really
stars take II
i’m flabbergasted at the light my camera can pick up from the milky way. i also love how you can see star trails even from only a 45-second exposure. make you think about how small you really are.
original:
exposed and color-corrected in RAW editor:
original:
RAW edited:
original:
RAW edited:
upgrade
just a short blog post tonight because i’m typing on my phone. i’m updating my laptop to mavericks and i don’t want to turn on my main rig! (i’m really lazy i guess.)
short week of work this week because of a wedding on thursday. i’m excited! my bank of vacation time is not. i will be down to 5 hours after this weekend. no more time off for me until next june when it’s a week off for the black hills!
stars
i’ve been wanting to get decent pictures of the night sky for a while. last night i went out my backyard and took some pictures. tonight i went out in the boonies and took some pictures. lst night’s turned out great because i was able to keep the shutter open for a minute or longer if i wanted; i used my remote trigger to keep it open. tonight i had everything with me, but the batteries were dead. 😐 and i didn’t have the bag with the batteries in it. 😐 😐 I think it’s time to window shop for the Best Telescope For Beginners, I want to see more.
another day!
apple pie
10 fall things
fall is pretty much here. it was 50º today – almost glove weather for me. here’s a list of things i want to accomplish this fall.
1. root river trail biking. i think it’s set for the third weekend in october.
2. fix my mailbox. it’s wobbly and needs cement in its base.
3. take fall pics. i used to go to st john’s and take pics. i have to find a new place! whitewater??
4. plant garlic. no brainer.
5. plant tulip and peony bulbs. gotta remember to do that!
6. clean out my dumb garage. it’s just a mess in there.
7. write something meaningful in my blog. not a list.
8. get a sub-11-minute mile done??? this is really iffy.
9. drink more pumpkin drinks. mmm.
10. make more apple desserts. can’t go wrong there.
11. (bonus) go antiquing with liz!
writing
a publisher in rochester puts out a women’s magazine, and my mom was looking at the most recent issue yesterday when she told me i should submit something.
hmm.
so, i looked in the mag and saw they only had directions for hard-copy submissions, so i emailed the contact. she got back to me straight away, asking me where i hailed from, and then to send something.
i wonder if she’s needing writing?
anyway, i’m wondering what i should submit! oh my. i think it can be any length. i’ve got to go back and search through old blog posts.
photo tutorial 1
here is my attempt at an intro photo tutorial. please note you probably need at least some background in photo terms. i’ve posted my iphoto image info in each photo so you can see what my settings were. the setting i care about the most? aperture. it’s what makes the background blurry or not blurry. a lower aperture, the blurrier the background.
i used two of my lenses for this: my canon 50 mm f/1.4 and my tamron 28-75mm f/2.8. your average kit lens has a f/3.5-5.6, so you can see my priorities when i buy lenses!
so, we’re going to take pictures of apples. fair enough. we can set up a photo and take a pic of apples in front of an interesting background. in this case, mason jars. tada! but, a little boring. the f-stop is set at 7.1, which means there is no depth to the photo. it’s a little still-life-esque.
let’s make it a little more interesting and make some space between the apples and jars. this is a lot more interesting. i set my aperture lower for two reasons here: 1. the lighting in my kitchen at night sucks, and a lower aperture will speed up the shutter and keep my image crisp, and 2. i want a blurry-ish background. going from a 7.1 to 2.8 aperture helped out a ton.
this is an ok picture. it’s still a little boring.
let’s create a little more interest, and off-center those apples. now we’re starting to get somewhere.
ok, even more interest? how about angling the camera so we see more of the jars in the background, especially the tall one on the right. at this point, all the pics but the first have been taken with the 50mm lens at f/2.8.
this photo i’ve lowered my f-stop to the lowest it can go, 1.4. it creates an almost surreal looking photo, with a pinpoint of focus.
but what if we want more of the apple in the picture? unfortunately, this is as close as i can get to the apples with my 50mm before my focus runs out. time to bust out the tamron.
macro time! the tamron isn’t a true macro, but it does great close-up work. for it to work its best, you need to zoom all the way out to 75mm and then get as close as the focus will let you. apparently this photo session, i liked to weight things on the left side.
if there is one thing to be said for the canon, it’s that it does create a slightly crisper image, one that you probably won’t catch unless you’re looking for it. in the image below, the canon is on the left, the tamron on the right. there is a bit of a more defined edge on the canon’s image. the average joe schmo isn’t going to notice.
that’s all i’ve got for now!
zucchini apple chocolate chip bread
it was a lot of stuff to stick in a bread, but i got it done.
[yumprint-recipe id=’3′]
good food day
breakfast: french toast with butter and real maple syrup. 
supper: ribeye steak with green beans cooked in butter with my new cracklins on top with toast, feta cheese, and tomatoes.