Day 584 - Random

8/21/2008

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What my fall semester looks like...


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I get emails from Canon.
Promo stuff...general info...

and contest notices.

I figured...why not?


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Day 583

Forever Growing Centipedes

-The Faint



8/20/2008

taken : 8/20/2008

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Some fake tilt-shifting.

(not really good though...should have taken this picture from a higher vantage point).


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And holy Jesus there are people around again.

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Yeah, I am sort of into class starting again.

...but again...for some reason I feel outgrown by all my friends that are out of school and stuff...

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Weddings Weddings Weddings...

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*Note to self... make sure Cactus V2 radio triggers work.

Batteries.

Synch cables.

Black socks.

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My last day working at the CU Police Department.

There was a..sort of, kinda, not really going away party for me.

It was nice.

For the handful of people that came.

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:)

Day 582

La Valse des Monstres

by Yann Tiersen



8/19/2008

taken : 8/19/2008

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hmmmm?

...something is going on here...

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It was a rather productive day.


I got a few things done and ran some errands today.
Target is already turning into the hell hole it usually is around move in day every fall semester. I went there to pick up a few things and stumbled upon the usual scene of parents getting every possible thing their kid needs...but then again...it is still pretty early...I hope I don't have to go anywhere near there over the next week.


and blah blah blah.

I bought a new vacuum cleaner.
CUPD doesn't pay me enough to just go and do this...but I did it anyway.
I need something better than the sorry excuse of a vacuum cleaner I have now.

Lacey is scared of vacuum cleaners.


The new one is even louder than the old one...and thusly...she is even more scared.

poor baby.


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Still have not heard about this wedding for Saturday.

Something is up.

?

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Wedding coming up on Friday also. Getting ready for that.

Thinking about light.

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I got an email notifying of a comment left on this blog (I hate the word blog). Mike left the comment. It was on an old post...Day 374. He mentioned how much different my writing was back then...and by back then really only months ago.

Probably about 3 weeks ago (and with a serious chunk of time to kill) I started from Day 365 and read all the way to the present. I was astonished to see not only A) How my photography has changed, but also B) How much my writing has changed.

The photography less so than the writing. I noticed subtle differences over time...but writing has changed a lot.

I am not sure what I could directly attribute that too...but I feel like the way I feel about things has changed. That is vague and open but I can't really think of any other way to put it.

I never feel like I change much.

But I guess just needed proof of it.


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P.S. Mike (and anyone else who is interested): The song from Day 374 is Comptine d'un autre été : L'après-midi


by


Yann Tiersen

Day 581

8/18/2008

taken : 8/18/2008

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An amazing sunset.

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Can't sleep.

This happens a lot to me lately.

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I got Lightroom 2 today.

It has some pretty nice new features...

...but some shit is buggy.

Boo.

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It has some nice retouch tools...although, I did some hasty retouches...so this self portrait does not look its finest.





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When will I fall asleep tonight?

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Who cares.

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Happy.

Day 580

(ISO 100. 200mm. f/7.1. 1/60sec.)

8/17/2008

taken : 8/17/2008

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When I used to shoot with the Olympus E-500 I had three lenses for it:
1. Some wide zoom.
2. Some telephoto zoom
3. 35mm Macro.

During that time of the daily picture project I used to make it a habit of switching up lenses every once and a while. If I had only been shooting with the wide zoom...switch to the 35mm prime (although, I'll admit I hardly ever used the telephoto...just too damn slow)

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Then I switched to Canon...and I could only to get one lens at the time of the purchase of the 40D. Sooooo since April I have really only been using one lens on the 40D (which is a wide zoom).

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Then I bought the big 70-200mm f/4.0 L lens.

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The other night while talking to Scott I remembered something important about this new lens + body combo. That lens on my body is kinda not really 70-200mm. The 40D uses an APS-C sized sensor...which is smaller than a Full Frame 35mm sensor (which is usually referenced). The focal length range of 70-200mm is 70-200mm on a full frame sensor.

The crop factor of the APS-C sensor is 1.6x.

To get the actual focal length (well that isn't true, the focal length is the same...there is just a crop factor) on my body you multiple by the crop factor.

So my lens + body is like shooting with a 112-320mm.

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It is hard to use only this L lens on my body when switching it up a little from the Tamron wide zoom...because just shooting at the shortest length of 70mm (but sort of 112mm) is pretty nuts.

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When I was thinking about buying the 70-200mm f/4.0 L lens I remember reading some not so useful reviews of it. I recall reading some review with a section aimed at people using it for wildlife photography. Because it does not have an Image Stabilization system and is a little slow (f/4.0 as opposed to the other L lens in the category that go up to f/2.8) it's not ideal for wildlife.

I remember thinking...FUCK IT...I don't plan on photographing wildlife anyway...

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well well...

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I guess I did.

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My dad loves birds.

He has multiple bird feeders around.

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So I decided to take some photos.

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I wanted to get the hummingbirds in flight...so that meant some crazy shit.

I shot the above photo @ ISO 1250. 200mm. f/4.0. 1/4000 sec.

Even at f/4.0, 1/4000 sec was just to damn fast to get any light in there...so I had to shoot @ ISO 1250.

damn.

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(ISO 1600. 200mm. f/4.0. 1/4000 sec.)
(Burst mode 6.5 frames/second.)

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anyway

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I was in Littleton this weekend to eventually go to Denver to do some Momentum stuff.

Today's shoot was @ The Bell Tower Lofts.

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The loft Momentum worked on still had this huge stained glass that dominated what looked like their office area.

It was impressive.

What I was there to photograph though was a sort of remodel/rebuild of the bell tower. They built a spiral staircase to the top of the bell tower and did some rebuilding up there...

I got some basic shots of the staircase but wanted to do something a little experimental.

Kill all the ambient light in the room and place a strobe on the staircase.

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BUT..I suck.

I sort of botched the photo anyway...

bad composition...and not very good lighting...

I tried though.

(the flash was triggered via cactus v2's)

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end of long post/weekend.

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Day 579

8/16/2008

taken : 8/16/2008

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Down in Littleton.

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Momentum shoot tomorrow.

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Day 578

8/15/2008

taken : 8/15/2008

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