moss, rain

moss, rain
Originally uploaded by mehampson

A macro of moss growing in the yard, after a brief rain.

goldfinch on sentry

goldfinch on sentry
Originally uploaded by mehampson

For two days, the finches were settling in the lower branches around that lone tall one, or along the bottom of it. Finally, literally moments after I resigned myself to not getting the shot, one landed on the very end of it.

I am returned

I am back from my trip, with 2 gigs of photos to sort through -- having already culled the obvious ones while shooting -- so I'll have some new work online very soon. I did some birdfeeder ambush photography, where I set up my tripod about ten feet from my mom's feeder and waited for birds. As it turns out, the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM is an excellent, useful lens for many things, but bird photography is not really one of them. But it's my longest lens, except for the 28-105mm, which isn't really as sharp. (I do need to sit down and really compare them at 100mm though -- the Macro loses some if its sharpness as you focus closer to infinity, and while I'm sure it's still the winner, I wonder by how much.)

Most excitingly, I ordered a Canon 40D. This will be a big step up from the Rebel XT I'm shooting with now -- better high ISO performance, better construction and ergonomics, Live View, increased dynamic range, and better autofocus are all going to be extremely useful. Adorama, and B&H for that matter, are both closed for Passover, so I have to wait a week or two, but I don't mind. I wasn't expecting to be able to afford the upgrade for a year or two, so I can definitely wait a week.

I was considering the 50D as well, but decided against it for two main reasons. First, it'd be another $300, and as much as I'd wish otherwise, that put it out of my price range. Second, I wasn't convinced from the various reviews I've read and sample images I've seen that it's worth the extra money. I expect it will take a long time before I'm looking to do things that the 40D can't do, but I was not, ultimately, convinced that it would be any longer with the 50D.

My images are done transferring off the camera, so I am off to review and start some post-processing. We shall see what comes of it.

splash

splash
Originally uploaded by mehampson

I'm out of town for a few days and will be blogging about some older stuff that's already been uploaded to Flickr. I'm taking new photos, but I won't be back at my own computer until next week. It's a little reminiscent of film shooting, in that I have a load of images that I can't sort through immediately. So in the meantime, I think I'll highlight some of my actual film images -- though I don't have many scanned and uploaded.

This is one of my favorite prints. The splash effect was done in the darkroom -- the only digital retouching involved was a little tweaking of the levels after I scanned the print.

Originally it was taken on Tri-X film with either a Sears KS-1 (a rebranded Ricoh XR-6) shortly before it's fatal trip down a flight of stairs, or the Canon Rebel 2000 that I replaced it with. The photograph itself was nothing special -- a slightly blurred shot of a friend holding a tree, with the wind blowing her hair into her face. A little dark and not too contrasty, which makes me think it was the KS-1, since the Rebel 2000 had much better light metering.

I still wanted to do something interesting with it, so I made a normal exposure on the print paper, but instead of soaking the entire sheet in developer fluid, I just splashed it heavily on one side. This gave it the irregular but natural splatter pattern.

I tried this technique on a couple different prints, but this one was by far the most interesting and compelling result.