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Friday, May 30, 2014

Walls and Light

Shot in a small Hungarian village, I was attracted by the joining of these walls and streetlamp. I used my iPhone5 and then of course edited the image in a number of programs to get this final effect. I use DistressedFX to create the final texture and of course the two birds
I really like this. I hope you do as well. Enjoy, Jeff

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Saturday, May 17, 2014

The Christman Sanctuary


 

 



 

 Nearby in Delansen, NY, is the Christman Sanctuary.  The Bozenkill runs through it and after the recent rain and prior snow, I knew the water would be flowing.  There was actually too much flow in the large falls that do not make for good water photography IMO.  I chose these scenes instead.  Camera was a Canon EOS M, 11-18mm Canon lens, circular polarizer, ISO 100, f16 to create this result.  Ev about .5 seconds.  AWB and a little fine tuning of the RAW images in Canon Digital Professional.  Enjoy, Jeff


Monday, May 12, 2014

Beach Sunrise

Created with iPhone 5, Bracket Mode, TrueHDR, DistressedFX for the final product including the two birds by the sun. Enjoy, Jeff

Good morning

Shot this morning at Red river beach in Harwichport. I used an iPhone five, Bracket Mode, TrueHDR, PhotoWizard, Retouch to get rid of birds too low in the image, DistressedFX for the bird effect which complements the photograph

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Joy in the Park


Shot with a Sony RX10, I captured this little girl having so much fun.  Chasing bubbles!  Remember when that was all that we needed for pleasure?  Hhhmmm....
Enjoy, Jeff

 


Saturday, May 3, 2014

Discarded Americana


 

 



 

 



Train Interior

                               



 

 



Train Interior 2

                               



The Knee Joint

 



Pink Chair

                               



Pink Chair 2

 



Graffiti

It is amazing to see our discards.  Nearly whole trains and derelict factories.  However they make great photo subjects.  Shot today with both iphone5 and a Sony RX10. It was a good day with my dear friend Cliff.
Enjoy, Jeff

                               


Sunday, April 27, 2014

The wonders of Route 20

Route 20, the old highway between Albany and Syracuse is full of all kinds of interesting artifacts. I took that route upon returning from Syracuse today after spending time with our grandchildren. Among the things I photographed were the last remaining old motel cabins on route 20, of course in terrible uninhabitable shape and this New York's Central diesel engine on display just west of the town of Duanesburg. The first two images were done in color HDR and then black-and-white HDR. The diesel engine was done in color HDR using TrueHDR. Of course, shot with the iPhone 5. Enjoy, Jeff

Another Gloomy Day Photo

Same location as the color HDR image uploaded yesterday. This time I changed the composition to landscape. Shot with the iPhone 5 in Bracket Mode then TrueHDR then Snapseed for black and white conversion and finally Retouch to get rid of a couple large utility poles in the far left section of the image. Enjoy, Jeff




  

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Gloomy day potentials

When faced with gloomy weather and gray clouds, HDR photography is a terrific option. This was taken with my iPhone five along the old Erie Canal in Dewitt , New York. I used Bracket Mode to compose and capture the image, TrueHDR then Snapseed HDR then PhotoWizard for curves. A very Mono chromatic, bland image was turned into something that I find quite pleasing. Enjoy, Jeff




  

Friday, April 25, 2014

Erie Canal

These were shot at the Butternut Creek, the old Erie Canal system this morning. Shot with my iPhone 5 in 645 PRO and then edited within Snapseed using tilt shift, HDR, black and white conversion to create this somewhat dreamy  effect of these old bridges over the canal. It was a fun project. Again, it reinforces the importance of having a camera with you. Especially a camera that not only will take the photographs but you can edit the photographs in  and then easily upload them to Facebook or other media. Enjoy, Jeff






  Jeff

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Camponula


Campanula4

 



Campanula3

 



Campanula2

 



Campanula1

Otherwise know as "Million Bells", these little violet flowers make a great macro subject.  Shot with the EOS M setup, Canon Macro Bellows and a 50mm Canon FD lens between 5.6-11 aperture.  Enjoy, Jeff

 


Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Cherry Blossoms


 

                               



 

There is the wonderful neighborhood in Bethesda Maryland called Kenwood Gardens.  The streets are lined with Cherry Blossom trees.  These were shot last Sunday AM with a Sony RX10 using its 24-200, 2.8 Zeiss lens.  Crystal sharp images on a one inch sensor, great color and metering make this camera worth the price.  The images were lightly edited in PS with some High Pass sharpening.  Enjoy, Jeff

                               


Saturday, April 12, 2014

Facetune

This a great iPhone app for retouching faces. Facetune has context awareness for each area that is retouched. This is my Mother's fantastic friend Molly. See the before and after results. Enjoy , Jeff

Friday, April 11, 2014

Canon Macro Bellows


  

 



  

 



  

 



Bellows Macro Flower

 

 I was privileged to receive a Canon Macro Bellows FL from Barb Lawton/ Frank Bumbartore of our photo club, The Schenectady Photographic Society.  This brings Macro to whole new level over simple extension tubes!  You can control the degree of magnification by the bellows length as well as control the aperture of the Canon FD 50mm lens I use.  Also, a live viewfinder LCD really makes this project so much easier than trying to judge composition and sharpness through a view finder.  This was shot with a Canon EOS-M.  I use a LCD light-box on a small Gorilla Pod tripod to light the flowers.  Enjoy, Jeff

 


Thursday, April 3, 2014

The Best Camera

As one professional photographer has said, "the best camera is the one that you have with you". Today I took a brief walk at lunchtime and in the building next to our office building was this liberally-no pun intended-decorated Toyota Echo. Because I had my iPhone with me, it was a very easy grab shot. I used camera plus, but edited the image Snapseed. Nothing but fun.

Enjoy, Jeff

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

JIM


JIM

I met Jim today in Washington Park.  Nice fellow who shared a bit of his life with me.  He used to be an Import Automobile Mechanic, now unemployed.  He collects returnable plastics, bottles and cans to help supplement his income. I think he has had a hard life, but nevertheless, he remained cheerful discussing his past.   Shot with a Nikon D200, ISO 500, F4 with a Nikkor 18-105 lens.  Original in color and processed with Topaz Adjust B&W to create the final image.  Enjoy, Jeff

 


Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Morning Gift

I love looking into the backyard while having breakfast. This morning I noticed something different.  Three deer resting in the woods right off our yard.
Knowing that they could also see me, I carefully got up and grabbed my Nikon D200 with a Nikkor VR ,  55-200mm zoom. Wanting a narrow zone of focus, I set the ISO to 500, Av 5.6 to allow for a fast shutter.  Very slowly I opened the back sliding door and moved onto the back deck.  They saw me of course, stared and slowly got up.  I fired off about 12 shots and went back inside.  They hung around for about 5 more minutes than casually walked off.  Of the images, I liked this one which can be seen in the original color image without edit.  I thought a black and white development would look nice.  Thus I edited in Topaz B&W Effects 2 using Hi Contrast with some added vignetting and selective dodging and burning.
What a nice morning experience!  Enjoy, Jeff





Thursday, March 13, 2014

B&W with the iPhone 5

There are a number of Apps to convert color to striking monochrome images with the iPhone.  I have tried many but always go back to Snapseed to edit this images.  It's B&W conversion tool creates sharp images with lots of control including the use of traditional B&W filters such as Red, Green and Yellow.  Great fun!
Enjoy, Jeff

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Oil in Abstraction Continued


Autofoc Assist lamp reflection

 



Oil 3

 


I am becoming obsessed about nailing  down this technique!  I played a round with my setup as shown to the left.. Patterns on the floor, good window light today, pyrex glass dish with water and oil, camera and hoodman. tripod and macro rail.  Initially I saw this annoying orange light in the   left  side and finally realized that it was the AF assist beam reflecting off the surface.  Could not disable it in the menu so I solved that with duct tape over the beam!.  Still have to fiddle with technique to find the right amount of water to keep the details on the glass dish bottom (lines, bubbles and so forth) from coming through.  The old Tamron 90mm 2.5 Macro at 2.5 helps a lot.  Enjoy, Jeff
 
 
setup

 


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Oil in Abstraction



Another snowy day project.  I used my Macro set-up as noted a few posts below ( 50mm Canon FD lens, 50mm of extension and the Canon EOS M) with a Canon Speed light 90EX at -2 compensation. ISO 400, f-stop 3.5, shutter 1/125 with flash.  Set up was a pyrex glass dish filled with water, a few drops of vegetable oil, placed on a glass table with a dish of colorful flowers about 18 inches underneath.  Shot on tripod with Macro Focusing Rail with the sensor parallel to the oil droplets.  You have only a few seconds for the shot as the oil disperses quickly.  Shot in RAW and edited in Canon Digital Professional.  Great winter indoors photo project.  Enjoy, Jeff


Saturday, February 15, 2014

Small Landscapes #5


Another fun shot with the Canon EOS M and a wonderful, old Tamron 90mm, 2.5 Macro Lens.  With an EOS M adaptor attaches to a Tamron to Canon FD adapter, the lens works beautifully on the camera.
The F stop was 2.5 to create a very narrow DOF and a blur of flower petal colors.  Focus was manual on just a few points of the flower base and the rest is intentionally left soft.  The image was edited lightly as a Canon Raw file in Canon Digital Photo Professional.  All on a tripod and Macro Focus Rail. A 2 second timer fired the shutter.  Enjoy, Jeff

 


A Simple Portrait

This is Jay, a very soft spoken man I met while on
Antigua last month. I look for people that to me are
different and unique. We had a great chat about life
and our faiths. He is a Rastafarian. A very gentle
faith immersed in nature and monotheism. I used the
iPhone 5 with Camera + to take and edit the image
Enjoy, Jeff

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Snow Day

 

 Note the sign!



 

 



 

 



 

 I wanted to capture people in the city on a snowy day.  For this I used my Nikon D200 DSLR with a Nikkor 18-135mm lens,  ISO 400 and Av of 4.5 to get a fast exposure.  Metering was center weighted to reduce the need for exposure compensation due to the predominance of snow/white in the scene.  I used a Kata protective camera bag that allowed me to use all the controls, see the viewfinder and of course keep the lens and camera dry.  In the 3rd photo, the guy was so happy for he found a kid to shovel the sidewalk!  Enjoy, Jeff