This man is having fun.

IMG_6209, originally uploaded by Danny Kao.

Auto (action/sports/whatever the running man icon is in Canon-speak) mode on a 40D owns me and owns me badly. The discovery of burst mode filled me with glee.

The 40D's ergonomics aren't too bad, either--with the exception of several functions requiring you to hold a shift key and actuate a wheel. In itself this isn't too bad, but if both the button and the wheel are normally operated by one finger, it's a bit of a pain to shift hand positions on the grip to bring another finger up and then switch back when you're ready to shoot.

And then i tried said action mode and said to hell with it, it does everything for me, does it instantly, and does it 10x better. I am now a glorified, self-articulating tripod (that can also push the shutter button).

re:color temperature

Nothing as intentional as steph's, but a nice contrast nonetheless.

more reflections

more reflections, originally uploaded by edfooliu.

Quick one I snapped leaving work for the holidays...

reflections

reflections, originally uploaded by edfooliu.

Make for interesting filters. I've lately been experimenting with
shooting things reflected in glass/etc, mostly in order to superimpose
subjects into different scenes. This one came through as more of a
filter effect (if you overlook the mirroring of the easy button).

never delete

I should make a policy of just copying over every shot onto my hard drive (plus external) since storage is abysmally cheap. Alas, I killed accidentally killed the best shot I had of this little puppy. Also, I should make a policy of charging the battery before any trip... this was the ONLY shot I got from my excursion to Delaware for karting.


This was an interesting problem... I wanted to bokeh the background out as much as possible, but at wider apertures, I couldn't get enough DOF to get the whole puppy in focus. The puppy's orientation--to my eyes, at least--makes the shot, so I had to give up some background bokehing. That said, the surviving shot here was done in shutter priority, so the computer figured out a pretty good balance on its own...

been awhile, sunrise

After 5 weeks of late mornings...

back to the grind

Settling into a routine with the new job, so...let's make another attempt at _this_ routine. My shots-per-day haven't really done much climbing out of the nov-dec hole, but at least I have a small backlog I can go through here.

And of course I have to see how fast a shutter I can get...


I will also have you know it's really, really difficult to hold a coffee strainer in one hand whilst pinning a camera to my face with the other, using a free finger to adjust focus.

finally, daylight suffices indoors

finally, daylight suffices indoors, originally uploaded by edfooliu.

At ISO 200.

50mm f/1.8D AF (but not on my D40...MF FTW again...)

okay so i probably _should_ go up to ISO 400 so I don't shoot wide open and get a slightly faster shutter...

Filler

Assorted smattering of autox shots from the last event of the season...










Definitely need to get faster to catch the unexpected shots.

Choking on the big stage

I imagine having a nationally-televised camera literally hovering over your shoulder while you work is a _bit_ stressful.



Empty backfield against a blitz-happy 3-4... riiight. That sure worked out well.



Play is already over... ugh.


Anyway, re:photography... Light was, as always, a big issue. I needed _very_ fast shutter compared to photographing cars/bikes/etc. A car body is a single, uniform subject that you can very easily freeze by tracking it as you fire off shots. A human body, with it's various flailing limbs, affords none of that. I had to crank ISO up to get the necessary speeds (at least 1/320 sec), but at ISO 3200, my shot-to-shot times rocketed to 1+ seconds.

Escapism as language

Escapism as language, originally uploaded by edfooliu.

So I _did_ have photos queued up for a few posts to the blog last week, but
Fallout 3 came on Tuesday.

And so went most waking moments from that point on. This is, however, not a
videogame-as-art blog, so I'll leave it at that.

As for the shot, I was initially displeased with this, since the lighting
from the back cast Vault Boy in nasty shadows. Since I was too lazy to
rearrange the scene, I took another shot, overexposing to blow out Vault
Boy's face (I was stupid and deleted it, so no comparo here). This shot
grew on me a bit. the shadows add a bit of a sinister vibe to it, which is
fitting. What I did want to try (but will have to wait until the next
morning sunlight) was cranking ISO to get a grainy texture to it. Maybe
that and overexposing for a surreal effect.

Sometimes not so

Sometimes not so, originally uploaded by edfooliu.

Guess it settled in a bit as I finally got around to unpacking my admittedly
small box of personal effects from my cube at WxBug. I should've taken some
pics before leaving.

OK I lied...

Forgot to post up possibly my favorite photo from the whole trip:



In conclusion, a person can't move out of the focal plane as fast as a car.

Last post on focus, I promise

These head-on shots were by far the toughest...constantly changing focus to match the cars' rate of closure, exacerbated by needing wider apertures (and thus shallower depth of field) to accommodate faster shutters etc etc.


Here, the nose is just beginning to enter the focal plane, but I fired the shot a little early (insert your own predictable joke here). Given the length of the hood (feel free again), I'm not actually sure I _could_ get both the tip of the nose and the head of the driver in focus without cranking the ISO to get smaller apertures.


I'm pretty pleased with the following two, actually... lucked into them whilst laying down a continuous barrage of shots and feebly pawing at the focus ring in the hope that one might be worth keeping (success!).




Okay, three days' milkage is probably enough (and hey, you got quantity each day!) until the next time I need some filler... so last of the autocross cars for a while.

Who needs autofocus...

And this is where we drop down a few notches as, on day two, I spend some more time practicing tracking subjects while focusing. Results were mixed--some terrible, some merely painful.

I found limited success when the subject was moving across my field of view and staying within(...ish, and a big ish..) the focal plane, and it did help me get a number of exciting moments:



Was a tough day for the BMWs...



A 'vette...actually in the natural habitat of its namesake, I suppose:



I really like this... were it not underexposed, out of focus, and slightly too fast--thereby freezing and taking the drama out of that spinning rear wheel.



It does bring a new low to the threshold of success required to feel that sense of accomplishment.

Missing Autofocus...

Losing autoexposure and metering hasn't been as bad as anticipation. In all my shooting so far, it's taken a few shots to get into the ballpark for a given environment, and getting the exposure right for a specific shot after that doesn't take more than one or two extra attempts. Fewer, if I settle for 'close enough'.

What really hurts is losing autofocus, _particularly_ for shooting action. This weekend, I primarily shot by focusing on a point in the course, tracking a car as it enters the area, and firing off the shot as it passes near the focus point.

examples:










Unfortunately, I missed out on a lot of great shots because of the whole pick-a-spot-and-only-one-spot, case in point:


Was only able to get it into good (ok steph, 'web-worthy') focus after the deed was done:

Would've made for a much shorter trip home

Would've made for a much shorter trip home, originally uploaded by edfooliu.

This was begging for a wide-angle shot from down low with the ramp in view
behind my car. Alas, I had my zoom lens on, and the wind was blasting sand.

VAC 2008

VAC 2008, originally uploaded by edfooliu.

Can only post one pic at a time (via phone) since my netbook can't get on wifi anymore.

In summary, I looove how close I can get with this new lens. Manual focus on moving targets is quite the challenge, but when I happen to nail it, the results are fantastic. This lens is _sharp_.

Home

Home, originally uploaded by edfooliu.

is wherever there's wifi.

Compressing perspective

There's a bit of serves-me-right with this new lens in that just as I was getting interested in wide-angle shots, my new lens only goes down to 80mm. This 1) finds me backpedaling quite a bit for many shots that don't require zo[ooooo]ming, and 2) takes away the wide angle option. I did find today one situation where the compressed perspective of a narrow-angle lens actually did do something interesting:



I know, I know, it's the textbook example used in every tutorial/explanation of perspective and wide-vs-narrow-angle focal lengths where they line up a row of trees/posts/tall, uniform objects. It just took finding an instantiated example to convince me. It'd be more difficult to get that sense of uniformity and linearity with a wider angle.

Also, I've not been living up to this blog's title, so bokeh test:


Turns out you can get quite a good deal of it at f4.5 when you take a few steps back, zoom in, and let distance work its magic.