Project 365 2013 - A Learning Journey/Moab Man

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 212, 2013 - Rocket Launch

Last day of summer school science class so we finish it off with a few rocket launches.

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Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 213, 2013 - Learning to shoot a wide angle.

Wide angles are tough to shoot! As I was told by a few people now, they have a learning curve and a set of rules all their own. Things can make it into a shot you never even thought were within range of the lens. Seeing something cool to shoot will often be so tiny in the lens you have to pass. However, when you find that setting... there is nothing like a wide angle. So here is my pictures of the day as I continue to happily fall on my face and learn this lens.

Messing with light on what would otherwise be just another boring street.
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Bill16

Senior Member
I really like this shot! :D
Day 213, 2013 - Learning to shoot a wide angle.

Wide angles are tough to shoot! As I was told by a few people now, they have a learning curve and a set of rules all their own. Things can make it into a shot you never even thought were within range of the lens. Seeing something cool to shoot will often be so tiny in the lens you have to pass. However, when you find that setting... there is nothing like a wide angle. So here is my pictures of the day as I continue to happily fall on my face and learn this lens.

Messing with light on what would otherwise be just another boring street.
View attachment 46028
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 214, 2013 - Flower

Late last night I went out to my studio and framed/hung a black cloth backdrop in front of my green screen wall on a pulley system so that I would have something a bit more solid to work with. Then I built a pedestal to place objects for photographing. After a few hours of tweaking this and tweaking that... this is the picture from last night.

Day214Flower.jpg
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 215, 2013 - Flower

Much quicker to go out and shoot today's picture since I now have a proper place to shoot this type of photo which brings me to the next project... lighting. But all in good time. As for this picture. White on flowers is such a bear to shoot. Some of the petals a more opaque while others are solidly white. White is just tough to shoot which is why I like working with it. If anyone has any tips on shooting white feel free to throw them at me.

Day215Flower.jpg
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 216, 2013 - Tokina Lens Product Shot

Harder than I thought to do a product shot. I can't even figure out how the right side of the shot had more light than the left. But this gives me one more thing to work out and learn.

Day216TokinaLens.jpg
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 217, 2013 - asics GEL-VENTURE 3

Kodiak has this thread going on product shots. Although I don't see myself needing to shoot one, I never want to pass up the opportunity to learn a new skill so I thought I would give it a try yesterday. However, yesterdays (Day 216 - Tokina) sucked as a product shot! So I went back to the drawing board to attempt again. As I'm standing there contemplating what to shoot I figured my shoe is two days old - shoot that. Here is my shot of the day that I am going to put up on Kodiak's product thread for my tear down. I say tear down as a positive because good constructive criticism doesn't hurt when it teaches us to improve. I also took the initiative to put it in an add as to what my vision would be for the product. Basically, I had fun doing it, but the picture was a challenge and I learned a lot.

Product shot.
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Pretzel

Senior Member
Day 214, 2013 - Flower

Late last night I went out to my studio and framed/hung a black cloth backdrop in front of my green screen wall on a pulley system so that I would have something a bit more solid to work with. Then I built a pedestal to place objects for photographing. After a few hours of tweaking this and tweaking that... this is the picture from last night.

View attachment 46279

Exquisite!!
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 218, 2013 - Mayfly or Fishfly

I had posted this at like 0100 this morning but obviously it never posted.

Little guy showed up on the glass to hang out a while. Extremely patient with me taking its picture. Ours here in Utah are about 1/4 the size they are back east.

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Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 219, 2013 - Tripod

I have a large heavy quality tripod that is great for shooting long exposure stuff because it stays put. I also had an old "cheap" one from many many years ago, like more than a decade, that I loved. It was small, lightweight, and cheap from then was far better than some of the midgrade cheaper stuff today. Unfortunately, just like Humpty Dumpty, it had a great fall and all the Kings horses and all the Kings men could not put Humpty Dumpty or my tripod back together again. So yesterday my wife bought me a new portable cheap tripod to replace it. What set this one apart from all the other cheap ones is that the legs were much better built. Sadly, like so many others, even though rated for the weight the camera would slowly creep/rotate down under the weight of the lens when shooting vertical.

Tripod is a Promaster 7050 ($39.99). The legs met my needs. Small, lightweight, and easy to transport. However, as I said earlier, the head flat sucked. For some reason, which I will never know why, they quit putting that little 3/16" pin hole in the bottom of cameras for the tripod mount to lock the camera in place and prevent it from rotating when shooting vertically with a heavy lens and the Promaster mount was no different. Heck, we tested some of the tripods at three times the price and they did it as well. So with the new tripod we replaced the head to a Promaster SystemPRO Ball Head.

The Promaster SystemPRO Ball Head ($39.99) has a mounting plate that allows for better centering under the whole of the bottom of the camera and keeps it in place really well. Greater surface area contact, greater friction/grip, and no rotation when vertically mounted. Of course, the mount has the pin that the camera doesn't have the hole for... grrr.

The tripod is obviously not a high end take any abuse tripod, but it fills the need for that lightweight don't want to lug a brick or worry about it need. The new head is a bit of brick, it's a solid chunk of metal and will survive anything. Together they weigh about 3.5 lbs (1.6 kg).

So now when I go on my Goblin Valley Milky Way shoot I can run both cameras.

If you're not familiar with Goblin Valley here is a link that shows some pictures: Google Image Result for http://www.utah.com/images/lf/panoGoblinValley.jpg

Thank you MoabLady for the new tripod.

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Moab Man

Senior Member
Continued... Day 219

My daughter has come to realize how crappy the typical Facebook photo is from cellphones and asked me to shoot some pictures for her.

Let me know what you think.

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Kodiak

Senior Member
Continued... Day 219

My daughter has come to realize how crappy the typical Facebook photo is from cellphones and asked me to shoot some pictures for her.

Let me know what you think.

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My son Bénédict will say: "…yes, that's a cool daughter!"
And the little brother will say: "… but can she make cookies?"

Personally, I think that all 4 are top class. She is beautiful, not shy, playful…
You have to understand that you have no merit in this… with a model like that!
Now, the question remains: "Can she make cookies?"
These are, in my book, OUTSTANDING photographs! You must have a good camera!

Congratulations! … for the takes and the daughter!
 

Kodiak

Senior Member
Day 216, 2013 - Tokina Lens Product Shot

Harder than I thought to do a product shot. I can't even figure out how the right side of the shot had more light than the left. But this gives me one more thing to work out and learn.

View attachment 46558

The value of this exercise is the delicate rendition of blacks on black (no orthographic mistake)!
I would have preferred a Nikkor lens but…

Well done!
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
My son Bénédict will say: "…yes, that's a cool daughter!"
And the little brother will say: "… but can she make cookies?"

Personally, I think that all 4 are top class. She is beautiful, not shy, playful…
You have to understand that you have no merit in this… with a model like that!
Now, the question remains: "Can she make cookies?"
These are, in my book, OUTSTANDING photographs! You must have a good camera!

She drives a sports car, has brains, and most important... she makes cookies!
 
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