCF this week. I've been really focusing on macros lately and haven't played with my artificial lighting much.

The more I take pictures, the more I realize that light is easily 95% - or more - of what makes a good picture, regardless of the subject. Be it natural or artificial (I love both and have a long way to go before I master either), light will make or break an otherwise perfect image.

I wanted to do something high key this week. It's probably high key enough that it wouldn't print well, but it was nice to do something really bright for a change.

I tried the glass with some white wine in it and it killed the effect. The wine was in the glass looked okay, it was the background that didn't work. The wine was diffusing the light enough that the background had a large shadow on it. This would have been a perfect time to use 2 lights - the primary light for the glass and then a second light used as a fill. So that was a big failure, but the wine made some tiny bubbles when I poured it and I did like how those pictures came out.

The glass, sans wine:



The bubbles:



Camera: Nikon D700 (settings identical for both images)
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Flash: Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/8th power
Exposure: manual

Setup was a speedlight shot through a white umbrella at a 45 degree angle, white poster board for a background, and a white piece of foam core as a reflector to help light the far side of the background. Setup picture here.

Week 16 (April 16th - April 22nd) | Picture 27

I sit here at the very end of week 16 and I have nothing to show you.

I contemplated just letting the week go. I have at least a half dozen friends I should be emailing back instead of worrying about this blog. But I opted against skipping a week because this wouldn't be a challenge if it was easy. (God bless the people who have 365 blogs - I do not know how on Earth they find the time.)

I contemplated trying to find some way to light my wine glass without taking the energy to go to the basement to get my reflectors and lighting gear. I opted against that - because I'm just too darn lazy tonight - and most nights lately for that matter. (The glass was full at the time it was considered a candidate but is now empty . . . soon to be refilled and emptied once again before bed.)

So I decided to sit here, drink my wine, and trudge through my LR catalog to see what pictures I took in the last week. On the plus side, I took a tremendous number of pictures - several hundred. But they are all of my little boy. Great for mommy and family memories, but that doesn't help me one bit for my photography blog.

There were literally 4 images I took all week that were not of my child. They were all of our Japanese maple tree that I sit under when I take his picture outside. None of them are anything special, but this one was the least bad of them all. I hate the composition. (Hello random focus.) But I love the colors and the sun peaking through.

If I'm being honest - I failed this week. The point of this challenge was to go out and find something to shoot. Not to schlep through my catalogs at the end of the week and hope to find something worth sharing. But my small victory is that I am sharing a picture. And I really hope to do a better job in coming weeks.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500 (As I mentioned, I was taking pictures of my toddler. 1/500th wouldn't have been my typical choice here if I had thought about it . . . )
ISO: 1250
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Week 15 (April 9th - April 15th) | Picture 26

Gah. It's been a bad week. A really bad week. And I'm not happy with my picture this week, but since it's one of the only non-child pictures I took, here you go.

(If you don't like bugs, look away.)



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 8000 (!)
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I'm in a general funk lately. The personal blog hasn't been updated in ages, and I'm just feeling very uninspired. I'm going to try my best to keep this blog up. We shall see.

Week 14 (April 2nd - April 8th) | Pictures 24 & 25

Remember the flowering tree from last week? Those buds have completely flowered out and we have a beautiful display of white puffy blooms to admire from our kitchen window. And if the weather promises to stay this nice, we'll even get outdoors to enjoy it soon. However, taking a macro picture of one of the blooms is next to impossible - the wind is always blowing and even if it wasn't, I'm not the most steady shooting over my head. So I snapped off a small twig of blooms and decided to compose in a more controlled environment - our kitchen. MUCH easier.

My two favorites:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 800
Flash: none
Exposure: manual



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 1600
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I composed the second shot in front of a window. It's definitely not something I would normally do, since there is very little distinction between the flower and the background. But it's fun to try something new, and I actually really like how it turned out.

Week 13 (March 26th - April 1st) | Picture 23

Blooms and bokeh - ahhhhhhhhh!!! So refreshing.

I don't even care that the trees are triggering my seasonal allergies. And we won't talk about the fact that it snowed here Sunday and we are supposed to get more wintry precipitation again this week. Spring is finally just around the corner - it's so close I can taste it.

I took a quick break tonight while Daddy had dinner duty with the toddler to run out and take some pictures. I wanted to try some HDR stuff (which depending on how it turns out may or may not get shared here), but while I was out I had to get some pictures of our flowering tree. I should know what this tree is, but I'm really bad about the names of plants and trees. So I just call it the tree that gets the pretty flowers every Spring.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
ISO: 200
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

We are hoping to sell our house (or at least get it on the market in the near future) and when we depersonalize I think this would go perfectly on the wall where we currently have a 24x36 canvas our our little boy.

Week 12 (March 19th - 25th) | Pictures 21 & 22

Ahhh, Spring! Okay, not quite. But it's a nice 60 degree day here and my family is recovering nicely from our illness, so I got outside during nap time to take some pictures.

There isn't much blooming in the yard yet. So I took a picture of a dead bud casing and a weed - but tried to get a little different perspective than I normally do. I'm a pretty boring flower photographer. I want to shoot flowers straight on and that would explain why my flower pictures are usually so blah. Today, I tried shooting at several different angles and found (surprise!) that straight on is a pretty uninteresting way to shoot.

The dead bud casing:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
ISO: 800
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

The dandelion:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
ISO: 200
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I did an OCF project this weekend too - but I'm not loving how it came out. Maybe I'll share later this week if I revisit the pictures and change my mind.

Week 11 (March 12th - 18th) | Picture 20

Drugs are good.

When I committed to doing this "Project 52" - I was pretty serious about it. But I almost skipped this week. My little one has been sick for the last week (ear infection, bad cough, and high fever for days) and has passed it onto me. 3 of the last 4 days I have barely been able to get out of bed. I am super thankful for a wonderful husband and mom who have helped fill in around the house to play "Mom" while I have been unable to do so.

I did make it to the doctor on Monday, and I must say that I'm not usually a fan of antibiotics. I think they are over-prescribed and as most of us know, they won't do anything to help a virus. But I was desperate on Monday and was accepting whatever pills the doctor was handing out.

THANK GOODNESS!!!

This infection may very well have been bacterial, because within 24 hours of starting the antibiotic I actually felt like I was getting better and now 48 hours later, I am feeling downright decent. For the shape I was in Monday morning, I would have expected to be sick for the entire week.

I still don't feel nearly good enough to craft up some fun OCF or macro project this week. (And when I am feeling good enough - I'm pretty sure my job and chores that have been neglected for the last week will take priority over my hobby.) So, in an attempt to keep up this blog, I am sharing my drugs with you. :)



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/4th power
Exposure: manual

Nothing exciting. Speedlight was next to the pills (camera right) and bounced 45 degrees off the wall/ceiling. The only benefit to doing the lighting off camera was getting some shadows and depth to the pills. On camera would have made this already boring picture even more boring with flat light.

I do have a fun project in mind . . . hopefully for next week. Stay tuned, I promise to do something interesting again soon.

Week 10 (March 5th - 11th) | Picture 19

Blah. Blah. BLAH. Spring is such a tease. We get one nice day just to make us even more mindful of how long and boring the Winter has been. I am ready to get outside, see some sunshine, and take pictures of something vibrant.

While I long for fresh air and sunshine, it poured all day today. ALL darn day.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.0
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 4500
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Blah. Blah. BLAH.

Week 9 (February 26th - March 4th) | Picture 18

When I started out this week, I thought I'd do a post about gels. I spent about 30 minutes tonight playing with some, and while the results were okay, I just wasn't really inspired to blog about any of them. (Maybe next week.)

Instead, I decided to use that cut up diaper box that I used in the smoke project for it's intended purpose - to allow diffused flash to come in from above.

The result:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 400
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/64th power
Exposure: manual

The DIY/cheap/free setup is here. Flash is being shot through packing foam. The only real comments I think I have here are 1) that I wish the diaper box was taller so I could stand the glass up and 2) I really need to clean my plexiglass!

Week 8 (February 19th - 25th) | Picture 17

Well "Week 8" because I'm sharing it in Week 8. It was taken in Week 7 and I never got around to blogging it.

Reverse Macro + OCF = Creepy Eye Shots!

I am a member of a super awesome photography group and there was a discussion last week about how one would go about taking extreme macro shots of the human eye. Closer than you can get with a macro lens and extension tubes. To accomplish this, you attach your macro lens and then shoot through another lens held up to the end of your macro. And, if that doesn't sound weird enough, you hold the free lens backward. (They actually do sell attachments to hold a lens on your camera backward for this very purpose.)

So hold 2.5 pounds of camera + lens with one hand, hold up another lens at the end of the camera and hold it wide open at the same time, and autofocus on your own eye because your husband has an eye phobia and won't let you come near him. (Oh, and set up your OCF, because your focusing distance is so insignificant that the camera is almost in your eye. You need your flash to be off to the side to get in between the camera and your eye.)

Easy? Not so much! It would have been much easier if my husband had let me try on him, but that was definitely not even up for discussion. But I did manage to juggle the entire setup and get a picture of my own eye.

The result:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro (with 50mm f/1.4 in reverse)
Aperture: f/20
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/4th power
Exposure: manual

Want to see some amazing (and creepy) eye macros that were executed to perfection? Check out the work here.

Week 8 (February 19th - 25th) | Picture 16

This week, I've got nothin'. Okay, well that isn't exactly true, but it's nothing special. No OCF projects, no photography get-togethers, just a boring week in my photographic journey. It happens. So I'll share a parenting moment with you.

My child is learning to use a spoon. It is a very slow and very messy process. For your viewing pleasure, the spoon:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 4000
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I'm sure you can imagine what a mess he was!

(And, um, how awesome is my new camera at ISO 4000???)

Week 7 (February 12th - 18th) | Pictures 13, 14, & 15

Pictures first! Setup information after . . .







All 3 images:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/32th power
Exposure: manual

This has definitely been my favorite week yet! First off, let me give credit where credit is due. This was not my idea. I saw this on flickr and found a link to a youtube video explaining how to do this. In previous weeks I have tried to take concepts and make them into something of my own. But this week, I did not do that and I won't pretend that I devised this clever idea on my own. Here is the video.

I would show you the setup picture here, but I have such a lovely blog of pretty pictures that showing you my crappy basement floor and beyond cheap setup would just put a big ugly picture here. If you want to see it (you definitely should check it out) - it's here. Just to be clear, what you see in that picture is a candle sitting on our basement floor. A speedlight on the right set up on a cut up diaper box (for a future OCF project). A white piece of foam-core behind the flash to keep the flash from spilling onto my black background. And a black piece of poster board propped up on another piece of white foam-core. Another super cheap, super easy project. Although, I must admit the large glowing box on the left is one of my softboxes. According to the youtube video you just need enough light on the smoke to help your camera get focus. So the softbox was probably overkill. But I happen to have it, so I used it. Definitely not necessary for the project.

This was so easy and so cool!

Just one more "disclaimer" - I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to try not to use any Photoshop for processing these images, but the images above were processed with Photoshop to invert the black background/white smoke and then to add color.

Here is an example of what the first image looks like directly out of Lightroom:



Cool stuff! I have no idea how I'm going to keep this up for another 45 weeks! :)

Week 6 (February 5th - 11th) | Pictures 10, 11, & 12

Well my week slipped away from me and I didn't get my personal blog updated or share much on this one. Weeks seem to be that way lately. But before it's time for me to do week 7 of this project, I did want to share 3 more of my favorites from last weekend.



Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
Lens: 100mm f/2.8L macro
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 400
Flash: none
Exposure: manual



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 800
Flash: none
Exposure: manual



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 1600
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Week 6 (February 5th - 11th) | Picture 9

This past weekend I had the awesome opportunity to attend a photography get-together at Longwood Gardens just outside Philadelphia. I have a lot of photography friends who I e-know, but to actually get to meet many of them for a day of picture taking was something I just couldn't pass up.

My super awesome friend Amy rode with me and made the almost 3 hour drive fly by! (If you don't know Amy - aside from being one of the nicest women I've ever met - her blog is fantastic! She proves over and over again that you can talk about very technical photography "stuff" in a really entertaining and witty way. Be sure to check it out here.)

To say that it was fun would be a HUGE understatement. Take a group of fun energetic women who all have the same passion for photography and it was an absolute blast.

I took quite a few pictures I am happy with on Saturday and I might show more later this week if I can find some time. (I have tons of Super Bowl pictures to upload to my private blog since the Packers won the Super Bowl and my husband's entire family is from Wisconsin and bleed green and gold. I want to share all the pictures of our little man decked out in his gear - so that blog will take priority this week.)

For now I will share my favorite picture:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 800
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I also had the opportunity to do a camera swap with Michele (my macro idol) and I'll probably share one of those later in the week as well. That was a lot of fun too! I am already looking forward to getting back together with these ladies again soon!

Week 5 (January 29th - February 4th) | Picture 8

Hi. My name is Jodi. And I have an OCF problem. I'm obsessed. And I must buy some black cardboard to do some things I'm wanting to try. This week I decided that I wanted to play with a white background this week and really blow it out. I don't particularly care for that look for portraits (nor do I have the lighting to achieve it on that scale), so I tried it with a glass bottle - specifically a red wine bottle.

Super easy (and cheesy) setup again. Foam core propped up by my paper shredder, speedlight sitting on a tuppeware box full of crayons, reflector propped up against the crayon box, and wine bottle sitting on the floor. (Yeah, I should probably consider better setups if this is going to continue to be a hobby of mine.)

The shot:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 400
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/16th power
Exposure: manual

Here's a picture of the fancy setup. I really need to do more research on snoots to direct and control the flash a little bit more.

Stay tuned, I have a big photography day planned for February 5th and if things go well, there will be more than a couple pictures to share! :)

Week 4 (January 22th - 28th) | Picture 7

Woohoo, I was able to sneak in another picture this week. We had a terrible storm here and were without power for 18 hours. Not fun with a toddler. But the ice made for some cool pictures.

I'm still struggling with my macro skills, but I think I'm slowing improving.



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 800
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Let's start by saying that I should not be hand holding this lens at that shutter speed, but I took a burst of pictures, so luckily I hit focus on one or two. Where I am really struggling is with the insanely narrow DOF that comes along with macro photography. You can see that the bubbles in this icicle are sharp, but the bottom fatter part of the icicle is a bit soft. As I've said before, my macros are a work in progress.

BTW, you'll notice a seemingly minor change in my EXIF data above. That's right, my D300 has been replaced by a D700 and holy moly, I am in love!