let’s get wide

a couple of wide angle shots… also testing/trying out a new display method using a java overlay. while you’re viewing one pic, you can navigate to the next one in the post via the arrow keys.

if you want to go to the flickr page, right click on the images and open in new window/tab (or center click if you’re a FF user).

girlfriend, last night before bed:

this morning at 6:30am in my backyard:

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6 Comments

1. Crissy, November 21, 2008:

   Is that where you were this morning? I had a feeling you were going to do that because you never take your camera downstairs to take a picture of yourself making coffee.

   That white speck at the top right hand corner is a UFO.

   They’re coming.

   Mark my words.

2. Ken, November 21, 2008:

   yes, that’s exactly where i was this morning. when i saw the sunrise coming up and how still the water was i knew i had to take a shot.

   btw, that’s the moon. zoom in and see.

   now i’m going to take a self-portait of myself making coffee just to throw you off.

3. k8, November 21, 2008:

   You have a lake in the backyard? And that angle makes Girlfriend’s hands look HUGE!

4. stoogepie, November 24, 2008:

   Holy bejeezus! That java overlay rocks and it works like a charm! Hey, for those of you who haven’t tried it, click on a picture. You zoome to screen size. Then if you click on the crosshairs thingy in the lower-right corner, you zoom to native size. Awesome!

   Yes, seriously, you have a lake in your backyard? The closest I have ever been to having a lake in my backyard was that one time I pissed off the balcony.

   Of course, these are both excellent pictures. Maybe this is a dumb question, but do you always manually focus? You plainly had to manually focus for the shot of Girlfriend.

   Did you use a filter for the sunrise picture? The colors are just incredible.

5. Ken, November 25, 2008:

   glad you’re liking the java overlay, stoogepie. i thought it was pretty slick too!

   we DO have a lake in the backyard. it is a private lake. however, our property does not abut the lake itself. luckily both abutting neighbors have long ago given verbal permission to traipse on down there whenever we please. i am somewhat interested in procuring a thin strip of land down to the shore so that legal right of access is ensured, but that of course would mean buying it from one of them, and that would require money.

   as far as focus, one of the options on many modern SLRs and DSLRs is to divorce the AF (autofocus) button from the shutter button. typically the camera default is that a half-press of the shutter actuates the AF, and then a full press releases the shutter.

   on canons, there is a menu of “custom functions” (CF) that are some configurable options for the camera. CF4 controls how the shutter button and a rear, thumb-actuated button marked * work. what i’ve done is to set it so that the * button actuates AF, and the shutter button ONLY releases the shutter. it’s actually a very common arrangement amongst people who know about it, because it can prove incredibly handy.

   so, the short answer is that i do not typically manually focus, but i DO retain independent control over WHEN the AF is active. the system works very well.

   the other thing that i take full manual control over is focus point selection. my 20d has a field of 9 AF points. the default mode is to let the camera “decide” which of the 9 points contains the thing you want to focus on. of course this is a recipe for disaster. so i lock the center AF point to be the active one. i place the center point on the object i want to focus on, press the * button with my thumb, lock focus, release my thumb, and recompose the shot so that the framing is the way i want it to be before releasing the shutter. sounds more complicated than it is, but it puts a lot of control in MY hands vs. the camera making decisions and assumptions which invariably are sometimes totally wrong.

6. Ken, November 25, 2008:

   oh yeah, the sunrise pic had the blue channel pushed up in saturation a bit in post processing. i actually over did it a bit, imho.

   i do not own any lens filters.