Group Portraits Speed Sessions

I volunteered to help our church create a member directory with photos. Four of us in the church are familiar with those camera thingys and joined to help make this happen.

Churches usually hire some pro outfit to come in and take everyones photos, but our church just can't afford it. It's cheaper and easier for them to upload our digital image files into their database software and then generate the actual directory.

Our setup is simple. Our goal is something slightly better than a mugshot but not as formal or nice as proper portraits. We have a large paper background that is solid gray. Lighting is done with one speedlight pointed upwards at the low, white ceiling (with white bounce card extended on the flash head).

Yesterday was our first Sunday to do this. We're planning on taking photos for four Sundays total. There are over 300 members (and "member" includes family units) of the church and we've only captured 47.

Shooting was rather painless. Yesterday, myself and one other volunteer worked the sessions after each of the three church services. One of us helped to move people in and out of the room while taking their names on a notepad. Both of us helped to situate and arrange people for the photo.

I worked the camera, and in most cases it only took one shot. After each shot, I'd quickly check the LCD and make sure that everyone was smiling, had their eyes open, and nothing looked too funny. We jotted down the file number next to peoples names on the notepad to match photos-to-names later on.

About halfway through yesterday's shooting, I realized my wonderful Canon flash (580EX) was doing some whacky stuff with the exposures. Some shots looked right-on, but about half were either over or under-exposed by as much as 1-stop.

There were subtle differences between each group shot, but the shooting parameters (e.g. distance from camera to subject, position of the flash, distance from subject to background, etc.) were pretty much the same. I switched the flash to full manual mode and that solved the problem. I should have foreseen this problem. It wasn't too difficult to correct in processing the RAW files, however. But I won't be making the same mistake in future sessions.

Oh, the gray background is perfect. It matched well with everyone regardless of color and served to adjust the white balance in RAW processing.

Only three more Sundays to go... :-)

Giant Yoda

What does an eight-foot tall Yoda made of LEGO® bricks look like? Well, there was one in Baybrook Mall this past weekend :-)

The new LEGO store at the mall celebrated its grand opening over the weekend, and TexLUG (the LEGO fan group that I'm in) volunteered to help with the giant build.

a smaller model of Yoda sits atop the unfinished giant model

Of course I took my camera along to document the event. It was a lot of fun watching the kids (and adults too) help build the model. The process involved the public building "macro" bricks (large bricks made up of smaller bricks) that were then passed to the master model builder (from LEGO) to place in the final Yoda model. Click on the images to see the full gallery of my photos.

master model builder, Dan, hard at work

Fishing at Sunset

This photo, taken last week, comes from our annual family reunion in New Braunfels. Our family has been gathering once a year for a long or short weekend for 36 years now. The fisherman is my cousin, Travis, and he's winding down a long, nice day of family gathering on the back deck. This spring-fed pond is in Landa Park, and the water is clear and cold :-)

click for larger image

This was an impromptu shot. I walked outside right before sunset and took a look at the clouds. The sky and cloud patterns had potential for nice color. Travis moved around a lot, so I decided to keep it quick, and take handheld shots (as opposed to using the tripod and spending a long time with the shot).

I used my Canon 5D and 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II lens with no filter. It was shot in RAW at 35mm, 1/160 sec., f/8, and ISO 400.

I processed the RAW file twice: once at -0.5 ev (for the sky) and again at +0.5 ev for the foreground. I then feathered the lighter exposure (foreground) over the darker (sky) to have a more balanced looking exposure overall.

What I did to get this shot (in shooting and in processing) is a good way to capture a scene like this when shooting hand-held. I also didn't worry about loosing detail in the shadow areas since I was going for the classic and cliche silhouette look. If I had been using the tripod, then I would have shot several different exposures of the same scene.

I'm still impressed by the 28-105mm lens. The sharpness (at f/8) appears to be as good as my more expensive "L" lenses. It does, however, lack the color and contrast "pop" as seen in the better lenses, but most of that can be brought back by careful post-processing.

Beer Review No. 5

This beer review is roughly my fifth here on the blog, and it features five beers. I didn't plan it that way :-)

First up is a nice selection from New Belgium Brewing Co. I've come to really, really enjoy beer from this brewer. There's just something about the taste, in general, of all their beers. More about that later...

click for larger image

(Just in case you're wondering, those are LEGO parts in the photo :-) I've been building a lot lately, and nothing goes better with an afternoon of creative brick building than a quality beer)

Blue Paddle (pilsener lager) This was different from what I'm used to from NB. It's got a very slight hoppy taste that hampers some of its smoothness, but it has that nice, NB base flavor*. There's just something a bit different in the taste that I can't pin down. I tried it for the first time last Saturday, and I wasn't too impressed. But I tried it again on Sunday with a totally clean pallet and really enjoyed it. I think it's a taste that doesn't mix well with other beers (I'd been drinking a little 1554 on Sat.).

1554 (enlightened black ale) Wow, this was great. 1554 is a Guinness stout meets Fat Tire in a subdued and balanced mix. It is rich, but not too rich. It has awesome flavor that is just right. This was my first experience with this beer, and I'll be drinking much more of it in the near future :-)

Abbey (Belgian style ale) Now we're getting to my favorite beer type - Belgian Ale, and NB's Abbey is good. It's rich and tastey, having that full-flavored ale taste. It's smooth and goes down well. And, best of all, it has hints of that classic "base" flavor*. If you've never tried a Belgian Ale, this is a good one to start with.

Trippel (Belgian style ale) NB's Trippel is extremely full and has a bit of the "base" NB flavor*. It doesn't have a very strong "sweet doughy" taste that other heavy trippels have (like Maredsous, St. Bernardus, etc.), thus earning them the nickname, "liquid bread". But it's still pretty darn good. I wouldn't hesitate to buy it when in the mood for such a beer (which I frequently am :-) )

* All NB's beers all have a little bit of that "base" flavor. This is the characteristic smokey, burned flavor that is so prevalent in Fat Tire (one of my favorites from NB). It's a unique taste that I absolutely love, and one that keeps me coming back to NB's fine beers. I cannot say enough good things about it - just get out and try some!

** Another side-note that I'd like to mention about NB's beers is that they usually all taste pretty fresh. Well, no bottled beer is going to taste as good as draft, and some really suck in that respect, but NB's beers capture a lot of that freshness and it comes through nicely once you've popped that cap off.

click for larger image

Salvator (Double Bock; by Paulaner) I've reviewed this beer before, but I thought I'd mention it again since I just had some this past weekend :-) I picked up the Blue Paddle and 1554 at my local Specs (Houston) and couldn't resist getting this little bottle. For $2-something, I just couldn't pass it up.

I always get smiles from the folks at Specs when they see me there. It's probably because I'm a frequent flyer and they recognize me, but I like to think that they're pleased with my beer selection :-) The beer guy always smiles and nods his head. I guess I'm just a different customer than the beer posers that come in looking for beer-flavored-water, er... Coors Light. I guess I'd cringe too at the sight of Billy-Bob and Cletus bumbling in the store on a Friday afternoon, knowing that they're going to stand at the cooler holding three doors open while debating over Miller or Bud or Coors and which gives the worst hangover.

Anyway, I love this thick, hearty beer. It has a strong "sweet doughy" taste that verges on being sour. It might be overpowering for some, and it's not as well balanced as the grander beers made by Maredsous, St. Bernardus, etc., but the Salvator is still pretty darn good. If Maredsous were a 10, the Salvator would be a 9.

Death Valley Book

It's done. Our book is ready for order. (Actually, it's been ready since last month, but I've been a lazy blogger lately).

The book is a collection of photos from everyone who attended the February 2008 Radiant Vista photography workshop in Death Valley. The book project was created by Saul S. (one of my "classmates") and myself. Saul and I worked with the rest of the group to gather photo submissions from everyone and generate the electronic file using Blurb's software: BookStupid... er, BookSmart.Blurb did a fine job with my sample copy of the book. For the price, the printing was quite nice and the overall quality of the book is on par with the usual fare at your local mega-bookstore.

www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/248026





The book is a wonderful keepsake and an impressive study of photography. It's fascinating because there are so many different photos taken of the same places at the same times. Each photographer in our group had their own unique photographic vision and style (just like our different personalities), and the photos show a window into each person's inner being.

I cannot help but sit still for a moment while I reflect on that amazing week. Never have I felt so connected with the landscape. Never have I felt so full of creativity, my mind rolling in positive, free-flowing thoughts. The excitement was like being 8 again and experiencing Christmas day over and over for a week. The stimulating, creative atmosphere was an amazing experience, and I try very hard not to forget the natural highs we all enjoyed.





The book is great. It really is. I'll show it to you if you live close to me and want to see it :-)

New Addition to the Avery Clan

The big news around here is that come mid-October-ish, we'll have a new addition to the Avery clan. Yes, once again we'll be subject to changing daipers and hand-feeding a little one. Oh wait... we're still doing that :-)

click for larger images

Little Henry is excited, but still doesn't fully realize what's going to happen. Sharing toys is too hard for him right now, so I can't imaging what he'll do when he has to share mommy and daddy.

Looks like it's going to be another boy. We're definitely excited. Although we really didn't care if it was a boy or girl. We just wanted a second child. They only thing we're hoping and praying for is a healthy baby.

Forest Light & HDR

Over a month ago, my family and I camped at Bastrop state park. I did a little serious photography* and spent some brief time exploring the patches of bracken fern in the pine forest.

I've still not yet processed all my images from those serious sessions. In fact, I've only done one.



Click for larger image
Most of those shots contain a very wide dynamic range, more than my camera's sensor can handle effectively. What makes these shots difficult is that the bright areas are mixed within the dark areas. I.e. there aren't large seperate portions of bright and dark, like in a typical wide-angle landscape shot where you can somewhat easily deal with the wide dynamic range using split neutral density filters or simulate that effect with multiple exposures in Photoshop.

The photo above is a blend of two different exposures. I blended them by hand using masks in Photoshop, and I painted in (or out) different areas to make the overall photo natural looking (and consequently, HDR - high (or wide) dynamic range).

The technique is fairly straightforward, but it requires a lot of work as well as trial and error. Being daunted by this amount of work, I've put off processing the rest of my images from this trip. (If you're wondering why I'm not using a more automated processing program like Photomatix or PS's Merge to HDR, it's because I've never been able to get realistic looking results.)

Recently, I've come across a new blending program - TuFuse. Many thanks to Jeff K. for this find!

TuFuse blends multiple exposures by using an "exposure weight curve" that targets the midtones. It's easy to use and the results are surprisingly impressive. Although it does have its negatives. The program does not handle subject movement (between the multiple exposures) well.

Like Jeff, I'm finding that TuFuse'd blended images serve well to fill in the transition areas. When I manually stack multiple exposures in Photoshop, I make very quick and rough "cuts" (using masks) to blend the exposures, then I'll refine the overal exposure blend by "masking-in" sections of the TuFuse'd image. The sections that get "masked-in" are the transition areas, or rather, the boundaries between dark and light areas of the photo. These transition areas are the most difficult to create using all-manual methods (i.e. painting sections of the layers in or out using layer masks).

TuFuse looks very promising in this respect. You might ask, "why not use the whole TuFuse image?" Well, it's good, but not that good. To me, blended exposures always seem to look better and more realistic if a good portion of the photo contains pixels from the ORIGINAL exposures.

I will keep experimenting with TuFuse. And hopefully I'll find some motivation to finish processing those "forest light" images :-)

BTW, the "forest light" experience was amazing. Seeing the fern-blanketed ground hit by beams of evening sunlight was good for the soul. The pine forest glowed warmly and took on an aura of tranquility and fantasy. I halfway expected to see a hobbit or elf pop up and start talking to me.

* serious, meaning that I got to focus 100% on photography and didn't have to watch my son - as he always travels down that knife-edge between safety and danger :-) complete with those heart-pounding "oh crap" moments as he frequently attempts to do something that would surely result in blood, tears, and a trip to the ER). Many thanks to my wife for giving me respite of my parenting duties and allowing me a little one-on-one time with nature and my camera :-)

Washington-on-the-Brazos Wildflowers

I'm still sorting through my back-log of photos taken over the past month or so. Here's a pair taken in late March at Washington-on-the-Brazos state park.



click for larger pics
These were taken hand-held with my 5D and trusty "beater" lens (the Canon 28-105mm). When I say hand-held, it doesn't exactly mean what you'd normally think (e.g. like some tourist with a digicam held at arms length). These shots were taken with me squatting on the ground, elbows planted firmly against my legs, and camera smashed up against my face. That's as close to a tripod as I can get without using a tripod.

I didn't have the luxury of taking my time with these shots or planning them at a different time of day to catch better light. I was with my wife and son to enjoy a family outing to see the wildflowers. My wife was assigned monkey-wrangling duty (i.e. watching our son) while I paused for these pics.

I really wanted to get a portrait of those two in the flowers, but it didn't quite work out. Henry is constantly moving and won't sit still for anything. If you try to hold him against his will, you're likely to catch a stray flying elbow or fist. I never knew holding onto a 3-year old could be so dangerous :-)

Anyway, W-o-t-B park has a few nice trails out into the woods. They're short and well-traveled, but we did find neat openings into the woods with wildflowers right next to the trails. With better light, I think you could find a few decent small-scale landscape scenes worth shooting there.

And, it's a great place to take the family for a picnic and portraits in the wildflowers (much safer than the side of the highway).

Macro Fun

A while back I bought a 58mm filter thread reversing ring that will attach two lenses together: filter threads to filter threads. The reversed lens acts like a magnifying glass.

A few weekends ago, I got to playing around in the backyard with our bumper crop of Amaryllis. First, here's the rig:



Now, a photo from that setup:



click for larger pic
The above photo is roughly a 50% crop of the original. This shows you how narrow the DOF is, even with the main lens stopped down to f/8. I shot this hand-held (used ISO 800). I wanted to get a shot of these tiny, fast-moving bugs crawling on the Amaryllis. So I sat on the ground, braced my elbows against my legs, and gently rocked to bring the focus in and out. When I saw a bug in the viewfinder, I "chased" the bug with the point of focus and fired on burst mode. (I didn't use the flash for these bugs-on-the-move photos)



click for larger pic
The above is a non-cropped shot of the flower's anther. For this shot, the camera was mounted on a tripod and MLU was engaged. I also used an off-camera flash and a white reflector underneath the flower for fill-in light (the main light was the sun coming from an angle behind the flower). I swapped the old 55mm lens with a Canon 50mm f/1.4. I also added a Tamron 1.4x teleconverter. I focused on the front fibers of the anther and waited for one of the bugs to crawl past.



click for larger pic
This heavily cropped shot is of a very small ant ("sugar" ant, or some type of ant slightly smaller than a typical fireant). I found this guy deceased and placed him on a white sheet of paper. The light is from a single florescent blub placed at close range (custom WB done on the paper). This shot was done inside my house (too much wind outside!) with the camera on a tripod and MLU engaged. I again used the Canon 50mm reversed (instead of the old 55mm lens) with the 1.4x teleconverter AND added 68mm worth of extension tubes. The great part about shooting static subjects indoors is that it allows you to use very long shutter speeds (i.e. you don't need great amounts of light). I set the ISO on 200, used a small aperture, and let the shutter speeds be what they needed to be (several seconds).



click for larger pic
The shot of the fly was done with my "normal" macro set up: extension tubes and a Canon 70-200 f/4L. This shot was made handheld (these bugs don't stay in one place for very long) and I used the off-camera flash. The funny thing was seeing the fly jump at every flash. When it popped, the fly would jump up and then land almost in the same spot as it was before the flash.

Butterfly and the Cheap Lens

A while back, I bought a Canon 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM lens to use casually. I wanted a beater lens that was cheap, light, and small, and that I could haul around for snapshots. I wasn't too concerned with optical quality, but I did choose this lens because it seemed to be given better reviews than some of the other consumer (non-L) Canon zooms.

The 28-105mm is very light and small compared to my other lenses. It has USM and focuses without hesitation or complaint. For what it is, this lens is well built and solid. Coupled with my 5D, the package is very portable and somewhat unobtrusive (just see what kind of attention you get hauling around a large and heavy Canon L lens!).

Optically, it has surprised me again and again. In the past couple of months, I've taken to shooting more seriously with this lens.



click for larger pic

The 28-105mm does lack the bite that the more expensive lenses provide. There is a slight loss of sharpness. The colors and contrast are a little bit subdued. But with careful RAW processing and editing in Photoshop, I've been able to snap things back to what I'm used to from the heavier, higher quality lenses. Well, almost.

At the short end (28mm), there is some softness that just cannot be corrected in post work. But, it's not terribly bad. I've seen much worse :-) I'm quite comfortable making 8x10 or 11x14 prints of photos taken with this lens.

Camping, Part II

Earlier this year, Henry and I camped in the backyard. He loved it, of course, and I promised to take him camping for real.

In early April, we all went to Bastrop State Park for two nights of camping. Henry had a blast. He hiked well, somewhat minding us as we walked along, and stuck it out for most of a 2.5 mile hike. Sleeping in the tents was fun for him too. It wasn't Big Bend, but we all had a great time.


   
click for larger pics

Dove at 1254mm

The second installment of the photo diary continues today with a little fun from my backyard.

Here's a non-cropped shot of a white-wing dove sitting 30 - 40 feet away from me. This was taken at 1254mm (effective): Canon 40D with 400mm f/5.6 lens and two 1.4x teleconverters. The lens stack-up has a max. aperture of f/11, and I stopped down one stop from max. for this photo (f/16 effective). This was taken at ISO 400, 1/320 sec. shutter speed, locked down on a heavy tripod, and MLU engaged.



click for larger pic
I don't normally shoot with two tc's attached, but I wanted to test this setup just to satisfy my own curiosity. I thought the resulting photo would look like it was taken through the thick bottom of a glass bottle (after all, the image is going through a lot of glass before it reaches the sensor), but the results are better than I expected. Stopping down once helped increase the sharpness and contrast, but there was still a slight loss. Most of the loss was cleaned up in Photoshop.

Anyway, this was just for fun! :-)

High Island Beach Scenics

This kicks off a new category, "Photo Diary", where I intend to feature a photo or two from an outing that I've had. I frequently get to shoot just a bit while out and about (that's the great thing about photography - cameras are portable!), but not enough to justify a dozen+ photo "gallery" page on my photo website. So I'm going to feature these one-off* photos on my blog.

* I would have used the term, "one-hit-wonder", but that would imply that these photos are actually good :-)

First up: the beach at High Island, Texas. My family and I watched the sunset and moonrise as we spent an evening on the beach last month. The beach is riddled with shells, rocks, and broken glass, yet I chanced fate and walked around barefoot just because I wanted to feel free. My body got a refreshing shock when the water surged up and blasted around my ankles. Yep, check 1 - I'm alive, and check 2 - the water's damn cold.

After reassuring myself that I had a pulse, two things about the beach really caught my attention (besides everything being bathed in the warm pink-orange light of sunset), 1) the old piers and pelicans, and 2) the moonrise.

click for larger pics

Both were shot on a tripod with a Canon 5D + 17-40mm lens. I chanced fate again with the first shot and put my tripod in the water with the camera set low. I actually had to pick the whole rig up when a big surge came rolling up to prevent salt water splashing up on my gear.

I would loved to have stayed long past sunset. I was itching to get some long exposures of the surf with either the moon in the composition, or perhaps reflections of the moon on the water or wet sand. But, it had been a long day and my family was with me and not as eager to particpate in the joys of near-dark long-exposure landscape photography on a windy and cold public beach :-) (sounds like fun, huh?)