2012-05-27

My father and I decided to take a few hours for a photo expedition.  This is the first time we do that - take time just to take pictures.  It was a lot of fun.  It was very windy when we got there, which made long exposures just about impossible (tripod or no tripod).  We however managed to get quite a few shots in the few hours we were there.  Hope we get to do something like that again at some point.

The following images are a selection of the many I took.  There were all edited in Google Picasa 3: so quality is not great.  I really have to learn Adobe LightRoom 3 (which I already have purchased and own), because the resulting images are of much higher quality.  But for now, because of time constraints, Picasa will have to do.  I may post some of the same images below processed in LightRoom at some point - it's interesting to compare the difference (it's obvious!).  The one big thing with LightRoom is "noise control" - there is nothing like that to my knowledge in Picasa, which really affects end results. 

Anyways, let me know what you think!  This is very low budget... images taken with my Nikon D60 and all of them were taken with either my father's 100mm lens or 300mm lens. Thanks again dad! :)

2012-03-06

I managed to get my hands on Adobe LightRoom 3 recently (birthday cash + $200 off sale = new software for me!)  Here are my first processed images with LightRoom (instead of Google's Picasa)...

Here's my son Caleb, with his interesting Lego creations... Was conservative with effects on this one...

Here is my daughter with one of her Lego creations... I played more with the effects on this one (a blend of a downloaded preset and my own tweaks).

This is an image which I actually posted in my last blog update.  Seems like LightRoom has more options to offer to process the images.  Conversion from my Nikon D60 RAW files is definitely much superior to Picasa.

This was also a previously posted image.  Noise reduction in this one and colors were also much superior to Picasa.

For this one, the noise reduction was incredible!  This image was taken using ISO400 and was very noisy in Picasa.  I was able to manually tweak noise reduction settings until I get a very smooth and clean image.

Overall, LightRoom is very nice for processing RAW images.  I however don't think I will use it to REPLACE Picasa.  I actually think Picasa is awesome for image management and organization.  I think I may keep LightRoom for post processing images that I want to print or post somewhere.  LightRoom was a good buy for me at $90 instead of the regular $300.  Thanks to very kind photography hobbiest for letting us know about the sale!

2012-02-11

A more colorful than usual sunset in my back yard (was hoping to get some moon pictures, but there were too many clouds that day)

This is a tree that I've taken numerous pictures off... my favorite tree for sure.  We have a nice view of a small valley from our back yard, but the horizon would look dull without it! :)

Self portrait experiment... since I don't have an external flash, I setup the camera on a tripod and bounced the flash on a mirror.  So the picture is of the mirror, but that allowed for side lighting, instead of the usual on-board flash look.

I played with exposure a bit, but it was fairly easy have a decent exposure on both sides...  It was fun either way! :)

2011-12-29

Lots of pictures for today's post... yesterday had such a dramatic sunset, that I was running around the property taking pictures like a mad man... Amazing sunset, raining and a rainbow almost all at the same time!  Totally excited I was home, no vacation and had the camera ready to go.  Something I already knew, but if you want to take pictures at all, one of the biggest secrets is to have your camera with you at all times and ready to shoot!

This shot taken approximately facing South-West...

I I think it would be much nicer if I'd have a much bigger field and less trees, but then again, I kind of like the silhouettes on the horizon... 

I don't know if I've ever seen the sky so fiery yellow before, it was incredible!  I suspect this had to do with the fact that since it was raining, the sky was completely covered with clouds.  For some reason, the clouds opened up on the west where the sun was setting.  Seems to have produced dramatic effects...

This shot taken later, when the sun was already down... remaining light on the clouds produced amazing paintings in the sky!

Same as previous, but landscape shot instead of portrait...

This was the brightest and most defined rainbow I had ever seen.  Unfortunately, because of the area where I live, it was very difficult to get a good shot of the entire rainbow without getting power poles, wires and houses.  Either way, the rainbow was amazing!

There was a double rainbow for a while, but the second rainbow was only well defined for a very, very short period of time (could not get a decent shot of that second rainbow)

For some reason, the sky was very purple-ish!

We obviously geared the kids up to go outside and enjoy the nice scenery... for some reason, the rainbow and sunset was less interesting than pot holes and the muddy property lol!