Home   Donate   New   Search   Gallery   How-To   Books   Links   Workshops   About   Contact

Plainview, Long Island
30 May 2010, Sunday

25 May   26    27    28    29   30    31 May    01 & 02 June 2010          Tech Details

Today, Sunday, we went to church.

Today is a family day, so if you're not family, you may want to skip straight to tomorrow's exciting photos., although you may find the technical explanations illuminating.

 

Mom and I, Plainview, Long Island, 12:04 PM.

Mom and I, Plainview, Long Island, 12:04 PM.

Canon 5D Mark II, Auto ISO 200, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/200 at f/5.6.

We were in shade, so I set SHADE white balance. Otherwise it was too blue in Auto WB.

Since everything was light, I set +1 exposure compensation to keep it that way. As always, I looked at the LCD and tried different settings until it looked right. My WB SHIFT was at A5 (amber) as usual, which was too much. Tough, it looks fine anyway.

I don't have a "before" image to show you, but it was dark and blue and crummy. Resetting WB and exposure compensation it what made this photo bearable.

I'n very happy to report that Ryan's baptism photo is up on the church's wall of fame. Yay!

 

Port Jefferson, Long Island, 10:58 AM.

Brother Steve and Mom, Plainview, Long Island, 12:04 PM.

The same settings were used as we passed the camera back and forth. Mom wanted to get to lunch, so we had no time for dilly-dallying.

The key here is that I got closer than the "take-my-picture" shot above. Most photos are too far away, like the snap of my mom and I. I got closer, but not too close, since getting closer would have started to make my brother look even funnier.

If I was paying attention, we would have lost the glasses. Oh well, my wife wasn't here to point these things to to me.

I didn't bother bringing my flash to church, which might have put a little highlight in the eyes, but as-is, this is fine for a snapshot. (I've been bringing cameras to church even before I got my first SLR at age 11.)

This is still too darn orange, and if I had brought my flash, I would also have needed to remember to remove the 1/4 CTO orange gel which is usually on it. If you set your WB warm (shade), then you don't need to warm the flash.

If I wasn't so lazy, I would have taken out some of the excess orange in Photoshop. It's easy to change the WB setting of a JPG — you don't need raw data.

 

Plainview Reformed Church

Plainview Reformed Church, Plainview, Long Island, 12:07 PM.

Canon 5D Mark II, ISO 50, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/250 at f/6.3.

Just a snap of church — except that I had to use Photoshop's Lens Distortion Filter with a vertical setting of about -14 to correct for converging lines. Before correction, it looked like this out of the camera:

 

Plainview Reformed Church

Same image, as-shot.

Note how the bottoms of the buildings are fatter than the top; vertical lines do not remain parallel when a camera is pointed upwards.

 

Green, Richard Meier, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 12:23 PM.

ShopRite, Plainview, Long Island, 1:25 PM.

Canon 5D Mark II, ISO 50, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/320 at f/7.1.

A grab shot out the back window of my brother's Subaru as we got back in our car after shopping. I set my exposure compensation to -2/3 out of habit for brightly-colored things in bright light. I also used Photoshop's Lens Distortion Filter to straighten things slightly.

 

Slacker

Long Island, New York, 7:51 PM.

Canon 5D Mark II, Auto ISO 200, Canon 50mm f/1.8, Professional exposure (P) mode chose 1/60 at f/3.2.

Drats, I was going to move back to NY, but someone already has my licence plate!

I snapped this at -2/3 exposure compensation because I wanted the black car to look as it does here. Otherwise I expected that the light license plate would have been too light. This is the only shot I took; experience teaches us what compensation to use before we make the shot. (Every camera has a different meter, so my experience won't match yours, but you are seeing the process.)

 

NEXT DAY > >

 

25 May   26    27    28    29   30    31 May    01 & 02 June 2010          Tech Details

 

Home   Donate   New   Search   Gallery   How-To   Books   Links   Workshops   About   Contact