These two. Meet baby sister and puppy ❤
1/80 sec at f/5.0, ISO 400, Sony a55 w/ 55mm macro lens
Aperture and Depth of Field
During a recent visit to the lake, as the dog and I were strolling through the forest next door, I decided to play with the aperture settings on my camera. After settling on looking up a poplar tree for my experiment, I rested the camera body on the tree and aimed my 50mm macro lens up towards the sky.
First, I wanted a very narrow depth of field, so I set my f-stop quite low. This meant the aperture was wide open, letting lots of light in:
1/400 sec at f/3.5, ISO 400, Sony a55 w/50 mm macro lens
Then, to see how the same photo would look like with a wider depth of field, I opted for a larger f-stop. This meant the aperture was narrower, not letting in as much light. I was having trouble focusing on the same spot as the last photo, so while it’s not a perfect compassion, it still works.
1/100 sec a f/11, ISO 400, Sony a55 w/50 mm macro lens
You can tell the difference in light by the shutter speed difference between the two shots. I don’t know about you, but I kind of like the abstract nature of the first shot.
Feeling cratfy – felt e-reader case
Earlier this summer I tweeted this:
So what exactly was I sewing? A case for my Kobo mini! Now, I still love actual books, because really, nothing beats the sound when you crack open a new book, the smell of paper and ink, the feel of the paper as you turn the pages, and the satisfaction of closing the book when you’re done. That being said, having an entire library in the palm of my hand is just awesome. Except without a cover/case, it would turn on in my backpack, change the page I was on, open a new book, or just drain the battery.
I didn’t have a pattern or anything for the case, I just kind of made it up as I went along. Here’s what I did:
Grabbed my e-reader and placed it on the pieces of felt that would be the main case, front and back. I traced the outline, giving myself some extra room so it wouldn’t be too snug once it was sewn together. I cut those pieces out and made sure they were the same size.
I browsed Pinterest for some design inspiration. I’ve always been drawn to frogs so it was a no brainer for me to make a frog themed design. I settled on a frog jumping into water and went from there. For each design item, I sketched it out on paper and once I was happy with the design I cut it out and then traced the outline on the felt, cut it out and sewed it onto the background.
I didn’t start the in-progress photos under after I had already finished the grass (sewn first) and the water.
Since I had used up my green options with the background and grass, my frog would have to be a colourful one. I guess it’s either a poisonous frog or a mimic 😉
My potentially poisonous frog wants to look where he’s leaping:
Final product!
I love the little bee – it was a last minute idea that I’m really pleased with 🙂
So what was I sewing on the bus? It wasn’t any of the detail work, it was the final, long, boring sewing together of the front and back pieces. It actually worked out quite well – I would listen to the radio on my iPod while sewing, and the bus ride few by.
And now I have a case for my mini library – what shall I read on the bus this week?
Fun with dandelions, pyro style
Just another night, hanging out together.
1/640 sec at f/3.5, ISO 1600, Sony a55 w/50mm macro lens, tripod
With my camera was set to continuous advance, this was the next picture. It went up FAST!
1/640 sec at f/3.5, ISO 1600, Sony a55 w/50mm macro lens, tripod
Am I the only one that sees a face screaming into a microphone?
1/320 sec at f/3.5, ISO 1600, Sony a55 w/50mm macro lens, tripod
This one was a much slower burn. It reminds me of a burning marshmallow.
1/320 sec at f/3.5, ISO 1600, Sony a55 w/50mm macro lens, tripod
This final cluster was a little stubborn…
1/500 sec at f/3.5, ISO 1600, Sony a55 w/50mm macro lens, tripod
…but eventually they got going and produced my favourite picture of the night 🙂
1/400 sec at f/3.5, ISO 1600, Sony a55 w/50mm macro lens, tripod
Morning butterflies by the lake
The other morning, out at the lake, little Munchkin was begging to go for a quad ride. And since that was preferable to another viewing of ‘The Little Mermaid’, down to the lake we went. Well, we get to the docks and what do we see? There, on the gravel boat launch, is a flutter of butterflies.
( Yup, that’s right – a group of butterflies is called a ‘flutter’. The more you know 😉 )
Inwardly, I was cursing for not having my camera at hand. But luckily, it was easy enough to convince little girl to go for a ride back to camp and back.
I didn’t bother switching lenses, so I was ‘stuck’ with my zoom. I count at least four different types of butterflies and now I just need to figure out what they are! Any ideas?
I really like this pretty blue one, it was beautiful in the sun.
1/2000 sec at f/13, ISO 1600, Sony a55 w/75-300mm zoom lens
1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200, Sony a55 w/75-300mm zoom lens
There was this guy, dark and dapper
1/160 sec atf/11, ISO 200, Sony a55 w/75-300mm zoom lens
Little orange
1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 100, Sony a55 w/75-300mm zoom lens
And these guys. These were by far the most abundant and gregarious.
1/100 sec at f/11, ISO 100, Sony a55 w/75-300mm zoom lens
1/100 sec at f/11, ISO 100, Sony a55 w/75-300mm zoom lens
Here’s a (blurry) close up
1/125 sec at f/11, ISO 100, Sony a55 w/75-300mm zoom lens
Thanks for looking!
Baby bluebirds!
Hey, remember these guys ? Well, guess what they did? They had a little brood of 5 babies (right in the hitch of the 5th wheel!). It was a challenging to take pictures, there wasn’t much room to maneuver the lens and no way to set up the tripod. The pictures aren’t as crisp as I would like, but anyways, here they are!
Here you can see all 5 chicks.
1/15 sec at f/5.0, ISO 1600, Sony a55
Close up
1/8 sec at f/5.0, ISO 1600, Sony a55
It’s the first full day of summer!
I know I blogged recently about the un-official start of summer, but today is the first full day of official summer! Where I live, summer technically started last night at 11:04pm, but that barely counts 😉
In honour of summer, I offer this picture of a male and female mountain bluebird for your consideration.
1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 100, Sony a55 w/75-300 zoom lens
Fun with shutter speed – bridge edition
One thing about working downtown, right by the Legislature and the river valley, I have a lot of subject options 🙂 The other day day, part of my lunchtime photography stroll took me to the High Level Bridge. I decided to play around with shutter speed using full manual mode; usually I play around with aperture in the aperture priority mode. Although I was in the shade, it was a sunny day and I’d already set my ISO to 100. I set a higher f-stop (small aperture size) to go along with my slower shutter speed to avoid blowing out my shot while capturing motion.
In my first try, I captured both car and pedestrian blur.
1/8 sec at f/32, ISO 100, Sony a55 w/50mm macro
I think this next one is pretty neat, with just a hint of the wheels left, almost ghost-like, with the U of A’s Biological Science’s building in the background.
1/10 sec at f/32, ISO 100, Sony a55 w/50mm macro
And one last full car blur.
1/10sec at f/32, ISO 100, Sony a55 w/50mm macro
Danica Staudt Photography 