50 images with a 50mm on day 50

Canon 50mm F/1.4 lens

I heard about this challenge a couple years ago, but this is the first time I've been able to participate -- perhaps because it finally fell on a weekend.  The challenge is simple: capture 50 unique images with a 50mm lens on the 50th day of the year -- 19 Feb.  What is unique about a 50mm?  The "nifty 50," as it is often called, is known as a "normal" lens.  "Normal" because it is approximately the same field of view as what the human eye sees.  Longer focal lengths (telephotos) zoom in more than the average human eye and shorter focal lengths (wide angle) see more to the side than we do.  Since 50mm prime lenses are very common, they are also relatively inexpensive (hence the "nifty" name), making them a prime candidate for a beginning photographer to add to their camera bag.

Shadows

Here are a few of the images I captured this year.  You can see more after the jump and even more on my flickr page.  I'll end with the image below of daffodils just starting to break through the ground.  It's not my best image, but it's my favorite of the day as it means the warm weather and the colors of spring are quickly approaching.

Spring is near!

More images after the jump and on my flickr page.

Lensbaby Lunch

I took my Lensbaby Composer and camera with me to lunch at Red Robin yesterday.  The Lensbaby is a 50mm manual focus prime lens whose unique characteristic is a "sweet spot" of focus that you can move around the frame by bending the lens.  It takes some practice to use, but can produce some really unique looking images.

Red Robin Banzai Burger shot thru a Lensbaby Composer lens

Red Robin Banzai Burger shot thru a Lensbaby Composer lens

Winter Snow Revolt

Composite of multiple exposures while rotating the camera

Like many in Northern Virginia, I was caught in the traffic snarl during yesterday's "Thunder Snow Storm."  I have never experienced anything quite like it before and don't want to again -- and I was more fortunate than some.  For those not in the area, the precipitation started just as some people were being released early from work (around 3pm).  It changed quickly from rain to sleet to wet heavy snow with snowfall rates of 2-3 inches per hour.   The combination of the sudden flux of traffic and the snow brought traffic to a dead stop.  The snowplows were useless because the roads were clogged with immobile cars.  Basically, I left work at 4:30pm and was in standstill traffic for the next five and half hours.  Finally at 10pm I was able to turn onto a side street back towards my office.  I was only about a mile away, but it took me another 30 minutes.  I spent the night in my office and went home in the morning around 6am.  I passed over a dozen cars that had been abandoned, either because they were hopelessly stuck or had run out of gas.  I heard on the news that it took some people 10-12 hours to make it home.  Completely unreal.

Lensbaby trio

While the snow on the trees was pretty, I just couldn't bring myself to take any pictures of it after that experience.  So, after I got home, I revolted against the colorless snow, went to the grocery store and bought a bouquet of flowers.  I spent much of the day photographing the flowers using either a Lensbaby or a Canon 70-200 F/2.8 with a 55mm extension tube.  The extension tube allows a closer focusing distance (~12 inches) than the 70-200 normally allows (1.4 m).

Bed of pink

Reaching for the light

I hope you will join me in revolting against the winter snow and find something colorful to help you remember that spring is less than 2 months away.

Photo Walk in Old Town Leesburg

Despite the cold (9 deg F) weather this morning, I did an early morning photo walk in Leesburg, Virginia this morning.  I love taking pictures at early morning hours as the long shutter speeds brings out colors that our eyes just don't see.  Plus, the cold and early morning hour meant that the streets were deserted, which makes setting up a tripod much easier.  Here are a few shots from this morning's outing.  More images from this morning are available on my flickr page.  I welcome your comments.

Loudoun County Courthouse at twilight

Lines

The Pink Door

Corks

Golden Gate Bridge

Panoramic of the Golden Gate Bridge

During another business trip to the San Francisco area in mid-December, I returned to the Golden Gate Bridge National Recreation Area to try and capture some images of the bridge from different angles.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I missed the overlook I was trying to find during my previous trip in September and wanted to try again. 

For the image above, I stood on top of a overlook off of Conzelman road for about an hour waiting for the sun to set.  I was praying the sun would pop out from the clouds/haze and illuminate the bridge just long enough for a few shots.  My prayer was answered about 30 minutes before sunset.  The sun stayed out just long enough for me to capture a set of 7 images, which I stitched together to form the panoramic above.  

While there, I also stopped by the Ridge Battery and Battery Spencer and captured the images below.  These were gun emplacements set up shortly after the Civil War to protect the San Francisco Bay.  You can still see the earthen walls they build to provide protection from enemy fire.

Golden Gate from the Ridge Battery

Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Spencer

Great Falls at Sunrise

While I was off work a few days during the Christmas season, I took the opportunity to go the Virginia side of Great Falls National Park and take some pre-sunrise and sunrise pictures.  The wonderful thing about taking pictures 30 minutes or so before the sun rises is you can easily extend your exposure time to 10 seconds or more.  This allows the normally turbulent water to appear smooth and silky.

Pre-sunrise image of Great Falls.  10 second exposure

Red sunrise sky reflecting in the water above Great Falls

High Dynamic Range image of the pre-sunrise sky at Great Falls

It turns out that I was not the only one out there, although I was not as adventurous as he to climb out on the ice rocks so close to the falls.

A fellow photographer capturing the ice on the falls

I wish everyone a Happy New Year and thank you for visiting my blog and leaving comments on my work.

Total Lunar Eclipse 20101221

We had a total lunar eclipse early on the morning of Dec 21st, a rare event to coincide with the 1st day of winter.  Unfortunately, the weather was not the best with a layer of clouds that drifted in and out of the view finder.  More importantly, the rush of Christmas preparations prevented any dedicated all night photography outing.  So, using a variety of tools including The Photographer's Ephemeris to estimate how the moon would move in the sky, I set the camera up before I went to bed.  I set the timer to start taking pictures around 01:30 when the moon entered the Earth's umbra (shadow) and programmed the timer to take a picture every 2 minutes for 99 times (the max on my timer).  That placed the last picture around 04:40, just before the moon left the earth's shadow on the other side.  Using my experience from the Lunar Eclipse in February 2008, I used an exposure setting of F/4, 0.5 seconds and ISO 400.  While this was a good exposure for the moon during the eclipse time of total eclipse, it cause the moon to blow out before and after.  The clouds didn't help any either. 

The image below is a composite of selected (19) of the 99 images I captured.  The lens was a 24mm lens in portrait (vertical) orientation, so the motion you are seeing is how the moon moved down the sky between 01:30 and 04:40 this morning.  Not my best image, but not bad either given that I just set the camera up and went to bed.

Total lunar eclipse from the early morning of Dec 21st 2010