Christmas is Coming to Town

I got a day off work and decided to hang our Christmas lights outside. I wanted to take a picture, since that's just what I do. It was a little stormy when I grabbed the shot, so I wasn't exactly sure what I would get, but without further ado, heeeeeereeee's the shot, after the jump

CyberSync

Yesterday I went and talked with the very nice people at Paul C. Buff about the CyberSync radio triggers and the CyberCommander. For those of you who have questions about the whole CyberCommander thing, what it does, and how it works, do I have answers for you!

HDR

I have always been interested in HDR images, but never had the software to do it. I tried Qtpfsgui, which is an open-source (free) application. They have several presets and I played with them all, but never found quite the effect I wanted. I started looking again and found out about Photomatix. I downloaded the trial version and played with it a bit, and before long I had the effect I wanted. I have to give a big thanks to Matt Nicolosi for his blog and all his info on how to create an HDR image.

Radio Trippers

Okay, so I don't yet have a flash, but I am asking Santa for a 580EX II for Christmas. Instead of waiting until I get the thing to realize I need accessories for it, I am looking and assembling a list now. I am pretty happy with my list, but I have been driving my wife crazy with all of my photography talk lately.

I have been looking for good radio trippers, and of course the first answer of most people is PocketWizards. Me being who I am, I don't like to use what everybody else uses just because "they" use it. I like to have reasons behind my purchases, so I research and learn all I can about the options out there. I first liked the Elinchrom El Skyports, then I found out about Radio Poppers. Perfect solution I thought, until I realized I needed at least 2 flashes, one as the master and one as the slave, which led me to thinking about getting either Canon's master unit, or a 430EX II to be the slave, but that brings the issue of the lower power slave.

As I was about to just go back to the Skyports, I saw (again) the Paul C. Buff CyberSync units. I like the Cyber Commander unit they have in the works, which is why I liked the Skyport system, because of the software they have, but I don't want to use a laptop every time I want to adjust a light. Paul C. Buff doesn't have the Cyber Commander out yet, but I am going to talk to them on Monday and find out everything it can do. I know it can control all the lights they make, and they mentioned a bit about a speedlite. Not sure if it can control the power, or simply name the speedlite in the Commander so you know what you adjusting. I will keep you posted on it though.

I am pretty settled on the CyberSync, unless I hear some bad news on Monday. They seem to do all I need to do, which is trip a slave off camera with a reliable and relatively inexpensive radio tripper with a decent range.

Bad Day For Me

I went on a 5 mile hike in Cedars of Lebanon State Park and wound up making it closer to a 7 mile hike. I don't know about the weather where you are, but here, it has been raining all week. I knew it would be wet, so I prepared. I got my stowaway rain jacket to keep me dry, baggies to keep my camera dry if it started raining again, and my tripod (you never know when you might need it, and 5 miles is a long way back). Oh, one last thing I hadn't eaten lunch so I grabbed 2 Clif bars and 16 ounces of water. I drink 32 ounces a day normally, and it was 82 degrees today.  Don't know what I was thinking...

Tree Canopy

My son and I were walking around our neighborhood yesterday and I saw this photo op.  I love this particular area anyway, but it just spoke to me more yesterday than ever before.  I think it is the combination of the sogginess, leaves on the pavement, and the way the light is coming in through the canopy that really got me.

 I have seen this area in all kinds of weather, and with the rain we have been getting, it really looks fall-ish on the ground, but spring-ish in the trees.  The mailbox kinda kills it for me, but this is in front of a house, so what can you expect?

Water Droplets on a Leaf

I borrowed a friend's Nikon to shoot this shot. My camera was at home and this is just outside of work. It had been raining pretty heavy yesterday, and once the sun came out, I decided to see what I could get.

I am pretty happy with how this turned out. I didn't do any Pixelmatoring, other than resizing and putting my name in bright green on the picture. I prefer to keep editing to an absolute minimum and focus more on in camera settings and composition.