Nighty Crossing

I started to think about today's post late. And one of the titles of tomorrow's CCCC's (Champaign County Camera Club) competition is Night Photography. I need to go to department, so I took a few night shots on Green-Wright Crossing. I mostly thought about the cars' light track. Unfortunately, traffic is fairly light, which reduce the density of it. I use ISO100, F22, which gives me about 10s. I used 10s-15s. And I tried the multiple-exposure of K10D. It supposes to average all the exposure and should give me more exposure time than one shot in this case. But it seems to give more weight to the last shot when averaging and makes the light-tracks in previous shots less obvious.

I am using the DA 16-45/4 this time. I just realized all my old posts' photos were taken by old MF lens. This is the first picture by AF lens. Well, I do not have really wide-angle for MF lens. (This is probably most because APS-frame. The wide-angle here will be ultra-wide-angle in MF era. ) My UV filter is kind of dirty, produce lots of flare. It really needs some cleaning. I am too lazy. The second shot is without the filter and has much less flare.

Another Bike

I took the camera with me this afternoon and had a short walk after the meeting. I tried out this JCPenny 28mm/2.8. It seems not very good. The corner is quite soft and there is some distortion. This bike was taken with it and maybe something wider will give me better result. I just like the feeling.

Something about CPU

I played with my E2140 a little bit. The motherboard got some problems and is back to service now. So the CPU sits there alone. I tried my flash set-up again. One flash is down of the transparent board and one on the side. The one on top of the camera triggers them. It is not very successful though. The color is a little bit dull and reflection is hard to control.

This one is My Favorite Two Tools. Both the pen and the CPU are indispensable in my study and life.


Jie Suggested this idea. Two chips.

(with 50mm macro, Sigma 500 super, sigma 430 super, quantum auto flash)

Meadowbrook

Well I took a 50mm walk on Meadowbrook Again this afternoon. I went there a bit earlier today and there was still plenty of sunshine there. I tried some macro again. It seems better this time with F14-F20. I got both the petal and stamen into focus in some shots. The stamen are really nice, subtle green. I also tried out the polarizer received yesterday. It is a linear polarizer, but it seems to work just fine on the K10D. It cuts down the reflection and deepen the blueness of the sky. Fairly nice. The only problem is that the 50mm macro's filter thread is a little off. It must be dropped before. I corrected this a little bit, but not very smooth for the filter.

I really like this shade.


This thing looks interesting too.

Great Food

Jie surprised me with lots of dishes when I got home . Here is the one looks most beautiful. Others taste great but not as good-looking. I shot the picture last night but went to bed early and forgot to upload it. So this one still counts as 9/26's.

It was shot by 50mm/2.8 macro with a small flash. It will probably looks better with a multi-flash set-up. But I am too lazy. Also, the food often looks great with the direct flash's high-light, which emphasize the feeling of the oil and juicy coving.

Squirrel in 200mm

I got home early this afternoon and it was a cloudy day with rain. The sun hides in thick cloud and it was good to shoot the squirrel. They do not hide in the dark shade like in sunny day and it is much better illuminated in the openness of cloudy day. I took the new arrived Pentax-M 200/4 and an 2x adapter. With the 2x on, it is F8, I can works in 1/200s still for iso 400-800 with lens wide open. Fairly good. The picture quality is not very great, somewhat fuzzy. It is very hard to focus and some are just because of off-focus a little. But some seems just caused by the adapter or maybe the lens. I am not sure which one I should blame. Anyway, it is still good to get this simple 400mm solution with a reasonable picture. It was filled in the full picture and I only need to do a very small crop. One thing I am fairly sure about the adapter is the CA. Check out the out of focus part of this one.


This one looks cute. K10D produces a very lovable tone for the leaves. Again, I am not sure which one I should credit, the K10D, the 200/4 or adapter. Or maybe all of them.


Check more squirrel here.

First day with K10D

Somebody picked my K100D from ebay yesterday. So now it is the start of K10D era. I am not terribly thrilled by the camera though. The review after shot is still a bit slow. It does not show until it saves the image into the card. Maybe my card is not up to the speed. Anyway, it is not as fast as my old 20D. Maybe I am not familiar with it enough. I will wait a few days to get used to it.

I took a walk with the 100/4 macro around. K10D seems cannot meter the lens consistently. F4 is good, F11-16 is kind of over-exposed. It was quite windy. And it killed most of my relatively slow speed shots. I was lucky to spot a couple of locusts. Well, the 100/4's macro ability stands to the test. It only goes 1:2, but it is well enough for the locusts. And in 1:2, the work distance is fairly good. And fortunately the locust was fairly dumb and did not move a lot.

50mm in Spurlock

Wel, 50mm/2.8 macro definitely becomes my favorite in K100D. It is fast, sharp, light, and do macro. I spent a little bit over half an hour in Spurlock this afternoon. I always want to take some pictures there. K100D+50/2.8 is a very good combination for that. The SR allows me mostly in iso 800 and 1/25s. And I am very confident to shoot in wide-open in this lens.

The white balance is challenging. The museum's lights are kind of weird and lights in different places has different temperature. Pentax's auto-white-balance is not very well most of the time indoor. But it provides a very useful and handy custom white balance function. I use it all the time. I have to find whatever white place available and I have to use the gray card sometimes bacuse there is no white object to set the custom white-balance. However, to make it worse, the glass of the exhibit often casts some odd shades, which made the gray-card-corrected WB, which can only be done outside the glass, sill quite off. I spent great deal amount of time back in Lightroom to tweak the white balance.

I only walk in the lobby, the Asian room and the small exhibit for Egypt. (Good, leave something for future.) Actually I learned when I was almost done that exhibit for Egypt stuff was not allowed to shot. But they were kindly enough not to ask me to delete them. Anyway here are here.

I really like this Japanese girl doll. The pose, the color and the build is perfect. It is delicate and adorable. I wish that i could record it well in my picture.


This one is in the exhibit of Egypt. It is rudiment yet powerful.



This Chinese wedding march is lovely and it is tiny.

50mm in Beckman

We had a meeting this afternoon in Grainger and I brought the camera. I wish I had a smaller bag for camera that only accommodates a camera with one lens. That would fit my backpack much better. Now I had to use the smaller camera bag instead and it is still huge for the backpack.

Shot by 50mm/2.8 macro.

It is not a great shot, maybe it would play better if in an absolutely symmetric.


This is a B&W convert for my new bike. Maybe it would look better with a shallow DOF? Not sure.



Some stuff I bid on ebay arrived today. They are Pentax-M 50mm/1.7 and 200mm/4. Now I got a lots of MF lens. :)

28mm Walk around Orchard Down

After yesterday's 50mm walk, 28mm walk is a no-brainer today. Unfortunately, I still have no particular idea for today's photo. So I picked up the 28mm lens and had a walk after I got home this evening. This one is more pleasant than yesterday. It was the similar time (5:30pm-6:30pm), but the sun was much more cooperative and shined all the time. The lawn and garden around the Orchard Down has substantially less mosquitoes. There were lots of squirrels in the small woods and next time maybe I can take a 200mm walk.

One thing very good about this walk is that I got a deeper idea about the focus length. 28mm is more like a standard lens in APS frame camera. (Maybe 35mm is even better.) There is little chance to produce any wide-angle visual impact by it. But it gives you something really normal. (Maybe that will train my eye better?) My off-brand $17 28mm/2.8 lens performs respectfully. I shot a few 2.8 picture and it is sharp enough for me. The flare is serious though. But it is expected in the low sun and can be avoided with some care and my hand worked as shade for sometime. I am wondering how Pentax's SMC performs though.

I developed some more affection for the back-light. The leaves looks lovely light-green with back-lighting. And the back-light define the outline with a touch of gold.


(I think it is 2.8 although I am not sure. The camera does not get the aperture information of the MF lens and cannot record it.)

50mm walk in Meadowbrook Park

Well, last one is actually done on Sept. 19's 1:00am. I wish I could put out a post everyday. I still had no idea for today's shot when I got home this afternoon. It was only 5:20pm and the sun is in the good mood. So I decided to take a walk in the Meadowbrook Park. It was not a great walk. For one, the sun went behind cloud shortly after I arrived there by bike. The situation was a little dim and I did not brought the tripod. This made some macro shot impossible. Also, mosquitoes got more and more active. They were especially ferocious when I stopped to shoot. Nevertheless, I did one thing I always wanted to do. I used only the 50mm/2.8 macro although I took all the primes with me. I always thought about what would happen if only one lens. Well I tried out and resisted the temptation to change the lens at a few points. Maybe later I can put a post with "28mm walk". That can save a few more days. I should have brought only the small bag. However, I did not find many interesting subject. And I could not concentrate long later in the walk because of the mosquitoes. Maybe it is just because I only get mediocre eyes.

Hmm, first

I do not like the introduction. Frankly, I do not know how to write it. Maybe save it for later. Anyway, let us begin.

This little remote came today from Hongkong, only costs $4.46 shipped. http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5483 Really tiny. It works with lots of camera. I tested it for K100D and it works. What a deal! Shoot it with Pentax-A 50/2.8 macro with two flashes for the shadeless effects. Not every successful. But it is kind of cool with the reflection. If you look really closely, you will see I am shooting in each button.