Category Archives: Photography

I fixed it

I was somewhat satisfied with this shot before, and thought I’d done enough to show the texture and pop the blue.

But then I processed it again using Topaz Clarity.  I’m liking this a lot more. How about you?

Friday Night and f/1.8 (mostly)

At the dinner the other night I slapped on my 85mm and opened the aperture setting as far as it could go. The hangar is lit by ambient sunlight from the hangar doors and high hanging tungsten lights within, and while I was looking to compensate for that, I mostly wanted to blur as much of the very busy background as possible.

ISO 100, 1/200s, f/1.8

There is a lot of story swapping that goes on at an event like this.

ISO 100, 1/200s, f/1.8

ISO 100, 1/200s, f/1.8

ISO 100, 1/80s, f/1.8

Other times, you’re just taking it all in.

ISO 100, 1/80s, f/1.8

Or taking a breather . . .

ISO 100, 1/80s, f/1.8

You all chat away. I’ve got my cookie.

ISO 100, 1/80s, f/1.8

Rich.

ISO 100, 1/80s, f/1.8

I gave these two black and whites a little different treatment.  I also switched my ISO and stopped down my aperture a bit, as it was getting later and I was losing the light coming in from the hangar door.

Nancy.

ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/80s

Dessert was ice cream from two strategically placed carts. It looks like this guy got a bit more than he should have!

ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/80s

To show you what I was trying to avoid with my wide aperture, here are two I shot at f/8.

Volunteers at the front of the hangar, later in the evening.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/80s

Checking out the silent auction.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/80s

Sweetie being presented with the Volunteer of the Year award.

ISO 400, f/2, 1/160s

Can you see a difference?

I read a post a while back that noted that the reason why jpgs look so different (read: flat and odd colors) on Facebook from the jpg on our computers has to do with the compressing FB does to the photos. Many of us have also noticed the same phenomenon on WordPress.  This article suggested saving images as PNG instead. So here is my experiment.

The photos were all resized to 1800×1200.  The png images are larger in mb size of the jpg (3.34mb vs 1.34mb-color photos, 1.64mb vs 1.13mb-BW photos), so it seems to me a bit more data is being kept. But really, I don’t see a difference in the shots when I open them in separate tabs, or here on the web page. Do you?  I see a bit more definition in the black and white, and a bit more brightness in the color, I think. Or that could just be my eyes playing tricks on me.

I suppose I’ll have to try it on Facebook, though I usually publish photos to FB directly from SmugMug rather than upload directly to FB.

JPG

2013_06_12_003

PNG

2013_06_12_003png

JPG

2013_06_14_029sm

PNG

2013_06_14_029png-sm

New York City: The Eye of the Beholder

Seen at the Museum of Modern Art.

And that, my friends is the end of my posts of our travels to Washington, D.C. and New York City. I may throw another one or two photographs up, if the mood strikes me, but as MoMA was our last main stop on Day Three, aside from the NBC Studios tour where photography was strictly forbidden, I believe I have ridden this horse as far as she can go.

If you wish to see more of my photos from our trip, you can view them at my SmugMug gallery. (Link)