Wet Lego - 8/7/19

This night after work I had the idea to shoot inside, and as I have an obscene amount of Legos I choose that. I started building a street corner that I could photograph. My idea was to shoot it with water pouring onto it to simulate it being in the rain.

I tried a lot of different angles. I put the baseplate up on an acrylic case I had in the shower. I tried shooting in on the bottom of the tub. At first my idea was to fill up a bucket of water, and pour it through a kitchen strainer to displace it through the holes. But it wasn’t enough water, and getting that timed up with the shot was difficult to say the least.

And different lenses. I tried to shoot it on the 150-600, from the door to the bathroom. I wanted to have to crop out as little as possible of the background. That didn’t work at all.

In the end I got it with a smaller acrylic case, my lights and camera set up around the tub. And just turning on the shower head and letting it run for a second to let the water really cover the whole Lego build. Then taking a bit of a long exposure so the water would be splashing. It doesn’t simulate rainfall anymore exactly, but I think it came out looking really cool.

I should also mention the lights, I put one for a front light so I wouldn’t lose the details. But the second one also had a blue gel on it, so I could get the transparent blocks to appear like windows, and I wanted a blue look to the shot.

Here’s a series of images for a look at the process. First one was before the water, just trying to get focus and what the lighting would look like.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @135 - 1.0 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 100

Then we have when I tried shooting from the door. Turns out any movement at all, even all the way across the room is enough to jiggle the camera a little. And during a long exposure at such a zoomed in range. Well, you see what I mean.

Canon 5D Mark II w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 0.5 Sec - F6.3 - ISO 100

The next one was getting closer to what I wanted. But not quite there with the lights. I needed to shoot a lot brighter and tone it done in the edit.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @135 - 1/125 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 1000

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @135 - 1/80 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 1000

And that leaves us with the above image. Frozen water drops everywhere, lots of splashes. Still getting a bit of blue light, although to be fair most of that came back in the editing process. I cropped it a good bit to cut out the background of the tub parts.

In the end it was a fun little way to spend the evening. And I quite like the picture that came out of it.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @135 - 1/80 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 1000 - Same as above, just cropped and edited.

At the mountain top with a new piece of gear - 8/4/19

My weekends usually looked like this. Saturday I did very little productive and played games all day. Unless I went out in the morning or evening for photography. Sunday morning was always the grocery run. Then meal prep and more video games on Sunday afternoon. Or make a big meal, eat too much and nap. But this Sunday I must have gotten that out of the way early and felt up to go look for wildlife. So back up to the top of the mountain that I had gone to a few weeks before.

Only thing time I was testing out a new piece of equipment that I had used my credit card reward points to pick up. I knew with the big lens I needed a better tripod head, the basic ball head that came with the tripod I had was not great. I needed a gimbal. But the best one by Wimberley was five to six hundred dollars. There’s no way I could afford that right now. So I, like most of my purchases for this hobby, picked out the cheapest one by Neewer. Gotta say I’m pretty happy with it at that cost. I still use it to this day, which isn’t even a year later so don’t think that speaks much yet.

I did read a lot of reviews about needed to re-grease it, I have yet to do that to mine as it would require some tools I don’t have to get it dissembled. But it does work, and after owning for a while I would learn about balancing it so it would float and freely move. I didn’t know about this when I first got it, and to be honest I would give up trying when I owned the Tamron zoom lens. It doesn’t make much sense to balance it out when you’re going to be moving the lens and shifting the weight throwing it out of balance again. I would just get used to keeping a hand on it and locking it down when I needed to. For $90 instead of $600. I’m happy.

So, up the mountain with my camera, tripod and new head.

As I mentioned this particular place is busy, very busy. And on the way up the mountain trail I obviously didn’t see anything. But once I was at the top there was a spot where no one was at that moment, and there I found two subjects I could photograph.

The first being this squirrel that was going out on the branches to grab some food, then bringing it back to a safe spot for eating.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @329 - 1/500 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 800

And the second animal I found was this Mourning Dove. A solid unit of a Mourning Dove I may add. When he puffed up as he preened, he looked even bigger.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @273 - 1/400 Sec - F8.0 - ISO 100

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @273 - 1/400 Sec - F8.0 - ISO 100

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @273 - 1/400 Sec - F8.0 - ISO 100

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/800 Sec - F7.1 - ISO 200

And before I left the top of the mountain I turned my attention back to the squirrel, who was heading onto a branch for food. Although he moved quickly and the photo is a little blurry because of that, it’s still interesting to me.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @150 - 1/200 Sec - F7.1 - ISO 800

And that was it for that day. Or at least all that I photographed. I do remember being up at the top of the mountain away from the people and hearing something rustle in the woods. The opposite of the trail that I used to come up. Which I then head down, turned out to be not a trail but how the park rangers get to the top in an emergency. A cleared path big enough for a vehicle. Not easily, but doable.

Since there were signs about it not being a path, not having access back to the trail and otherwise being not a part of the park, I obviously turned around and headed back the right way. So as not to disturb anything or anyone. I never did find out what made that rustle, but I assume it was a deer. As I had seen them before on the mountain.

Back to the regular - 7/27/19 - 7/30/19

It would be another week after vacation before I went out with the camera again. And another week after that before I actually took any pictures worth sharing.

I packed up my gear and head out at sunrise on a Saturday morning. I went a little further away this time to a spot on the Chattahoochee river. It was a paid place, so I paid the $5 and hoped to make the best of it. I figured I had been trying all the free places over and over I might as well see what I’m missing out on.

Turns out it wasn’t much, still very crowded as the morning went on. I found a nice big open field near a boat launch, where no one was when I got there. I was at the water at first, having come up on it from a walking trail. But as I walked up to the field and picnic tables I noticed movement across from me. A deer coming out of the foliage.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/640 - F6.3 - ISO 3200

Of all the pictures I took that one turned out the best.

There was more than one than eventually came out to eat from the low branches. I laid down on the ground to not disturb them and because I knew from my research you get a better picture when you are level with the subject.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @273 - 1/80 - F5.6 - ISO 400

They moved on eventually, back into the trees. So I returned to the water to walk the trails along it looking for anything. I did see a good bit of waterfowl, but here’s the thing. It was early morning, so a lot of mist on the water. And the sun was rising in front of me, kind of forgot that important part.

Still, the best conditions to shoot in are the ones you’re out shooting in.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @150 - 1/320 Sec - F5.0 - ISO 1000

Eventually I did see what I was looking for, not the dozens of people out using the trails stopping to ask about my photography. But wildlife. Through the trees down by the water my eye spotted something that wasn’t tree colored.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @428 - 1/800 Sec - F6.3 - ISO 640

A Great Blue Heron silently waiting for it’s chance to get a meal. It didn’t get that while I was watching, but it did give up and start preening.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @600 - 1/800 Sec - F6.3 - ISO 250

Of all the pictures I took originally I never edited any of them of the Heron. Because of the light source being behind and the leaves I was shooting through trying to get a clear image. I declared it meh back last year. Thankfully looking at them now to pull out some for the blog, I did go back and pick those two, and I quite like them.

After the Heron I went out on the water. I found a place where you could go down a side trail to lead you to some very large rocks that came out into the water. It was a very nice spot actually, to be out on the water without having to get wet. Beyond the tree line you could see a lot more. I didn’t stay for too long as I felt myself starting to cook in the sun, should have brought sunscreen. But I did take a picture of a mother/child Mallard that were working their way along the river.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @400 - 1/500 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 100

And from there I moved to walking the trails actually up into the woods. It was also getting later in the day. The trail was uneventful wildlife wise. I did at one point take this picture.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @329 - 1/125 Sec - F8.0 - ISO 3200

Besides that there was little to no wildlife through the woods. Just people out walking.

I did go out a few nights later to a spot I had been to, but also not been to. I went to the pond a while back a few times, but this time I went the opposite direction and found some open areas where I could walk.

I did spot a hawk that I started taking pictures of, until I noticed it being harassed by a drone. Which infuriated me to no end. Best to not rehash it here as it will just make me mad all over again. Besides those photos of the hawk I did spot a mockingbird most likely with some kind of, I don’t know. Nut? Fruit? Something.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @150 - 1/250 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 2000

And I saw a very nice sunset. Completely unexpected but I still took a picture through the trees with the 7D and Tamron lens surprisingly. I think I was just mad and looking to get out of there. The sound of the drone and the cries of the hawk were pissing me off.

Canon 7D w/Tamron 150-600mm @150 - 1/250 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 125