April 27, 2010-Day 117

Sunflare, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

Still working on sunflare.

April 26, 2010-Day 116

Macro Buddha, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

I'm not a Buddhist, but I love happy Buddha. Seriously, how can you not look at him and smile?

April 25, 2010-Day 115

Pearls, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

My pearls.

April 24, 2010-Day 114

Dandelion, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

I'm a little behind with posting, but I have kept up with taking a photo each day.

April 23, 2010-Day 113

Bee, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

I got a bee! Okay, he's blurry, but, still, a photo of a bee. I'm excited.

April 22, 2010-Day 112

Orchid, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

My orchid is a great test subject for practice.

April 21, 2010-Day 111

Time, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

Still practicing manually focusing with the macro lens.

April 20, 2010-Day 110

I've been practicing a lot with my new macro lens, but I have really been struggling, especially with manual focus.  Going through the photos I took today was really frustrating because the focus is really off on most of them.  Then, I saw this photo.  Finally, a nice, sharp macro photo.  Hopefully I am finally starting to get the hang of this and this photo isn't just luck.




Also, here's one of Stripes, who posed nicely for me this morning. 



Both of these photos were taken with the 100mm F2.8, which shows what a versatile lens it is.

April 19, 2010-Day 109

Sun flare, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

Trying to get some sunflare. I probably should have taken the UV lens off.

April 18, 2010-Day 108

Here is my photo for the day:



And here is an experiment.  I've been having a little difficulty figuring out depth of field (DOP), especially when it comes to macro.  If you are good in math, there is a handy calculator that you can use: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html.

I, however, have been having some difficulty using the calculator, so someone from the photo chatboard I frequent suggested that I try an experiment to help me understand DOF better. What I did was take a photo of my orchid from 5 feet away with an aperture of F2.8, then F4, F5.6, F8, F16, and F22.  I did the same thing from 3 feet away and then 1 foot away.  I already knew that as my aperture gets smaller (which is actually represented by the larger number; i.e. F2.8 is the largest aperture in the experiement and F22 is the smallest aperture in the experiment) that there will be more in focus, so there will be a larger DOF.  A wider aperture will create a shallower DOF.  The experiement helped clarify for me, however, that being closer to your subject will also create a shallower DOF.  Therefore, if you get closer to your subject, less of your subject will be in focus unless you make your aperture smaller.  This is very important to understand when using a macro lens because I would normally use a large aperture, like 2.8 or even larger, when photographing a flower in order to get some nice bokah, but with a macro lens, I might be too close to my subject, and I won't be able to get much of the subject in focus with an aperture of 2.8.  It still might be a cool photo, but it will probably be more abstract.  I want to thank Michele Louise for suggesting this experiment to me because it has really help clarify DOF for me. I don't know how well you can see all of this from the photos, but here they are:

From 5 feet away; F2.8:



5Ft; F4:



5Ft; F5.6:



5Ft; F8:



5Ft; F16:



5Ft; F22:



From 3Ft; F2.8:



3Ft; F4:



3Ft; F5.6:



3Ft; F8:



3Ft; F16:



3Ft; F22:



From 1Ft; F2.8:



1Ft; F4:



1Ft: F5.6:



1Ft; F8:



1Ft: F16:



1Ft; F22:

April 17, 2010-Day 107

April 17, 2010 , originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

Here's one of the few pictures I was able to take today before it started raining.

April 16, 2010 -Day 106

April 16, 2010 , originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

And yet more fun with macro.

April 15, 2010-Day 105

More fun with macro:

April 14, 2010-Day 104

While I was over by the Empire State Building on April 13th, I decided to head over to B&H Photo and I bought the Canon 100mm F2.8 Macro.  Here are a few of my pictures.  Macro is fun, but it is a little difficult getting used to the lens.  I think I am doing okay as long as I can auto focus, but I really need to practice manually focusing.

April 13, 2010-Day 103

The Empire State Building, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

Here's another view of the Empire State Building.

April 12, 2010-Day 102

I was having more fun with my 55-250 today.

April 11, 2010-Day 101

A backyard in NYC, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

This person seems to be using their fire escape as both a backyard (can you spot the hibachi and the plant) and a storage room.

April 10, 2010-Day 100

Day 100!  I have to say I am pretty proud of myself for getting this far.  Also, I think today's photos make up for yesterday's horrible shot.

I did very little post processing on these, other than sharpening for the web. On this one, I just upped the contrast very, very slightly.



This one I just cropped.



Here, I tried to experiment with zooming while taking the photo. I needed to increase the exposure a little in post processing because the zoom caused the aperture to change, decreasing the exposure.

April 9, 2010-Day 99

Last Minute, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

On Flickr, I titled this photo "Last Minute." I went out to dinner with an old friend last night, and didn't get around to taking my photo until really late. I finally just took a picture with my powershot (using the flash!) of this tree. The picture is not good. So I decided to see if any editing could save it. So I made the background completely black (it was pretty close to black already) and then I increased the greens to make the branches this unnatural neon color. Okay, it's still not a great photo, but it is vastly improved.

April 8, 2010-Day 98

 I decided to practice using my speedlight in my garden gnome, Robert.  He actually lives inside my house.

Here is a picture of Robert bouncing the flash off the ceiling at a 45 degree angle behind me.  Since the flash was behind me, it did not create a shadow.



In this photo of Robert, I bounced the flash off of a window that is to the right of him so that he would be sidelit.  I think that Robert looks more three dimensional in this photo, but the flash created a shadow behind him.  Does anyone know how I could have prevented the shadow?

April 7, 2010-Day 97

Ladybug season.

April 6, 2010-Day 96

April 6, 2010, originally uploaded by Ms. Baboo.

Yes, more flowers. But I really like the dirt on the leaves.

April 5, 2010-Day 95

Opening Day for the Mets!  It was a perfect day.  The weather was gorgeous; my boyfriend, uh, I mean David Wright, hit a homerun; and the Mets won 7-1!  And, to top it all off, I think I got some decent photographs.  Of course, I took over 500, so I really should have gotten something, but I am still pretty proud of myself.  All of these photographs were either taken with my kit lens (love the wide angle) or my 55-250.  If anyone is interested in doing outdoor sports photography, but doesn't want to spend a lot of money, I highly recommend the 55-250.  I took most of these pictures from the 4th level at Citifield.  Notice that you can actually see the ball in the air in some of them.

Citifield:



Home Run Apple:



The National Anthem:







The Fly Over:



Santana:



David Wright's Homerun:  (See the ball in the air)



Play Ball!  (See the ball again)