Picture of the Month: October 2011

It’s that time again! After our little vacation to Northern Arizona, I have an awesome picture of the month! This photo is obviously of the Grand Canyon, but not at a usual time. This picture was taken after the sun went down and the light was very, very low. So low that yes, I had to get out my tripod and lower the shutter speed wayyyy down. This photo was taken with a 5 second exposure at f/10. Not my longest, but long nonetheless. Since the sun had gone down, the purples and reds in the photo were just stunning. So, enough of me babbling, have a look at the photo below.

My Northern Arizona Excursion (Grand Canyon, Part 1)

As some of you may know, my family and I took a little vacation to the Northern part of Arizona. It was nothing major, only about a week, but we saw some of the most appealing sights that a man could see. We started our vacation off with the Grand Canyon. I’ll give you a warning right now, although my pictures do look awesome, the Grand Canyon in person is almost to much for a human to comprehend. I had been to the Grand Canyon when I was about 7, so I don’t remember it all that well. When I stepped out onto the overlook that rose high above the massive canyon, I was awed.

When you look over the edge and into the canyon, it is almost too much to look at. It’s hard if not impossible to comprehend and soak it all in. And when you get this feeling, photographing it isn’t going to be easy.

The saying goes something along the lines of “It’s what you leave out that makes your photographs amazing, not what you include” If you ever go to the Grand Canyon and try to leave everything in, it doesn’t look right. When you zoom in, it doesn’t look right either. Close-ups just don’t make sense in the Grand Canyon, and neither do wide angled photos. So what did I do? I just let myself take pictures and not really worry about rules. I tried to be creative, to submerse myself into the beauty of the Grand Canyon and photographing it.

We toured around the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, seeing it from all the different angles. Unfortunately, no matter where we went, haze littered my photographs. What’s sad is the fact that all of the haze in the Grand Canyon is caused by pollution. That’s where your polarizer comes to the rescue. If you’re ever going to the Grand Canyon, always remember your polarizer.

It you don’t know what a polarizer does, it is basically a screw on filter that cuts down on reflections on objects. It can be used to take the sun’s reflection out of a stream to taking haze out of a sky, as demonstrated in my photographs.

Although a polarizer can help a lot, usually it isn’t enough. Once I imported all of the photos into Lightroom and had a good look at them, there was still plenty of haze, washing out colors and making the pictures downright ugly. To fix this, I cranked up that contrast slider and bam! The haze was gone! It’s amazing what Lightroom can do.

So, enough of me babbling on and on, I let you look at the photos now. They’re below:

Lightning shots Round 2

Although our monsoon season is almost over in Arizona, this seems to be the time when we got most of our rain this year. Last night, we had some pretty intense storms and we even got some rain ourselves. I waited for it to get dark like I usually do to get lightning shots and got out my camera, ready for anything. Sure enough, we had an impressive lightning show last night.

Where did I shoot from? The second floor window of my house. It gave me the best view possible at the time. Here’s my best photo of the night:

Pretty big improvement from last time, eh? The shutter was open for a minute an half, if  you were wondering. :) This photo is here in full resolution and you can download and use for desktop backgrounds etc. Enjoy!

~Jacob

Sony Alpha A77 coming with 24 megapixel sensor

Wait, why is there news popping up on here? I just started a new website about a month back, LacitonTech, that is a tech news site that is constantly being updated with news. I saw some of these camera stories popping up from my sources, so I thought I might as well start writing about news on here too. Let’s get into the article.

The Sony Alpha A77 is no ordinary camera. Sony used it’s translucent mirror technology to achieve the 24 megapixel quality. The EXMOR APS HD sensor is supposedly supposed to have some of the fastest continuous focus around. The ISO range is an astounding ISO 50-1600 which is quite large. It also totes 19-point autofocus and an OLED viewfinder. Yeah, that means it’s an electronic viewfinder. It can capture full 1080p video with the AVCHD Progressive. Sony is saying that the latest BIONZ image processor processes photos faster and with less noise.

With all of these features, this camera is bound to be on the more expensive side. This DSLR is going to be a available in October for $1400 for just the body or $2000 for the Camera and 16-50mm. lens kit.

via Gizmodo

Picture of the Month (And my first Lightning shots)

I know I have said that the Picture of the Month would be on the 15th of the month but I‘ve found that especially now with school, I don’t have as much time to get out with my camera. So, there is no set date for the Picture of the Month, it’s just when I get a shot that is worthy of the title that month.

Now on to the picture. Last night, we had a pretty good thunderhead roll in. Of course, in Arizona they usually don’t produce any rain, and this one didn’t either. Since it approached near sunset and the lightning was just aweing, I decided to grab my camera as night fell to see if I could get any lightning shots. I will admit this is the first time in my life that I have shot lightning, and the pictures didn’t turn out that bad.

My dad was there to guide me through the whole thing, which helped me more than you think. I knew the basic stuff like having to set the camera in bulb mode, set it on a tripod, and use a cable release. Since he was there, the photos were that much better. If you notice in the picture below, there is a couple water drops in the photo that appear to be on the lens. Yes these drops of water are real but not intentional. It was starting to sprinkle while I was taking these shots. I like the effect that it gives the pictures though.

My real work of art is the picture at the top of this article. This one is actually two photos put together, making it look even better. You may call it cheating, but I call it my style.

All of the these pictures are in full resolution and can be downloaded by clicking on them and then saving them.

~Jacob

Why Blogging keeps me on my toes

Even though you haven’t been seeing much content come out of this blog, it does keep me busy. I have put down the frequency of posts and I definitely regret doing such a thing. I know, I say this a lot, but expect more to be coming out of this blog. This time I really do mean it. Trust me, it isn’t easy to keep up a blog all the time.

Why does blogging keep me on my toes? The answer to that one is the fact that most of the time, my pictures that I take and the stuff that I write about goes unnoticed. Why? Because only a very small amount of people know what I’m doing. Most of the time, my photos sit on my hard drive and never get viewed or edited. What’s the worth of photos sitting on a hard drive? Nothing. When I know that there is a time and place for my photos to be viewed, I make sure it happens.

I know there aren’t very many readers of this blog but every single one of them is very dedicated to reading the blog when there is new stuff to be read. Still when I get home from a trip or taking pictures somewhere, I know that they need to be edited and posted soon after my trip so my readers can view them. This gives me a reason to edit and post my photos, rather than let them sit on my hard drive and take up space.

The next time you see a post up here, make sure you know that I don’t take this lightly. I try my hardest to deliver the best photos and content you, my reader.

~Jacob

Picture of the Month- July 2011

This month’s picture is from my trip to Colorado this summer. I stayed in Woodland Park with my grandparents, and let me tell ya, they have some pretty good views of Pikes Peak from there. That’s what mountain is in this picture. This is one of my better planned shots. Enjoy the picture!

Feel free to use this picture as a wallpaper. If you would like the full size version, email me at jp1044@gmail.com

~Jacob