Renee's Drawing

If you look at my other blog you will see this picture. It was the picture that started this blog. My other blog is for reviews of music and books so this didn't really fit it there but I really wanted to blog that picture. Hence this blog was born. However, I didn't start with that picture. My wonderful wife suggested that I also have that picture here also and I thought it was a good idea. So here is the picture along with the original entry from my other blog.

Ok, so this isn't a review but I had to post this picture. My daughter Renee (#7 of 8) drew a picture of Carol and me. Carol had me take a picture to capture the moment.

Technical Details:
I used my Cannon SD400 and a bean bag to stabilize the camera (instead of a tripod). I learned this trick from a podcast I listen to called "Tips From the Top Floor." I cropped and sharpened the picture using a free (as in beer) program from Google called Picasa, which I am also using to publish to this blog.

This picture shows you one of the myriad reasons it is fantastic being a dad. With 8 kids I am greatly blessed by God

Technical Details:
I used my Cannon SD400 and a bean bag to stabilize the camera (instead of a tripod). I learned this trick from a podcast I listen to called "Tips From the Top Floor." I cropped and sharpened the picture using a free (as in beer) program from Google called Picasa, which I am also using to publish to this blog.

This picture shows you one of the myriad reasons it is fantastic being a dad. With 8 kids I am greatly blessed by God

Katelyn (I)

Carol and I were on the way back from taking Katelyn for some tests and we stopped for lunch. I took the opportunity to take some pictures. Here is Katelyn outside the restaurant where they had a firepit:

And here is Katelyn by an evergreen bush also in front of the restaurant:

Camera: Canon SD 400

Exposures:

Picture 1: 1/30 sec at f/3.5, 8.46mm focal length
Picture 2: 1/250 sec at f/4, 12.12mm focal length

Post Processing: I cropped the pictures, color balanced the first and darkened the edges some and adjusted the contrast a little in the second.

Twilight at the brick factory

Close by us is a brick making facility. They have a smokestack that is full of character and rust. I went one evening at twilight and captured a few pictures.

Here is the smokestack:

Here is another view with a door in the background, I like the way the red light in the door complemented the reddish rust of the smokestack:

The facility is near a train track and a commuter train came by as I was shooting. Well, I just can’t resist a train so I got a picture of it too:

And finally the darkest shot. I had forgotten how to set for a long exposure and so only got a 1 second exposure; I think 4 seconds would have been better. I was able to lighten this greatly and you can see some light reflecting off the corrugations of the wall of building wall:

Camera: Canon SD 400

Exposures:

Picture 1: 1/15 sec at f/2.8, 5.8mm focal length
Picture 2: 1/10 sec at f/3.2, 7.11mm focal length
Picture 3: 1/10 sec at f/3.2, 7.11mm focal length
Picture 4: 1 sec at f/3.5, 8.46mm focal length

Post Processing: I cropped the first picture and the train picture, lightened them all and adjusted the colors on the second picture to bring out the reds of the door in the background and the smokestack.