Crossing the Bridge
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View from Lyle R. Fish Point
View from Lyle R. Fish Point – perhaps there will be a #storm with lots of #lightning
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From the last happy hour @trader_Vics…
From the last happy hour @trader_Vics in #Scottsdale – one more “Suffering Bastard”…
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there may be a storm brewing later -…
there may be a storm brewing later – awesome sunset clouds – #iPhone #photo doesn’t do it justice
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Images from Zionsville July 4th Fireworks at Lions Park – Indiana
Fourth of July Firework Photos from Zionsville, Indiana
The 4th of July celebration in Zionsville was a blast. It was probably the best Independence Day I have experienced since moving to the US. The weather was perfect and there was a lot going on at Lions Park. From music entertainment, to fun-stuff for the kids and great food – everything was covered.
The fireworks started around 10pm and lasted a pretty long time - exactly 41 frames at 15 second exposures with my Sigma DP1. The DP1 actually is pretty capable to do some low light photography (of course it has its limitations) and occasionally I got some frames with the “Foveon Grid”. But considering the size and limitations of the Sigma DP1 I am very happy with the results.
For the fireworks I wasn’t completely unprepared (compared to my first Lightning Shots of 2011 with my Sigma DP1) and in anticipation I bought a crappy little “flex-bendi” type of tripod for a couple of bucks.
Lions Park is a great community park and for the Independence Day celebrations it was very crowded. I spotted numerous tripods and folks with their DSLR’s setting up at the south-end of the park where the firworks were going to be launched. Great close-up views, however I really didn’t want a baseball field with fencing , batting cages and huge stadium-style sodium/mercury-vapor lamps as my back-drop for the fireworks.
I also wasn’t too fond of the idea having porter potties in the frame. So I followed one of my golden rules to find a spot where no photographer was to be found – and that was a little bit away, to the north of the park. Luckily there was a great sign-post there where I could clamp the mini-tripod onto…
After finding my ideal spot for photographing the fireworks, I headed back to the spot where we set up our lawn chairs and simply enjoyed a great mid-western Independence Day celebration until the fireworks began.
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The Balloon over Conner Prairie
The Balloon over Conner Prairie
An image of the Conner Prairie Balloon floating fairly high in the Sky. This image was taken at Conner Prairie Interactive History Park near Fishers, Indiana.
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Indiana Summer Storm – First Lightning Shots 2011 with Sigma DP1
First Lightning Storm Shots 2011 with Sigma DP1 in Indiana:
Today we went on a family trip to the Wolf Park, near Battle Ground, Indiana to let the kids howl with the wolves. Unfortunately, we could not make it to the Watermelon Party but instead we decided to attend a Howl Night.
The Wolf Park is a great place to take the kids; they can have fun and learn about nature and the wolves. Here is a great article about the Wolf Park from the Columbia Daily Tribune.
Just as the Howl Night was beginning thunder started to roll in and a nice summer storm was forming. Luckily, I brought my Sigma DP1 but I did not bring any kind of tripod. Fortunately I found a 4×4 fence post that I could re-purpose as a tripod.
To make sure to get sharp photos I set the Sigma DP1 to Self Timer to 2 Seconds which should be plenty of time to press the shutter and let go of the camera once it is propped up.
Setting the bracketing mode to “Auto Bracketing +- 0.3″ is also helpful since you only have to press the shutter every 3rd exposure (which is nice once you are in the 15 second exposure territory). The only painful thing is having to watch the lightning when the DP1 is writing the files – It feels like eternity. The difference in exposure of 0.3 EV up or down can easily be corrected in post processing – no big deal.
As you can see lightning shots at daylight are possible without a lightning trigger. You just have to take a hell of a lot of exposures to catch one… ISO 50 at F/11 will give you about a 2 second window.
Next time I will make sure to remember to bring a ND filter to slow things down while the sun is still above the horizon…
I have to say, that in this particular case I really like the feel of ISO 50 at F/11 processed in Sigma Photo Pro 4.1. ISO 50 may cause to loose some highlight details, however ISO 50 gives the image great tonalities and the Foveon 3D Look.
Battle Ground, Indiana is about 50 miles NW of where we are staying and just as Howl Night ended the Thunderstorm unleashed and followed us home to Zionsville. On the way home, of course, we had to stop for a potty break and I found an opportunity to take another shot, this time I rested the Sigma DP1 on a big electrical box and used the key chain of the rental car to prop the camera up to get a little more upward angle. At this point I dialed the ISO up to 100.
Finally, as I was starting to write this post, the storm caught up with us again and I had to take a break to step outside to take a couple of shots. This time the neighbors mailbox made due as a tripod…
I was all worried about missing out on some monsoon storms at home in Arizona, however Photo-Fortuna and the Wolves have been very nice to me.
Now that I caught a little dose of “Storm Chasing” I cannot wait to get back for the Arizona Monsoon Season.
I processed these images on my 6 year old Toshiba Portege with Sigma PhotoPro 4.1 and have no clue how the colors will come out on your end.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that you should check out the Flickr Wolf Park, Battle Ground, Indiana Group.
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just testing to see if Tweet Images…
just testing to see if Tweet Images is working on my photo blog..
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Shooting Lowriders with Carlos Valencia
Shooting Lowriders with Carlos Valencia,
As a kid growing up in Austria during the 70′s almost all American cop shows seemed fascinating to me. I particularly remember begging my mother to stay up to watch reruns of “The Streets of San Francisco”. I was visually struck by the huge buildings, huge palm trees, and all of the gigantic cars. Everything was so different from what was so familiar to me in Europe. This was probably the time when I started to develop my love for Americana.
Of course, growing up in Austria and Germany I was very jealous that the legal age to drive a car was sixteen and it completely sucked having to wait two additional years just to be able to get a driver license.
Finally, the day arrived when I turned eighteen and I got my first car. Don’t get me wrong, it was exiting to drive this 82 VW Rabbit (slightly underpowered with 50 horses), however I kept dreaming about driving around in a big 73 Chevy Impala Coupe…
Intruder Car Blub Banner
My love for cars stuck with me until today and my childhood dreams came true after moving to the US. Oh yeah, I got to own and drive a 1974 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible…
Now, my love of cars has found its way into my love of photography.
Last week I was able to photograph the 1955 Chevy 210 Farewell Photo Shoot for a friend of mine… but it did not stop there…
I also had the opportunity tag along and shoot some Lowriders with Carlos Valencia at a gathering of the Intruders Car Club.
Carlos Valencia is a freelance designer/photographer, one of the owners of Studio 8 in downtown Phoenix. You can also see some of his work in Lowrider Magazine.
Here are a couple of frames of the photo shoot I was able to grab while looking over Carlos’ shoulders. Everything shot was made with a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC Lens, one light (Paul C Buff – AlienBees AB-1600 through a medium sized white Photoflex Umbrella powered by a Vagabond II) triggered by Pocketwizards.
…and yes I was listening to War as I processed these shots.
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1955 Chevy 210 Farewell Photo Shoot
Last week-end my good friend John treated his four-door 1955 Chevy Model 210, 235 straight six with three-on-the tree to a day at the spa. She got rubbed with clay, then buffed and waxed by hand.
John has owned this beauty for a long, long time; I believe over two decades of which 16 years she served as his daily driver. Oh how I wished she could tell stories. My dear wife got to ride in this very same Chevy back in the high-school days.
Being stored for quite some time, she recently received a new starter, rebuilt carburetor, and a number of other bits. She is looking and feeling good…
A new chapter in John’s life is about to begin; and another one will come to a close… Now the Chevy is looking to become a part of somebody elses life-chapter, but before that happens John wanted to take some pictures for memory-lane over at my house.
John took a couple of shots in ambient light only, which you can see on his flickr stream and I seezed that opportunity to light this beautyiful car with John in it using my Paul C. Buff Einstein 640 bouncing it into a 86 inch parabolic umbrella (PLM™v.2: Parabolic Light Modification System). To spice things up we placed a Nikon SB-800 with a 1/4 CTO warming-gel inside a bare-bulb difuser-globe on the passenger seat to warm things up. The baby blue interior is very cool looking but it cast a blue light on John’s face and the warming gel counteracted that beautifully. The Paul C. Buff Einstein 640 was powered by the Vagabond Mini and triggered with the Cyber Commader (which works perfectly now after the “random-reboot repair”), the Nikon SB-800 inside the car was set to slave mode (SU-4).
Lighting and photographing cars à la strobist can be tricky since you get all kinds of reflections from the glossy paint and chrome surfaces, but after trying a couple compositions I found some angles where I could avoid the huge light reflecting in the paint, chrom or glass and found what I was looking for. At certain angles the reflection of the light modifiers can look horrible, especially when they reflect in the glass. This is the best time to get your notes out from Physics class and remember the two laws of reflection:
There are two Laws of Reflection:
- The incident ray,the reflected ray and normal lie in the same plane at the point of incidence.
- The angle of incidence is always equal to the angle of reflection.
If memorizing theory and physics is not your cup of tee then just do what I did. Look through the viefinder, move around until you don’t see any reflections of the light modifier (in my case the 86 inch PLM Parbolic Umbrella from Alien Bees). At some angles you’ll never be able to completely avoid the reflection of your light and then it is best to frame the shot in a way to have the catch light in areas where the reflection is more pleasing and less pronounced.
John I don’t know how you are coping with the fact that you are selling this car. All these memories over all these years. Honestly I would not able to do it.. and I am glad I had the chance to make some of the last photos of her together with you.
I sure hope she’ll find a good home…
