Scattered Thoughts . . .

D igital image sensors are manufactured in many sizes ranging from smaller than a pencil eraser to the approximate size of a playing card.  The larger the sensor size, the better the overall image quality so photographers tend to want the largest size they can afford.  Naturally, the larger the sensor, the higher the cost so that is usually the primary limiting factor for photographers.   Also worth considering is the price of lenses.  The larger the sensor, the larger the lens needs to be.  Tiny sensors only need tiny lenses (think cellphones).  A sensor the size of a playing card requires a big lens and the larger the lens, the higher the price, generally speaking (quality is a huge factor in price too).   Each time a photographer moves to a larger sized sensor, the price of equipment jumps significantly.  The same has always held true for film too.  The smaller format of 110 film (same size as 4/3 inch sensors) costs less than th...

I 've been out on my new bike more than a few times over the past couple of weeks since the bike arrived.  Some of these times, I mounted my Sony X3000 action camera on the handlebars.  This is a pretty nice little action camera.   Actually, I captured some underwater video of Kenzie and Lukey in the pool in Dayton earlier this summer that I haven't done anything with yet.  I need to revisit all those photos and video from that trip and share some of that here.   Anyway, back to my recent bike rides this autumn and having cameras with me during the rides... I didn't keep this little action camera running continuously but I did get some decent footage ten to twenty minutes at a time.  My plan was to eventually cut the long videos into four or five second clips of interest and then put together a video of those short clips.  I really didn't spent a whole lot of time on this but I managed to get a video put together this morning. ...

I wrote a few days ago about getting a new bicycle.  Each day, a new upgraded part arrives for this new bicycle so, little by little, I've been upgrading this rather basic bicycle.  I chose this specific bicycle because it had some features I wanted, the price was right, it was a larger model and I knew I wanted disc brakes of some sort.  I've had a difficult time finding larger bikes in summertime but a few popped up online after Labor Day.   Unfortunately, this bike arrived with giant fluorescent orange lettering across the whole bike frame.  In my opinion, the color orange is suitable for only oranges, pumpkins and some autumn leaves.  Fluorescent orange is not suitable for anything and should be eliminated as a color.  One of the first things I did was repaint the frame to cover up this fluorescent orange lettering.  The bike was already gray so all I had to do with order a flat gray primer and spray over the lettering.  The color m...

T his afternoon, I finally got out on my new bicycle for a short ride which was after a very disappointing and frustrating day. My morning started with a couple of packages arriving at the house.  This should have been good news because it was two packages for my new bicycle but both products are being returned.  I wasted about two hours screwing around with both of these products only to realize that they must be returned. The first product was a nice bicycle seat post that has a suspension within the post.  I installed it on my bicycle and rode down the driveway and up and down our bumpy road a few times and quickly realized that this suspension was doing nothing.  I noticed absolutely no difference between having this suspension seat post and having a normal solid seat post.  I packaged it up again and then set up the return online. The second product was a rack for the car to carry the bicycle so I can bring the bicycle to a few other areas for biking. ...

T here is a way to sort of simulate shooting in medium format or even large format (those old large wooden cameras with a bellows on a big, heavy tripod with a cloth draped over the photographer's head) by shooting many images (side by side, high to low) with a wide aperture and then stitching the images together.  This provides a wide view compared to just a single image using the same lens but also will provide a very shallow depth of field.  I've never tried this before but the idea of this technique always intrigued me so I tried it this afternoon in our living room. A shallow depth of field simply means that what is in focus in the photo is just a small slice of the whole scene...  what is in front of the slice of focus is blurry and what is behind the slice of focus is blurry...  the only thing in focus (hopefully) is the subject.  This type of shooting is most prevalent in portraiture or still life photography to eliminate distracting backgrounds and/or e...

I haven't done any macro photography in a very long time...  perhaps a couple of decades...  so I tested some of my photography gear over the past few days to see what works best for macro photography when using some of my newer gear. Although I have quite a bit of photography gear, I actually don't have any macro lenses.  Macro lenses allow you to get closer to your subject due to the closer minimum focusing distances that macro lenses provide.  I do, however, have some extension tubes which also can shrink the minimum focus distance which allows me to focus on objects that are much closer to the lens than without an extension tube.   Getting closer makes your subject appear larger in the frame (obvious, I know, but I had to mention it).  Lenses oftentimes only allow you to get as close as three feet or so.  With some lenses, you can only get as close as ten feet.  It is difficult to get a close-up view at those distances so adding an exten...

T his is going to be a rather boring blog entry and I'm only writing this entry because I haven't written lately.   My health has been rather lousy so I've been sticking close to the living room, bathroom and bedroom over the past few days.  Writing here has been farthest from my mind.   I've had breathing issues which is interrupting sleep so I'm overwhelmingly fatigued.  I had a cascade of symptoms that started heading toward anaphylaxis so I immediately jumped on extra medications and then some emergency medications.  My bones ache.  I had some gastro-intestinal issues hence my need to stick close to the bathroom.  And, I've had some blurry vision which is mostly affecting my ability to read music at the piano.   So, for the most part, I've been either sitting at my desk or sitting on the couch.  I have had a few cameras scattered around me while I work on refining my slow synchro flash techniques for each camera while using...

I added another snapshot of a bird in our backyard to this year's collection of bird photos...  well, this bird is really in our neighbor's yard on his Frisbee Golf basket, not our backyard.  I did shoot this photo from our backyard though.  This is another photo from my initial test photos that I shot about a week or two ago but I just got around to editing it.   This was really a test of the autofocus system while using a new lens adapter but I feel the need to point out the negatives and positives of this image as a whole. I could have used a bit more light on my sparrow's face.  The sun was high and behind the bird so that was a problem.  I'm not too fond of the bird being perched on a Frisbee Golf basket either.  I would have preferred it being perched on a tree branch.  Plus, this sparrow is looking out of the frame which forces the viewer to wonder what he is looking at...  not a good thing.  You want your subject looking in...