State House Night

Under the wire!

Here's a Maryland landmark - the State House in Annapolis. It's the oldest state capital building still in use, dating back to colonial times. During the Revolution, Congress met there a few times.

Killdeer and Blackbird

The Killdeer was working after sunset and the Blackbirds are in full mating fury. They were signing up a storm in the reeds of the lagoon.

Dan

My Friends the Tule Elk

This reminded me of the Hartford Insurance logo. Messed up with the ISO on this and the noise is significant, but the day was good for stalking the big herd on the ocean side of Pierce Pt. in the National Seashore.

Dan

Three More for Feb. Project

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

Here is another set for the Feb. 2010 Project ("Landmarks"). By the way, I linked the project name to the labeled set of posts on the Project of the Month page. I'll go back and label the previous months' posts when I have some time. For now, the only one with a link is the current project.

--Warren

Standing Watch

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

This raven was guarding one of the coastal defense bunkers at the Marin Headlands. It reminded me of the ones at the Tower of London.

--Warren

Reading Materials

Dan's Canon S90

I went out for a lunch time walk with Dan's S90 today, and I saw this person sitting between two rolls of newspaper dispensers reading something.

Hey, does this qualify as a "landmarks" project shot? That's City Hall in the background :).

--Warren

Cloudscape at Rodeo Beach

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

There were dramatic clouds last Friday too. I shot this while standing on the bridge that goes over Rodeo Lagoon to Rodeo Beach from Ft. Cronkite. You can see some folks picnicking on the beach on the other side of the dune.

--Warren

Late Night Light Rail

Channeling Dave Beckerman, I snapped this Friday night on the way home from Karaoke (yes, I suffered for my music, now it's your turn!)

Again, it was a nice test for my new Canon S90. At ISO 800, f/2.8 at 1/15 sec, its a very clean and sharp image.

House in the Hills

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

It would be a nice setting for a house, but the building is actually the Marin Headlands Visitor Center at Fort Barry in the Marin Headlands. The water in the foreground is Rodeo Lagoon at Fort Cronkite.

--Warren

Day at The Street Painting

Street Painting / D200
We were out on a great day in florida, not tooo hot.  This little beach town, reminds us of Santa Cruz, had this event where they blocked off 3 streets in each direction and allowed people to paint / draw on the street.  Here are two of my favorite.  Typical of southeastern florida....lots of color.

**Dolph

Continue the Landmark Theme

This was shot with the Canon 1v 50mm 1.2 and illford delta 400, I added a little split tone to accentuate the grey sky. Taken from Sunset Heights for those in the City. The Bridge is almost incidental.















This image was taken on the Bridge at 45 mph with the s90. No I was not driving.


Dan

Seattle Landmark - obsolete oil plant at Gas Works Park

They have managed to make a former disgusting plant a somewhat popular, even celebrated sight in Seattle! This place packs people for the July 4th fireworks which shows across the water. Other days, you may find of picnickers and kids and kite-flyers and bikers/runners taking rests.. Time heals all wounds they say?

There are a lot of pipes and equipment and large storage facilities in the park. I tried to get a few shots from different angles to include most of it. I love the contrast between "nice park" and "horrible pollutant". The best part being that the horrible pollutant is also obsolete!

Sailing in the Bay

Just wanted to post these remaining sailing shots for my "San Francisco" theme. I never really looked at sailboats before, but they can be absolutely beautiful. The lines and the colors can really catch your eyes.

Baltimore City Hall

I got to take some "landmark" photos after all. Having a pocketable camera sure helps.

I went to a karaoke meetup late afternoon yesterday. The bar is just 1/2-block from the back side of City Hall, and the dramatic lighting of the dome prompted me to get a shot for our forum.

At ISO 800, the resolution and lack of noise is remarkable. The exposure was f/4.5 @ 1/25 sec with a focal length equivalent to 60mm. The lack of motion blur testifies to the effectiveness of the modern digicam image stabilization.

This is image was taken as a jpg, but I decided to open it in Camera Raw to see if it needed tweaking of exposure, color balance, etc. I just gave it a smidge more exposure (interstingly, left to its own devices, the camera did not blow out the highlights on the dome) and left everything else the same. In Photoshop CS3, I only used the Distort filter to correct the vertical perspective. Then a little cropping.

The only sharpening I did was after I did a Save for Web, in order to counteract the inherent softening in the resizing process.

To so some more pixel-peeping, click on this image to see a screen capture of a portion of the photo viewed at 100% in PS C3.

First Day Out with Canon S90

Thursday morning, I put my new Canon S90 into the little Tyvek® envelope in which it came and slipped the package into my pants pocket. That was the whole point of getting this thing, so I could take it everywhere and never be without a camera.

So here's Dev, who along with his wife owns and operates the Loft Deli a few blocks from where I work. Dev always has a smile and a good word for me whenever I stop by to buy a sandwich or some trail mix.

Aesthetics aside, from a technical standpoint, the image is remarkably good for a compact digicam. The EXIF data says 1/30 second at f/3.3 and 10.7mm (which is almost exactly equivalent to 50mm on a 35mm camera.) More importantly the ISO is 800.

If you click on the screen capture at right, you'll see a pixel-peeping section of the image, displayed at 100% in Photoshop.

What impresses me is how little noise there is at this ISO value. With a typical pocket-sized digicam at ISO 200, and certainly by ISO 400, I would expect to see quite a lot of noise in areas such as Dev's face and the even-toned wall to his right.

Another nice thing is that this is the .jpg almost exactly as it popped out of the camera. I had only made very tiny tweaks to exposure and color balance at this point, and no sharpening.

So far, so good!

Misty Pacifica Hills

Nikon F3HP

The foreground is a path right next to the beach, the grass in the middle is part of a gold course, and of course, the background are the misty hills.

I cannot remember if I shot this with the 50mm f1.4 or the 24mm f2.0 lens. Any guesses from the peanut gallery? :)

--Warren

Bootlegger's Steps, Mori Point, Pacifica

Nikon F3HP, Nikkor 24mm f2.0

Walking up Bootlegger's Steps on the way to Mori Point, Pacifica, CA.

--Warren

Pacifica Coastline

Nikon F3HP, Nikkor 24mm f2.0

A view of the coast of Pacifica looking south from Mori Point.

--Warren

A Few More From the Chinatown Fair

Nikon F3HP, Nikkor 50mm f1.4, Fuji Superia Xtra 400

Here are a few more shots from that afternoon at the Chinatown Flower Fair

Happy Customers:

Mezmerized Audience:

Old VFW Sign seen in an alley (it reads: "VFW Chinatown Post No. 4618"):

This Boy's New Toy

Oh boy! My new Toy!

I've been wanting to get a new pocketable, carry-everywhere camera for a while, and my 60th birthday, plus some cash burning a hole in my pocket, made for a convenient excuse.

What was I looking for? Oh, not too much. Image stabilization (lacking in my 4-year-old Canon A620,) 28mm equivalent on the wide end, excellent image quality for making up to 13"x19" prints... RAW capability would be nice. Oh, and all of this in a size small enough to disappear in a pants pocket.

Not too much to ask, is it? Actually, digital photo technology has progressed so rapidly that there are plenty of cameras today from many different manufacturers that could fit the bill. I've always been very happy with Canon compacts, so I wanted to stick with that brand. Even so, there was lots to choose from (except for the RAW part.)

I decided to go with the Canon S90, mainly because of its good looks. Just kidding, but it is a nice-looking little package.

I've just barely unpacked it, so I don't have much to show you at this point, but I wanted to give you some idea of its size in the photos here.

The top photo shows the S90 compared to my monthly transit pass, which is the same size as a credit card. In the lower photo, the S90 looks positively svelte next to my trusty old A620.

Here's a very positive review of the Canon S90. You probably should also read this other, not quite as glowing review as well. I included it for the sake of full disclosure and also because I've found Imaging Resources to be a reliable information source.

More to come on the Canon S90 soon.

Two Kids at the Chinatown Fair

Nikon F3HP, Nikkor 50mm f1.4, Fuji Superia Xtra 400

We went to the Chinatown Flower Fair a couple of weekends ago. It's always fun to snap candids of the kids-in-arms. :)

--Warren

Tired and Bored:


I got busted :):

Green Energy

Found on the sunny side of Berman House, an 1890's building in Annapolis that's now an elegant bed-and-breakfast called Gibson's Landing. Berman House is a block from City Dock in one direction and a block from US Naval Academy in the other.

Ok Its Been Done Before

First roll of B & W Illford Delta 400 through the Mamiya 7ii.

Dan

1st Roll through Mamiya 7ii

Took the Mamiya RF up on Mt. Tamalpais on a showery day. Shot one roll of Fuji 400 and one roll of Illford Delta 400. Warren asked me to review the camera, and since this is the first time I have used a medium format as well as a range finder, I think I should hold off for a bit. With that said, it is extremely easy to use and very comfortable. I don't know, but these images on a misty day seem to have a high degree of dynamic range and contrast.

Dan

Looking for Ducks

This dog was about to chase some ducks in the water which *ducked* under the water and swam away, so he ran out here to see if he might find them... hehehe. No chase for today :|

The Triremes Return From a Victorious Battle!!

This isn't exactly an SF landmark, however, to me, with the GGB in the background and the sailboats in the front, it's very San Francisco-like. I hope...

Eric

Portrait of the Photographer as a Young Man

When I was in college, I worked summers and holidays at Stansbury Photo in Reisterstown Plaza. The owners, Mr. & Mrs. Ehrenzweig, treated us boys as family. It was a pleasure to work there, and I learned a lot.

This photo is probably from summer 1970. The cheapest SLR we sold back then was the Praktica Nova 1B from East Germany. I noticed when I held it up to my ear and fired the shutter, it would go sproooiiiinnnggg instead of a more solid thunk like the Pentaxes, Canons, and Nikons. We loved making fun of the Pratica, and I had one of my comrades snap this photo of me being a wise-guy.

Ironically, many years later when I got back into photography, I bought and used several later-vintage Prakticas. The later models, from the 1980's, particularly the MTL models, were about equal to a middling 1967 Japanese SLR, which is to say, perfectly good.

SF Landmark - Conservatory of Flowers

Canon SD300

Last Saturday was a beautiful day to be out in Golden Gate Park after many days of rain.

--Warren