The Noblesvillain

Below is a link to some pictures of my boys as well as some friends from this past Saturday.  We had a great time meeting up with friends including the Jones's who moved away four years ago.

Link to pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/tim.sherrill/20090905LaborDayPathfindersAtReynolds?feat=directlink

Today I interrupted my lawn mowing to capture some macro images of a lilly in our back yard.  It had been raining earlier so a few droplets of water sat on the petals.

This month I have been digging into macro photography techniques and snapping some images.  Unfortunately, most of the advice centers around using a tripod, something that I'm resistant to, as it doesn't match my more casual shooting style.  Since I was at home today and saw this image, I decided to get out the tripod and see how much difference a still camera makes in taking an image.

In the end, I found the tripod helps quite a bit.  Like a lot of things in photography, under otherwise perfect conditions, you can get by with

• fewer megapixels
• a cheap lens
• camera shake
• focus problems

etcetera, but in less-than-perfect conditions, any of the above start to combine and trash your images.  Today I was able to take a few good images hand held (such as the image above), but took even more successful images with the tripod.

I'm shooting with the original Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) and these images were captured with a very cheap Sigma 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 DG zoom/macro lens.

The first image (above) was taken with ISO 400, f/9.0, 1/160s, 200mm focal length, manual macro focusing. I used the smaller aperture to get a deeper depth of field which then forced a higher ISO setting (especially since I was hand holding).  The nearest and furthest petals are losing sharpness which pleases me that I got the depth of field pretty close.  I lack experience judging this type of photo, so I'm not sure whether the loss of sharpness is a foul or if it helps direct the eye towards the center.  I don't know the classic answer, but I like the effect and it captured what I was trying to achieve.

The next image (just to the right) is one of the last ones I captured.  At this point I'm using the tripod which allowed me to use a longer shutter speed (and thus a less noisy ISO setting).  ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/80s, 200mm (320mm equivalent) macro focusing.  The stamens are in sharp focus, but the pistol (right 20% of picture) is out of focus.  The contrast of the petals and the green background pleases me.  One challenge for this image was capturing it while the flower moved in a light breeze.  I think 1/80s was enough to stop that motion, but if it had been combined with any camera/lens movement, I would have lost the sharp focus.

The final image I'll note comes from the middle of the shoot. (Ha! I'm avoiding mowing the lawn by taking pictures and I call it a 'shoot'!)  In this image, the entire flower is in focus, but nearby elements (the buds behind) are in soft focus.  The Bokeh effect in the background adds a pleasing sense of depth and an impressionist feel.  I used ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/100s, 133mm to shoot the shot (not macro).  Due to a longer distance from the subject, a larger aperture still keeps the flower in focus.

By actually getting out and shooting, I've learned several things.  Some of these reinforce information from the text I've been reading, other items relate to my limited budget and consumer-grade equipment.  For all of the images I took today, I had to manually set exposure.  I'm not sure why my camera body isn't setting exposure correctly, but it is producing  dreadfully underexposed images (almost black).  By setting both focus and exposure manually, I got better reinforcement about metering and didn't use the internal meter as a crutch.  Here are some other lessons:

• Don't hesitate to take a shot.  Even if the shot fails, you'll have learned something; on the other hand, it may be your best shot of the day.
• Give yourself the best chance to get a good image.  That means getting the best equipment and using all available techniques.  For me, I'm lucky to have a macro-focusing lens at all, so I need to do a better job at keeping my tripod handy (but if the shot won't wait for the setup time, take the shot!)
• Cheap lenses work best a f/8.0 (most/all lenses work best there, the better lenses continue to work well further from f/8.0).  Do your best to balance your ISO, shutter speed, and aperture to balance the noise, shake/blur, and distortion.  A mistake in one area (like shake) can ruin an image.
• Take a shot that you know will work, and take another that's on the edge of your working envelope.  Take one shot with ISO 400 (or even higher), even though you know it will add some noise and you'll loose some saturation and sharpness.  If you only take the shot at ISO 100, you may get home to find that what looked sharp on the LCD is actually very blurry and you lost the shot entirely.  Better to have two shots (at least) that both work (and one that's stunning) than to have one with great color that you can't use because it isn't sharp.

If you're a pro, you'll already know whether the shot is going to work or not, so you don't have to guess, and you've less to learn from making a bad exposure.  You can identify a pro because they just take a few shots, but they know the are all good images (perhaps not usable, but good and worth taking).  An element of hoping for good exposures remains part of my workflow.

 

Day Lilly and images this page by Tim Sherrill and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

...no, not those kind of bubbles.  I was blowing soap bubbles (the boys are both fond of soap bubbles) when I held out the stem for Adam to blow into.  He blew very gently (but insistently) and made a very nice stream of bubbles.  He took it in stride, but I was shocked!

Adam's vocabulary expands each day. His early words are still a jumble (such as tractor and train) but new ones are pretty clear (like snake and sky).  I enjoy the words yes, thank you, and please most of all!

And a trip to Conner Prairie

Jenny worked Sunday and Monday of the Memorial Day weekend.  Sunday the boys and I went to the beach for a picnic.  Monday we went to Conner Prairie for a morning's adventure.

The boys love Discovery Station where they have trains, toys, and a fake cow you can milk.

The Conner Barn also gets high billing with its variety of juvenile animals.

We then saw the carpenter turning big logs into beams.  He was working on one of the corner posts for the new carpenter shop.  Adam and Mark help clean up the debris.  We then took the wheelbarrow to Mrs. Conner (played by Jenny) who needed some chips for the walkway in her garden.

Inside the house, Adam and Mark both took a turn at checkers.

We all had a great time, even if it meant we got a late lunch.

 

Whew!  What a weekend!

The chairs in our kitchen take a lot of abuse.  In addition to regular duty supporting our weight during meals, they also serve as a

• table (when a boy kneels and plays with toys on the chair)
• stand (such as when a bigger boy wants to play with playdough but doesn't want his booster)
• bridge (the dump trucks being pushed by both boys have to go somewhere!)

They also get moved around and perhaps stood upon by an adult needing a convenient step ladder.

It is no wonder that the legs of the chairs started to wobble a bit. For a simple Sunday project, Mark, Adam, and I decided to tighen things up.  The base of the chair has two nuts (not to be confused with the nuts working the project) per leg and these had loosened themselves a turn or two.  After I found the right size socket, Mark was able to get them snug (and then dad helps to get them tight), but I was very proud of the proper use of a ratchet.

It may not be clear, but Adam has a socket extender (a metal bar) that he is using to test the soundness of the seat through striking it.

By the way, you'll have to check out Jenny's post about Mark reading a book to Adam (video).

The Pathfinders group from our church went hiking today at Cool Creek Park.  Literally minutes from Wal-Mart (it's across the street), the park has miles of easy trails that crisscross its eponymous creek through wooded areas.  A nature center, performance stage, and playground round out the attractions.  The temperature was in the 35-40 degree range (which is up from single digits for the last week) which made us appreciate the fresh air.

Here are a couple of pictures of our boys.

It is probably no coincidence that my first blog post in some time comes when there are no NFL games on TV...

The boys have been reconstructing the highways and byways in our house.  Just like the new roads in the neighborhood, we've had construction equipment making noise and wandering all over the place.  When you're done, then you'll need to clean up the worksite.

A job well done is its own reward.

The boys like to chase each other around the loop, each of them using a dump truck as an aid.  The picture of Adam was intented to get a look simiar to Mark at the same time (I couldn't find the same hat before the 'timer' expired and someone insisted we go outside).

The results are in...and my Dandelion theme won the dasBlog Theme Contest!

I'm very pleased (probably moreso than I should be) as I'm not a designer by training but I'm learning as I go.  One thing that has kept me back is that I want to produce everything myself.  This is good for learning, but not so good for getting things done!  For the Dandelion theme, I took the picture of the dandelion (taken with my Canon Digital Rebel and Sigma macro lens), retouched the picture,  created my own Photoshop website theme layout, and coded the HTML & CSS to lay out the page.  I did borrow CSS styling from a previous theme, but only because I ran out of time before the deadline.

To see the theme, you can look at this blog (at least until I put a new theme up) or see a preview on my previous post.

My next endeavor is entering three images in the Open division for Photography in the Indiana State Fair.

Here are the three images, mounted and in glassine sleeves ready to be taken to the fair.  They've since been dropped off and I'm awaiting August 8th when the fair opens!  Doubly exciting is that my folks will be visiting for Adam's first birthday during the two weeks the fair runs.  We'll not only be able to cruise and eat some fair food, but we can see my exhibits!

This morning several of us walked to the park.

 

There was a great sand area filled with toys (and sand, and boys).  We had a great time.  More to come.

After the last post, I thought the picture looked familiar.  I went into the photo archives and found...

versus

Same park, same clothes, nearly the same age.  Mark trades his hat for Adam's bib (and a mobile phone can't compete with the image quality of the Canon Digital Rebel), but otherwise...

Here's Adam's on a park swing.  He doesn't swing much...more of a sway for now.

And Mark likes to keep things lively!

I've finally gotten a number of pictures off my mobile phone.  It's time to upload them a bit at a time.

 

March, 2006: Mark in his element.

My two boys have been getting along very well for the three weeks that they have known each other.  However, after a mini episode from my two-year-old dealing with his parental attention getting cut in half, we decided to take a trip to the Indianapolis Zoo on the Labor Day holiday.

Mark talked about Monkeys! all the way to the zoo.  Fortunately, the primates stayed in Indy while the penguins shipped off to Galveston.

The Kodiak bears moved about nicely and occupied a good deal of our early visit.  My two new Sigma lenses accompanied me on this trip including a new long zoom lens which proved useful in the Elephant area.

 

We also enjoyed the Tigers (although their performance rested more heavily upon their reputation than their antics), the plains animals, and the dinosaurs (White Rino).

The biggest hit for both of us had to be the new baby elephant. The baby girl (still nameless) weighs in at 266 pounds (and I thought Adam was a big baby!).  Elephants, unlike humans, are able to consume grass, run, and twirl within the first week according to my keen observations.

Enjoy some pictures of the new elephant.

 

The day couldn't have been more fun (or nicer weather) and after sucking up hours of attention and numerous piggy-back rides, Mark enjoyed a nap on the way home.  I enjoyed this great time in the sun and the opportunity to snap some pictures.

 

Testing dasBlog to see if it works.

This year has been a cold and icy one in Indiana. We've had two ice storms which have knocked out power and downed trees. We haven't been directly affected but this year has been unusual. There have been some great picture opportunities, though. Here's an old barn near my house.