Tuesday, December 23, 2008

My Most Popular Flickr Image

Pere Marquette 1225 Passes the Michigan Bean Company
Pere Marquette 1225 Passes the Michigan Bean Company
Just over three years back I was given the opportunity to capture an image I'd been looking for the whole of the four years I have been working with the Steam Railroading Institute. Today that image is my top image on Flickr with 9,422 views, 176 favorites, and 93 comments as of this posting. As happy as I was with the image, I still wasn't thrilled having hoped for a sky with fewer clouds. I wasn't willing to composite in the sky, but removing a yellow post in front of the red shed in post didn't bother me. Looking at the image now, I don't think there's much I would have changed though. I'd still have liked more blue in the sky to make the smoke and steam pop, but overall its just as I'd envisioned.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Birdy Footprints in the Snow

Birdy Footprints in the Snow
Birdy Footprints in the Snow
With today's huge snow fall came the responsibility to clear the walk in front of the office a couple times. One of those time I noticed that a birdy had taken a nice walk across the light snow. So, I grabbed the D700 and popped off a few frames before returning to the duty of clearing the walk.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Yesterday's 12 of 12 under 12" Project

Yesterday's 12 of 12 project ended up being much more challenging than I'd expected. The limitation of only using the D700 and 105mm Micro VR at less than a foot from the subject proved to be far more difficult than I envisioned. First, the 105mm VR only focuses to just under a foot so I had to work at the minimum focus distance of the lens and move the camera to focus. At that distance, the minimum aperture increases from the usual f/2.8 to f/4.8 but still retains the razor thin depth-of-field. Even on the FX (Nikon's designation for full frame 35mm sensors) body the 105mm micro had a very narrow angle making the compositions very difficult. I'd expected the most of this, but not to the degree I'd actually encountered.






12 of 12 <12": Morning Shave12 of 12 <12": Previewing Tomorrow's Podcast12 of 12 <12": Warming Up
12 of 12 <12": Clocking In12 of 12 <12": My Computer12 of 12 <12": Checking in POS Terminals
12 of 12 <12": Sending Out the Invoices12 of 12 <12": Processing the Checks12 of 12 <12": A Cup Of Tea
12 of 12 <12": Snow Fall12 of 12 <12": Publishing the Show12 of 12 <12": Mailing Coins


These challenges ended up teaching me much more about the camera, lens, and macro composition than I'd hoped for though and I'm thrilled to have had the experience. First, to work around the slow shutter speeds in the existing light I cranked the D700 over the more comfortable 1600ISO to 2500ISO on most of the shots. It introduced enough extra noise that I wouldn't consider printing the images, but to downsize and use for screen viewing they're perfect. That narrow depth-of-field proved to me a little more challenging to work with on the D700 than on the D2x though. The D700's viewfinder is very nice, but doesn't seem to work nearly as well as the more expensive bodies. Perhaps an upgraded focus screen would help, but last I knew none were available for the D700. Being that I haven't worked with anything other than DX for more than a decade though, I still find myself relearning the viewing angles of the full-frame 35mm pick-up. I had expected the 105mm micro to provide about 6° more and while that doesn't sound like much, made a huge difference in the compositions. Many of the images I'd planned to capture were no longer an option because the subject would not fit into that narrow frame within the foot limit of the project. One of these scenes was to have been the newly arrived wireless and credit cards statements laid on the keyboard of the laptop. I'd wanted just a portion of each logo and a little of a couple keycaps. Alas with the limitations I'd imposed I couldn't get more than the bank's logo into the frame. The challenges are what make these projects so interesting.

Friday, December 12, 2008

12 of 12 <12": My Computer

12 of 12
12 of 12
Today is only my second opportunity to participate in the 12 of 12 project founded by Chad Darnell. This month I opted to pursue all of my images captured at less than 12 inches with the D700 and 105mm Micro VR. My goal is much the same at the last attempt in September of documenting my day through a few images. This time I suspect it will be even more difficult as I need to find very tiny objects which will help represent the whole 18 hours of my day. What a fun challenge!

Monday, December 01, 2008

Muddy Shelves

Muddy Shelves

On a Sunday afternoon a few weeks back, the weather was too nice to stay inside, so we opted to play hooky and run over to the Burgess-Shadbush Nature Center for some geocaching with friends. I had no idea who was building these little mud nests, but these looked have have been long abandoned.