luna...

March, week four:
I was able to borrow a telescope from my friend James, and after a bit of fiddling got my camera hooked up. It was a clear night out and there was a great view of the moon. I had first tried this setup two days previously with some decent preliminary results, although I think the images were slightly overexposed (at 1/50 sec!). I think it was Ansel Adams who reminded people that the moon is a sun-lit subject, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when it came out better with 1/125 exposure. Seems strange to be using such fast shutter speeds in the middle of the night, but it's hard to argue with the results.

My biggest problem was probably focus, since I'm not used to manual focus, and I was pretty much laying on my back looking at an angle, propping myself up with one hand and adjusting the focus with the other. This was complicated by having to chase the moon, which at this stage (waxing gibbous at approximately 90% full) could barely fit in the field of view. That meant that if everything was aligned perfectly, I would have about 5 seconds of the moon passing through where I could image it in its entirety. What I did was move the telescope to where the moon was half-in the image and then focus. Once it was about to be in the image completely, I took several shots until it had passed through. Then I checked the exposure and focus on the camera's LCD, and started over. Each time I think the focus got slightly better. After two or three of these passes, I loaded the images onto my computer to evaluate more carefully, and then try a couple more sets. An experience like this this helped me realize the real benefits of tethered shooting, not to mention the live-view feature that is available on the Canon 1D-Mark III and the EOS 20Da.

Overall, I'm very excited by the results (although admittedly the black-and-white conversion process wasn't very complicated for this image). After playing around with lunar shots some more, I'm gonna try some planetary imaging, followed by (hopefully) some stars and neublae (however those may be better in color :-)

Image details:
Date and location: 3/30/7 at 01:41 EDT, my balcony, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, Celestron NexStar 6" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (f/10.0, approx 1500mm), Celestron T-adapter, T-Mount for Canon EOS
Settings: manual focus, telescope on tripod, shutter release, ISO 100, 1/125 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw conversion in Aperture v1.5.2 -> export as .jpg -> USM (200%, 3.0, 0) -> resize -> USM (200%, 0.5, 0) -> channel mixer monochrome (0, 0, 100%, 0) -> crop -> text -> save for web 100%
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #7 (night photography), #8 (astrophotography)

tracks...

March, week three:
I was wandering around and came across this old railroad bridge. I hadn't realized it was so easy to walk to... i just had to park on the side of the railroad tracks and wander over here. I had tried a couple wide angle shots from a very low perspective (on the tracks), but the autofocus captured the railroad ties and not the far distance like I had wanted. It was an oversight on my part, and will require a reshoot because otherwise it would have been a cool picture. When I go back I'm also interested in getting some shots on the bridge. Maybe I'll be able to time it so that a train is coming.

The conversion wasn't anything special, however I did clone a spot of sensor dust using photoshop. While this is minimal post-processing, I normally do not do any adjustments that are not applied to the entire image.

Image details:
Date and location: 3/11/7 at 12:49 EST, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 17mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/10.0, 1/200 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw conversion in Aperture v1.5.2, export as jpg to ps -> clone spot of sensor dust -> USM (150, 0.5, 0) -> monochrome mixer (100, 0, 0, 0) -> contrast +20 -> resize -> USM (100, 0.5, 0) 0> border + text -> save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #11 (architecture), #15 (nostalgia)

gliding...

March, week two:
Another image from my trip to Seattle... Here is a picture of one of the birds that was flying right next to us as we rode the ferry from Bainbridge Island back to Seattle. The original image was slightly washed out, so I had to downplay the blue channel during black-and-white conversion to regain some contrast between the sky and the clouds. Otherwise, I didn't use any new technique for the monochrome conversion. I'm happy with the detail, which was aided by the bird flying so close to us. It was gliding so peacefully...

Image details:
Date and location: 3/5/7 at 16:03 PST, Bainbridge Island Ferry, Puget Sound, WA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 85mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/10.0, 1/320 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw conversion in Aperture v1.5.2 -> export as jpg to PS7 -> USM (150, 0.5, 0) -> crop -> resize -> USM (100, 0.5, 0) -> channel mixer monochrome (100, 100, -100, 0) -> watermark/border -> save for web
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #9 (action), #17 (wildlife)

produce stand...

March, week 1:
I went to seattle and had the chance to wander around Pike's market. Fortunately it was a sunny day, and the outdoor produce stands had a stunningly brilliant color that I did not expect out of the normally rather grey city. The color version of this image turned out fairly well (even though I forgot to switch the ISO, which I kept at the 400 I was using inside... I prefer 100 when possible). The color image was fairly easy to produce (no pun intended), given the colorful subject matter and excellent lighting.

The difficulty here was in the greyscale conversion with the channel mixer. If you look at images with just the red, green, and blue channels, you get very different looking images. In particular, all of the fruits and veggies looked black on the blue channel. While it was easy playing around with the channel to make an image that was visually appealing, I thought it was also important to have the different produce items somewhat recognizable. While a high contrast black lemon may look cool, it wouldn't really look like a lemon. After adjusting in multiple ways, I determined that for this subject matter the green channel seemed to contain detail, red channel brightness, and blue channel contrast/darkness. I ended up choosing a green-dominant balance (50%), with some red to maintain brightness (25%), and just enough of the blue channel to give it a contrasty black-and-white feel.

Overall the trip to Seattle was great, and i will likely be posting some more pics from my explorations. For this image I added another category of my photo-a-week goals, street photography, which this seems to fit very well. I also posted the color version of this image, which I may start doing more regularly.

Image details:
Date and location: 3/1/7 at 14:56 PST, Pike's market, Seattle, WA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 41mm, handheld with IS, ISO 400, f/14, 1/400 sec, shot in raw
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.2, export as 16 bit tiff, to photoshop, USM (150, 1.0, 0) -> monochrome (channel mixer 25, 50, 15) -> resize -> USM (100, 1.0, 0) -> border -> save for web
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #16 (street photography)
color version