"Candlelight" not all that great, in practice

So I was playing around in the dark the other night, trying to see how much light I could actually capture with my Olympus Stylus 600. It seems that on "Candlelight" mode, the picture is far more grainy then I'd like, although if you can get past that you can see I was trying to get the light and shadow interplay and all that.

Since that didn't work out at all, I wanted to try a couple shots with the standard "portrait" mode, just with the flash turned off. There is just enough light in the pictures to make some of the objects in the background stand out, but certainly not as much as it actually looked like. This whole attempt was a little disappointing since I couldn't capture what I wanted, but I guess that is part of the down side of using a regular point and shoot camera for things like this.

The first picture below I do like though, and makes for a fairly nice background image for my desktop, since it is all black where I have all of my icons sitting around.

Take Two

Well, this was the image I thought I was posting, but now that I look at it I can't decide which of the two I like more. Clearly in my head I mashed the 2 shots together, since I wrote about the dictionary (only shown in the first) and the leather bound "Tales of the Alhambra" stuck between 2 paperbacks (which is in this one). Maybe I should get some sleep.

Posting Again

Sometimes you just happen to notice interesting things around the house. I like the textures in this one, even though I don't do the greatest job of capturing it. The leather bound between the paperbacks, and the wear lines in the spine are cool. You can tell I've read Hamlet, and more often than I've used the American Heritage Dictionary. Now, does that mean I've read Hamlet a ton, or just never bother to look up anything?

An Old One

Well, I felt like posting something. Here we see the beauty that is Rohrbach's Scotch Ale. I liked the way the glasses ended up aligned with the pepper shaker, so I snapped some pictures. This led to me probably annoying everyone I was with as I played around with taking some photos for a while that night, but This was the only one that I really liked out of the whole batch.

Out the Window

It was late and I was up, so I decided to try out the "night scene" setting on the camera. I threw it up on the tiny tripod I had and used the timer so that pressing the shutter wouldn't cause it to blur. Unfortunately the tripod wasn't real steady...

Sabres Game 3

Went to game 3 of the Sabres-Ottawa series, and it was a thriller. 3-2 overtime in the playoffs is more than you can ask, and getting great seats for (relatively) cheap doesn't hurt either.


If you click the picture above, it should take you right to the gallery. There isn't much, and I don't have much of a zoom. I tried to get a press pass but security wasn't buying that I worked for the New York Times and that they make all their beat writers wear the home team's jersey.

Nothing of note

Well, I haven't been getting much use out of the camera lately, but I did get this one in at a family get-together for my aunt's 75 birthday party. I usually don't like how any portrait shots that I take come out, but I dig the angle on this one, and the tree in the background made the backdrop stand out some. I'm glad I ended up bringing my camera.

Rare commentary

Since my commentaries are never stellar, I try to keep it to just the pictures. However, I was reading an article this morning on one topic that always gets me going: the environment and what we are doing to keep it somewhat stable. It's rare that I will use this space for actual real thoughts on the world, since so many others can say things so much more eloquently than me, but here it is anyway.

I have always been of the opinion that the government is dominated mostly by the interests of corporations. This is obviously seen in the lack of a push for more environmentally friendly energy sources, where officials tend to obfuscate the message of the scientific community. Frequently, in an effort to present both sides of an issue in a fair manner, it is represented by the media that no consensus has been met on the effects of pollutants on our environment. This impression is decidedly false. We are in for drastic climate changes, perhaps sooner than anyone (including our ever trusted computer models) can predict, due to the very nature of the positive feedback climate system.

It doesn't look like we'll be able to sit idly by and let these trends continue if we hope to fight anything close to what might already be a losing battle. There are many places for tips on energy conservation if people would just seek them out, but it may take more than that. A shift in how our country produces energy for it's needs is obviously necessary, even at the expense of some big businesses. I wonder how long we can really afford to wait.

Long time

It's been a while since I've posted anything, even though I have been taking some shots. I haven't been really happy with too many of them, but here are some that came out better than most. My favorite of the bunch is the wine labels.

On the way home today the sun was peeking around the openings in the clouds after storming all day. I didn't get the camera until I made it to the house, so I missed all the cool cloud cover and shimmering nonsense. I did get this one off which I though was interesting, even if the light was getting low.

Inside, I still like the way the lighting works in this alcove. It gave me a chance to play with the new tripod a bit too, and I can actually take low light shots without wobbling the camera all over the place. I'll have to get a full size one at some point so I can get the angles and heights that I want.

I took when things were starting to thaw out before brunch with the Soudans and friends. I liked the way the texture in the ice looked, and I think the branches make for a compelling backdrop.

At brunch, there were a ton of bottles lined up around the "Oak Room" at Mario's. So I took a picture of the lineup (below) and the labels up close (above). I like the label picture better, and I couldn't quite capture the way the light was coming in through the window and illuminating all the bottles. It works a little bit, but I couldn't quite get the angle that I wanted to catch the light and the row.

Stacks and towers of checks so high...

This was the first shot I took tonight. I haven't played any poker in a while, but I always have a stack of them on my desk. It's a way to keep my hands occupied while I'm busy doing nothing. Basically it's a decoration that can make a lot of noise. The lighting is awful, and maybe someday I'll work on that.

I tried shooting from a bunch of different angles. I still can't get the super-macro mode or whatever it is to come in focus all of the time, and I'm working on how steady my hand is when I take shots in low light. I am also using the timer more so that the camera doesn't move when I press the shutter trigger. I like the way the tool looks in the background, and I actually turned the light on for this. I like the way the texture around the edge of the top chip looks under the light, but you can't really make it out at the posted size. You can also see what a high roller I am at the casino; you see correctly, that is a $2.50 chip.

In fact, I liked it so much I moved it and used it again here. This is further away from the light source, so everything is muted. No vibrant colors but thanks to the shadows you can make out the depression pattern on the chip well. The ripped envelope on the desk that just happened to be there makes a nice middleground in this one.

One more from today

I was looking through the shots and I really liked how this one came out as well.

Pictures with bad lighting

Around the house there was a bottle of vodka sitting around taking up space, so I thought it might be cool to try taking some pictures through it. This is a shot of a champagne glass, and I think it came out alright. The light source was just a window and it's far from a bright day outside. I think if I had made more of an effort to have better lighting it may have been more interesting of a shot.





This is just a cool plant that we have in the house, very green with all this purple fuzz on it, giving it the look and feel of velvet. It's very 70's Elvis. I tried taking a bunch of different pictures but the light from the window gave it a very washed out look. This one I liked. The cat ended up walking around checking out what I was doing, and ended up blocking some of the light from the window right as I snapped the picture, which really accented the purple glow of the plant.

A reasonable attempt at some photography

I decided I would play around with my camera some last night, just trying a couple different things. I came up with the shot on the left, but I haven't decided if I really like it or not yet.

I am only using a little point and shoot, and I figure I should see if I take anything that I really like before I go out and buy anything even remotely professional. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to mix up two things I enjoy, the camera and the saxophone.

The shot on above I thought had some interesting lines. To be honest, I just kind of like the lighting that is in the area around the piano and I've always liked the way my sax looks when it's all shiny. I think that it makes an interesting desktop background.

I couldn't get the layout of this entry quite right though...

Killington pics

I posted up some pictures from the Killington trip last weekend. It was a great trip overall, and the weather held out long enough for me to finally get some time in on the snow. It was so much better than I thought it would be, and Friday was gorgeous.

Killington gallery!

Late to the game

So I'm finally (for about the third time) jumping on the blogging bandwagon. The whole thing doesn't make much sense to me really, but here I am to give it a go anyway.