02-SEP-2008
Lensbabied Dominoes
Still playing with the lensbabies 3G. This is similar to a post from earlier this year. I am more interested in the selective focus than correct lighting/white balance. There is some yellow left beneath the forward domino & some shadows as well.
Two important new facts from this photo/set.
1) I pulled the focus as far to the left and bottom as possible AND used the screws to adjust focus this time (with a little help from the manual adjust too).
2) The exif info was updated pretty darn fast with my new droplet I created. I select the photos I want to update, drop onto my droplet app, and enter the Aperture setting when prompted. All the files are updated in place.
01-SEP-2008
Ball in tube
Call this one a creative attempt. I was a bit tired after the "Final Fire" last night and packing up this morning.
The tubes are these semi-rigid 4" aluminum vent tubes for our dryer. I need to get ready to re-route our dryer vent to go outdoors versus into our garage (which seems to set off our CO2 alarm in the winter).
Using the lensbabies again, I am kind of struggling with this lens. I had all kinds of great ideas, but it has a pretty steep learning curve.
31-AUG-2008
Final Fire [of the season]
Technically, we *hope* to extend our camping season into October, however, this is our traditional send off. Tomorrow we pack up, head home, get the kids ready for school, talk of winterizing the RV, talk of snow, Christmas, etc...
I had the camera handy as one of my uncle's tended the fire. This is a handheld shot (with IS). Focus isn't a huge concern, its the spark trails I'm trying to capture.
This was a pretty hot fire, the coals will still be hot as we are driving away tomorrow.
30-AUG-2008
Sweet Jump
At the campground the past few years, the boys have been hitting some "Sweet Jumps" that are apparently "Off the hook". Sometimes they are even "Sick Jumps", but I cannot confirm nor deny the presence of any viral infestation of said jumps. On the subject of the 'jumps' themselves, to most adults, they appear as nothing more than a pile of dirt, possibly a nuisance when walking or crossing a road or path. To a kid, these are the launch vehicles for a ride of endless fun. However, it is not all fun and games, the kids work very hard at perfecting these piles of dirt, err, 'jumps'.
I started taking some shots of my son (pictured) and all of a sudden a flock of children appeared, all wanting to see the shots and to have their photos taken off the "Sweet Jumps". The last kid even turned his head 90 degrees to face the camera and smiled as he was lifting off a rather large and scary jump. At that point, I packed up the camera and moved away from the jump area. I could picture the resultant crash from one of the kids as they try to out-do each other in contests of 'coolness'.
28-AUG-2008
Lensbabied Wife
Second day of our Labor Day Weekend Camping Trip.
I got a lot of lensbabies time this morning. I was taking pictures of picnic tables, trees, my children, a dragonfly, and my wife. I liked this shot the best. It is a very picky lens and I am not ready to just "drop it on someone" yet. I wouldn't feel comfortable getting a decent shot with the amount of prep time it takes me (I get the "are you done yet?" look which basically ruins the mood...).
Here is a Polaris Startrail from later on today (I couldn't post two Star-trail photos in a row):
27-AUG-2008
Polaris Centered with light trail
First night of our Labor Day Camping [extended] weekend. We got in late, around 8:30 or so and didn't get all set up until after 9:30. The campground (Danforth Bay, Freedom, NH) is pretty empty, so I made good use of the space in the field and setup shot. I could use a tad bit more lens for this kind of shot.
This is off my tripod, I no longer have any telescope gear (with tracking mounts) so Polaris about my only hope for anything decent. I tried Cassiopeia, knowing it would be horrible (photo, not the constellation) and was right, it was horrible.
The good thing about the start trails is that it helped me identify camera shake on my tripod. Even with mirror lockup, there were some slight vibrations reflected in the images.
I'd wanted to get some cool circular star trails revolving around Polaris, but my POC remote decided to crap out on me tonight. With the Bulb setting on, the remote wouldn't hold the shutter open, I wound up with a bunch of 1 second exposures.
(And, this campground has nice, free, WIFI!)
You can time-travel into tomorrow to see what I intended to shoot:
26-AUG-2008
Rider
Playing with the lensbabies 3G again. I've had about a grand total of 30 minutes in the past two days to play with this new lens. We are getting ready for our big Labor Day Camping Weekend that starts tomorrow after work.
I had to "move the bike" in order to get to the kayaks to pack on the Tahoe. "Moving the bike" entails a ride around the neighborhood. I had to move the bike twice since it was in the way after the kayaks were loaded. Had I not "moved the bike" the second time, I'd have more available daylight to "take a photo". I don't regret it. Its been so hectic that the poor 'ole Sportster has been much neglected this past month.
I intend to get a lot more "play time" with the 3G over this coming weekend. This campground has WIFI too, so I can check up on pbase and all the latest chatter over the new 50D and 18-200 L lens.
25-AUG-2008
Discarded - Lensbaby 3G
Here is one of my first attempts with the
Lensbaby 3G.
After reading up on this lens and the 1 & 2 AND having a couple of shots under my belt, I feel very happy with my 'upgrade' to the 3G (thank goodness for Summer Sales ;-).
I spent a good deal of my evening trying to get my Metadata in line. Since the Lensbaby has no brain, there is no lens-related Exif added to the resultant Raw files. I simply cannot live with this, I had to fix it. I messed around with Exiftool for a while and spent about 30 - 45 minutes on a tangent that ultimately had to do with me using "==" versus "=" (whoops). For those of you that care, here is the command line for tweaking your Lensbaby files (you can substitute the .CR2 for whatever format you use):
exiftool -LensType="Lensbaby 3G" -FNumber="2.0" -FocalLength="60" -overwrite_original -r -ext .CR2 .
Keep in mind that you will need to update the FNumber with the correct value for your Aperture in use (in this case, wide open, no disc).
With my metadata in order, I could start playing with the actual lens itself (well, I actually played with it first, then realized the metadata issue).
The 3G is great on a tripod AND on a 40D. Here is where Live View shines (yet again). I was able to get the sweet spot to just about where I wanted it, move my focus point in Live View, and then tweak the focus on the 3G until it was just right. No way the first or second generation models of this lens would work [easily] this way.
I shifted the camera around a little, changing the composition from yesterday's shot. Interestingly enough, I don't think the actual pile changed any. I did have to remove a few of my son's toys that got thrown into the mix, but the dolls look to be in the same pose from before.
I did try the 4.0 Aperture Disc (they aren't labeled, you have to know the values and compare them) which was already loaded into the camera when I got it. I wanted a much smaller sweet spot (just the face of the one doll) so I tried it wide open at f/2.0 and got better results, though a tad bit soft.
I plan on spending a lot more time with this lens in the near future (I have to work out the logistics of keeping it in my bag too).
Here is the link to yesterday's, non-lensbaby, PaD:
24-AUG-2008
Discarded
Another very busy day of yard work. I'd originally intended to do the "RV Parking-After" shot, but was a tad bit too dirty to risk touching my camera gear at the end of the day and I wasn't about to walk on the new loam in my slippers after my shower.
These dolls are one of my daughters or possible a collection from both. They have been moving around the house the past few weeks as a pile. I've not seen either daughter playing with them (and my oldest is definitely not into dolls anymore). I've only seen them in a pile.
Anyway, they make for an interesting subject. I imagine I might test this shot out again with the lensbabies 3G when it arrives tomorrow (at least I think it arrives tomorrow, 4 shipping days from Mass, something like 100 miles).
{Edit}
Here is a wormhole into the future by one day to look at the Lensbaby approach:
23-AUG-2008
RV Parking Area - Before
My weekend project (thus a not too interesting PaD).
Before applying 14 Cubic Yards of Crushed Gravel and Stone. . .
22-AUG-2008
2008-2009 Marshwood High School Marching Band - Pie in the face
All week long the Marching Band had been practicing, (yikes my daughter is in the High School Marching Band!). Tonight there was a special presentation for the families to see what they'd been doing all week.
At the end there was a marching competition, the last person standing got to throw a pie in the face of the band's instructor. Great motivational tool.
We were up in the stands, I'd already switched lenses, the 70-200 was back in the band and the 17-55 just didn't have enough pull to get a good closeup. However, with that said, this shot did get the entire band gathered around their instructor mere microseconds after impact. You can see two big chunks of cream frozen just behind his head (in the center).
My daughter (who is actually in 8th grade, High School Marching Band is open to 8th graders, a very good idea on a few levels) is in a white Tee Shirt in the front center with her back to the camera.
![Final Fire [of the season]](https://a4.pbase.com/g3/62/582862/2/102469451.Y4y85LoV.jpg)
