My first real photo shoot – getting creative
by betoman on Jan.22, 2012, under Creativity, Photography
Angel reveals
Last night my wife, my daughter and my niece were kind enough to let me shoot portraits of them. I got creative.
I had fun doing my first real photo shoot. My wife Elizabeth, my daughter Emma and my neice (by marraige) Angelica came over. My buddy Mike was here to help as well, Fernando came to shoot some video as well but since I was using my strobes it was tough for him to get any shots so he helped with set up as well. I had a shot list but didn’t get everything I wanted but, I did have fun experimenting with lights in my living room.
We turned out living room into a studio, almost like the past time we shot a video of Wendy (click here for link).
I was pleasantly surprised at how it set up so well. It made it easy to shoot my models. Below are just a few samples of the 500 images I shot. I’ve proccessed only a few. Click on them for a larger view.
Now to finish processing and then post some more online.
Beto
Popularity: 9% [?]
Foggy morning on Little Leaf drive
by betoman on Jan.20, 2012, under Creativity, Photography
The view behind our fence on this cool foggy Jan2012 morning.
I was up earlier than usual since it was my turn to take the kiddos to school. When I looked out the window, I saw the cool fog and grabbed my camera to snap some pictures. Click on the photos below for a larger view.
It’s pretty funny that I saw the dog in the tree…and I didn’t even have my coffee yet!
Beto
Popularity: 2% [?]
Radar Owl – scaring the birds – no more poop…hopefully
by betoman on Jan.15, 2012, under Creativity, DIY
Hooty Owl on patrol.
We’ve been having some problems with some birds pooping on our trucks parked in our driveway…so we went and got an owl.
…well a plastic one at that. You can see from the gallery below that some branches have grown over our driveway and right over Liz’s new truck. Birds have decided to start roosting right on those overhangs and they began to drop “their stuff” on her black truck.
That sucks.
I know we need to prune the tree but I don’t want to haul it away so we’re going to wait until we have brush pick up which will be around March. Plus, we’ll probably have some guys come by and prune the tree really well. No need to have me hanging on a ladder trying to save some money by doing it myself…then paying for the emergency room visit or worse…some damage to our home.
In the meantime, what do we do about the pooping birds?
Liz mentioned that her parents used a plastic owl so I purchased one and tried to figure out how to hang in about 20ft above our driveway without killing myself in the process.
Enter my PVC.
Yes, that wonderful stuff I use for DIY projects. I found some 10ft poles in the garage and with a coupler – I had my 20ft. I simply added a hook to the owl and strung it up. Check out the pics below.
Hopefully this will tie us over until March but I’ll keep everyone posted to see if Hooty Owl works.
Funny thing is that we already have owls in the greenbelt behind our home…
Beto
Popularity: 2% [?]
Getting better at shooting the moon
by betoman on Jan.11, 2012, under Creativity, Photography
So I go from shooting trees – to shooting the moon!
Last night was a great night to view the moon. Elizabeth and Emmy came home from a late school meeting and yelled for me to go out and shoot the moon!
I had tried to shoot the moon before but I really didn’t know my camera gear well enough to get some great detail. This time, I was ready.
I grabbed my Nikon D7000 and slapped my Sigma 200mm 2.8 lens on it then put it on my tripod then Liz and I went to my front yard. We sat outside in the cold and “snuggled” while waiting for the moon to clear the tree line.
I set my camera to F20 at 1/30 shutter speed – ISO 100 and manual focus. Using “Live View” mode on my camera LCD allowed me to zoom in electronically to achieve focus. Using the viewfinder wasn’t an option since all I could see was a little white dot that was bright. Focus attained, I then used my wireless remote to fire the camera – this avoids any camera shake.
Got some good photos but I really should be using at least a 300mm lens…
“See honey! That’s why I need a new lens…”
“No….it looks fine with what you have…”
But I was quite pleased with the outcome. I took the photos into Photoshop (after converting the RAW files) and did some cropping and sharpening.
The photo on the right is how small the moon looked in my photos – thank godness for a 14mb picture!
So, there you go. Next time…video.
Beto
Popularity: 2% [?]
Beautiful colors on our street
by betoman on Jan.10, 2012, under Creativity, Photography
This is my neighbors tree in front of our home.
Got home with my son today and looked across the street and saw how nice the sunset was licking the top of my neighbors tree. Then I noticed the color. Wow…I went in and grabbed my camera and took a couple of quick snaps. This is the same tree I took about two years ago when it was foggy and my imagination got the best of me. a title=Read my story… href=http://betolab.net/?p=1772Click here for the story./a
Pretty different huh?
Beto
Popularity: 2% [?]
