I think this one explains its self.
ISO 160 1/30 f/2.8 28mm
Resting
Des Moines @ Night
Re-post June 2011
I drove into Des Moines tonight for a meeting and thought I would capture some pictures. Des Moines is one of my favorite cities. Since graduating in 2005 from Des Moines University there has been a significant amount of renovation to the downtown area. I love the architecture and it’s always a great place to take pictures.
Iowa’s State Capitol sits on the east side of downtown (immediately behind me in this picture). There is a lot of sidewalks and landscape to its west. It also sits up high in comparison to the remaining downtown which allows for some great cityscapes. Also, I love how Locust street ends in front of the capitol thus allowing for a unique perspective.
This shot was taken at dusk using my Leica M9 and 90mm summarit-m. As Leica owners know, summarit is considered their “affordable” lens (most would disagree). Anyway, I’ve been very happy with its sharpness and have taken many great pictures with it.
Share:
Looking for reflections
Anytime I’m walking around big cities I’m always looking for good reflections. I came across this building with a nice reflection, only thing missing was a dramatic sky.
ISO 250 1/250 50mm
Share:
The Abandoned School
Re-post from July 2011
A few days ago I decided to travel the local country side to look for interesting structures to take pictures of. It was in the middle of the afternoon and is typically the worst time to take pictures because the sun light causes very harsh shadows and typically the camera cannot compensate for the amount of exposure. Besides HDR photography there are other ways to fix this problem. One way is to use a neutral density filter.
Neutral density filters are either colorless or grey and reduce and/or modify the intensity of light without harming color rendition. This allows photographers to shoot in situations that typically wouldn’t allow them. These filters come in different intensities, which allow for different shooting techniques.
I recently purchased B+W ND 3.0 at B & H Photo for my Leica 21mm Elmarit lens. It allows me to shoot in very bright light, thus allowing proper exposure. It can also be used to create a time lapse picture which shows the motion of clouds or objects in front of it. As I was driving around I came across this old school (built in 1896) that appeared to be on its last leg. You can see in the pic, the motion of the clouds in this 4 second exposure.
Share:
Our Future @ 11 months
A night at the drive-In
My wife and I have always been big movie people, going to the movies at least a couple of times a month. Obviously, we don’t get to go much anymore because of our baby girl (that’s not a bad thing). Last summer we were anxious to see the last Harry Potter movie. We hopped in the truck and drove to the drive-in. I caught this picture when I was walking back to the truck.
ISO 800 1/30 f/1.4 50mm
Share:
Beautiful Sunset
Almost a year ago my wife and I were sitting in our living room and I looked out the window and noticed a beautiful cloud formation. We rushed into the car and drove west. I was able to capture this with my 35mm summicron.
ISO 160 1/750 f/2.0 35mm
Share:
Old Grey Barn
Re-post August 2011
Keeping it short today. Couple weeks ago when I was driving around Bluffton, Indiana I came across this old grey barn. Again, it was in the middle of the day which does not make for good shooting but I put my 3.0 ND filter on my 21mm lens and shot 7 exposures to create an HDR pic. I think it turned out well? I really like the movement of the clouds.
Share:
Man on a bike
I don’t typically discuss my post-processing but today I thought I would mention a few programs that I routinely use. I store all my pictures in Apple’s Aperture 3. Most who read this blog are probably familiar with it or know of it. It’s basically a program to easily store and file all your pictures (i.e. library). You can also make adjustments to your pictures without making permanent changes. Most, use Adobe’s Lightroom or the casual photographer will use iPhoto. I’ve used all 3 and iPhoto is definitely more for enthusiast.. Lightroom and Aperture are very similar and I really wouldn’t say one is better than the other.
I use Adobe Photoshop 5 or more recently 6.0 (beta). I use this when needing to make more complicated fixes or needing to layer my pictures.
Last, I routinely use Nik Software’s Silver Efex 2 and Color Efex 4. Both allow very controlled and unique changes and I highly recommend both.
I’ve posted a prior shot of this guy with cars flying by him. This is just one shot when he was patiently waiting for traffic to clear long enough for him to go. This shot was edited with Aperture 3, Photoshop 6, and Nik Software Color Efex 4.
Here’s the previous post.
ISO 160 1/30 f/1.4 50mm summilux
