Moved to Picasaweb

It's been a while since I posted here because I've always found the upload interface through Bloggerbot to be quite painful to use, especially for posting multiple photos.

So, severoon's viewings is moving! From now on, you can peruse my photo galleries at Picasa Web. There's nothing up as of this moment, but stay tuned...very soon now, there will be. And, because there's no place over there to absorb my photography related chatter (I think, I haven't investigated it too much yet), that will be relegated to my blah-blah blog.

Great Photography Book

Click the link above--this is one of the best photography books I've found in a long time. He covers all types of photography media, from digital to medium format, and also provides fairly comprehensive coverage of composition as well.

From Land's End to Sea Cliff

A while back my brother, his wife, my fiancee, our friend Amy, and myself hiked the California Coastal Trail from Land's End to Sea Cliff. It's a fairly short hike up the San Francisco coastline, which is lucky for me because at the time I only had my trusty little compact camera with it's trusty 256MB memory card. If the trail had been any longer, I would've had to start deleting images.

All of the images below are unaltered shots...all of them could benefit from some mild to medium Photoshop work. They are presented in the order they were taken on the hike.


Gull & Boat
Fuji FinePix S602, 46.8mm, 1/450 @f/6.3, ISO 200

It's clear that this shot exhibits some tilt, and since I have a nasty habit of taking shots slightly out-of-true, I would understand if you thought it was unintentional. However, in this case, that would be incorrect. I intentionally tilted this one to add a bit of drama. This is a fairly popular technique called "Dutch tilt". Actually, Dutch tilt is technically 35 degrees from the horizontal, but I've heard the term applied to any off-kilter shot that achieves the intended effect.

I think this shot would be improved by cropping out a good deal of the right side of the image, maybe down to the proportions of a vertical. Cutting it down somewhat will give the boat and the bird a kind of yin-yang balance. Unfortunately, since this was a fairly low resolution (3MP) compact, I'm not sure how much cropping it will withstand if I ever decide I like it enough to print it.

Seems a bit hazy...if I ever do get it into PS, I'm going to have to see what I can do about that as well.


Dead Willow Waterfall
Fuji FinePix S602, 11.6mm, 1/280 @f/4, ISO 200

I saw these dead willow branches and took a couple of shots; this was the one I liked the most. They seem to be doing their best impression of a waterfall.


Golden Gate Bridge from California Coastal Trail
Fuji FinePix S602, 8.9 mm, 1/450 @f/8, ISO 200

Yet another shot of the Golden Gate Bridge--this landmark seems to be an inescapable element of photos when you're near it with a camera. The trick is to try to do something that hasn't been done before. The dark foreground elements create an interesting frame for the scene. Yet another Rule-of-Thirds shot with the bridge dividing the upper third. It's too bad the clouds weren't cooperating that day. This shot would have benefitted from bright blue sky with white fluffies.

Note the extreme barrel distortion in the shot; one more reason on the list of why I upgraded from a compact. The natural arch of the bridge itself accentuates this, but even if the span were dead level all the way across, it would still be visible to the naked eye.


Golden Gate Bridge from California Coastal Trail II
Fuji FinePix S602, 10.6 mm, 1/200 @f/11, ISO 200

Is this a good shot? I don't know...I kind of like it. I'm not sure if it would've been improved had I included the roots of the foreground plant. Just trying to do a variation on the last shot, and it turned out fairly well. I like the way the waves and the leaves of this plant give away the direction and force of the wind, but the plant itself insists on growing directly into it. (Do plants naturally grow against a constant force? Is that how seeds know to grow upwards out of the ground, because they're going against gravity?)


Fractal Rock Face
Fuji FinePix S602, 16.7mm, 1/450 @f/5.6, ISO 200

Neat rock face. A sense of scale is intentionally denied the viewer--you can just as easily imagine a person standing on one of those little craggies as an ant. Fractals, anyone?

I'll spoil the mystery under the next image.


Ocean Fisher
Fuji FinePix S602, 46.8mm, 1/480 @f/6.3, ISO 200

As if to provide evidence that Fractal Rock Face could indeed have been stories tall, I soon came upon this ocean fisherman perched on the edge of a precipice. (I hope he didn't hook anything big, or it seems as if he might be in for a swim.)

In fact, Ocean Fisher is a good contrast image for Fractal Rock Face--as it happens, Fractal Rock Face only captures about a 3' x 2' area of rock. (Told you I'd spoil the mystery.)


Trail Berry
Fuji FinePix S602, 7.8mm, 1/300 @f/4.5, ISO 200

Looks like a raspberry, but I definitely wasn't adventurous enough (or stupid enough) to eat it.

I should've taken this shot at wide-open aperture to do as much blurring of the background as possible. Dropping to f/2.8 on a compact wouldn't have done much, but something's better than nothing. With my new camera I'd have put on my 50mm f/1.8 lens and gotten the shot I was really after.


Orange Flowers
Fuji FinePix S602, 7.8mm, 1/420 @f/8, ISO 200

I included this shot as an example of colorimetric range. I remember taking this shot because these flowers were a blazing orange under the afternoon sun. Sadly, the color reproduction of the sensor in this camera did not duplicate the many shades in this tiny bit of the spectrum, and the flowers lost some of their brilliance as a result. You can see this in the intensely colored areas of the shot that appear as if they're "burned out," which is usually a term that is reserved for areas that go to pure white with a complete loss of detail due to overexposure. In this case, it's the same story--complete loss of detail because of oversaturation of a particular color.

I probably could have gotten a bit more out of it if I'd slightly overexposed the shot--it appears I did the opposite and slightly underexposed it, which is the norm when trying to create an image with deeply saturated colors. Well, the technique worked...it saturated the colors well beyond what the sensor in that particular camera could manage.


Fuji FinePix S602, 7.8mm, 1/480 @f/5.6, ISO 200

I like this shot a lot. Something about the way the stalk bends under the weight of its seeds makes them seem heavier than they actually are.

Another shot that would've been improved by using a wide-open aperture; another shot that would've joined the 50mm f/1.8 club if I'd had it at the time. Considering the main subject of this image, there's way too much visual noise around it in the background.


Fuji FinePix S602, 7.8mm, 1/480 @f/5, ISO 200

This shot is a great example of how to work within the limitations of your equipment. In the last shot, I couldn't get any closer to the main subject because it was hanging well above me and I didn't have a stool handy. With this one, though, I could get close, and get close was what I did to blur the background and ensure focus on the main subject. Note the aperture--if you can get close enough, you don't even have to open up all the way.


Overgrown Trail
Fuji FinePix S602, 7.8mm, 1/480 @f/5, ISO 200

These were my four hiking compatriots. From left to right: my sister-in-law, my brother, my fiancee, and our friend Amy. Parts of the trail were quite overgrown, which provided an interesting shot now and then of our hiking party for anyone lagging behind.

If you look carefully at the upper right, you'll see that someone else managed to get in this shot...until this shot finds its way into Photoshop, that is. :-)


Ocean Overlook
Fuji FinePix S602, 11.6mm, 1/450 @f/7, ISO 200

"Most people look at things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I look at things as they might be and ask, 'Why not?'"

Sorry, but admit it...this shot is just begging to be made into a poster with a cheesy caption.


Stony Beach
Fuji FinePix S602, 12.7mm, 1/750 @f/8, ISO 200

Something about those stones makes for a visually interesting shot. I would've liked a slightly higher vantage point if I were to reshoot this one. I like how the boulders with the crashing waves are positioned, but I'd have preferred to make the horizon higher. Something about the way the mountain ridge in the background almost grazes the top of the left boulder takes some life out of the shot.


Gull Rock
Fuji FinePix S602, 46.8mm, 1/750 @f/8, ISO 200

You can tell from all the gull guano that they certainly spend a lot of time on that rock. I took two of these framed just slightly different from each other. It's amazing how little difference can spoil a shot, as in the other image things are just to the left a little bit, but it's clearly not as good as this one. (Of course, that shot contains a family of birds flying away just above the waterline to the right of this boulder, which would've added to this shot. Can't have it all, I guess.)


Beachside Still Life
Fuji FinePix S602, 7.8mm, 1/450 @f/5.6, ISO 200

I just happened upon this random arrangement of rocks, wood, and a bar stool. To me, this looks a bit like Fred Flintstone's favorite jazz club...if the foreground rock and log are a chair and a couch, the half-log in the background could be the prehistoric bar.

No? Ok.


Overgrown Steps
Fuji FinePix S602, 7.8mm, 1/350 @f/5, ISO 200

I kept wondering how this trail could be as overgrown as it was with the amount of hiker traffic we encountered that day. I guess the foliage was made up of aggressive plants.


Raven I
Fuji FinePix S602, 46.8mm, 1/480 @f/8, ISO 200

When I'm rushed to take an action shot, my habit of inadvertantly tilting the camera is at its worst. Since this was a decisive moment, though, I don't feel too badly about it--that's what Photoshop is for. (What it is decidedly not for, though, is when I manage to tilt a shot that I'd set up for 5 minutes on a tripod.)

This is perhaps another shot that should be cut down to a vertical Nothing going on in the left half of this frame as it is. Level it, cut it down, and who knows--it might be worthy of hanging on the wall someday.


Raven II
Fuji FinePix S602, 46.8mm, 1/600 @f/8, ISO 200

Another shot of the same raven, I believe. He provided a number of silhouettes against the sky for me that day. This is one of the few in which he was recognizable as a bird.

Holy Trinity

Here are some photos I took of Holy Trinity Catholic Church, where I will be getting married in May.

I'm posting these images for two reasons: one, they're fairly good shots and two, they were taken with my old compact camera and I wanted to explore the differences between that one and my new Canon 20D by considering what I'd do differently with the new camera.


Holy Trinity Angel
Fuji FinePix S602, 46.8mm, 1/12 @f/2.8, ISO 200

I like this shot for a number of reasons, primarily the composition and the compelling main subject. There are, however, a number of problems that are present in the image that were simply unpreventable with the equipment I used.

First, the good stuff. Classic rule-of-thirds shot putting the angel right on a vertical one-third line. The many diagonals provide a strong sense of perspective contrasted with the straight verticals of the angel, the wooden post behind her, and the short side of the bricks. The strong diagonals of the implied triangle of the wooden beams also work nicely against the perspective diagonals. Shapewise, this is about as compositionally good a photograph as I've ever taken.

Now, the problems. Note in the exposure info that this image was taken at wide open aperture. Still, every detail of the background is as sharp as the main subject. I can say with certainty that, had I shot this with my 20D at wide open aperture, the window and the design on the wall would be markedly blurred and the focus of the image would remain on the main subject. Also note the focal length of 47mm (35mm-equivalent: 210mm)...this is fully zoomed in. With my 20D, my reach is increased to the 35mm equivalent of 480mm and I would've been able to frame the bottom a little tighter. Finally, this is a 3.1MP image that is automatically upsampled to 6.0MP using Fuji's SuperCCD (go to the SuperCCD III section) technology. This results in a higher resolution recorded image, but it adds a good bit of noise in the process and adds too much accutance to edges. With my 20D, even at ISO 1600 this image would have been less noisy and edges would have remained as soft as they were to the eye in the hazy sunlight streaming through the windows. The hazy light would intensify the mood of this and the following two images, working well with the harmonious neutral coloration inside the church. (I would've actually taken it at ISO 100 to reduce noise to an absolute minimum since there's no avoiding the use of a tripod with such low levels of light.)


Holy Trinity Prayer Candles
Fuji FinePix S602, 7.8mm, 1/4 @f/2.8, ISO 200

The idea of this shot is solid. Its execution was limited once again by my equipment. Because of space constraints, even zooming out to the 35mm-equivalent focal length of 35mm was not enough to get everything in frame without moving to a drastic perspective. This has the effect of compressing the space occupied by the statues dramatically, which is unfortunate as they are the centerpiece of the shot. Even with a steep perspective and wide angle, I still could not include the kneeler and the entire left candle bank without throwing off the framing or upsetting the horizontal. With the 20D, I'd have slapped on my Canon 17-85mm IS lens, moved around the front a bit more, included the entire kneeler and both candle banks. Hopefully I could've moved around front enough to get the plant mostly between the two larger statues...I'm not thrilled that the right statue almost seems like it's coming out of the planter in this shot.

My Fuji compact camera has an electronic viewfinder, which means it does not see to the corners of the image, making such exact framing difficult. Though it probably wouldn't have been possible to get the left edge of the left candle bank in frame, I could've picked up a little more if I hadn't left any air on the right. This would have been preferable because cutting the edges on both of the candle banks would've implied a long line going out of frame in both directions. As it is here, it just seems sloppy.

Finally, the dynamic range of this camera is somewhat more limited than that DiG!C II processor in my 20D. I expect I would've picked up an extra stop or so of dynamic range, bringing up the detail in the dark wood of the left candle bank while leaving a bit more detail in the blown out upper right portion of the image.


Holy Trinity Pews
Fuji FinePix S602, 9.7mm, 1/3 @f/2.8, ISO 200

The repetition of the pews and prayer books make this shot. Unfortunately, this shot was handheld and lost critical sharpness as a result of camera shake. I'm not sure if I could've addressed this without the use of a tripod using the 20D. I probably could have gotten close through a combination of higher ISO and image stabilization, but to maintain the same depth of field I would have had to sacrifice several stops by closing the aperture on my 17-85mm. (I would've had to set the focal length on this lens to 28mm...that would make the shot on both cameras the 35mm-equivalent of 45mm.) On the other hand, this shot might have made more sense with less depth of field--the repetition would not be lost just because the foreground pattern is not critically sharp...in fact, I suspect it could get well out of focus before the repitition element of this image would be lost.

Overall, the above three images are good photographs that display limitations of my old setup. I'm glad I did this--I'm realizing that it's a valuable exercise to note the different approaches that are not available to me because I've upgraded from a compact to a dSLR. I think I'll continue this exercise over the coming months, posting more of my favorite images shot with my old compact camera.

Posting Multiple Pics Using Hello w/BloggerBot

I've been using Hello to post my images here on my photoblog, and I came across this interesting tidbit just now that others might find very useful. If you want to publish multiple photos in a single post, end each caption with a double-pipe ("||") before you hit the publish button. When BloggerBot gets the photo and sees that double-pipe, it doesn't post the photo, it simply enqueues it and waits for the next one.

You can repeat this process as many times as you like, and when you finally reach the terminal photo, don't add the double-pipe before hitting the Publish button.

Photo Talk Radio

Give the link a click...looks interesting.

Fort Funston Photos

Here are a bunch of photos I took at Fort Funston.


Canon 20D, 75mm w/2x teleconverter, 1/2000 @f/8, ISO 400

I took this shot of the beach from the overlook at Fort Funston.

This shot could've been improved if I'd framed it a bit lower to include the entire shadow. I like the interplay of contrast in this scene, though, with the darker horse against the sun-lit sand.


Canon 20D, 10mm, 1/320 @f/22, ISO 400

This is an extreme contrast shot into the sun. I believe it's a hair underexposed--I don't quite want the land to be lit much more than it is, but I think a bit more exposure would've left the sky with its stark coloring while bringing the scene up a stop or two. The problem with exposing this scene for too long, of course, is that the sun would completely bleach the right half of the frame. As it is, when I get this shot into Photoshop I might be able to bring up the darker parts quite a bit without introducing too much noise, so it might work out fine. (I can't remember exactly, but I'm thinking that it might benefit this shot to leave the ground underexposed as it is, as there might not be anything of interest there anyway.)


Canon 20D, 75mm, 1/2000 @f/8, ISO 400

This shot may work a lot better as a black and white. I'll have to pull it into PS and play with the levels a bit.

This is another one of those shots of a long list of those that I'm not quite sure why I like. Maybe it's the contrast in size between the moon and the leaves. Maybe the way the slope of the brush tends to point up at the moon.


Canon 20D, 17mm, 1/80 @f/13, ISO 400

A class shadow shot. This shot really shows the detail and age of this weather-worn bridge.

I'm a little concerned about all the sunflare in this photo. I think it's mostly from the UV filter and the front element of the lens, because it doesn't seem to be nearly as prominent in other shots that are only at slightly different angles to the sun. If it were one or more internal elements, sunflare would be more problematic at various angles.


Canon 20D, 75mm, 1/3200 @f/5, ISO 1600

Another basic Rule of Thirds shot...perhaps a bit too much ground. I wasn't sure I got sharp focus on the city or if that was haze that day. I thought it might even be a little camera shake, but a shutter speed of 1/3200 rules that out.


Canon 20D, 300mm, 1/1600 @f/5.6, ISO 1600

This is an unusual shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. It shows the bridge looming behind the city. It's interesting to me how little of this bridge needs to be included in a shot and yet it's still easily recognizable. I'd bet that if you show this shot to most people, all they'd need to know is that it was taken in California and they'd still know it's the GG.

With my Canon 75-300mm IS lens fully zoomed and my Dad's 2x teleconverter, this shot is the 35mm equivalent of 960mm hand-held. This is where you really see image stabilization shine...can you imagine hand-holding a 960mm shot with a non-IS lens?

I wish I could've gotten a bit higher vantage point on this shot. I would've liked to show a bit more of the city and a bit less of the foreground hill, but I didn't have any way of getting a higher perspective for this shot. Still, it does a pretty good job of showing the bridge as the backdrop of the city, which is how it is regarded by San Francisco natives. It's only a "tourist spot" to...well, tourists. :-)

Vista Point at the Golden Gate Bridge

Sutro Tower
Canon 20D, 300mm w/2x teleconverter, 1.3" @f/32, ISO 200

This image was taken from the Golden Gate Bridge's Vista Point (north side) with my Dad's 2x teleconverter and my Canon 75-300mm lens at full zoom. If you look closely at the sky, you can see some dust on the sensor/converter/lens--I'm not sure where it came from but it's been long since air-blasted away (another needed Photoshop fix, coming up).

I love the atmospheric effects of long-reach lenses. With my 20D's 1.6x focal length multiplier, a 300mm lens, and a 2x teleconverter, this image was taken at the 35mm equivalent of 960mm. The post-sunset lighting and the haze account for the color of the sky.

This shot is a classic example of the Rule of Thirds in photography...the Sutro Tower is positioned on a 2/3 vertical across this frame.

The following two shots were possibly taken with the same 2x teleconverter (I'm not sure), so they might effectively be 150mm (the EXIF info didn't record if a teleconverter was used :-( ).

Both of these shots are examples of the Rule of Thirds as well, in slightly different ways.


Tree Silhouette
Canon 20D, 75mm, 1" @f/32, ISO 200

In this shot, it's not the main subject (the tree), but the ridge that slices about a third of the frame off. So it doesn't follow the usual tic-tac-toe board espoused by the Rule of Thirds proper, but it's what makes this shot work. This shot is also exemplary of Miksang photography, a style of photography that isolates a single compositional element per image. A photograph in this style attempts to explore, for example, only color and nothing else, or line and nothing else. This shot doesn't quite qualify as Miksang because there are two predominant compositional elements that contribute: the balance between positive/negative space and line.


Bridge Traffic
Canon 20D, 75mm, 2.5" @f/32, ISO 200

The composition of Bridge Traffic is straightforward--it is an example of the Rule of Thirds because the horizon, waterline, and the main subject (the bridge) are all on tic-tac-toe lines. I'm happy with the way this shot came out, but I made the same old mistake I always make--it needs to be leveled in Photoshop. (When will I learn?)

Surfer at Half Moon Bay

Surfer at Half Moon Bay
Canon 20D, 22mm, 1/800 @f/4.5, ISO 100

I made this picture at Half Moon Bay of a surfer at sunset using my ultra-wide angle zoom, the Canon EF-S 10-22mm. I'm not sure how this shot could have been made better--perhaps horizontal format including his entire shadow and not so much of the foreground? I dunno...the high positioning of the horizon and the wide-angle perspective on the smooth sand does something for me.

I do like the overall exposure of this image--again, it could be fine-tuned a bit I'm sure. So far, I've only been posting shots directly from my camera with no post-processing in PS at all...one day soon I'll have to go through these and do the requisite touch-ups, but for now I just want to start getting some of my shots up somewhere.

Note the strong triangle in this image...the sun, horizon, waterline, footsteps--even the surfboard all contribute to the strong impression of a triangle going out of frame left. The horizon is just about dead level, which makes me happy and a bit amazed at myself since I wasn't using a tripod and all history points to the unlikelihood of such an event (note the first image in this photoblog--At the Train Station for an example of what I'm talking about...the first thing I'll do with that image when I get a moment is level it).

Two Vases

Two Vases Perspective
Canon 20D, 33mm, 1/500 @f/4.5, ISO 800

I'm not quite sure what I like about this image--it certainly could use some fine-tuning in Photoshop. But the composition and the harmonic colors do seem to work very well. The diagonal line adds a bit of visual tension to what would otherwise be a fairly staid shot, and the difference in textures helps quite a bit as well. The only really garish problem is that chain.

Overall, a very good shot. I will repost this once I've had a chance to fine-tune it...maybe I can remove that chain as well.


Two Vases
Canon 20D, 41mm, 1/400 @f/5, ISO 800

Two Vases is the same subject taken in a straightforward study. I believe these vases are sitting outside Valley of the Moon winery in Sonoma Valley. I'm not sure which of these two shots I like better--at first I liked Two Vases Perspective, but the more I look at this shot the more I like it. I especially like the way it shows the broken handle, which only a more careful look will reveal in Two Vases Perspective. This shot certainly takes care of the problem of that chain in the first shot...but, as with many of my shots, it needs to be leveled.

Taking shots slightly out-of-true seems to be a recurring theme of mine. Expect to see this defect in quite a few of the shots that haven't gone through any post-processing in Photoshop. :-)