Sometimes it rains in Seattle. I mean it – it only rains sometimes. Wet, however, is a state of almost constant being. Seattle is damp. Seattle is drippy. Seattle has moss.
Camera & Lens
Canon EOS REBEL T1i (Canon) & EF50mm f/1.8 II
Shutter:
1/50 s
Creation Date:
2009:10:31 14:30:39
Aperture:
f/2.8
Artist:
Photographer: Ari Brown
ISO:
100
Exposure Mode:
Normal program
Focal Length:
50 mm
I can’t say that scenes like this are rare, but the forest-like nature in the middle of the neighborhood seemed just right to me. It reminds me why I like carrying around my camera while I’m taking walks on rainy days. It also bewilders me why people feel the need for specialty lenses like the Lens Baby line. They’re not cheap enough to be toys (well… except when compared to real lens prices) and they create an effect you could otherwise create in Photoshop, if you didn’t want to do it yourself, like above, with a small aperture. Just sayin…
If you are reading this, odds are my blog has been migrated to a new host. I meant to focus on this a week or two back, but I managed to mangle the translation a few times and well… I need a little me time first.
As far as I know, we’re sitting on a new host. The masthead has been refreshed as well – nice elephant, eh? Other than that, I know of one problem – the exif information (specifics about each photograph) that usually appear in a little table underneath the shot aren’t showing up right. I need your help finding out what else is wrong, because I’m sure there is something.
If you could be so kind as to randomly click three links deep, wherever you want to go, and tell me if you see anything else messed up, I would be forever in your debt. Do it for me, before google finds the problems and destroys my meager page rank.
You might have been wondering “why no new posts”? Actually I flatter myself – you have better things to do than wonder. In any case, there is a reason and “busy with other things” is only part of it. In my never ending quest to be cheapthrifty, I’m moving my blog to a new host. If I can get a couple last problems figured out, we’ll make it live and I can get back to thinking about pictures, not software. I have to keep the inner nerd alive and make it happen – databases, .htaccess files, and wordpress installations be damned. When I get done, maybe I’ll even spruce things up a bit. I promise you it won’t be too much longer. Just don’t hold me to that.
Panoramic photography is a lot of fun. There is nothing like the viewpoint you can get by stitching together a bunch of shots into a broad sweeping view. I first posted instructions on how to shoot a panorama back here. We then had a couple posts in a row alternately described as Panoramania and Panorama-orama. Lots of fun. All the instructions for how to actually capture the pictures are still fairly valid but I want to tell you there is a better way. Behold!
Camera & Lens
Canon EOS REBEL T1i (Canon) & EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Shutter:
1/200 s
Creation Date:
2009:10:13 11:23:45
Aperture:
f/10.0
Artist:
Ari Brown
ISO:
100
Exposure Mode:
Normal program
Focal Length:
24 mm
See that shot? Not too bad, right? The real magic however, is twofold. First off, I shot that hand-held. Yes, it was in fairly bright sun so the exposure was easy, but it includes a beach scene and rolling waves are just about the hardest thing to put in a panorama. The real beauty behind it all is Adobe Photoshop CS4. Whereas before I told you to use Panorama Factory or Autostitch, which are still fine, I just need to spread the word that the built-in panorama creation tool in CS4 beats them all. In fully auto mode, it stitched together 6 individual shots to create this without any manual intervention. Without much if any moire, and without totally barfing when it came to the water. The original shot is 10,000 and some pixels wide and I think it’s beautiful. If anyone is really interested, I can post a larger version too.
The moral of the story is this: go shoot some panoramas. Certainly a tripod and level will help and for night shots it might be the only way, but don’t limit yourself! Software is constantly improving and even if you don’t have Photoshop CS4 right now, you might get it down the road (or you might get this feature in something free or low cost in 6 months). Things change! The only thing you can’t change is the fact that you might not take pictures today. I’ve certainly regretted the things I’ve not captured. Do yourself a favor. Digital is cheap. Go take pictures.
It’s Halloween, it’s been beautiful and sunny and now it’s turning dark and spooky right on schedule. Have a good night out there. Don’t do anything too spooky. Happy Halloween.
Seattle has seasons. Specifically fall. Some years it happens fast as the leaves turn orange and red and are immediately ripped from the branches and thrust into the stormdrains to form lakes by torrential rain. Some years you get a little time to enjoy things before bad weather takes it all away. All I know is that I’m from Southern California. This doesn’t happen there. Palm fronds are green or dead – they are never orange or yellow.
It’s quite cliche, but it’s hard not to appreciate when you see it in person. There are plenty of great sites of tree-covered hillsides or trees lining streets, but I think it’s easy to overlook just how amazing each leaf can be up close.
Camera & Lens
Canon EOS REBEL T1i (Canon) & EF50mm f/1.8 II
Shutter:
1/60 s
Creation Date:
2009:10:20 19:56:22
Aperture:
f/7.1
Artist:
Photographer: Ari Brown
ISO:
100
Exposure Mode:
Manual
Focal Length:
50 mm
They’re all cool, different, etc. I think all of these are maples, but there’s birch and aspen and all kinds of picturesque-sounding things up here. I’ve got more – really! Be sure to hit the jump to see them all.
I was back in San Diego last week. Especially downtown and along the waterfront, so much has changed since I lived there. I blame Petco Park, but mostly I think it was just the real estate boom.
For all the new, there is still some old. Down in Seaport Village, the Marriott Hotel is still going strong. As much as those new buildings might look nice, this is the only one I wanted to take pictures of.
Camera & Lens
Canon EOS REBEL T1i (Canon) & EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Shutter:
1/200 s
Creation Date:
2009:10:10 17:11:04
Aperture:
f/9.0
Artist:
Photographer: Ari Brown
ISO:
200
Exposure Mode:
Normal program
Focal Length:
24 mm
Since it’s all geometry and lines and shapes, I think it turned out pretty well in black & white. Color isn’t bad either, but this got my vote.
It must be one of the most iconic signs in Seattle. The car wash itself? Pretty plain. But the sign… the sign! There are other locations. There are better car washes. But this one is by Seattle Center and this one has the sign.
Camera & Lens
Canon EOS REBEL T1i (Canon) & EF50mm f/1.8 II
Shutter:
1/320 s
Creation Date:
2009:09:12 14:42:21
Aperture:
f/7.1
Artist:
Photographer: Ari Brown
ISO:
100
Exposure Mode:
Normal program
Focal Length:
50 mm
I was in a big hurry. I only had my 50mm, which makes it hard to frame something this big from up close. Unfortunately, farther away means standing in the middle of a major street or getting some unfortunate buildings and power lines in the background. You shoot now and decide what you like later. I surprised myself and liked the one shot I got with a very partial view of the sign. I gotta remember that.
I thought my first attempt at Time Lapse came out fairly well. All I did at the time was set it up and hit go. Yeah… there were a few more steps, but that was the forethought. Pretty jazzed about those results, I tried a few more things, without luck. One note: if you expect a spider to do anything, even after you poke a few strategically-placed holes in his web, maybe reconsider. Anyway, I liked the little taste of long-exposure nighttime action in the first time lapse, so I set it up at sunset this time. What do you think?
I also did a little more processing on this one. Instead of leaving it at defaults, I did some contrast correction and resized the photos down a bit since they get resized so much in the end anyway.
One last word about taking stills for a time lapse at night. During the day my battery was lasting for hundreds of shots with no problem. In this sequence, I only got just over 200 before it died since the night shots had shutter speeds of 30+ seconds. If I was going to do it again, I’d crank open the aperture a bit more to make the shots a bit shorter and get more life out of the battery.
Nothing says Americana like neon signs, right? This is one from my trip to Corvallis from a few posts back. Downtown Corvallis has a few blocks of old-timey cute, and although they don’t have much that ties them to the rest of the world, I suppose Greyhound still counts. These days, the reputation is that of the crazy and the can’t-afford-Amtrak, so maybe a leaping dog doesn’t have the cache it used to, but the signs always make me think of a time when it meant a lot more.
Camera & Lens
Canon EOS REBEL T1i (Canon) & EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Shutter:
1/200 s
Creation Date:
2009:08:23 08:11:45
Aperture:
f/8.0
Artist:
Photographer: Ari Brown
ISO:
100
Exposure Mode:
Normal program
Focal Length:
47 mm
I would have liked to come back and shoot this at night, but we didn’t have time. Also, hanging around a bus station at night with a camera? Not necessarily the best idea.
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