Kennebunkport

This past weekend, Sara and I took a little trip out to Kennebunk, Maine for the afternoon. For our 1 year anniversary, we thought it would be best to take things slow and thought a nice walk around the port area would be a fun. Sara has this book of walks and trails along the seacoast area of New England which we consulted before we left. We found this cool little trail along the water at a Franciscan Monastery. This made for some cool photo ops of the port area, shrines, statues and other neat little attractions.
We then made our way to the beach for a nice walk on the ocean. I wish I had taken my camera with me for this walk, because I encountered a funky worm-like creature in the sand. I had never seen anything like it before. Was quite strange indeed.
After the beach, we took a drive out to my grandmother's old house. I used to spend time there with her and my grandfather every summer when I was just a wee lad. It brought back some great memories of cheating in checkers against my grandmother, driving past the presidents place on the coast and shouting at the house from the car, going on whale watches with my grandfather, and just enjoying some quality time on the beach.

All in all, a great day. Didn't get too many keepers picture wise, but it was a much needed day of relaxation.

HDR Monday

Time for a little HDR Monday. I've got so many other pictures to touch up and post before this one, but I thought this was too cool to wait. I took a stroll over to Dover High School on Sunday afternoon this past weekend. Was bored and figured I would kill some time by trying out some HDR shots of the campus and athletic fields. The sky was real moody for these shots. Rain was in the forecast, but wasn't due for a few hours so I took my chances. The photo at the top was my favorite. Pretty simple. Captured this up on the bleachers overlooking the football field. Looks really cool, but didn't take much to make this shot, surprisingly. The photo is three exposures merged into one. One metered correctly, and the other two are over and under exposed by two stops. Merged in Photomatix and colors punched up a bit in photoshop. The afternoon clouds made for some great HDR shots. This shot below of the baseball field is ok, but I like the first one better.

Well that's it for me today. Check back tomorrow and hopefully I'll start on my backlog of photos; starting with my trip to Kennebunck Port this past weekend.

Cheers

An End to the Filter Debate

Well, not really an end, but basically I think I can present my case pretty well enough. Let me start by first explaining why I personally like to use the filter. First of all, they do not affect image quality....at all. For 99% of the people out there, they will not know the difference from a picture with a UV filter and one without. To prove this point, I decided to take some photos. I recently purchased the 50mm 1.8 lens and grabbed a clear UV filter from Ritz to put on the end. Look at these two pictures. Can you tell which one has the filter?
The picture on the top has the filter and the one below it does not. It's virtually impossible to tell this difference with the naked eye.

The other reason why I like to use the UV filter on all my lenses, is because it provides that extra layer of protection for the front lens element. I've heard so many horror stories of people dropping their lenses, only to have the front UV filter get damaged while the precious glass underneath remains unscathed. It's much cheaper to replace a 20 dollar UV filter than it is to replace a 1,000 dollar lens.

Don't be an idiot. Protect your glass.

Achilles with the 50

I haven't posted a pic of Achilles in a while so I figured I would take one and throw everything I had at it. I set up the tripod in the upstairs hallway where he likes to sit and I attached my flash. It's a tight area with white walls so it's pretty nice for doing a small bounce job. I also touched it up quite a bit in photoshop...which I think is pretty apparent here, but I wanted to try a couple plug-ins I just picked up. Came out pretty great I think.

Got the one year anniversary tomorrow with the lady. Very exciting! Check back Sunday night when I personally put an end to the UV filter debate.

Cheers

Portrait with a 50

I've decided to venture into portrait territory and decided to be my own first subject.  I currently have no light stand and just one speedlight and nothing to modify the light with.  Just a cold, hard, flash.  I set my camera up on the tripod in my bedroom and took a few test shots to get the focus just right.  I went back and forth a few times making small adjustments to get it close enough, but didnt fuss with it too too much.  I think the focus looks decent.  I set the flash to remote and just basically held it out at arms length and that was pretty much it.  Converted to black and white in Photoshop.  I probably tried ever facial expression imaginable but I liked these three the best.  All were taken with the new 50mm 1.8 lens.

Really liking this lens so far and highly recommend it.  Might even use one of these for the profile pic.  Well that's all for me.  Time to fold some laundry and hit the sack.

Cheers

Boston with a 50 & New Wesbite

Well I've got my first 50mm gallery up and running on the new website. I decided to make a "Personal Collection" page for any galleries I create outside the realm of normal landscape or portrait work. This gallery was shot entirely with the Nikon 50mm 1.8 lens. The first set of images are from the museum of science, followed by a black and white set in the Beacon Hill area, and some final shots of the gardens in the Common. The new website also contains some additional galleries of my previous work in the Landscapes and Pets sections. It's still a work in progress, but at least it's viewable now. The whole thing is pretty much done in CSS which I haven't really used since college so I'm a little rusty. At some point I'll host it myself, but SmugMug gets the job done. Links are below. Enjoy.

New Website
Boston 50mm Gallery

50mm Fun

Since Sara and I planned on going to Boston for the day yesterday, I decided to pick up a 50mm prime so I wouldn't have to lug my 18-200 around all day. I decided to go with Nikon's 50 f1.8 lens which I picked up form Ritz for about $139....I think. Don't quite remember the exact price. You can find many technical reviews online, but I thought it would be cool to show so finished photographs I took with it. Overall I think it blows my 18-200 away in terms of quality and sharpness. It also forced me to really think about my shots since I had move around to frame things. It's kind of fun to limit yourself to one focal length for a couple days. It almost forces you to be more creative. The next couple posts will be the shots I've taken in Boston and the Redhook 5K this weekend using only the 50mm lens. This will give me a chance to show off the new website too. Check back later.