Archive for the 'Photography' Category

I have been very very busy working on lots of things that I can’t talk about.

Roger is but days away from his 8th birthday. In this photo, he is illuminated by the same LEDs I used to illuminate my self-portrait with a bit of emphasis on the less extreme range of lighting.

I like the result. Captured Roger nicely in one of his rare quiet moments.

I also grabbed an extreme close-up of the LEDs reflected in his eye. You can see the shape of the source of illumination.

A couple of days ago as Ben and I were biking into work, we stopped at an intersection and chatted with one of the folk who maintains the stoplights in the Cupertino / San Jose / Sunnyvale area.

He was in the process of changing out some of the lamps in the cross walk signs, eliminating at least one incandescent lamp and replacing an LED element with a newer model.

I took a moment to examine the LED element that he had removed and he gave it to me. SWEET!

It is somewhere around 60+ reddish-orange LEDs arranged on a printed circuit board in the form of the standard “don’t walk” hand. It is backed by a power supply such that it can be plugged into a standard 120v outlet.

And it is bright. Seriously, blindingly, bright.

I figured it would also make a neat light source for photography and decided to use it as the sole source of illumination for a self portrait. I put the camera on a tripod, used a remote switch to control the shutter, and aimed the LEDs at my head from a slightly down and off-to-the-left position.

Interesting shot. I dig it.

That is pretty much the natural color of the image. I did very little post-processing beyond cropping the image.

The one processing parameters that I did tweak that had a major impact on the resulting image, was to use Aperture’s RAW 1.0 processor instead of the 2.0 processor.

Much to my surprise, the difference between the two is huge!

Normally, I use the 2.0 processor and don’t think much about it. It does a great job, to these unprofessional eyes.

However, it appears that photos in the extremes of range are not necessarily best processed by the 2.0 pipeline.

Specifically: the only difference between the image on the right and the image above is the use of the 2.0 (right) vs. 1.0 (above) RAW processing pipeline. All other adjustments are the same.

That is a significant difference!

Certainly an eye opener and I will be re-evaulating certain images in light of this.

A bug? Hardly. Converting a RAW image to something that can be rendered on screen requires a relatively complex bit of math that is specifically designed to yield reasonable results given a wide range of reasonable inputs.

This is not a very reasonable image. It is lit by an intense light source comprised of relatively narrow bands of color; mostly orangish red.

I wonder what other RAW pipelines might do with this image? I dropped the original RAQ (w/sidecar) in a zip file on a server, if curious.

I played with the image a bit with both the 2.0 and the 1.0 pipeline. I couldn’t post-process the 2.0 image to bring out the level of detail/features found in the 1.0 image. Caveat: I barely know what I’m doing.

Honestly, I’m not sure which image is “less correct”. I like the 1.0 image a lot better in that I like the range of oranges that seem to be utterly missing in the 2.0 image.

My general impression of RAW pipelines is that there is a tremendous amount of math behind the RAW conversion process, but there is also a whole bunch of tuning for aesthetics. Camera sensors simply do not have the dynamic range of the human eye and, thus, RAW conversion is partially about compensating for the limitations of the sensors.

Our neighbor, Ron, gave us a couple of these ball cactus that had sprouted off of a cactus he has had for year. Ron said it had really pretty flowers, but it had only bloomed a few times in the decade plus that he has had it and it probably wouldn’t bloom for a while.

Apparently, this particular cactus has other ideas. Or maybe it just didn’t like Ron (just kidding, Ron!). It bloomed once last year, impressive tall pink bloom.

This year, it set two buds prior to WWDC and, of course, bloomed during WWDC when I was in San Francisco. Bummer. I figured i had missed the blooms for the year.

Not so!

In the spring, the cactus covers itself in about a dozen little hairy potential blossoms. Most of these will fall off and, typically, all of the remaining ones will fall off after the cactus blooms once in the season.

Not so this year!

The week after WWDC, two of the remaining hairy buds turned into bloom stalks and, sure enough, the cactus bloomed again!

The bloom stalks shoot up to that height over the course of just a few days, literally growing an inch or two per day.

Then they pause for a moment with a bit of pink showing at the end before bursting into the flowers seen at left that only last for 2, maybe 3, days.

Awesome flowers, too. Beautiful pastel pink, with a deep deep throat. These blooms evolved to be pollinated by very large moths (hummingbird sized moths) or bats, apparently.

Our neighbor has an epiphyllum — a night blooming dessert plant (not a cactus) that is pollinated similarly.

When it bloomed a year or two ago, I took a handful of photos.

While taking some long exposure photos, I was buzzed by something that sounded an awful lot like a hummingbird. Of course, it wasn’t.

It was actually one of the moths coming in to consume whatever the plant had to offer. It doesn’t appear to eat the pollen, but douses itself in pollen as it climbs all the way into these deep blooms.

I even managed to capture some photos! I can affirm that it is, in fact, very difficult to take a picture of a rather large, very fast moving, insect in the pitch of night.

Just like the cactus.

I keep hoping that such a pollinator shows up for the cactus blooms, but so far it hasn’t happened. The blooms have faded since the above photo was taken and I suspect this will be it until next year.

Duncan posted a bit of a write up on changing your point of view when taking photos. Specifically, take a typical scene and shoot a picture from something other than the typical sight line.

So true.

This was shot while lying on my belly with the camera on the deck in front of me. I had to cock my head at a painful angle to actually get an eye on the viewfinder.

When moving from my Sony F-505 to the Canon Digital Rebel, I find that I really miss the 505’s ability to pivot lens from the viewfinder (505 used an LCD, later models also had a digital viewfinder).

It was genius. You could pivot the LCD upwards of 90 degrees off axis from the lens and shoot the scene in front of you from your hip or shoot way over your head while actually seeing what you were shooting!

It was a shining example of Sony’s potential to achieve brilliant hardware design and software implementation in a single package.

I honestly believe that my experience with the 505 contributed greatly to my success while stumbling through the newbie stage of dealing with a proper– if relatively entry level– digital SLR.

To get this rather dramatic shot, I was balanced on the loading deck of the back of a truck sandwiched between the truck and a chain link fence, putting the camera an extra 6 feet off the ground.

That is, I’m not afraid to lie in the dirt to get a shot from an interesting angle and I have been known to balance precariously on top of a stack of unstable objects to grab a scene from a unique angle.

This is also likely why I really dig the Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens. It is just so terribly sharp while offering a focal length that both provides a bit of zoomery while still being short enough to allow one to easily walk back/forth a few feet as necessary to frame a subject appropriately.

This is a seemingly simple shot. But think about how it would have looked if I shot from a comfortable standing position — the flowers would have been just below my eye level and would have completely blocked Roger. This angle gives a much better perspective of just how bloody big these iris were while also framing Roger’s face nicely in a ring of purple.

The Bug? That was a lie in the dirt and sharp rocks such that the sun hit the bug at just the right angle shot. Sucks when the bug flies away before you take the picture.

All of the shots in this post are examples therein. Every one of them required either kneeling, flat out lying on the ground (or muck), or occasionally climbing into some rather precarious position.

And sometimes, it is all about taking a shot halfway between upright and lying down.

This disembodied roger head was taken somewhere between kneeling and standing. Fortunately, it was sunny enough that I could use a really darned fast shutter speed because my legs were shaking in their halfway-down/halfway-up position.

For each, imagine if the same shot were taken from the default sight line. Boring.

While out and about today, Christine picked up a Turbo Bubble Machine.

We tossed the bubble solution into it and set it up on a pot in the middle of the backyard.

Roger and Ruby had a blast chasing bubbles, popping bubbles, eating bubbles….

Ruby is obsessed with anything that refracts light. To the point where she will ignore food if there is a shadow, point of light, or something shiny to chase.

So, of course, she was completely enamored with bubbles.

She needed a good long drink of water after playing to get all the bubbles out.




“Mmmmm.. bubbles are tasty!”

I have always had a soft spot for cactus. They are really quite remarkable plants, after all.

A plant that has figured out a way to exist in some of the harshest climates on the planet while also producing massive growth.

Even more impressive, cactus often produce just flat out stunning blooms.

I have one barrel cactus that is less than 10 inches in diameter that still produced a bloom that was well over 1 foot tall and a good 4″ in diameter! All from what looked to be some little fuzzy growth nubbins in the spring. Better yet, it looks like this cactus is going to do the same again this year!

Like orchids, Cactus often rely upon non-bee pollinators and, thus, it isn’t altogether surprising that their blooms are not really optimized to making the pollen as accessible as possible.

I found this particular cactus on someone’s yard clippings pile while driving home one day. I stopped and grabbed a big chunk.

I figured that I would throw it in the ground and it would either take root or turn to compost.

Take root it did! Last year it didn’t do much, but it didn’t rot either. Apparently, it was setting down roots.

This year, though, it decided to grow what I thought were a bunch of new leaves.

It turns out that they were, in fact, buds and the cactus was going to flower!

This cactus is some kind of prickly pear (Opuntia) and the flower buds are very likely growing on top of what will turn into fruit. All the better because prickly pear is quite delicious with a unique flavor.

And, if the spine are not obvious enough, prickly pear is often one of the more painful fruits to clean unless you are very very careful.

The blossoms are compact, but just loaded with pollen. I haven’t seen anything visiting them yet, but they may be a flower optimized to some kind of night flying pollinator — typically a moth or bat.

The prickly pear (Opuntia) is one of the few cold tolerant cactus species. They are commonly found throughout the southwest US and Mexico.

Given that they grow very quickly, it is common to see piles of prickly pear cuttings at the side of the road. They sprout easily and, thus, it is trivial to start your own pear garden.

I have another species of prickly pear at the other corner of the house. It looks like it is setting blooms, too, which amazes me given that I just dropped cuttings — found on the side of the road — in the ground last fall!

The two that I have aren’t particularly spiny, but their looks are misleading. The little tufts of what look to be hair on the pads are actually needle sharp, hair thin, spikes that will get into your skin and are quite irritating.

Definitely to be handled with gloves! Or just leave ‘em alone and enjoy the interesting growth and occasional flowers!

Full size. Desktop works well.

In the forest, the various bugs common to the leafy undercover were waking up, too.

This is a red velvet mite (Trombidiidae).

They play a critical, if slightly surprising, role in the health of the forest. Namely, the larval stage is parasitic and effectively controls populations of locust, grasshoppers and other plant destroying insects.

As adults, the red velvet mite is a ferocious predator that will take out mites and insects many times it size. In particular, the mite seems to favor insects that eat bacteria and fungus.

Thus, the mites help ensure that fungus and bacteria remain abundant within the forest and, by doing so, help ensure that the decomposition process remain high.

While the red velvet mite is related to chiggers and ticks, they do not bite humans and are quite the sociable little bugs.

I have no clue what this bug is other than “beautiful”.

It has gigantic jaws for its size, clearly designed for biting and ripping.

The bug really is that brilliant color of metallic blue. Even more amazing, the bug flew a few feet and landed on a tree. When the sun strikes it at a different angle, it turns a gorgeous metallic green.

Unfortunately, it moved too quickly for me to snap a photo, but I’ll definitely be keeping a lookout for these on our next visit.

More bugs on the click-through….

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Of course, any time we spend a while visiting my parents in Columbia, Missouri, Roger looks for any and all wild creatures.

Within minutes of arriving, Roger had already found one of these cute little Ringneck Snakes (Diadophis punctatus). Two more followed shortly thereafter.

They are each well less than a foot long, don’t bite and are quite calm.

One did get out of the cage. Of course, it crawled about 15 feet across the floor and onto Roger’s foot. After that, though, the snake cage stayed on the outside porch

More critters on the click through…

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Roger and I (and Christine, for most of the week) have spent the last week in Columbia, Missouri visiting my family

In other words, Roger and I have spent most of the last week hiking around the land that surrounds my parent’s house every day.

I took a handful of photos of water tumbling over the rocks in the creek below the house. To capture that “blurry moving water” essence, I cranked the aperture to maximum and used a nearby rock as a tripod to keep the shutter speed open as long as possible.

I specifically positioned the camera such that it would catch the reflecting sun off the surface of the water. As the sun was acting as a point light source, I figured that it would be interesting to see the sun traverse the water surface over the course of the exposure.

Certainly was! Surprisingly so! The end result looks like someone scribbled with a light pen on the surface of the water!

Detailed explanation (for my seester Ann): I used the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro Lens to capture these 2″ tall waterfalls. They were taken in very bright afternoon sunlight. I cranked the aperture to f/32 to achieve as long of an exposure as possible. For these, the shutter was open for all of 0.2 seconds (1/5th of a second). To keep the camera steady, I propped the camera on a [somewhat muddy, oh well] rock and held the shutter button down to take multiple exposures, hoping at least one would be steady.

Given the angle of the sun and the water, the water was acting as a mirror for the sun. Reflecting a point of light directly into the camera lens. Unlike a mirror, water is… well… fluid and, thus, the surface is ever changing and the point from which the sun is being reflected changes constantly as the shape of the surface changes.

The key to the squiggles, though, is that this particular waterfall is moving at just the right speed such that the surface tension of the water is never broken in the primary flow. The surface remains smooth as it flows over the small fall.

Neat! I suggest clicking through to the largest size to get the full impact of the light scribbling on water.

Now, this little tumble of water was not exactly natural…

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